LaHogue, launched by James Laing on 16 July 1855, for Duncan Dunbar. At 226 feet and 1152 tons under deck, and rigged with double fore and main top-sails, single topgallant sails and royals. It was the largest vessel built in the North up to that time.

Temerity, launched by James Laing on 22 August 2007. At 11 feet 1 inch, 3 foot 10 1/2 inch beam, 5 inch draft, and plans to be rigged with a gunter mainsail post graduate school. It was the largest vessel built in his parent’s garage up to that time.

Let’s put this in perspective: First off, Sir James Laing was a ripe old man in 1855 and LaHogue represents a lifetime of achievement. While Temerity was launched on my 25th birthday, Sir James Laing launched LaHogue while staring death in the face at … 32 years old.

Well, how about the fact that Sir James relied on centuries worth of ship building wisdom passed down from generation to generation, working entirely with lumber, know-how and hand tools. All I had to work with was the full resources of the Internet, uniting a global community of modern-day boat builders (and of course all of the power tools money can buy … not to mention epoxy and plywood).

At the very least, I’m willing to bet that he had help …

Sometimes you’re just beaten, fair and square … my boat doesn’t even have cannons! More pictures here.

The boat actually looks quite small on top of my (small) Honda Civic … or at least smaller than I thought it would. But then again, the Civic has seating for 5 adults and an engine. Temerity has neither.

Here’s what the interior currently looks like:

For all the gory details …

The plans call for a deck made from 1/4″ plywood (as above). I found this impossible to get right, so I ditched that idea and went my own way (inspired by another Sand Dollar builder):

I glued down 1/8″ strips of Ash and then covered with 1/8″ strips of Sassafras, separated by Ash. Here’s the result, which I think will finish nicely:

Here’s the gunwale (if you pronounce the ‘w’ in that word, like the guy at the rack store did this morning, then I will silently laugh at you). It consists of the rub rail, 1/2″ blocks spaced a little over 2″ apart, and the sheer clamp. All in all, turned out pretty nice:

Fitting the seat planks:

This is a lot harder than it looks. In fact, there is a small ding in one of the rear planks where I hurled a string of swear words and an angle bevel at the plank. Regardless, it turned out alright:

Temerity (tuh-MER-uh-tee) is an English word which means something like “unreasonable or foolhardy contempt of danger”. I think it has both a feminine and nautical ring to it, plus the meaning is pretty great. It gets my vote.

The Vigilante was a suggestion by Steve. I always thought the etymology of the word had something to do with love, but I’m not finding that anywhere. Maybe I’m just thinking of that crappy band …

My sister, Pam, has been bugging me to write about her contribution to the boat project. So here it is, in total: Two Saturdays ago, Pam appointed herself “supervisor” of the boat project, and then promptly fell asleep in a chair not far from where I was working on the boat. She did wake up briefly, and was able to successfully measure out the location for the screws in the sheer strake, but then decided that this type of work was far too hands-on for someone from the managerial class like herself. So, now the boat is behind schedule. It is amazing that a project, which was only briefly managed, can suffer so badly at the hands of mismangement. Such is life, I suppose.

Pam, the mismanager, with a few of her direct reports.

But instead of focusing on our failures, let’s talk about successes. I finished the planking on the boat and installed the deadwood. My dad (ever ready with a pun) pointed out that the whole boat was made of dead wood, so this step might have been a bit redundant. I then put two coats of epoxy moisture barrier over the whole hull. This all happened within a week of my graduation to full-time boat builder, so as of a week ago, the boat looked like this:

Of course, the epoxy coating ran in spots, and I had to sand those out. However, I was then able to flip the boat over and get working on the interior. I’ve installed the foredeck framing and the rubrail. I still need to put in the daggerboard case, sheer clamp, deck, and seat planks plus clean up the whole interior:

Also, some things you do for health insurance. Please pray I don’t injure myself.

I’m reminded of a description of the Atlantic Challenge boat building apprenticeship program:

… young people would be eager to learn a demanding trade abandoned by most of its practitioners a half century earlier. And that in pursuit of this knowledge they would willingly place themselves outside the economic mainstream for two years or more, participating in an exchange of labor for learning during which they would receive no wage for the extensive work they would perform. Apprentices labored long hours at arduous tasks, emerging perhaps only with the satisfaction of having begun to master skills for which there seemed at best a marginal demand.

Well, it was either this or go to cobbler school …

Memorial Day weekend included hanging the first plank on the boat!

The outside of the boat will be painted while the inside will be finished bright. Here’s a picture of what the inside might look like, at the forward bulkhead.

Here’s where we’re currently. Four planks out of six have been hung. Way behind schedule!

Here’s the skinny on the possible names for the boat:

Cuyahoga: The name of the river which is the defining geographic feature of my homeland. Pretty self-explanatory.

Santiago/Esquife de Santiago: This one is a bit more … something. First off, Santiago is the name of the protagonist in two very good books: The Alchemist and The Old Man and The Sea. Esquife is, as I understand it, a Spanish/Portuguese word for skiff … so that’s more of a direct Old Man and the Sea reference, which is set primarily in Santiago’s oars-and-sail skiff, which I envision to be not unlike my boat. What’s more, Santiago is the Spanish name given to Saint James … which is my name! (I usually leave out the ‘Saint’ part, only for the sake of modesty). Downsides to this name include the fact that it takes like 3 minutes to explain, and also I don’t think esquife is a very common word (but I wouldn’t want to use a more common/less exact word like bote). Also, I don’t speak Spanish, so it is a little disingenuous.

Magpie: The name of a bird rumored to have shamanic qualities. Really, I just like the shape and sound of the word, and it has nothing to do with anything … although I am aware of the Mountain Goats song of the same name.

Grey-Beard Loon/Albatross: These are both Rime of the Ancient Mariner references … which I love so much I’m going to quote here (I’m surprised it took me this long):

He holds him with his skinny hand,
`There was a ship,’ quoth he.
`Hold off! Unhand me, grey-beard loon!’
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

He holds him with his glittering eye–
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years’ child:
The Mariner hath his will.

The Black Pearl: I named my former car The Black Pearl … so the name is kind of taken. Plus it’s pretty cliche and dorky. What’s more The Black Pearl is “crewed by the damned, and captained by a man so evil that Hell itself spat him back out” … so take that for what it is worth. But this is pretty great:

That’s what a ship is, you know. It’s not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that’s what a ship needs but what a ship is… what the Black Pearl really is… is freedom.

Alright. Go vote, if you please.

Apparently the above number is copyrighted (?), and now that I might’ve broken the law, it is time for an apology: I’m sorry I haven’t been more diligent in keeping this website up-to-date. My excuse isn’t a very good one, but life stepped in the way. It seems with all the busyness that Spring brings, I’ve hardly had time to work on the boat, let alone write about my progress. Furthermore, I’ve been in a stage where the work I have done isn’t very visually interesting, so the pictures all look the same. I will post more soon, but here’s a photo of the boat, framed up … which happened around Easter (sans epoxy, due to the cold weather):

Also, if you’re looking for something interesting to read, I highly (like bold AND italics highly) recommend checking out my good friend Steve’s website.

Above are the plans for Sand Dollar. Well, it’s 1 sheet of plans out of 16, but it is the most important one. It describes the full-sized temporary frames, transom, and bulkheads, which I have previously mentioned.

At the top of the plans, you might notice that there are two parallel lines, one marked “Jig” and another one marked “Jig - Transom”. The difference between these two lines is 1 1/8″, and if you happen to use the wrong one at the wrong time, well then you’ll be fine. However! If you use the right one at the wrong time or vice-versa, you’ll screw things up big time.

Here’s a close-up:

But I’m getting ahead of myself … this weekend, the boat project moved outside to the garage. I transported the strongback out, and, while this piece seemed quite large in the shop, once outside I instantly realized how small this boat is actually going to be:

Here’s the strongback, compared to my dad’s 16′ fishing boat … a boat which is typically described as “small”. Too bad boat’s aren’t like electronics, or I would be building the coolest boat ever.

Before I could do too much setup, I needed to finish up the fore and aft bulkheads. This involved framing the plywood bulkheads with sassafras pieces, attaching them via epoxy and screws. I also needed to cut the holes for the access hatches, a job that was made easy through use of the spindle sander. The top piece of framing on each bulkhead is left off until the boat is flipped over and the tops of the water-tight compartments are installed.

Aft Bulkhead

Fore bulkhead. The bottom piece was a little short, hence the fillers.

Once the bulkheads were mounted and ready to go, I had to put the legs on the strongback and level it, which proved to be a very time consuming task. I initially clamped the legs on, then through trial-and-error (lots of error), I gradually achieved level. I also marked the location of the strongback on the floor, so that if it is moved, I can find that level spot on the garage floor again. Once this was done, I could attach my frames to the strongback using sheetrock screws. Here, I used a string centerline to insure that each frame was centered, and made sure that each frame was level.

It’s difficult to see here, but Station 4-10 1/2 (the second frame from the front) is actually a bit too tall. 1 1/8″ too tall to be exact. Once I cut and test fit the keel, it became obvious that something was wrong, as no boat I’ve ever seen has a huge dip in the bottom 1/3 of the way back. Through some measurements and conjecture, my error soon became obvious. Instead of building to the “Jig” line, I had built Station 4-10 1/2 to the “Jig - Transom” line! The horror! (This is about as exciting as boat building gets, folks).

So, what to do? When I assembled the temporary frames, I used a liberal amount of glue, so simply disassembling the frame and correcting my error wasn’t an option. Instead, we’d have to do something a bit more drastic …

Above is a picture of how all the temporary frames mount to the strongback. The Station 4-10 1/2 frame needed to be lowered by 1 1/8″, so I simply removed the frame, set the fence on the table saw to 1 1/8″, removed the screws from the bottom of the frame, and ran it through. Here’s the result:

Of course, I’ll have to reattach the frame with screws, but a quick test fit of the keel proved that the problem had been resolved.

The WoodenBoat Forum is probably the most helpful tool I’ve had in learning the ancient trade of boat building. Late last December, I decided to join the Forum and inquire about my boat building ambitions by starting this thread. At the time, the only thing I knew about boat building came from an article in Orion Magazine about a young fellow who built a small skiff in his Manhattan apartment. I figured that I had a large apartment with an empty dining room, so why not? Thankfully, the sages on the WBF chimed in with sound advice.

I’ve also used the WBF for much research. It seems that there is at least one thread on every topic related to boat building and pretty much every other topic under the Sun as well. If there is something that is unfamiliar to me, chances are a quick search on the WBF will clarify the matter in exceptional detail. The individuals on WBF have a rare combination of knowledge, wisdom, and willingness to help. And so, I give them a very deserved shout-out.

After I returned from Ann Arbor, I was able to stop by and get some things accomplished. Most importantly, I moved the table saw from the basement out to the garage. Since the weather has been nice, and since I have a number of 12′ cuts coming up, I figured it was time. I had previously made some 12′ cuts in our 25′ wide basement, but this proved to be very tight. Moving the table saw turned out to be a huge task which took up most of my build time, but now I’m set up for next weekend. Despite the weight and size of the saw, the whole process went by almost without incident. I say “almost” because I did stand up carelessly, after crouching under the saw to loosen the stand bolts, and jabbed the fence guide into my back. And since I feel every post must be accompanied by a picture, here’s an image of the injury inflicted upon my back by the table saw (that raised, red mark in the middle):

Anyway, I suppose it could’ve been much worse (Check out the “Why SawStop?” video).