The Mundane Business of Building a Boat

Study, study, study

A good deal of my time is spent studying the plans and I've read through the instructions countless times.  You've really got to be familiar with the a great deal of the specifics before you even cut your first piece of wood.  So much of what you do will impact every stage of the construction it's imperative that you really understand what you are doing (See the section on building the transom).  The good news is that often a stage of construction will last a great deal of time and it's not necessary to have your nose in them all the time.  I spent a year on longitudinal battens and I'm still not done with them.  There was little need to consult the plans during this stage (well not often at least).  I did however read through the instructions a few times.  A few weeks ago I sat down to study the blue prints again because I'm about to lay in the keel permanently and I do not want to make any mistakes.  I do not know why, but in the two years I've been working with these plans they have faded and the paper has yellowed.  Parts are completely unreadable especially on sheet 4 of 6 (the most referenced page).  I realized that I should have had these sheets copied the day I got them and kept the originals sealed.  Now, blue prints are not used anymore.  Black line printers are the norm.  I asked a friend who's father owns a copy store specializing in plans to try to salvage what I have.  He was not able to bring out much of the faded lines but the black line will be much more durable and not subject to fading.  I still have one sheet that I'm having difficulty reading. 

Sheet 4 of 6.  These are actual blue prints so all the black that you see is where I've inked in what was faded.  There is still some missing information in the upper right that I can not recreate.  Luckily its just the dolphin striker and mounts that are difficult to read and I will not need this information for awhile.  Reading glassed, architect rule and an ink pen are the tools used for this work.

 I asked Glen-L Marine to send me new copies but they want $275.00 for a replacement set even though I do not need the large pattern sheets.  A local copy shop typically charges $5.50 a sheet not that I expected Glen-L to be that cheap.  I've asked Glen-L Marine to price me copies per sheet but I expect they won't do it [Actually after a bit of discussion they did much better than that and sent me the sheet I needed for free.  Go Glen-L Marine].  I realize that $275 is a measly amount of money compared to what the boat will actually cost but I put it in terms of what I could buy with that money such as 5 gallons of West epoxy.  Besides I'm still recovering from my wedding and honeymoon.  My temporary solution is to go over the plans with an ink pen filling in what I can.  I was amazed at what I was able to bring back but I'm still missing enough that I'll have to buy replacement plans.  The lesson is: make copies of your plans before you start.  Ironically, I made multiple copies of the instructions when I bought the plans because they were on old yellowed paper and they were fragile.  I wish I had thought to make copies of the plans.

I will say that I was able to get a good revue of the plans while retracing text and lines.  I actually did this on several sheets but none to the extent of sheet 4 of 6.  In reviewing the plans I realized that there is a floor timber on bulkhead 'J' that I had not fabricated yet.  It's only a 2" floor board and not very large but, hey, it is important.  The forward floor board supports the Vee berth as well as strengthens the joint where the stem, bitts and bulkhead come together.  I will make this piece out of two laminations of 5/4' stock that was too short to use as longitudinal battens.  Just goes to show you that you can look at the plans a hundred times and still see something you missed.  My advice is to look at them 200 times.