A Quiet Weekend

After picking up the plywood on Friday, I had hoped I might carry that momentum through the weekend - maybe get the paddle laminations done, or visit my friend with the table saw to rip the gunwales....  But in the end, I had to settle for finishing my three deadeyes, and getting a little further with the found lumber. 

I felled a diseased elm that hangs over our driveway on Saturday, and was able to get one good timber "Y" crotch out of it.  The rest was too crooked to use, sadly.  I found another crotch on something I brought home a few days ago, but it's shaped oddly and may not be usable.

I peeled the bark off of most of my outrigger sticks ("tuki"), and they are pleasingly solid pieces all.  The plans don't definitively indicate how long they should be, so I'm not sure how many lengths I have right now. 

I also noticed that I had been wrong about the length of the outrigger poles ("kiato").  I was thinking they needed to be 12' long like the ama, but the plans actually say 10' is adequate.  I think I had been confusing them with the crabclaw spars.  So I found one piece long enough on my yard, and spotted another couple down the street that I need to ask about before the neighbors haul them away.  That could resolve all of the poles, leaving me with just the ama and spars to find.

I've spotted a roadside strip where the utility company is cutting trees that are getting too close to the power lines overhead.  A couple of the trees in question are long, straight and skinny.  I'm thinking of taking those down myself, or leaving a note asking that they be left whole.

And on the ama issue, I'm not sure whether to try to join 9' and 3' pieces of aspen trunk to make my 12' ama.  It's hard to imagine that kind of joint handling the punishment I suspect the ama will take, though if I could perform a pinned, epoxied and taped diagonal scarf, it should be strong enough.  I stopped by my friend's house to look at the pieces in question, but he wasn't home.

In non-Melanesia news, my brother and I got the mast partner installed (correctly this time) on our Teal project.  And we cut decking to go on the bow and stern, which really makes it look more like a boat somehow.  That project is probably a little more than a month from being rowable at our current schedule of a couple hours per week (he's a busy college student).  It only needs the shoe and skeg installed, the chines taped & epoxied, and a couple coats of paint. 

It will be some time longer before it's ready to sail, as that requires building and finishing rudder, leeboard, mast and boom, not to mention sewing a sail.  There is a real possibility that my boat will be ready before his, since it's a simpler design, simpler process, and will benefit from all the lessons I learned working on his boat.

That's all for now.  I don't expect any progress for the next few days, as we have a busy Monday through Wednesday here.