I found the differences between men and women interesting, and also the different shifts worked by whites, blacks, and Latinos.

Many nights I am among the 1% who are reading or surfing the Internet at 1:00am. This is not so good.

Fascinating article on how Netflix processes and mails all those disks in all those little red envelopes.

It is almost enough to make me make the time to watch movies.

Leaning toward friends and family, even though it is going to be a long time before the company will fly me to Seattle on the week next to the festival.

EDIT - and Union Lake wins

• Sheet of plywood to draw on
  
• Some furring strips to stiffen the drawing sheet and create a baseline to rest my measuring sticks on
  
• Cheap 2*4s to turn into another set of sawhorses
  
• A sheet of spare plywood to brace my old and new sawhorses
  
• New colored pencils
  
• New carpenter's pencils
  

Oh, and the sharpener that came with the pencils was useless. I had to sharpen them with a utility knife.

So, I drew the boat in chalk on the driveway. The blue line is the six inch waterline. It roughly marks the point where the boat's flat curved bottom turns sharply to become its steep curved side. The outer line is the outer decking. The yellow is the place where the cockpit coaming runs - everything outside of that is decked. I also drew the centerboard case and mast step in yellow.

I did not draw in any seats, but you can see younger son in the lookout position and a chair in the stern sheets.

As drawn the boat is 16 and a half feet long, five feet wide, two and a half feet above the base line at bow and stern, and 18 inches above the baseline in the middle of the boat.

One of my decisions is whether or not to build it as drawn. Similar boats were stretched to a length of anywhere from 16 to 18 feet by just moving the measuring points closer together or farther apart. A fellow who built from a variation of these plans made his a few inches wider at the design length and says it works great. I am also thinking about curving the bottom a little more, since it is flat with no rocker as currently drawn.

I can probably get away with making one of those changes. But which one?

Photo below the fold

I have Ian Oughtred's book on clinker plywood and the library's copy of Sam Rabl's Boatbuilding in your Own Back Yard

I just ordered Greg Rossel's Building Small Boats and John Gardner's Building Classic Small Craft

I have the following on the wish list:

* John Brooks How to Build Glued Lapstrake Wooden Boats
* George Buehler, Buehler's Backyard Boatbuilding
* Howard Irving Chapelle, Boatbuilding: A Complete Handbook of Wooden Boat Construction
* Ted Brewer, Understanding Boat Design

Brewer's book is not really pertinent to the project, but it was cheap and looks like a great read.

Edit: I ordered Chapelle. I will save Brewer and Buehler for when I want to buy some fun reading.

It may even be that California's problems are halting a stage-3 bailout for the other state governments.

Perhaps the "republican government" clause of the Constitution could be used to order California to write a new Constitution that does not include the 2/3 rule.

That might be a bit heavy-handed. But it might also be the only thing that could work.

I built this boat:

Using these tools:

I will introduce the first boat in another entry.

Details about the purpose and the build are below the fold.

About the Skiff

Purpose:

* Solo daysailer, quickly rigged, hopefully able to drop the mast to duck under bridges
* Camp cruiser for one adult and 2 kids
* Daysail as many adults as it will hold - hopefully I will have space for 4 medium-small adults (under 750 lbs of people)
* Sawdust therapy

Waters:

* The back bays on the South Jersey shore
* Jersey inland lakes like Union Lake and the Cooper River.
* The tidal regions of the Delaware River
* Delaware and Chesapeake Bays
* Limited Atlantic daysailing on calm days only

Limitations:

* Not a great woodworker
* Built in a 2-car garage
* Boat is to be dry-stored and dry-sailed
* Motors don't like me, and break when I get near them
* Materials, tools and books will be purchased only as needed

Specifications (to date):

* Glued plywood lap using the best marine plywood available locally
* Full Coast-guard-approved flotation built into the boat - probably airboxes
* Thinking about a layer of fiberglass armor on the bottom and garboards
* Tanbark Dacron sails
* Exterior of the boat to be painted white
* Interior to be bright if I am neat, but will probably get painted

Rigging and power:

* Spritsail and a jib, because I like the look.
* The auxiliary propulsion will be oars.
* I will consider adding an electric trolling motor to use as a kicker in tidal currents

This will be a slow build, since I have two kids and a busy job. The garage workshop also has to store my rowing boat, the kids' bikes, camping gear, etc. My intended order of events is:

1. Gantt chart and project planning - current stage
2. Lofting
3. Model
4. Spars, and components (rudder, stem, frames, etc - anything that can be built and then put to one side)
5. Sails (sew my own or have sewn for me)
6. Strongback and workspace
7. Assembly and planking
8. Finishing out

This should make the best use of space since the big stuff won't be on the garage floor until the last minute.

I will be leaning on John Brady at the Independence Seaport Museum for some help, especially with the plank sizing, lofting, and building the tricky bits. I hang out with the Delaware River chapter of the TSCA, and will be bugging them as well.

I won't be blogging about work.

I will be blogging about hobbies, funny kid stories, and some political commentary.

He designed a little row-sail cruising dingy that has captured my imagination.

He also has a lot of good advice about picking a boat. Start by looking at the traditional working boats for the primary water where you will be using the boat (for me, Sea Bright skiffs, jersey skiffs, melonseeds, sneakboxes.) He then urges people to write a story or draw a picture showing them using their boat.

My story is not much of a story, more of a picture. I see my little white boat with red sails heading up the Connecticut River just past Mt Holyoak and the big oxbow lake there.

I had never imagined myself doing river cruising. But now I am compulsively checking the tidal currents on the Delaware at Philadelphia, and trying to figure out how to juggle two small children and the ride upstream to the boat trailer.

Of course, by the time I get Walkabout finished, the kids will not be small anymore.

But I am already counting my pennies and thinking about sails — even before I get the plywood for the little rowing boat.

This is a bad sign.

We got there late, after a difficult morning of errands and slack. Once we got there I had a great time talking boats. I got to row a Michalak Robote - very cool very fast rowboat. I even took younger son out for a row.

I also took both boys for a short sail in a shellback dinghy. It was their first sailboat ride ever! Elder son got very upset when the boat first heeled, but once he recognized that small boats tip a little, and sailboats always tip a little, then he calmed down.

The Robote was great fun, and I am glad that I am building something very like it. (Mine will be a touch slower and more stable.) The Shellback was a pain to sail, but looking back my best memories of the day are seeing the two boys sitting side-by-side by the centerboard as we sailed this little dinghy around on a little lake.

In other news, the leading contender for boat B is Welsford's Walkabout.