The Newsletter of the Louisville Boatbuilding Society - No.3

Welcome to 2001! Here's hoping that we all have a productive, fruitful, and healthy year- a year full of boats and some good times on the water. If you've been under the tent lately you'll see we are well on our way with GYPSY. It looks like a boat! The winter weather and the holidays made for little progress and few weekends where we could work, but we did manage to get the planking on and fiberglass tape our seams. The weather can only improve at this point.

Back before Christmas we managed to take our planks and molds and tack them lightly together. This we did on our building frame which allowed us to level and plumb our hull and assure there was no twist in our finished product. Getting the planking seams to meet correctly took a little more time than I thought it would. The plans suggested that a bit of trimming and shaving of the planking edges would be needed- and it sure did.However the amount of fitting was equal on both sides- a good sign. Unfortunately, we did not get a good opportunity to continue on the boat until early January.

The weather took a bit of a toll on our hull as well. One fierce winter blow ripped off one of our tarps and exposed the boat to some ice and snow.This wetting and drying distorted our plywood a little bit but we managed to coax it back into shape with some wire stitches between the frames. We had good weather that Saturday, and with the help of a heater under the hull, we applied our first layer of cloth over the seams.

We are at the beginning of a messy, dirty , dusty stage. Working with the fiberglass cloth and epoxy resin is not really difficult but the sanding and fairing of the stuff is a bit obnoxious. We'll be sure to use gloves and dust masks as we labor through these next stages.It's the down side to this type of "instant" boatbuilding . It won't be long before we get to some woodworking as we get into the solid wood details that finish it all off. Here's to warmer weather and longer days.

See you Saturday, Mitch