Fairly fair

Every boat builder will be familiar with this statement. I have reached "Good enough". I think Sam Devlin had a good point when he said in his book "You have to hate a boat to finish it". Im so sick of looking at fairing boards, swapping paper, cleaning out the vacuum and getting the refrigerator dirty that its time. There are several little spots that could use quickfair. They would require hours of longboarding. There are spots on the fillets that are going to be wavy due to a lack of concentration when I was taping. Guess what, Im done fairing.

Let't look at it from another angle. I'm betting that most readers are either building a boat or will be building in the future. Some have spent the time and effort to actually go back through and read this blog from start to finish (if not, its getting cold out, its rainy, grab a mug of warm beverage, nestle in, and read it.) and can see how the mistakes were made, and why places aren't fair. If you are an astute reader, in the pictures you can see where the boat is seriously deformed and is now perfectly fair. I'm not going to tell anyone where anything is, because its my secret. I think that might be the point, in the end.

It will be your boat. You built it. If you feel that you are out to build a boat for show, then each infinitessimally small detail will be perfectly faired. To whom are you trying to be perfect for? Some need this level of perfection for inner peace. Others seek the adoration of onlookers. This is especially true of the mahogany runabout crowd. The beauty of the boat and the joy of its use is lost in the spectator's staring at the finish and nothing else. This isn't my style.

Other will go through the process in drudgery, and at the first possible moment slob on paint, not caring about smooth surfaces and unfair areas. Their need to be done and put their boatbuilding experience behind them is more powerful than going a few extra steps to make the boat last beyond next summer. These boats will be left out, destroyed by the elements, and relegated to sandbox duty.

Im somewhere in the middle. I like smooth lines, I like nice paint. I can't see doing any varnishing, though its beautiful, as my life is too short. I want a boat I can be proud of, but one I can use day in and day out (yes, we use our boat more than most, probably 5 or more days a week, 6 months out of the year). I don't want to worry about rafting it up with my friends and scuffing the paint. I want to be able to run it up on a beach and not give it a second thought. I built this boat to use, to enjoy, to take my wife out on evening cruises at 6mph in the fading sunlight. I built it to get 8 friends together and see both ends of the lake, hit the beaches, and be social. I want to go find that lunker bass in the weed edges, getting as shallow and close as I can. At the end of the day, I want a boat that will provide us with enjoyment, year after year, with low maintenance requirements, but one that I will still look longlingly at as I leave it at the dock at night.

I think we are there. It's a little imperfect in places, just like me. It is rugged and durable, great to look at, and the only ones who know where the flaws are will be myself, and people who build boats like me. Depending on the other builder, they will either find my workmanship below theirs, and feel better about themselves, or they will see the world as I do. They will understand that life is too short to sweat every detail. They will see the little flaws and smile, knowing that when they build their next boat, they will have a few too, and that it's okay.

So following that diatribe (its like talking to a diabetic about their eating habits. Noone will listen to what I said, but it felt good to say it) there are a few tidbits and some great photos to show this time.

Firstly, my wife loves me. She knows I have a boat problem, and instead of nagging and harassing me about it, she enjoys the fruits of it and supports me. It means quite a bit to me, as I know it can be hard sometimes with how often I work on it and what it costs. To show her support, she got me this for my birthday:




This is an original H. Chapelle's Boatbuilding from 1941. Fantastic read, with tremendous info for boatbuilders of all kinds. Highly reccomended.

Secondly, the boat got some new digs. I found the first trailer I purchased was going to be tough to set up for this hull. Craiglist came to the rescue, selling that trailer and picking up the newer one. Mobile bunk brackets, more length, better suspension, and brakes that function, Im happy, shes happy.

This is how a boat should be supported, not the bunk contact to the hull:



The bunks are also quite close together, as each side has two which are attached via brackets that pivot. One nice side effect of this is the skeg guides the boat onto the trailer, no matter how windy it is (when I switched trailers, winds were 25mph gusting to 40. The controls were not on the boat, and I did it with ropes only.):



Now its always a mistake to let people see the wood under epoxy as they will beg you to varnish the boat. Only after explaining the time and effort that goes into 25 coats of varnish do they realize why we paint. In the spirit of full disclosure, here are the last photos of the boat in her naked wood state, with 3 coats of epoxy. Note the fairing compound on all surfaces, and a thick coat on the sole which covers the wood:


















Shes going in for her last sanding, this the finish sanding of 120 grit in prep for paint. Its good enough. If someone sees a flaw and points it out, im okay with that. As of today, we are very near 12 months total in the project. Mind you, much of that is wasted time in ski season, waiting for plywood, and using the boat through the summer heat. Paint will hopefully be next week sometime, or the first week of November. That might require heating the garage in some fashion, but thats a bridge to cross at that point in time.

All comments and feedback are welcome, either here on the blog, or over at forums.bateau2.com

E