Well, a lot has happened in the last month or so since my last post. At least in regards to Ataraxia being completed. Not much has changed with regard to any other aspect of my life. But then again, that's not always a bad thing. I will likely be taking the rest of this week off from working on the boat since I'm heading down to Mexico for a few days. After all nothing says patriotism like getting the hell out of the country for the 4th of July, right?

Anyway, here's a close up of the port side rubrail near the stern. I thought this was acool shot b/c it really shows the nice wood grain on the khaya mahogany rail. It's actually three pieces of wood each of which is slightly thinner than the previous, and then the whole thing is sanded down and coated with epoxy and varnish creating the nice glossy finish.

After several coats of ablative bottom paint, and the navy blue topsides paint I pulled off the masking tape between the two and held my breath. Luckily, the line between the two was literally perfect.

Here's the bowsprit getting it's last coat of varnish.

Here's the completed mast. I was actually really nervous about building this. In the end though, it turned out to be easier than I had anticipated. Basically, I started with a 16' piece of sitka spruce and sliced it into two 3" wide pieces and two 2.25" pieces. Then came the hard part of marking them according to the plans and creating a very gentle taper almost the entire length so that the ends were the original width, but the top was about an inch. The next big step was to use the router to cut long rabbets through the 3" wide pieces the entire length of the mast. By doing this, all four pieces of wood fit snugly together to form a long wooden square tube. I then cut a few plugs that fit into the ends for a couple of feet and epoxied the entire structure together with far less clamps than I probably ought to have used. However, the epoxy cured nicely although since I was a moron and decided to use my vise as an extra clamp I did put a small crack about 2" long in the middle. I'm hoping that by filling that crack with epoxy, and epoxying some fiberglass overtop that in the end it will still be strong. It would certainly suck to have my mast snap in the middle of the ocean somewhere. Hopefully, I will have an outboard on the back of the boat by then. Once, all of that was completed I used a big roundover bit and routed down all of the edges so it looked nice and smooth. After sanding it down to near perfection I epoxied the crap out of it, sanded again, and then varnished away. One more step completed!

Here's a nice shot of the centerboard finally going in. Hopefully it will never come out again. It seems to slide smoothly in and out of the centerboard slot so it seems pretty good so far!

Now, since this is my first boat I knew I was going to need a way to move it from place to place and since I never planned to own a boat when I bought my car I figured I needed to get a hitch for the car. I went down to the local U-Haul store, ordered my hitch for $149 and I was told I would need to spend $80 an hour to have them install it. After a not so silent, "Fuck you, I'll install that fucker myself." I had ordered my hitch and went in about 2 weeks later to pick it up. (I don't think it was the same guy)

Lucky for me, I know a former helicopter mechanic from the Marines who has lots of tools he seems to be willing to let me borrow from time to time. We began by jacking up my car and getting it on some jack stands and cranking away at the bolts on the frame. Unfortunately, a couple of the bolt holes were severely rusted so I took my car up to his place a few days later to use his impact wrench to really get that sucker on there. I want an impact wrench now. It makes fun noises.
Here is the beauty of craigslist. Someone has an old trailer they aren't using. I have $100. Using craigslist, we find each other and exchange. Pretty simple. I hear it's pretty commonly used for sexual favors these days too. Clever whores.

So yes, the trailer is a piece of shit. But, I figured if I can build a boat, I can retrofit a trailer. So off to Home Depot I went with absolutely no idea what to do. I stood in the aisles of the store mentally planning what I thought I would need...

And after much imprecation and burn marks from flying sparks (and destroying several bits for my dremel tool) I had cut off numerous old rusty bolts, installed new ones and built some bunks to support the boat. Keep in mind that the weight of the boat is to be on the keel, the bunks re merely to keep the boat upright on the trailer. And....

As I like to say to a girl I've just kissed for the first time, "Ta da!" She fit! Kind of. I pretty much nailed the height of the front end of the bunks, but I'd say I'm a good 3-4" off of where I needed to be on the stern. Oh well, The bunks seem a little flimsy and the bunk itself doesn't conform to the curvature of the hull. Once I return from Mexico I intend to build new and far more sturdy bunks. Along with several other things like working taillights, tie-downs, fenders, and perhaps a nice starboard side wheel.

Oh, and I suppose I'll have to get it registered too. And yes, I will be repainting the transom now that the cockpit footwell drain holes are in.

It looks a hell of a lot bigger now that it's on the trailer and behind my car. The whole thing is taller than my car now and I haven't even built the tabernacle on yet!

Ok, here I was starting to get a little nervous. It was kind of a gray afternoon, my friends had already started to imbibe heavily. (Yes, I understand the beer is to be handed out after flipping the boat. But my friends don't take kindly to being told to wait for their libations.) So, I had the stressful job of backing the trailer into my garage. Bear in mind my workbench was in the same bay as the boat was to be. The boat is approximately 6'6" wide near my narrowest point in the garage. The narrowest point in my garage is just under 7'6". You can see my dilemma. To complicate matters, I had to back the trailer in at an angle because of the way my driveway bends. Fun times. Oh, and have I mentioned that I've never driven a trailer before. Ever.

So... it took about 4 tries, and far too many people telling me what to do.... But I eventually got her in.
Ok, I got her 2/3 of the way in and then we cheated and pushed the trailer by hand. Bite me.

I have since relocated my workbench so I should be able to get her in and out a little easier next time. I hope.
And after a little work today, I had to show the trial fitting of the bowsprit. Pretty cool huh?

I probably won't get too much done in the next few days, I figured I needed a good mountain bike ride tomorrow to get some exercise before I do my best to do everything I can to develop early onset cirrhosis this weekend in Mexico. This is going to be one interesting 4th of July...

Cuprous Thiocyanate Smells Good

Ok, admittedly that probably doesn't sounds like the healthiest title for a blog post. But I have always loved the smell of fresh paint. However, this particular paint has a stranger and strong odor from what I was used to. It contains a very high copper content and is meant to wear off (which I find odd considering it costs about 10 times more than regular paint) and has to be reapplied essentially once a year. Yes, this boat is turning out to cost a bit more than I had planned. Admittedly however, I did not NEED to use khaya mahogany for the rails or African Lacewood for the deck. But they are damn pretty.

So as you saw in the previous post, the boat was rolled over and I subsequently fiberglassed, epoxied, and saned the entire hull. This took the majority of the last month (especially the sanding) but I am happy to say my hands and blood vessels have become quite accustomed to the sander's vibrations. That carpal tunnel syndrome will feel great in a few years. Awesome. So, here she is being jacked up with my car jack so the keel is perfectly level. This was a necessity to strike the waterline...

I found this amusing, I didn't have enough scrap wood laying around to support the boat once it was level, so I improvised. This is out-of-code beer that I had laying around my house which supported the 800 pound boat and myself on top of it quite easily. Each side has about 3 cases of beer holding it up. Now, I'm sure many of my readers will consider this a horrific abuse of money and/or beer. Normally I would agree. However, I have the wonderful fortune of having more beer around my house that you could possibly fucking imagine. And no, I don't pay for it. (Although, I think I will have to scrounge up some cash for that liver transplant in a few years)

Fuck me.

As I mentioned earlier, here is the waterline after it was striked using a laser level. The laser level was a very cool tool. No matter what position I set it down, I could adjust a few settings and perfectly match the previously ascribed line. Then I masked it off with some tape... washed her down with some very foul smelling chemicals that literally dissolved the latex gloves I was wearing right off my hands and....
Started painting!

Here she is after the 3rd coat was applied, and the dried. I pulled off the masking tape and much to my delight a perfect waterline! (I thought for sure some tiny bit of paint would have soaked through or underneath some tape that wasn't applied just right.

From another angle.
But instead of just working on the boat for Memorial Day weekend I did a little backpacking with friends. Here we are in Vermont, with my ex-Marine buddy Paul and his puppy Chief. Chief is doing a great job of balancing on the logs that I fell onto in the middle of the night subsequently cracking a rib... Yes, I suck. But I toughed it out with my pack and came home to work on the boat.

Coming up next: Dark blue topsides, close-ups of the mahogany rails, and hopefully a fully sanded and painted cabin interior!