Bon Voyage!!!

 Today is the LAST day we have to finish the boat!!!! We are so excited! But we still had a few things to finish up (motor mount, cabin door, and all the rigging, just to name a few)

Chris, Andy, and Justin worked real hard to finish the motor mount and attach the donated motor to the back of our boat.  This will give us a little boast to get out in the middle of the lake where we can pick up the wind!

 Corin has finished with the Cabin! He put the cabin roof hatch on and put the cabin door in place as well.  All Corins' hard work looks great with the detail standing out, we know we will be sheltered from the storms on the rough seas.

 Doesn't the boat look amazing? We are getting ready to set the mast in place and put the sails up to test everything out, maybe we will even take it for a spin around the parking lot.  Andy polished the brass windows once again, and they really pop when the light hits them.

Another community volunteer, John, came to help us today set all the rigging in place.  He is an expert in sailing, and without him, we probably would not have the rigging lines going the right directions!  We really appreciated his hand today, as he worked with Andrew and Todd to set all the lines and hooks.

 Here is the motor mount being attached to the back of the boat! It was quite a process to get the block on, let alone the motor attached to the block.  Justin and Chris sure know how to get the job done, doing whatever it takes, even if they have to make up their own method to attach the motor.







Sarah and Connie have also finished the rudder and mounts today as well.  They attached it to the rear of the boat today, just to find that we have just enough room to maneuver the rudder and the motor without interference!  The rudder looks great and a lot of people had a hand on finishing the rudder as well, making it one of the most all around group project throughout this whole process.

Here we are with one sail up! getting ready to put up the lead sail as well.  We cannot wait to test the boat out tomorrow on Watauga Lake before showing the community our project on Thursday!

All hands on Deck!!!

We are now officially sheltered from any storm!!  The windows have been put in the correct way (we had to remove them because they were upside down and letting water in) and are sealed with caulk around the seams!!!

Sara and Dan worked together to make the door frame for the cabin wall, we will be making a new door which will slide in and out in the grooves cut by Chris and Paul at the wood shop.  This will provide an easy access for the cabin and still provide ample protection from the rough seas ahead!

Thats our deck! coming along smoothly! Steven is showcasing his handy work with proper spacing between each board and securing them to each rib.  The varnished wood really stands out from the bright white paint and will look awesome for years to come!

You can also see the finished frame, which will be varnished before the project is completed.

Sarah and Andy work hard sanding the hull! we will epoxy and varnish the hull over the weekend to allow everything to dry. 

Matt worked with Corin to finish the cabin roof, with its curved features, this will be a really neat accent part of the boat once finished.  We got one coat of epoxy on today and will be ready to install the roof on Tuesday.


The goal now is to put the boat on the water for a "dry" run on Wednesday before showcasing the boat on Thursday to the public!

Crunch Time!

The countdown is close!! With so much left to do, we had our work cut out for us for sure.

Andy worked on cleaning all the brass windows for the cabin and even polished them before installing both windows and applying caulk around the seals! now our cabin should be watertight (if we dont have a leak from the inside!)

This is what our boat will look like!!!! We pulled the boat outside right before a big storm came our way today just to put the mast up on the boat to see what she would look like! (Although we still dont have a name for our vessel) It was an awesome sight, this was for sure the inspiration we needed to keep working hard!

Steven and Andrew did a great job putting the new mast together with Zeb and got all of the pieces right where they were supposed to be the first time.

Cole, Sarah, and Rachel put the first and second coat of epoxy on both sides of all of our deck boards and cabin boards, the next step will be to varnish the topsides of the boards before installing the final product.

Corin and Dan got all of the wood cut for benches.  These are a special design that will curve with the side of the boat and get thinner as the seat moves towards the stern of the boat.  They even got a coat of epoxy on these boards before the day was over! We will varnish and then wait until the deck boards are in place before the seats will be ready to put in.

Even though our deck boards are cut, we had to do some specialty cuts around the bench supports which are tied into the ribs of the hull.  Chris worked hard on this project to make our deck look special before we splash water all over the boat.  we really hope it floats when we move to the lake!

Last call for paint!!

We were able to get all the painting finished today in the rear of the boat.  Sarah offered to crawl through the entire length of the boat to finish touch up painting throughout, 

Corin put the last screw in his cabin wall.   He is extremely happy to have this phase of the project complete and cannot wait to to attach the door

 Steven worked hard to finish the varnishing of our rudder and control handle.  He had to engineer a sophisticated drying device to allow him room to paint both sides while not sticking to one side or the other.

Chris worked to finish the cutout portions of our flooring which will wrap around existing structrual pieces and still provide ample standing room.

Next week will be a big week, we hope to have the flooring attached both in the cabin and the stern of the boat, as well as attach a lot of hardware before flipping the boat over on Thursday to work on the outside of the hull!

A "solid" foundation to stand on.

Spring break was great, but it is now time to kick it into overdrive and get this boat done!

While one group went to the boat to start working on finishing the painting and wall securing, Chris and Cole went to a local wood shop to plain down all our lumbar from the old high school which will be used as flooring for the rear stern of the boat, behind the cabin.  The local wood experts we even kind enough to sand all the edges to save some valuable time for us.

The rest of the crew started finishing the installation of the rear cabin wall, and varnishing all the trim work around the boat.  Andrew and Steven sanded our rudder down to grade and it is now ready to have epoxy applied and then be varnished before being re-attached to the stern.

Corin and Sarah even got a lot of painting done as well.  They painted the interior cabin with its second coat of white paint, while we are awaiting the bondo and caulk to dry on the new cabin wall.




On Thursday we will finish the second coat of paint on the rear of the boat, and we will cut the template for the flooring.

Lets build a boat to save us from the Rain!!!

With so much rain today, working inside was the only option.  We had a smaller group today, so we focused hard on tasks to push us towards our goal of May 3rd.

Chris and Cole went to a wood shop today to cut and plain all the wood for the decking in the back of the boat.  It looks great now, and they have finished sanding all the edges.  We will varnish the wood before we secure it to the boat!  They are really excited to put this detail into the boat, and it is especially neat for them since the wood was from the old high school where they started school and are now seniors at the new high school.

Zeb and Sara varnished all the trim work around the boat to make the epoxy really stand out once the boat is finished.  Andrew helped them tape and prep for varnish before switching over to be our cook for the night.  He did a great job making grill cheese for the group before going back to work on the rutter, prepping it for varnish as well.

Steven has finished the mast and has started putting the final pieces of hardware on it before he got to varnish the rutter.  He even engineered a hanging rack where he could paint both sides of the rutter and have it hang to dry.

Corin has finished the wall, putting the final supports on the back side to brace the wall, and then laying caulk around the ground edges to keep unwanted water from warping the wood.  He is very proud to have this section of his project done, and will soon be finishing the door for the cabin.

We are getting closer and closer to the deadline of our boat unveiling, and we are feeling some pressure, but we are confident that we will be finished with the boat on time!

(sorry there are no pictures today, we had a camera, just no battery life left!!!)

Caught White Handed

 Today was great! We got to change up from our normal plan and make a drastic change to our boat visually.  With all the sanding complete, we were able to "jump right in" and start painting.  We certainly made a splash as white paint was spread over the entire deck! 

We were able to get most of the first coat of paint on before the sky started giving us some water for our boat. (which then moved us inside). 

 Sara was so excited to paint that she flew through the set up, masking off all the accent trim work and areas that we wish to not be covered in marine white paint.  This delicate task was done with precision as she finishes the bow of the boat before we start painting.

 Steven is almost done with his detailing work on our new mast.  This two part mast will be fully operational next week and is looking great with the shinny hardware we salvaged from the other sail boat in our storage workshop.  Steven is figuring out that is it difficult to paint all four sides of the mast at the same time, and therefore it is taking a while to wait for the paint to dry in order to flip the mast over.  Maybe we can still add a crows nest??

 Andy and Chris with the help of Paul continued planning the layout for the floor in the back of the boat.  We have acquired old lumber from the old Watauga High School to use as flooring material.  We will use the measurements to first cut the wood to size and then plane it to the correct thickness.

The fresh coat of white paint is making our land yacht look amazing!  We cannot wait to get it onto some real water (not the rain) and see the shine from the reflection off the lakes!  We worked really well together today and accomplished a lot! We cannot wait until Thursday to put another coat of paint on the decks and hopefully another coat of paint on the inside of the cabin! 

While cleaning up today we realized that some of our crew members had decided that they did not need to wear gloves while cleaning the brushes... The paint is oil based and therefore sticks to skin and clothing easily.  Two of our crew members were "caught" " White handed" after cleaning the brushes and then had to work really hard with paint thinner to clean off all the evidence!

Full Throttle!!

What a big day!  We are really enjoying working outside in the beautiful weather!  We had Dan, and Matt there as our community volunteers to assist us as well.  Dan brought us a surprise that we could not be more happy about! A motor!!!                                    Steven and Andrew finished installing all the hardware on the mast and even got a nice coat of white marine paint on it as well.  One more coat of paint and the new mast will be done!!

Anna, and Sara finished sanding the outside of the decks!! We are ready to apply our first coat of paint on the deck and turn this beauty pearly white!  Sara is so excited to apply paint as she feels like she has been sanding for weeks!

Cole also assisted in the sanding process and focused on the accent trim that will stand out from the boat once we paint the decks white.

Corin was able to install the rear wall of the cabin, which he has been working on for weeks now, to the boat.  With a custom made support piece, the wall is now almost fully operational and on Tuesday should be completed with the final support pieces and primed for paint.  Corin spend much of his time today trimming pieces to fit snugly into the existing supports on the cabin.


And finally... Our Motor! Dan donated his fathers old motor which had been in storage for years!  With a little love and some fancy motor ingenuity from Todd and some of the other students, we fired up the motor for a brief while before returning to sanding and prepping the boat for paint.

Pretty in White

Today was really awesome to see some noticeable progress on the boat!  With only nine work days left, we are really battening down the hatches, and all sails out!

The ladies took on the task of sanding the existing fiber glass and epoxy, preparing for another coat, and hopefully our last.  Its a big project to try to get the epoxy even throughout the deck, and we are learning a lot about craftsmanship.We are using foam rollers and foam brushes to make sure to get epoxy in every crack throughout the hull.  Corin and Sara worked on the starboard side while Connie worked with our community volunteer Rachel on the port side.

Dan and Zeb, our mast experts worked with Andrew and Steven to start attaching all the hardware to the new mast that Dan has made for us.  Its a really big project making sure everything lines up correctly so that the sails can be attached correctly the first time.  We will have the mast done next week and will see how it looks on our clean boat! 

While the fiber glass was getting a new coat of love, the inside hull and gunnels got some love as well.  We started painting the inside white, keeping with the original, classic look of this sail boat.  What a difference a fresh coat of paint did for our spirits.  The boat is looking new and ready to sail....hopefully!  Chris, Justin and Scott worked hard to get a first coat of paint throughout the hull to the cabin entrance.

Chris and Justin took the lead this afternoon, heading up our group discussion at the end of our work day, they did a great job reviewing what got done today, as well as what we need to focus on next time, and even set a timeline for the rest of our time until the big unveiling at the start of May!

Crewmen Overboard!!!

 
 Today we were sailing the rough seas without our full crew.  We only had four crewmen available to work on our project today due to a preparation meeting for the Mountain Alliance Alternative Spring Break trip.  Sara, Connie, Cole, and Corin worked extra hard to finish some important pieces to help make our boat float!

We made up for our small crew today with admiral Todd joining in on the fun today.  He worked with Cole to caulk the rest of the cracks and crevases in the hull of the boat all the way to the front of the bow.  He can be seen preparing to work in the bow section of the boat.







When Cole was not caulking, he pulled double duty sanding the port and starboard sides, preparing the fiber glass for another layer of adhesive to be applied.










Corin worked with Dan, our community volunteer on finishing the foundation for the mast.  Corin has been working in the tight cabin space for the past few work days and he is relieved that the mast is almost ready to be permanently attached to the hull of the boat!  

Connie and Sara are still our masters of fiber glass, working hard to finish sanding, and then reapplying another layer of adhesive over the existing layers of fiber glass.  We are hoping to add one more additional layer of adhesive before we sand the deck smooth, ready for paint.

Abandon Ship!!!!

 First Day of Spring is here!!! With such lovely weather, why not work outside again!  We started today by setting some goals to accomplish during our time today.  1- set the rest of the fiberglass around the deck of the port and starboard sides, 2- put a second layer of adhesive on top of the first fiberglass layer at the bow of the boat, 3- get a substantial amount of caulking 5200 in the cracks of the hull, 4- work around the mast area and make it ready to set.  Thats a lot to do!








Corin worked alongside Dan and his father who were volunteering today to help out with the mast.  They set the end cap for the keel housing and the mast back stud.  They will be ready to build the base plate of the mast next week! We cant wait to get our new mast fashioned to really bring this boat some new character!

Justin and Steven worked caulking the cracks in the hull and are now finished with all the ribs up to the start of the cabin, this is a big accomplishment!  Andy worked with Paul, another community volunteer, to fashion the rear supports for the transom and caulked around the transom area today as well. 













Sara, Connie, and Cole worked on finishing the fiber glassing and along with our volunteers Zeb and Rachel, they also sanded and applied the second coat of adheasive to the dry fiber glass from last week.











Our ideal day of working in the sun ran aground as the sky decided to test our waterproof caulking work.  We quickly abandoned ship and picked up all of our power tools, and pushed our boat back onto dry shore (inside the shop) and continued working.  We made the most of the day today even with our cloudy skies above!  We will be short a few crewmen on our next work day but will work hard to finish caulking and fiber glassing the boat.