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Alexander's 26 foot Swiftsure - Weeks 4 & 5
Lee Shore is making good progress on the 26. Gunwales are installed and next week Tim will start on the side decks.
For non-skid, Tim grinds the deck in light swirls, as seen here.
See the myriad of ?plug welds? which attach the deck to the stringers/bulkheads?
And, here's how they fit below decks, viewed through one of the poop deck inspection ports.
Eric will soon be doing many, many linear feet of finish welds to smooth over, make complete and water proof these many sheets which have been spot-welded in place.
Week Five
Thursday's departure from Beaver was early. The plan was to stop quickly at Lee Shore, then head directly to Seattle to meet the Woods in time for the UW vs. UCLA football bash. While the kickoff wasn't scheduled till 5:30pm, the University District traffic was going to be brought to its knees by the game. Gary, wisely, wanted to get to the pre-game hangout early.
Eric had hinted that lots of progress would be visible. For example, check this ? the Hondas are here! And the rigging kits should be along any day now.
Ignore the house for just a second and check out the side decks. I like the finished look and feel to the way they are folded over. See that there's no deck space between the house and the side decks? In order to get good width proportion and needed space, Eric is building it with doors fore and aft. You walk through, rather than around the house. He thinks one or both will be sliding doors. So, you're casting on the foredeck, you hook a 15 pound rocketship (coho) and you want to move your self, rod and jumping/running fish to the aft deck where freeboard is lower and it can be more readily netted. That's going to be fun. Traverse around the house? Hand the rod over the house? Climb over the house?
That little guy is Connor, Eric's grandson. We need to get the 26 completed and out of there quickly before the Dept. of Labor gets wind of how much of the welding load he's carrying. See the window openings? They're going to be lowered about three inches, not only to make bigger windows, but to extend them down to eye level of a person sitting inside.
The left side of the above photo suggests that the windshield will have a reverse rake to it, as is popular in commercial craft. It's consistent with our cop look, but also reduces burden for windshield wipers.
Eric was taking off for Seattle and the Pacific Marine Expo, a big show for commercial boat builders, owners and operators, about the time we were leaving for the Game. And, what a game it was. After allowing the Bruins to put a good scare into the entire stadium, the Dawgs dominated the final three quarters and thoroughly owned UCLA. Nothing UW fans like more than to see UCLA's Coach Rick ?Neuweasel? taken down. Much bad blood. What fun. Like everyone present, we really whooped it up. Lots of yelling, jumping up and down, Gary's Calvados flask and many, many layers of Gortex and polypro combined to keep us warm. Since Gary's seats are in the distinguished-alumni section, they are covered. We hardly noticed that it actually neither snowed nor rained.
Seattle Yacht Club, a five block walk to Husky Stadium was our parking venue and pre-game hangout. It was fun to see familiar faces and interact with the brain-dead staff. What a great time. Friday morning we were out of the Wood's bright and early for a quick stop at Rob's. Like Gary & Kerri, he was about to jump in his boat and go out to check nearby crab pots. Puget Sound winter dungeness crab season had only been open a couple of days, but both Rob and the Woods have already boiled big crab feeds. Rob heads back to Dutch Harbor in just two weeks for seventy days. His Seattle Christmas is scheduled for February.
See you next week.