Building Madeline
A Glen-L Carioca 17' Cruiser
by Jeff Kuan
September 16th, 2006 - Saturday
Karen and I have been boating most weekends since July. We've gone out to numerous lakes, the San Francisco Bay, and Monterey. I've done a lot of little things to the boat which I show below:
Picture one is the finished console. Picture 2 is in the inside of the cabin which now has white walls. Picture 3 is the portable potty with a light, CD player, and fire extinguisher. Picture 4 is the passenger seat, and Picture 5 is of the stereo pictures. I probably won't put in a door... or maybe someday I'll put in a sliding door. From what we can tell by using the boat, a door isn't really necessary and probably would just get in the way.
Went boating with Gary and Jen... Here are some Pictures
Karen and I went out by ourselves today. It was a crazy hot day at about 107 degrees down in Hollister but we found a pretty cool place under a large bridge to relax and hang out. Over the past week, I did few things on the console and the motor well, but nothing too major. You'll see that the console box is mostly covered now and the motor well has a face and ledge on it. Today we found the tiny leaks in the motor well that was letting water into the bottom of the boat. This is great news because that's easily fixable once the boat dries for a few days. I got some better pictures of the boat this time!
Yesterday we launched the boat! The actual boat launch went without a problem. The night before however was full of problems. It turned out that either Ed's Marine or Mercury forgot to include a very important custom washer that keeps the propeller in place. So I spent most of the night on Friday jerry rigging a washer from home depot w/ the dremel tool. Then, the next morning I found out that there was a missing part from the hitch which sent me off on another trip to home depot. In the end it was worth it though.
Ultimately we launched the boat on Saturday morning. Surprisingly, things went well and we couldn't find any leaks. There was some water in the boat but I think it was mostly from missing sealant around the lower bolts holding the motor in place. It was also probably from water seeping through the motor well which is easily fixed. When we finally got moving the boat was going at about 40 miles per hour! There was a lot of bouncing around when we crossed the water ski boats and I have to learn how to trim the boat correctly at different speeds. Overall, its a very fun boat with a lot of power. There should be no problems taking this boat water skiing, fishing, or diving!
Here are some pictures of our boat launching. The second pictures also shows our new 4Runner.
From here, I'll start working at a slower pace on the many details that are remaining.
Just about ready to launch! I've varnished the exterior of the boat with 2 coats of varnish. I need to go back and touch it up, but it should be water proof enough to test this weekend! The registration and hull numbers are in place and the instruments have all been programmed. The most important one was the digital MMSI number that tells the coast guard to come find me at my GPS coordinates. Karen helped me mark the anchor line at 25' increments and took a picture of the toilette. More pictures will be posted after this weekend. Hopefully it won't be of the boat sinking.
It's been another few weeks. I missed my July 4th target of getting the boat complete enough to launch, but I tried not to rush myself too much. There were a few issues but I worked through most of them. One of the key disappointments was finding out that I didn't have all the right cables to get the motor started. They don't tell you when you buy the motor which cables you actually need to get it installed. But after a lot of research on-line, I figure out which 5 cables you really need and got them ordered and installed. Unfortunately, I ended up ordering them almost one at a time.
The good news is that the motor is installed and I got it started after priming the engine with oil and gas! I got the entire electrical system installed, including the radio, GPS, horn, cabin light, charger, starter, speedometer, fuel gauge, and tachometer. Even the GPS and radio are functioning and communicating between the devices. I did have another problem with the installation of the fuel tank. I accidentally got a chain caught in the tube line and it was causing the tank to leak.
Also, I've started finishing up the trim work. I'm sanding down most of the wood filler over the screw holes, and I've gotten half the trim installed around the deck of the boat. This is exceptionally hard work because you have to hand plane down the fiberglass and plywood edge of the boat. The fiberglass dulls the plane down very fast which makes it very hard work.
The new job has been keeping me very busy. That plus weddings and Karen's birthday have really slowed progress. My hopes of getting this boat done before July 4th are all but shattered at this point. I don't have all the parts I need and I think there is just too much finish work to be done before I get it done. However, I am getting close. The weather has been making it especially hard these past few days. The heat in the garage is unbearable.
Anyway, here are all the updates since the Early June. The First picture here is of the well as I installed it. The second shows where the side panels that are on the original design were cut out to make the boat a little more aerodynamic. The 3rd is the seat next to the well & the 4th is the underside of the seat.
The first picture below is Mary-Ellen and a couple of my neighbors I enlisted to come and help put up the motor. This was a non-trivial exercise and took a few hours. We ultimately got it up on the boat by setting the motor up and then moving the boat under the motor.
Next is the dash board being laid out and then installed. As you can see, the steering wheel was installed and actually connected to the motor. The shift and throttle is in place, but I didn't realize I needed two of the same cables to mechanically connect the shift and the throttle.
From there, you can see the wiring that I've started installing. It's getting to be pretty messy but I think I'm almost there. It should all be invisible when I'm finished. My biggest problem right now is to figure out where to install the radio. Lastly, you can see where I've started filling in all the screw holes on the deck. I stll have to go back and sand everything down.
I guess it's been a while since I updated the log. Last week was spent in Alaska on a cruise so two weekends were used up right there. However, here are some pictures to update the status. In the first picture, I show the cabin that is almost complete. There is still trim work to do and I have to finish the top edge over the front windshield. The gap isn't visible in this picture. In the second picture, I show how I edged the mahogany plywood with a strip of solid wood. This should stain very nicely. Around the windows, I used solid mahogany to frame the acrylic. In the third picture, I show another 3/4" piece of plywood fitted over the transom. This is to accommodate the 115hp motor. The Last picture is what I installed tonight. These are the side panels for the motor well. I'm still working out the dimensions of the rest of the well based on the ABYC (American Boat and Yacht Council) standards.
This was a busy week on the boat. I finished the frame for the cabin during the week and ordered the acrylic for the windows. Over Friday and Saturday, I cut out the windows (including the odd shape for the main windshield) and installed the roof as well. I had to put in a few cross beams in the roof for the cabin door hatch and to back the seam where one roof panel connects to the next. I also found out I made a few mistakes along the way in measuring; this will take a lot of manual work to repair. Today I will work on the external framing of the windows which have to be modified due to some mistakes in routing depth I had made for the windows frames. These mistakes shouldn't be noticeable when I'm finished but they just take some creativity and adjustments to the cabin plans.
Before I had gotten the trailer I had finished up the cabin floors and started working on the side support beams for the cabin walls. Additionally, I had to plan how to build the cabin so it was slow going. I'm not sticking to the plans for the windshield and some parts of the cabin sides. If you look at the picture of the finished boat, you'll see that the plans call for 3 sections of thickly framed squares of glass/plexi. I really don't like the look of this so I'm going for a curved car windshield look instead. We'll see if it actually turns out. Anyway, you can see the cabin side structures now.
Today I went and picked up my new trailer from the store. It was a 2 hour process but eventually we got home with it. It took me most of the day, but I ultimately figured out how to get the trailer under the boat w/o damaging the boat. First, I went to the Home Depot and picked up 4 castors and tried various ways of attaching them to the boat. After a few failures, I finally got he boat out of the garage. From there, it was a matter of replacing the castors w/ 2x4 blocks. I tried different things to lift the boat up, but ultimately I used the winch on the trailer to effectively pull the boat up and force the trailer under the boat. While half way though, I cut away some of the support structures under the boat. You have to see the pictures to understand what I mean:
The past weekend was non-productive cause it was spent in Vegas. However, I'm back now and I was able to get a few things done before I left and over the last two nights. I've mostly been working on the cabin interior support structures for the floor. It's surprisingly slow work. Here are some pictures of the new floor boards. I'm also trying to figure out how I put in a portable toilette into the starboard side of the cabin floor. I guess I should have taken some more pictures of the support structures. They're much more of a pain to put in than one would imagine.
Last week was spent in Hawaii which also included both weekends. Therefore little progress was made. However, this week was pretty good. I started by first cutting away the 4th frame beam over the top of the hull. This piece was moved forward, cut smaller, then attached to the inner carlings. This will act as the aft end of the boat's deck on the bow. From there I installed two pieces of pine on the front as added support for the tip of the decking over the bow. The big mistake I made was not shaping down the pine filler pieces as aggressively as I should have. Therefore, I ended up with a budge under the tip of the boat. By the time I realized that the front pieces were not the right shape, half the decking was installed and the glue was already starting to thicken. Ultimately, I ended up loosening some of the front screws and allowing a more gradual rise to the point of the boat. Once I put in the rub-rails I think this defect will be very well masked. Nonetheless it kind of upset me that I made this mistake. All in all, progress is good. From here, I will install the side decking and then start working on the side of the cabin before assembling the cabin structure.
Over the past week I've installed the Inner and Outer Carlings. These are effectively the rails on the inside of the hull which attach to the cabin walls, bulkhead, and the remaining walls of the boat. They are also the support structures for the decking on the top and sides of the boat. Additionally, the two halves of the cabin bulkhead (the main cabin wall) was assembled and put into place. The biggest problem I've noted here is that the plans didn't actually list the cabin and boat sole (floor) in the materials list. Therefore, I'm possibly going to run out before finishing the boat. The cabin door size was particularly difficult to figure out since it wasn't actually specified in the drawings. I think I have it right but it is surprisingly small.
Last week I visited Karen in DC so I didn't do any work. By the time I had gotten back, the paint had fully dried. Mary-Ellen, Karen's cousin had also moved in with us. She helped me run to home depot to get some lumber for the base of the boat and then helped me turn it over. The boat turned out to be a little heavier than I thought it would be, but we managed to turn it over in the garage with just the two of us. After building the base frame, we pulled the boat to the center of the garage, turned it up against the wall, shimmied it away from the wall, and then slid it down the side of the wall onto it's bottom. From there, we put it on it's newly constructed frame, disassembled the original support frame, and I hand planed down the edges of the planking. The work w/ the plane turned out to be very difficult because the fiberglass in the hull (which is now making my arms all itchy) kept dulling down the plane blades very quickly. Anyway, it's done now. In the next few days, I'll coat the entire inside with epoxy to waterproof the entire hull. This will keep the boat from rotting away from the inside.
Picture 1 - This is the frame that will support the boat after it is turned over. Picture 2 is the boat on this frame after being righted. Picture 3 is of Mary-Ellen. Picture 4 is the interior of the boat after being righted with the support structure still inside. Picture 5 is the interior without the support structure. Picture 6 shows the planking that needed to be planed down. Picture 7 is me in the boat after finishing for the night.
Over the last few days I had spent a lot of time applying epoxy and sanding lift strakes. From there, I was able to paint the boat after cleaning off and drying the hull w/ soap water. I ended up making multiple runs to home depot for paint and primer. The first one I got was an acrylic primer but I found out I am supposed to use 100% latex primer and paint for the boat. I'm using exterior household paint since numerous people have said that it works very well for boats that don't sit in the water 24/7. The key is that the latex paint doesn't have any of the anti-fouling agents (i.e. poisons) in the paint to prevent marine growth. However, the paint should be more than durable enough and has the benefit of being very easy to apply for touch up purposes. Lastly, it's about 1/8th the cost of boat paint... so that's a major plus too. I won't be working on the boat for another week or so since I'm traveling. When I get back, it will be time to turn it over to start working on the cabin and decking.
This past week I've been working on the lift strakes that run along the bottom of the boat. The pieces were first cut from some un-surfaced 12' 5/4" thick Oak boards. After cutting them out, they had to be cut along the width of each piece to get the right angle along the bottom of the boat. This was done w/ a jig on the band saw. One of the bands aw blades actually broke which set me back a few days.
Attaching them to the boat was a lot of work. I had to hand plane the front taper so that they attached to boat alright. Fitting them along the front of the boat particularly hard. The reason for the trouble is that the lift strake were attached to the lengthwise structural beams which stopped short of the front of the hull where the lift strakes ended. Here's a few pictures. In the First you can see where the underlying beams stop. In the remaining pictures you can see the list strakes after they were finished today.
I'm quite certain that I actually updated this blog last week, but I don't see the entry anymore. I actually cropped pictures and everything so I think my automatic back up utility must have had a glitch. Oh well. It could have been operator error. Anyway, in the last post, I had actually finished all the fiberglass work. Here are some pictures:
The first picture shows the side being prepared for fiberglass. The second shows the epoxy after it was applied in 3 thick coats. The last shows what it looked like after about 5 days of sanding. It took a lot of time and patience to smooth out the epoxy after it was hardened. From there, I had to create a few more batches of epoxy putty to fill in some shallow parts in the hull. After that, I recoated the sides which I felt were a little thin. Finally, I had to again sand the sides down. Anyway, it's pretty much done now but it took about 2 weeks time to do all that. I also haven't had too much time to work on the boat since work has been very busy and I briefly got a little sick.
Last night Samantha came over and helped me cut 4 very long pieces of 5/4" oak. These are going to be used for Lift Strakes along the bottom of the boat. There will be two 3" wide strakes on each side of the keel which will attach to the bottom of the boat. These will keep the boat going straight when it's plowing through the water. They will also help the boat start "planing" once it's reaches the right speed. The problem here is that these very long square beams need to be hand cut down to long triangles so that they attach to the boat. the tops (which become the part in contact w/ the water) will have to be as flat as possible when compared to the level of the keel. From there, these pieces are coated with epoxy, glued and screwed down to the hull, and then eventually painted with the rest of the hull.
For paint, I've decided to try and use standard exterior 100% latex house paint. From what I hear, this works just great for wooden boats and costs a whole lot less than boat paint. This also makes for very quick and cheap touch ups when scratches occur from the trailer. I'll post more once I get the list strakes shaped and almost ready for attachment.
I'm almost done with the fiberglass! I've done the two bottom panels and two side panels. All that's left is the transom. From there, I have to put on 2 coats of epoxy to build up the thickness of the coating and sand it down till everything is smooth. After that, I have to wait a week before I apply paint to allow for the epoxy to fully cure. The fiberglass process isn't too difficult, but it takes a little speed and patience. You have to soak the fiberglass cloth with epoxy after you lay it down on the boat and then spread out the epoxy until the fiberglass cloth is evenly filled with epoxy and stuck to the boat. The trick is getting this done in 30 minutes before the epoxy is no longer useable. Here are some pictures:
February 17th, 2006 - Friday
Lots of stuff has been happening over the past few weeks. Unfortunately none of it had to do w/ the boat. We did a lot of traveling for work including a week for a sales conference in So. Cal. On the boat, I've gone through and filled all the little holes and dents and then I've also sanded down all the edges to approximately 3/8th inch radius curves. The Boat is REALLY ready for fiberglass. I may not do much this weekend since Karen is in town and will be leaving to DC again soon.
February 5th, 2006 - Sunday
I did a ton of work over the weekend. The hull is all done now and the screw holes have been filled and sanded. I've also sanded the bulk of the hull and it's ready for fiberglass. Unfortunately, there's a lot of work stuff going on in the next two weeks so I may not get very far on the fiberglass. There are also some minor divots, holes, and gaps to fill before I fiberglass it. The picture looks pretty much the same as the first one from Feb 1st. I'll take more and post them once they look visibly different.
February 1st, 2006 - Wednesday
I've fallen behind working on the boat over the last couple of weeks. I've been out traveling for work for most of last week and I spent most of this week catching up and starting taxes. Nonetheless, there has been some progress. The hull is almost complete! All that remains is the very last segment just next to the transom of the boat. After that I will have to prepare the surface and do start fiberglass the entire hull. My brother got me a radio for my birthday this past weekend. Not I just have to turn this thing over so I can install it!
January 21st, 2006 - Saturday
This past week Sam helped me put in the bottom plank on the starboard side. I didn't bother taking pictures yet because it looks just like the one below but with a little more wood. I am also running short on screws so I've placed an order for some more from bolt depot. They are fairly special silicon bronze screws so I don't have many sources to order from. This week is also looking very busy so I suspect there won't be much to show for a few weeks to come. After I finish putting all the planking on I'll have the painstaking task of filling all the screw holes and sanding down all the surfaces. This will take a few days in itself. Stay tuned!
I ran into a snag on Thursday night. When I was putting the last 2 screws of the port side bow's bottom planking, it cracked right near the keel. That really sucked because it left me w/ very few options. I quickly took a piece of oak, sanded it down to the right shape, covered it w/ glue, backed up the crack and screwed in a bunch of screws to securely attach it to the oak. I also filled the crack w/ as much glue as possible. A few days later I sanded it down to the right shape and I think it will hold. I have pictures below. Since then I've also put in the butt joint pieces on the edge of both of these panels. The rest of them should be relatively straight forward.
The first picture is after I've sanded the crack down. the second is the top view w/ the backing piece sticking out. The 3rd is the current view of the boat showing overall progress.
Progress has been slow over the last few weeks. On the evening of the last entry we went down to San Diego through Sunday the 1st. Over this past week I've started putting in some more of the planking. The most challenging pieces are the two bottom pieces that meet at the bow. These are difficult because they are a substantial angles but they also have to butt directly up to the side panels. Therefore, you have to get as close as you can with the general shape, then hand fit these into place. Inevitably, after you get them into the right shape and remove them before applying glue, something happens so that after you apply the glue and start fitting the piece back in, it doesn't quite fit. Anyway, here are some pictures of the piece now that it's in place.
The other thing that happened last Thursday was that my trailer was stolen. Someone had come by during the day on Thursday with bolt cutters. They had to cut the lock in order to take it away, but I guess they really wanted it. Oh well. The problem isn't the cost of the trailer so much as finding another one to replace it. It was a great deal and buying a new one will probably cost over a grand. Bummer!
The last two days have been pretty good. I spent a few hours each day putting on planking. The tough part was assembling the joint between the two pieces of plywood along the starboard side of the hull. The short backing piece of plywood was difficult to bend into form while fastening it to he front panel that was already installed.
The first picture below is the front port panel. The second is the starboard view w/ the second panel in place. the 3rd is final butt joint for the two pieces and the last is the bow, where one panel laps the other and has been cut down to a final point.
December 26th - Monday
Just got back from a week+ in Toronto. I got a new captains hat from my father in-law.
Sam came over and helped me put the first plank on the boat. I spent Wednesday night getting the shape of the first piece right. It's a pain since you have to align the entire sheet to the boat, which is very much curved. Anyway, check out the pictures below. Only something like 12 more panels and I'll have a hull. The first picture is of the Hull. The second is of me. The 3rd is the shavings from all the fairing. The 4th is the two 7 inch bolts I put in through the Stem and Keel.
December 13th - Monday
This past week has been very slow going but I think I got a lot done. I spent the week fairing the chine logs and the sheer clamps (the bottom edge of the frame). This has all been hand work, but I've also had to pull out and re-countersink a number of the screws. This was a big issue because of the softness of the screws that I'm using. They may never corrode in salt water, but they are very soft metal and the tops of them always get shredded by the screwdriver heads. I've found that I can set up the block plane to really take material off the sides very quickly, but if you go too deep, you get too much resistance or you start tearing out the grain of the wood. Anyway, I should be done fairing the wood this week. From there, I'll smooth down the bolts holding the keel together, start sanding the frames and the beams, then I'll apply a coat of epoxy to seal the wood. From there, I'll start putting on the planking of the boat.
Today I received my outboard motor. It was far larger than I thought it would be, but I guess I'm glad they over packed it. Unfortunately, the driver was over 2 hours late and didn't even come with the right equipment to unload the engine from his truck. I had to help him get this down off the lift gate which was no easy task. The total weight of the motor w/ it's packaging was 450 pounds.
After unpacking this for about an hour, it still turned out to be much larger
than I imagined. I'm not sure what this is going to look like on my
boat... assuming it'll float.
The last thing I worked on today was shaving down the Chine Logs to allow for attachment of the bottom planking. This is going to take well over a week of hand labor as I have to do the same on both sides, the stem, the sheer clamps, and some miscellaneous work on the frames. I assume that the boat won't look a lot different in the pictures, but it's looking a lot more like a boat once the curves are cut into the square beams. Check out tonight's results... It's difficult to see, but the picture on the right shows a flat beam running along the bottom port side length of the boat. This used to be a square corner where it is now flat and smooth.
Over the weekend, I put in the the sheer clamps. These are the two piece laminations of 3/8" oak that run around the top of the Hull. The top being nearest to the ground in these pictures. This was a non-trivial exercise in trying to laminate the two pieces of wood while getting them around the bends. It would have been a lot easier if I had a larger garage so that I could attach the pieces at the bow and then bend them back along the aft portion of the boat. Anyway, it's done now and they turned out pretty good.
This past week I put in the long beams that hold the shape of the hull. These beams all had to be planed down to the right size and then glued and screwed into place.
Unfortunately I made a small mistake by mounting the corner rail on the transom
a little too low. This would leave a gap when the base frame is attached
to the beam. Fortunately, this is recoverable since I just glued in an
extra length of wood, effectively thickening the beam towards the transom.
This however will require a lot of work to hand plane down all the extra wood
material.
Just before thanksgiving I put in the the keel of the boat. In order to do this, I had to make a longer saw table bed so that I could cut the very long pieces of lumber. The keel is made of two laminated sheets of 5/4" oak. The keel is the lumber on the top of the frame or the center line bottom of the boat. In the front and back of the keel, I had to plane down the shape of the keel. You can see the shavings from the work w/ the hand plane.
Over the last few days, I have put in the Chine Logs. The Chine logs are the long thick frame members that run along the side of the boat. This is where the side paneling and the bottom paneling will meet along the hull. The bending of the chine logs was very challenging. One of the pieces (on the left - port side) had a defect in the wood and actually broke in half in one very quick and loud bang. That's the first picture below. From there, I decided to soak the both sides with water soaked cloths (picture 2). I had to chop off the broken link and fix it with a butt joint. The issue here was that I had to manually shave down the backing piece so that I could retain the curve through the joint (third pic below). The most difficult part was getting the chine logs through the last frame in picture 5 below. Once I was able to get them to the right height, I finally bolted them into the stem.
I was traveling a lot this week, but I managed to make a lot of progress this weekend. I sold the boat that was on my trailer. It was a chore in itself since we had to put the boat on blocks to transfer it to the guys trailer. Then we found out that the V Hull of the boat was a little too deep for his trailer so we had to modify his trailer. Anyway, it's done and I now have a trailer that I can use once I finish the Hull of my boat.
I also made a mistake this past week. I think it's recoverable, but
nonetheless it's a mistake:
In this picture of the Transom (the back of the boat) the cuts weren't supposed
to go all the way through the Transom Frame in addition to the actual plywood
backing of the transom. As a result, I will have to ensure a very tight
fit of the horizontal structural members of the hull and then glue and fill the
gaps with Epoxy. Also, I will probably put a thin lining of pure oak along
the base of the transom to ensure won have any future leakage. Other than
that, I was successful in mounting the frame members along the horizontal
stringer beams. These are all at right angles and perfectly vertical.
I spent most of the weekend down in San DIego so I didn't get a chance to do much. However, before I left on Friday i was able to go out and get a postal scale at Walmart for 20 dollars. This is a great little device because it allows me to mix the Epoxy by weight and it is accurate up to .1 oz. I've been able to start assembling the frames but it has been slow going. The epoxy is relatively difficult to work with until you get used to how viscous it is. The Epoxy comes with a filler that you can use to make the stuff more like wood-glue as opposed to super glue (like water). Anyway, I've started to figure out the in's and out's of mixing and using enough epoxy for the job at hand. The trick is preparing enough parts so that you can apply glue and assemble the pieces in the span of 1/2 hour. Otherwise, the Epoxy hardens and becomes unusable. Alternatively I find myself making a mess cause I'm mixing glue every 15 minutes.
3 Frame Pieces and the Boat's Stem can be seen here.
I made a lot of progress tonight... at least it's something worth taking a picture of. The building structure and the main stringers are in place now and I can start assembling the actual frame pieces. Once those are assembled they will be mounted on the following frame. The building structure is mounted w/ two bolts into the concrete.
A lot of progress was made over the past weekend. The frame pieces of the boat are almost completed. The next step will be to assemble these pieces and then mount them onto the stringers. The stringers are 2 thick parallel beams of oak which hold the hull frame pieces together. Yesterday Karen and I went up to the Alameda fairgrounds and picked up the trailer and 17' boat. The boat hull is in good condition but the insides are pretty trashed. I haven't decided whether to salvage parts and dump the thing or whether I should just try and sell it.
This is a picture of me cutting the stringers.
I received all of the oak lumber for the boat yesterday. I've since managed to make a single cut of one piece of 2"x8"x12' oak. These two parts will make up main stringers for the boat's hull. Unfortunately there is a slight curve to beams and I'll have to figure out if I can just put them under tension so that they are parallel. I've also placed the order for my motor now and I take delivery of a trailer & 17' boat on Saturday. This means most of the costs for building this boat have been determined. I'll post the total costs eventually so people can figure out if they want to build one at some point.
Structural Plans for the boat
I received the first shipment of the lumber that will be required to build this boat. The first shipment consists of all the Plywood necessary for the deck, planking, and internal structural components. The rest of the white oak will be coming next week but in the meantime I can go ahead and get started with some of the cutting this weekend.
I've decided to undertake a new project to build a boat that I can use for both Fishing, SCUBA, and cruising. The boat is based off a Glen-L Plan called the Carioca. Check the following page from the Glen-L website for the Specifications. If you're wondering why I chose a 17' boat, it's because it's the biggest boat I can build in the garage. The original plan was for a 22' cruiser w/ a 6' high cabin. Next time I'll remember to buy a bigger house to hold all my hobbies.
