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In the Beginning...
Man looked upon the face of the earth and saw much water, and he turned to woman and said "Let us build a boat so that we may float upon the surface of the water." And woman took a bite of a fruit and said unto man, "You're naked!" And man did come to know the woman, and their past forty days and forty nights and then they began to build the boat. And multitudes did gather upon YouTube, FaceBook and in Yahoo Forums, and cast disparaging remarks upon the man and woman, saying unto them. Why wilt thou build a boat when so many are for sale used, and why such a big boat, don't thou knowest that ye shall surly never finish, your talents will have been squandered and your union destroyed? You shall end up is sackcloth and ashes like Job. But the man and woman said unto them. Behold, we build a boat for the best reason on earth -- it pleases us. And then there arose from the darkness a following of the free and enlightened souls, kindred spirits that raised up their light, like a shinning beacon upon a hill. And they showed the man and woman the path to completion. And there was much rejoicing in the land and woman did cast aside her fig leaf and man and woman did come to know each other.
August, 2007
In August of 2007, we attended the Metal Boat Society conference in Bellingham WA, did a week of sailing around the San Juan islands, Then when to Comox Valley on Vancouver Island and met Paul Liebenberg to see his 65ft origami steel, twin keel, junk design drawn up by Jack Carson who is also a local part of the year. See "Paul's 65ft Origami" for details and photos. Paul's boat is a perfect example of what Kay and I have been looking for and Jack Carson is a very knowledgably and flexible designer so he is drawing up plans for similar boat for us. Our boat will have also be a junk design with junk rig sails, a cargo hull for a shop and a full pilot house. |
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Originally we were planning to build in 3/8 inch aluminum, but that was switched to steel because I did not want to delay another year in order for the cash flow to catch up to the plans. You can debate aluminum or steel for days, but the bottom line is that for a work boat, each have their good side. At Jacks suggestion we also dropped plans for a center lifting keel in exchange for twin bilge keels. The draft will be 5 1/2 ft, but it is a simpler hull to build and and maintain.
To create our plans, Jack started with a piece of paper that had the 64ft hull drawn on it in 1" to 1' scale. He then made some changes, transferred the drawing to sign board, cut it out, folded it up, glued the seams, took measurements, ran some calculations, adjusted the original drawing and did it again. Three models latter he was done. No CAD, no CAM, no Computer, "very caveman" as he said.
You can read more about Jack and Monica in a Latitude38 article:
www.latitude38.com/changes/Changes05-05.html