Archive for November, 2007
Friday, November 30th, 2007
Honey, I shrunk the boat…
I had to say it. Come on, how can you resist? Anyway, I managed to get the cover on myself but if I could do it again I’d want one other person help me with wrestling the 40# floppy bundle of plastic, especially when you have to some how throw the entire bundle on top of your 6′ tall frames… Once I got it there it was no problem though.
I didn’t have time to really shrink the whole boat so for now I used an electric heat gun to sort of tack the whole cover in place. If you heat up two pieces of shrink wrap and slam them together, they vulcanize and become one piece. I put a rope over the shrink wrap, around the whole boat, and then vulcanized it all the way around. The heat gun worked great for this purpose but to shrink the whole thing I’m going to need to come up with something gas fired. But for now the cover is on and is water tight. Considering how much simpler this cover could have been, and how little time it took me to do it, I don’t see why people pay $400-$500 to get this done.
The cost break down was:
- $200 for enough 8 mil (most boat yards use 5 or 6 mil by the way) for 3 covers
- $147 for the PVC (I’ll recoop $45 of this when I return some of the pipe)
- $38 in lumber and screws
- recycled rope
- old wire
- a bunch of time
total is $340 for all materials and $206 if you were to count that I only used 1/3 of the roll of shrink. Oh, and that $400-$500 estimate is just to have the plastic shrink wrap put on and shrunk, you have to make the frame… Not bad me thinks.
Thursday, November 29th, 2007
It’s a bloat!
“Bloat” was the best sounding version of the melding of the words “boat” and “blimp”. The other two were “bomp” or “blat” so I went with bloat, it also seems rather fitting considering how much fatter the frame will make Hobyn.
Monday, November 26th, 2007
Framing the winter cover
Before I shrink the boat, I have to frame it. I decided to go with a frame work made of 1 1/4″ PVC pipes attached to the stantion bases. So that the stantions themselves don’t act like levers as the frame moves with the wind, I took them all out and replaced them with 18″ pieces of pvc pipe. These new plastic stantions will allow the frame to move in the wind and don’t put any stress on the bases. The 1 1/4″ pvc is then screwed to the 3/4″, the 3/4″ is screwed into the bases, and the screws are tied to the bases with 250# test dacron (see, failed kite projects do get second chances). The pvc ribs will have a 1 1/4″ ridgepole at the top and each side will have 3 stringers made of 5/8″ x 1 1/2″ x 40′ douglas fir (aka ripped down homedepot 2×4’s). The whole thing will be clinched together with bailing wire with help from a Clamptite tool. Well, that’s the plan anyway.
Sunday, November 25th, 2007
Operation Mast Down (part 2)
Ok remember when I said this wasn’t a one man job, well it turns out it wasn’t a two man job either. My little sister had nothing going on today so she was roped (no pun intended) into helping out. We started out by aligning the rails to the stands and the mast while I had Julie soap the hell out of the cars so they wouldn’t bind on the rails.
Saturday, November 24th, 2007
Operation Mast Down (part 1)
The stands are built and ready to go, the cars have been made up, and the parts for the rails are all assembled. Tomorrow we take the sucker down!
Friday, November 23rd, 2007
The second dismasting of Hobyn
Well its the day after Turkey Day and I’m doing just what everyone else is doing… Thinking about how to take a 300 lb. 45 ft aluminum mast off a boat with a beam of 10 feet that is 12 off the ground. What do you mean you’re shopping or sleeping off dinner?
Wednesday, November 21st, 2007
I’ve got an engine in my basement
I built up the engine stand just before Thanksgiving and took advantage of the broad shoulders of my little brother visiting from college to move it. You never realize just how much something weighs until you need to get it down a flight of steps and through a narrow door. Thanks Andy.
Monday, November 19th, 2007
M4-30 Road trip! (Part 2)
Remember that trip I took to get the boat stands? Well the trip to Virgina was the direct opposite; no moments of severe indecision, no lonely grueling hours through rainy weather, no busted transmissions… you know, the little things.
The trip started off at 10 am with Yinna and I traveling from NY to NJ to pick up my car, pack some snacks and haul butt down the highway. Sadly due to over confidence in both of our abilities to actually get to places on time, the departure time was eventually moved to 11 am. We then spent almost another hour fiddling with the GPS. Final departure time: 12 noon. I really didn’t mind except that we would be traveling over the amazing Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel at night instead of the day. Bummer.
The ride down was entirely uneventful except for watching of increasing fuel prices through the states. It became a fascination of mine to keep track of the prices and compare them to the prices of the next state and ponder as to why the prices differed. The only one that really stumps me is the lack of a price gap between full and self service stations. Not only do self service stations not exist in NJ (*turns off car and sits wondering why no one is coming around to ask what kind and of how much gass I wanted*) but it seems that they make a ton more sense! Pump your own gas and leave, no waiting for the attendant to service the other 5 cars before coming back to you. NJ is weird sometimes.
Wednesday, November 14th, 2007
M4-30 Road trip!
Well, after talking with Duff about his M4-30, I’ve decided that it’s worth the 800 mile trip to Norfolk, Virginia to pick it up. Even better, It just happens that my friend Nikki lives just outside of Norfolk and it’s her birthday! I don’t think I could have planned it better if I tried. Yinna will be coming with me for this trip and we’ll be leaving on Friday. If all goes well (and it will), I’ll have a 24 hp fresh water cooled diesel by next Monday! Yay!
Monday, November 12th, 2007
The great galley stove dilema
Hobyn came equipped with the most basic of food preparation amenities. A single deep bar sink with a hand pumped salt water faucet, a gigantic but super inefficient foam filled ice box, and a decrepit 2 burner alcohol stove. A couple of quick searches online and at the local hardware store will satisfy the first two problems but the last is a long, on going headache. The problem is not that the alcohol stove is ugly or old, it’s just that alcohol as a fuel just doesn’t make too much sense to me. Not only is it the coolest burning fuel available, but it’s also by far the most expensive per unit of heat. So why it is used? Theoretically alcohol is a “safe” fuel because it can be put out with water. The funny thing is that there is another fuel available that you can put a lit match out in, yet it has been shunned by the boating, camping and every other community (except for every other country in the world) as a stinky, troublesome fuel. This is just one reason why I love kerosene.