Flipped (Over)
Hotter than a firecracker and dead low water. Anyone with any
sense is out on the sands dabbling in the water. Even the Shoreys
have flown in from Amsterdam to cool it on their houseboat, and
the anchorage is a desert of empty moorings. Everyone's gone downriver
for the Fabulous Fourth.
Jet Skier
Skegged
We did our celebrating on Friday night. Invited a crowd to lay
hands on this vessel, and flip it. Finished the carpentry last
week. Through-bolted the spruce skeg to the keelson with hand-threaded
3/8 inch bronze bolts. Trickier than I remember, starting a die
on bronze rod, but I managed to get the nuts to spin on, eventually.
Seth helped me ratchet the darlings down snug, so they squatted
the bedding compound.
Next came the shoes. One by three inch oak, bent on from the forward
transom aft. The center shoe running all the way to the bitter
end of the skeg, and screwed down. Then two sister shoes in line
with the sister keelsons, running from the forward transom to
where the lines flatten out. These were screw-fastened from inside
the hull, to provide stiffening in the forward curve where there
are no sister keelsons. Peggy helped me fasten the sister shoes
by standing on them, holding them to the curvature, while I crawled
around with a screw gun underneath.
Shoed
Inside a straw house
The day she was shoon was homemaking day in town. Dean and Clay,
the young couple up the Carding Machine Road who built a straw
house last year, threw a frame-raising party to put up a bigger
post-and-beam structure. A old-style barn-raising, with contemporary
techniques.
Easy to find the place. The road was lined with youth machines
wearing exotic plates and green stickers. Kayaks strapped on the
roof. Big dogs tied to the bumper. Down in the woods a full crew
was mortising and tenoning with little chainsaws and big slicks.
Part of a workshop run by Fox Maple Timber Framing, a local outfit,
who'd had a gang on the site all week, learning the game, and
prepping the timbers.
Timbers
Mortising
That Saturday morning it looked more like a workshop in counter-culture
reminiscence, with all the familiar chaos. Only a few timbers
seemed ready, and the squads of helpers were chipping furiously,
kids frolicking, dogs chasing tail. Lots of smiles, but it looked
like a long day.
When I came back in mid-afternoon the hired boom truck was spudded
in beside the block foundation, but the boys were still wrestling
with sills. One bunch was mauling a gable end on the ground with
a big synthetic orange convincer and an array of come-alongs.
The precision joinery was marginally off, and they were beating
it apart, doctoring the details, and pounding it together again.
A bit more tension in the air, and the boom truck operator getting
some very expensive nap time.
Posts up
Raising
As the day declined we came back to gawk. The corner posts were
up. The boom had a girt timber swayed up. The pot luck was well
gobbled. I'd anticipated lending a hand, but there was an abundance
of young muscle being flexed, so I took a few snaps, saluted the
industry, and decamped for a housewarming at Angie and Eric's.
Another young couple settling into the local life.
This Spring a contractor turned the lumber room up over the Town
Landing Place into a modern apartment, and Angie and Eric and
Jeanine and Dianne and Allie have been putting the finish touches
on it all month. It's quite magical. Under that tin mansard they've
opened up a soaring skylit space, filled it with Angie's found
furniture, and Eric's artwork, plants galore. A beautiful home,
which seems incongruous over the lunch counter, and all the sweeter
for it. The regulars at the restaurant were invited to join friends
and family to celebrate occupancy.
Town Landing Place
Independance Day
And a changing of the guard. Today was Jeanine's last day behind
the counter. After nine and a half years of feeding us, coddling
us, listening to our gripes, and laughing with us at the absurdities,
Jeanine has turned the golden spatula over to her daughter, Angie,
and Eric, her rock. They signed the papers this week, and everyone
is a bit shaky. Jeanine has a bad case of separation anxiety.
She's been at the center of town so long, not seeing all the faces
will seem like isolation. And we'll be confused, too. Angie and
Eric now have to juggle all the minutia of a marginal business,
AND put up with our nosiness. Guess we'll have to start calling
the place "Angie's." Or "EricnAngie's?"
Around 10 PM the boom truck rolled through town, turned up the
hill, and gunned it. They'd actually gotten most of the timbers
raised and joined before everyone fell down. We came home in the
moonlight, and I admired the breaching whale in our dooryard.
Pretty grand. But doesn't something seem crooked? Isn't that skeg
a bit short? A quick trip to the shop, to look at the lines, and
my heart sank. The skegs of these babies DON'T run level with
the flat of the bottom at all. They slant down deeper, giving
the rudder more bite. I had just assumed they were built so the
boat could lie flat on the bottom, if grounded out, not pitched
forward. I was wrong.
Hull
