25¢ Words

Joining and Naming

The boat is now joined, reinforced, bulkheaded. It is architecturally complete. And it has a name (suggested by my dad, in fine How I Met My Wife fashion).

I’ll let the epoxy cure while I’m in New Zealand, then return to varnish the boat and complete my quiver of paddles.

Summer, Winter, Fall

My plans for the next few months have come into focus. I’ll spend the first half of July finishing up the boat and the second half putting it to use. I’ll return to Austin in time to catch up with friends before they move away, then spend the bulk of August in New Zealand. After which I suppose I’ll call the sabbatical complete and move on to the next big thing.

Kara is accompanying me to New Zealand. We’ll spend a week on a farm stay, two weeks touring the south island, and tack on a long weekend in Melbourne. Aside from a few days in Wellington we’ll leave the north island untouched, as it would be more enticing during a warmer season.

Mini-Vacation

My experiments with magnets and glue have been successful. I have a couple of days’ worth of fiberglass reinforcements in store, then it’s time to join the deck and the hull.

I’m off for a mini-vacation in Georgia — a visit with friends in Atlanta followed by a trip to the International Disc Golf Center.

Shoptime

Fireflies are blanketing the hill down to the lake as I write this.

I got the boat back into the shop about a week ago, then pretty quickly tackled two of the more daunting aspects of the project. First was the cockpit. I cut the hole, installed the coaming wall, epoxied on the rim, trimmed things to fit, sanded and sanded some more, and glassed the whole assembly. That culminated yesterday in fitting the sprayskirt onto the deck. Which worked, happily.

Today I cut the hatches. Given that I’ll use the cutouts as the hatch covers, both sides of the line mattered. The initial pocket cut was tricky against the slippery radius of the deck, but once the blade penetrated the rest of the cut went smoothly. Next I’ll inset magnets into the hatch covers and mold a fiberglass shelf to hold the covers flush to the deck.

While I’m enjoying this time in the shop, I’m eager to get the boat on the water!

Back on the Road Again

I’m heading back to Tennessee to finish the kayak. At the moment I’m in Arkansas, feasting on a free breakfast of pallid yellow items.

Sam Baker

Sam Baker, Juarez (A Song to Himself)

He thinks who in the world would write a song like that?

Back in March I went to the eleventh annual Townes Van Zandt Birthday Salute at the Cactus Cafe. It was a great show and a good showcase for musicians I hadn’t heard of — a number of performers took the stage for just a song or two apiece. For me the discovery of the night was Sam Baker. His vivid lyrics and distinctive delivery immediately captured my attention. I made it over to Waterloo not too long ago to get his two albums. After living with them for a while, I like his sound all the more. You can hear three cuts from Pretty World at Baker’s MySpace site.