The Adventure Begins!!!!!!

Today, I commenced work on my Pocketship!!!  With the varnish flowing on the Pygmy kayak, I decided that I could do some cleanup in the shop, buy some plywood, and get started on the sailboat. 

I bought a bunch of plywood in the morning.  I didn't buy it all yet, just enough to get started.  I haven't bought the six sheets of 1/4" for the bottoms and sides yet, or the 3/4" for the transom.  However, the transom situation will soon be resolved as a have a nice piece of teak plywood on order.  Sapele was available, but, strangely enough, the teak was less expensive.  I think it'll look pretty nice!

Cleaning up the shop took most of the day. But by the early evening, I wrapped it up, moved a couple of pieces of plywood inside the house (figured I could mark 'em there as well as anywhere), threw another coat of varnish on the 'yak, and got to work.


 

Step 1, put on appropriate music.  Wanting to get started out on the right foot, I dug out all the sailing songs I could find, lead off by "Full Sail" by the Beach Boys...an extraordinarily pretty song.  Two more Beach Boys songs on the list, the bluesy "Sail On, Sailor", and the classic "Sloop John B." 

I followed the method described in the manual to mark the parts: lay out the pattern, prick the lines with an awl, pull the pattern up, and play connect the dots on the plywood.

I managed to get the first piece of plywood marked up tonight.  My plan is to mark all the wood I have now before letting the sawdust fly.  I have to admit though, having one board marked, I feel a strong urge to change those plans and start cutting right away!  We'll see what happens.

One more note.  I did some shopping for material for spars today whilst I was at the hardware store.  I can get exactly was I need in either spruce or fir.  The fir is about 1/5 the cost of the spruce.  As far as I am concerned, spruce is absolutely the best material for spars out there.  But, given the price differential, I'll probably go with fir.  The manual strongly implies that it is impossible to get wood suitable for a mast in 16' lengths.  Poor Easterners.  Here in the NW,  the biggest problem is deciding which species you want your clear, straight, air-dried, vertical grained sixteen footers in.