And so it starts

I've been reading Bolger books and messing around with boats for at least 40 of my 51 years.  It all started with rehabbing an old Glen-L TNT I bought for $100.00, moved through plastic kayaks to an aluminum fishing sled, and then moving onto a 36ft 1967 Grandbanks Woody trawler and living there for 8 years.  While on the big boat I had an El Toro sailing dinghy, various plastic dinghies, another plastic kayak and finally a 3m Marples sea clipper tri.  I still have the sea clipper as well as a 15ft West Wight potter I purchased last year.  I've done rehab and repair and modification on all of my boats.  I built a cambered junk for the sea clipper tri that worked out great.

About 2 years ago i sold the Grand banks and bought a 1000ft2 garage/shop where they threw in a house.  I've been wanting to actually build a boat since the early days,  and 95% of the reason for the purchase of this particular property was to give me the room to do that in comfort.

What boat?  That was a long time to figure.  I love multihulls, but all of the storage, trailering and accommodation issues kept me from going down that road.  I love the Potter, but hate the way the centerboard destroys the cabin and how all the weight is forced to the rear of the boat with the classic cockpit.  The "Modern" sloop rig is also a pain in the ass to set up.

Needless to say Bolger and Michalak have come up with many boats that address these issues.  I mostly sail on the Columbia and Willamette rivers up here in the PNW, so protection from the weather and capsize are pretty paramount.  I love Layden's paradox design, but that's a complicated boat for a first total build, and I'd like to be done in a year or less.  Then I saw Michalak's Robbsboat and set out to find all of the info I could on the net.

There's not much.  I haven't found a single picture of a completed boat, let alone a sailing review.  I love the design though.  I ordered the plans from Duckworks, they arrived last monday, and I've found where I'm going to buy my plywood and lumber.  I'm picking up enough to get started this Saturday.

And so it starts.....

First thing is a 45 degree glue off between Gorilla glue and Titebond III.  I image I'll use a bit of both.  I'm trying to avoid epoxy as much as possible due to cost and sensitivity.

Next is checking out my cheap table saw to see if i can cut an accurate Bevel.  The gauge on the saw itself is Sh***.  I took a protractor to the blade with my eyeball, and did a test cut on a good piece of Doug Fir stud that was laying around the garage.  It came out perfect!  This is step #1 on the building  specs.  I've got my first Part built!  Jim has this full size on the drawings, and the angles match perfectly when I laid it on.

Stay tuned........