The Floating Bunny Project is Officially Underway!

Hello to all my (extremely) faithful fans!

After a chaotic academic year, I finally got my undergraduate degree and an MCAT score I can be proud of!  Also in the last year, like an unfinished hull left to the elements, the Makeshift Armada Project fell into disrepair before she even had a chance to set sail on her maiden voyage.  Honestly, even I thought this dream might become dead in the water, but out of despair came a new hope!

Upon returning home for the summer, Gorman invited me to go sailing with him on his beautiful, strip-planked sailboat.  Gorman is my neighbor and an expert when it comes to sailing/boatbuilding/all-things-mechanical.  He also strikes an amazing resemblance to Gandalf in both his looks, voice, and demeanor!  Anyway, we went sailing and just talking with him got my nautical imagination kicked into full gear.

To add fuel to the fire, I also realized that this summer would probably be the last chance I would have in the near future (or maybe ever) to get this dream into action under the tutelage of someone as skilled as Gorman.  The reason(s) being that my mother will be moving in the next year as well as the fact that after this coming year, I will be up to my ears in medical school coursework.  I realized that if I didn't get this ball rolling now, I probably never would.

After some technical advice from Gorman, I set out to look for a boatbuilding kit online.  Although I originally planned on only buying the plans and cutting wood myself, I no longer have access to the required tools (namely a large band saw).  Instead, we decided to go with a boatbuilding kit in which the wood is already cut.  But no worries, I can assure you that cutting the wood is only the tip of the iceberg!

After surfing the web, I was happened upon the Chesapeake Light Craft website: www.clcboats.com.  It's the best source of boatbuilding kits I've found, and they have a great assortment of kits ranging from kayaks to sailboats.  My criteria for the boat was the following:

1.  Price: The entire project including trailer, etc must fall under $4,000 (Graduation gifts)
2.  Versatility:  Although the boat should primarily be a sailboat, I wanted something that could easily be converted into a motorboat/rowboat as well (for fishing in narrow channels)
3.  Payload: The boat has to be able to hold 2-3 people comfortably
4.  Rigging:  The boat has to have a jib (makes sailing a lot more fun in my opinion).

As if made to fit my specifications, I discovered the Passagemaker Dinghy.  It's 11'7" long, has a beam of 4'8", and has a payload of 650 lbs!  It is a gunter sloop rig.  A gunter rig has a mainsail that is quadrilateral in shape and is attached to the boom on the bottom and a spar called a gaff on the top that sticks up almost as a parallel extension of the mainmast.  A sloop rig implies that the boat is rigged fore-and-aft (has a jib) and also that the position of the mainmast is located further towards the bow of the boat in comparison to a cutter rig, which has a more centrally located mast and often has a bowsprit (a spar that juts out from the bow of the boat).  Therefore a gunter sloop rig is a combination of these two rigging types.

Because the boat  is versatile and can hold a decent amount of cargo, the drawback is a minor speed decrease.  To me, this is a fair trade-off because I've never been much for racing anyway.  The Passagemaker is wider and shorter than most racing boats of its size and the max speed of a sailboat hull is directly proportional to the waterline length (LWL) of the boat.  This shortcoming is somewhat made up for, however, by the large squarut e-footage of the sails (78 sq. ft.).

Anyway, now for the big news.  Today, I actually bought the hull kit, so this project is officially and definitely going to happen!  I'll be posting pictures as soon as the shipment arrives (within a week hopefully!)

Blue skies and fair winds to all! (Ok, a little rain might not hurt)
Nick


Nautical Phrase of the Day: Posh
Just thinking this word conjures up images of annoying valley girls in my mind, and in all actuality this isn't too far from the original meaning of the word.  The word posh was originally an acronym (P.O.S.H.) which stood for "portside out, starboard home".  In the times of British colonization in India and "the Orient", many Brits travelled to these destinations for leisure by ship.  The true blue bloods would pay extra for a coveted P.O.S.H. ticket, which meant they would have a room on the portside of the ship leaving England and a starboard room coming home.  The reason for this was that a) the views were better as their room would always be facing  the land and b) their room would never be facing the hot evening sun.  Oh capital!