Spring Time?

If you use your imagination your can see where our skeg will go on these plans.

  We've had a spat of unreasonably nice weather for march recently, we've seen sixty degrees! So of course I took full advantage. After much world problem solving and general jaw jacking the Typesetter and I have decided to add as skeg to the S/V Kat Boat. Jim was kind enough to include the space where a skeg could go in the plans. He did have drawn plans for a keelson but we've decided that a small foil at the back will do as well. This entailed the work I mentioned in the last post. Mainly getting the boat off the trailer. And one sunny day, it happened.

The Typsetter setting blocking.

She's up and off!

 Not only will this allow us to work under the boat but we can do some necessary inspections and work on the trailer in the meantime. I drew a center line on the bottom, taped it, and added paint remover. I let it sit for half an hour and then attacked it with a wire brush and a scraper. The scraper did nothing. The wire brush was genius. The Lady was a great help as my energy was sapped by the process. But with a little bit of sandpaper we got the area relatively clean.

Before

After

 In the following days I got a sheet of offsets for the skeg and The Typesetter was kind enough to cut out a single 3/4" blank. With some shaping it should join it's twin and once the weather returns we'll get it attached. Our Memorial Day Plans are now for an overnight so looking forward to that for sure. 

I should mention some auction and Craigslist doings. There was a wonderful it tired wooden boat up for auction at The Center For Wooden Boats'  gala auction. There was a bid placed but it was far outstripped. But the threat of the buzz saw has been avoided and that is a win our book any day. I tossed in my oar on some assorted vintage radios but no luck there either. Maybe next year. As we congratulated ourselves on missing the financial boondoggle that is bidding on marine hardware I happened to check our local Craigslist. I have a link to a search for sail powered vessels on my browser toolbar. And wouldn't you know it, a free small sailboat showed up. No centerboard or sail but decent enough kit for a knock about boat. Hope to get it in the water soon. WMSBA strikes again!

We're not sure of the make but it fits in a pickup bed!