The floorboards were made from 1 x 6 mahogany purchased finished on all four sides. I used Douglas fir for the cleats mounted on the seat supports. Four 5/16″ bolts on each cleat with heads recessed using a Forstner bit.

The organizer was made with mahogany as well and a piece of plexiglass salvaged from an old golf cart windshield that was given to me by my old friend Terry who had it in his shop.

I had some great help from a couple of little neighbour girls and finished everything the morning of August 12th. We drove out to the lake, got the boat in the water and I then used a couple of fold-up foam beds the boys use for sleep-overs to turn the cockpit into a big bed. Add pillows and quilts and we were ready to motor to the far side of the lake and drop anchor to watch the meteor shower.

Not much of a light show as the extremely bright full moon allowed us to see only the brightest meteors but it was a great time out there in the moonlight with the boys. On the way back Patty and the boys all fell asleep. It was like a dream using the outboard to head back to the cabin in the soft moonlight. Like steering a bed across the water.

The next couple of days I came to absolutely love the floorboards in the raised position. It just seemed to make the cockpit more usable when crowded with a couple of adults, 2 kids and 2 small dogs.

Here are some photos….



The dogs seemed to like being able to sprawl out.

Always nice to be able to drop anchor and go for a swim with Stella and Rowie, twin grand-daughters of old friends of mine that live at the lake.

So, I started by using my Fein to widen the crack in order to get fresh wood surface for the epoxy and to make it easier for the epoxy to get into the crack. Then I mixed up a small amount of epoxy and put it in the crack unthickened. I poked at it with toothpicks to get the bubbles to burst and work it the full depth of the crack. I left that to soak in for a while. Then I added some wood flour to the remaining epoxy until it was thicker but still quite runny. I poured that in and worked it the same way with toothpicks. I used a couple of clamps to squeeze it a bit and then left it overnight.

The next day I drilled small pilot holes. Then I used a Forstner bit to make recesses on the inside of the boat. When that was done I drilled 5/16″ holes for the bolts.

After scraping and sanding I varnished the gunwale with about 3 coats. I used a Q-tip to get varnish inside the bolt holes. When that had all dried I bolted it with stainless bolts, washers and locking nuts.

It looks pretty solid but we’ll see how it stands up after it has been sailed for a while. Here are some photos:

So, I decided to saw the aluminum bar on one side so that I could rotate the bar to release the partner. I figured I’d do it so that the bar would drop downwards onto the bolt. Only problem was the rake of the mast prevented that from happening…..hmmmmm.

So, I decided to rotate the bar upwards. The only thing I don’t like about this is gravity is always looking to move the bar downwards, leaving the mast potentially unsupported. So, I used a rudder hold-down I had ordered from Duckworks Boatbuilders Supply to prevent the bar from dropping downwards.

I don’t really know how much stress the small screw will be subjected to but I am going to get the guys on the Duckworks Yahoo Group to have a look at the following photos and let me know if they see any issues with what I have done.

It sure is niceto be able to just put the base of the mast into the mast foot and just lift the mast vertical into the partner and then rotate the bar and holddown to secure it into place.

Partner wide open after mast lifted into place.

Bar being rotated to secure the mast

Nearly closed!

Holddown before securing partner bar

Holddown in position to secure partner bar

Ready to finish rigging and go sailing!

Ed, who is 82 years old now, had never been in a sailboat in his life before and I think he thought it was pretty neat judging from the grin on his face. There’s always something new!

The winds piped up pretty quickly and were gusty and squirrelly all day. I was pretty nervous about dumping the boat with Gido aboard as I’d never get him back in. We spotted my old friend JRE fishing down near the park boat launch so I decided to head over and see whether he was catching anything or not. As we got closer, I reached into the cooler and grabbed a Sleeman’s I’d put in there to give JRE if we saw him out there. As it was “Talk Like A Pirate Day” and Hunter had his Nerf sword Hunter started yelling “Prepare to be boarded you scurvy dog, etc.” as we approached and I yelled at JRE we had something for him and to go to the bow of his boat. As we scooted by, Gido passed him the beer and we sailed away, making plans for him to brave going out sailing with me.

After a while the boys were getting a bit bored so I dropped them off at the main beach and Gido and I carried on for a while. (I found out later that Cameron helped JRE’s sister carry a big bag of fish guts to the garbage as one of the things he did after getting dropped off – sounds way more fun than sailing lol)

We headed in and Gido was enjoying a cool one and JRE came by after a few minutes and we went out for another sail. By now the winds were really quite strong in the gusts and absolutely impossible to read at times so I was fairly nervous. We were flying across the water at times but I didn’t like the unpredictability of the winds so we headed in sooner than I would have liked but we had a great visit sitting on the dock and chilling out. Cameron and I were laying back against the tube, JRE and Gido in chairs having a cool one and we had some laughs. Absolutely fantastic day…it was +29 on our thermometer and they set records in Saskatoon.

We got on the road about 11:30 and after giving him a quick tour of the cabin we hooked onto the boat and headed for the boat launch. It’s always easy getting the boat in…not so easy getting the vehicles out. We had ridden out in TD’s 2 wheel drive Ford Ranger. I was curious to see if it would be better than our front wheel drive vans. It wasn’t…the problem being that the drive wheels are in the water where it is softer and he quickly dug a couple of holes. Eventually we got the trailer back out but he didn’t think that we’d get it out with the trailer on so I decided to leave the boat tied up at the cabin as I was planning on coming back out on Saturday anyway. With that out of the way we hopped in and pushed off.

It took a while to get any breeze at all but we eventually got going slowly. We headed back to the cabin so I could get the key to unlock the rear compartment and get the pfds out. After that was done we set off ….light winds but such an incredibly warm September day it really didn’t matter. We tacked back and forth, when the wind died we opened up the cooler and chowed down on hard boiled eggs, oka cheese, bagels, bananas and other goodies. Snow geese were flying far overhead at one point in a large flock. Lots of birds heading south.

TD had been the helmsman for a while and we did enjoy several nice runs when the wind picked up. We headed for the far side of the lake. I had told him about the cabin in the woods that I know nothing about…it’s not in the park or on the private development at that end of the lake. It took a while to get there and find it as you can hardly see it from the water. We landed and went in and had a look around. It sure is a cabin in the woods and a real refuge. I thought it was pretty neat. Big treehouse built behind it and an outhouse which is painted white and called “The White House”.

After that we sailed on a bit further and got out to have a look at Little Emerald. Then we started back and the winds had piped up nicely and we had some good runs.

It was a great day with an old friend.

What do you think they're doing at work TD?

Mur - Don't we need wind to sail?

The White House

Leaving Little Emerald

I AM The Man!

After a while Cameron decided he’d rather ride with me so he climbed in the boat and we towed his kayak behind. He picked up the camera and took some pictures. I really like this one of the main beach as it captures what a “sparkly” day we were enjoying.

Later that day I paddled along the shore looking at various dock installations and boat lifts. I decided to head down to my old friend Brad’s dock at the far end of the park beach. Brad has a great system of building a dock that I think I will copy. He also has an aluminum boat lift sized for a Seadoo. We started talking about using it for my boat and before long I was headed back to our cabin to get my boat and try out Brad’s lift. When I got back an old friend of Brad’s, Kim, was there. I remember Kim from back at the lake but knew her older brothers better. Brad told her about how I had made this boat and I think it brought back some memories for her as she related to me that the boat that her family used had been built by her Dad. She said that she loved sailing and had sailed quite a bit as a kid at various camps that she went to. So, after we tried out the boat lift which worked great and is now on my shopping list, we all hopped into the boat and went for a sail.

It was great fun to have them in the boat and we enjoyed some terrific breezes on a short cruise.

Did you know that the record for....

Later that evening we put the outboard on and headed over to the far side to do some fishing. Well, Hunter and Patty did some fishing and Cameron and I watched. They both caught a jackfish within minutes of each other. This was Patty’s first fish ever and unfortunately I hadn’t brought the camera along. At one point Hunter was lecturing Cameron about how he should try fishing because fishing was all about patience which caused Patty and I to try and stifle laughter as Hunter is very impatient but finally we couldn’t hold it and burst out laughing.

We stayed out there as the night crept up. A beaver was working close to shore and a couple of times made some loud slaps as he dove under water. An owl hooted in the woods. I turned on the navigation lights and we slowly putted across the lake enjoying the stars and planets on a warm evening.