Family Boat Build at the Toledo Community Boathouse
Day 3, Wednesday, Dec 28, 2011

As usual, my build schedule has proven to be unrealistic. There's just too much to learn, cut, fit, and do to fit into a three-hour build session. And three hours is just about all you can expect from family units. Fortunately, I learn (slowly) so even though we are behind schedule, there is still enough time.

The fitting, gluing, and screwing of the wales and strakes was done - time to pull the boats off the strongbacks. Here we see the Silwones, Elicia (12 - in the blue cap,) Ryan (18 - holding the boat,) and their father, Dave (at the door.) The Silwones have recovered from their flu just in time as Gene and Cathy Forsythe had to return home.

The Corcorans were back and eager to get started.

And they'd brought a friend, Willeke (14 - dark hair.) She and Jasper turned to on lashing the keel to the frames.

The Scacco team was running late (surprise) and had lost a man due to "girlfriend problems." Aaron started helping Debbie get the keel on so they could stay on schedule.

The floorboards turned out to be technical - each had to be custom cut to fit its position, then holes drilled and countersunk for the lashing. Jasper, Willeke, and Keyonna became the drill team for everyone.

I like this picture because Willeke is photogenic, she's working with Sonja, and she has her eye protection. Not bad for a walk-on.

Elicia and Dave work on the floorboards while Curt supervises. We'd decided to lash the floorboards into position because we figured a screw would weaken the stringers.

Sasha borrowed Jordan to help hold the floorboard in place.

Elicia is photogenic, too.

Mark, Andrew, and Christian showed up and joined Debbie in the construction of their boat.

This is a cool picture - notice how the wind from the drill is pushing Keyonna's hair while her mother and brother work in the background. [EDIT: Never having had long hair, I never even considered it might be dangerous around tools. People: If you have long hair or loose clothing BRAIL IT UP!]

Sasha is also photogenic and can really work a bandsaw, too bad she didn't have her eye protection on, we could have made a poster from this.

Cutting, fitting and lashing six separate floorboards really eats up the time.

As 2pm got closer, we started grouping together on boats - more hands to make the tasks go faster.

Installing the king-posts for the seats was another technical issue. The seats rest on the stringers and the stringers flex under the weight of the paddler. The king-post helps transfer some of the weight to the keel.

Even though this was Ryan's first day, he was willing to go the extra mile at crunch time.

Finally, at 2:45, I had to go. Bud said he'd keep the Boathouse open for as long as was needed for the teams to put on a final layer of Varathane, for tomorrow, we skin.

No time for a group photo - I just asked them to smile, took the shot, and left for home.

Day 3 Participants:

• The Shoemake team: Sasha, Tyler, Keyonna (13,) Shaa (10,) and Bud
• The Corcorans: Jared, Sonja, Jasper (14,) Jordan(11), and friend,Willeke (14)
• The Sacco team: Andrew (15,) Christian (16,) Mark and Debbie.
• The Silwone team: Dave, Ryan(18,) and Elicia (12)
• Staff: Aaron, Curt and Andrew