The purpose of this blog is to document the building of a Bolger-designed Chebacco catboat, and the learning process that goes with building anything of this sort.
I will try to keep building logs here, post construction photos, and record the various bits of frustration that all builders meet up with before they are done.
The process of construction starts, not with the first board cut, but with something much more difficult: a decision. I've gone for several years dreaming about building a boat, and I think I've looked at literally hundreds of possible designs. Some made me cringe, others made me drool. Most of the latter were out of my league in terms of cost, skill, or of simple logistics.
I've built one boat before this, a David Beede-designed Summer Breeze skiff:
While she is a joy to go out and sail, it is a bit of a pain. To sail her, I have to put her in a truck, drive 30 miles to a lake, set her up on the boat-ramp and launch. If there's no wind that day, it's all for nothing.
But building her was as easy as walking downstairs and picking up a tool. There were always challenges to face, and even when I wasn't physically hammering away on some bits of the boat, I could be thinking about what to do next, what to make next, and how to do it. I guess what I'm saying is that the 'buildng' phase of this boat kept me much more pleasantly occupied and
mentally engaged than the 'owning' phase.
I want that fun again - that pleasure that comes from being constructively busy on something you've dreamed about for years. So, I'm doing a bigger boat now - the Bolger Chebacco. Here's a fine example of one:
More on this decision in the next entry!
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