Slack Water Alice.

 Its been a long time coming.

Designed over ten years ago as a simple two sheet canoe but never built due to "life" and a lack of confidence, she's finally hit the water. 

Turns out after much prevarication and self doubt she does pretty much what it says on the tin. She's not as tippy as I thought she might be, and although she doesn't track as straight as I expected that means she's pretty maneuverable. 
So all said I'm a happy paddler. 

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Build Your Very Own Canoe. Free Plans!

 

Click on the images to enlarge.

Save to your computer 

Print and glue onto card 

Cut out and assemble.

As easy as falling out of a canoe.   

Who Says Men Can't Multi Task?

Its Happened again! There I was settling down for a good snooze after my Christmas Lunch and suddenly its the middle of March! 

Easter is early this year and so is the start of the HBBR season. We are heading back to Barton Turf on The Broads at the end of April which I'm looking forward to. We'll be in the company of the Open Canoe Sailing Group which will be interesting and I'm wondering what they'll make of Katie Beardie.  Of course the answer to that is "not much" unless she gets a new set of sails. 
A quick rifle round the rafters in the garage unearthed a sail I'd forgotten I'd made, quel surprize! and confirmed that I must've given the mast away with Polythene Pam. 

I've now put an APB out round the HBBR for any old windsurfer masts I could use as spars, and I'll be getting the carpet tape and  grommets out soon to make the mizzen. 

The latest thinking is top have a smaller Main-Sail with a shorter foot which keeps the boom out of my face, but keep the high aspect to catch some Broads breeze above the reeds. The Sprit Mizzen will feature the new BrailoMatic system if CW and I can make it work. 

I can report that at least four old windsurfer masts have been tracked down all be it at quite a distance away, and not all in the same direction.  there are also a couple near at hand on a well known on-line auction site so I my make a cheeky bid. 
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Prior to my casual glance at the calender, and the ensuing panic, I had stopped work on Slack Alice and brought the Coot in from the cold, stripped of all her hardware, and started to rub down her bright-work before re-coating.  I say re-coat rather than varnish or paint as the jury is still out on what finish will be applied. All I can say is I'm really beginning to hate varnish. 

And what of Alice? Well I'm really coming at that one twice around the houses. Having made the full-size half-model I now have a set of templates from which the proper planks could be simply copied. However I want to make a set of plans and instructions for Alice, because sometimes life seems so easy you just have to make things more difficult for yourself. So out with the old etch-a-sketch and here is a preview of what I'm aiming at.  

So who says men can't multi task? 

Oh and the garden needs tidying, and the car is due a service, and the garage doors want painting and................................................................

50 Shades of Ply

Dear Doctor,

I appear to be suffering from a strange affliction, can you help me please?

On several occasions recently I have found myself standing in my garage swearing at inanimate objects. It started with a strange collection of items which had mysteriously gathered there. A dead car battery, Random bits of ply, a bag of compost, a couple of child seats and any number of bikes. I swore at them very loudly but they refused to budge.

Then after a few days an enormous slab of MDF appeared, I swore at it too but it wouldn’t listen to a word I said so I chopped it up.

The next thing I knew I was shouting at my pencil. Well I would have shouted at it if it had shown its pointy little stick-like face long enough, but in its absence I was forced to shout at the memory of a pencil. Not a real pencil, just an accusation of a pencil. 

 When it did turn up it was broken, and every time I whittled it to a point, it snapped.

Then I snapped.

I do not know what makes me go out there. I’m sitting cosy and snug watching Homes Under The Hammer and the next thing I know I’m Out There, freezing my nadgers off.

I’m getting seriously worried now, the latest episode has involved sharp instruments and torture. 

Some of my ply bits are keepsakes, reminders, fragments of memories, remnants of loves lost. Some are from an unmentionable episode during the early days of Katie Beardie.  There are some dating all the way back to sweet Caitlin, ( be still by beating heart) with her sensuous curves. I know I saw a shard of Polythene Pam, which pierced my heart like a stilletto. 

Now I've began to wrap them round the MDF in a sordid contortion of an embrace which seems to cause loud grunting sounds and more swearing.

I’m really not sure where this will end!   

I’m getting these sudden urges to go out and buy whole sheets of pristine plywood and swear at it.

I don’t like doing things by halves. 

Can you help me please.

Half a minute.

The internet can be both terrible and superb. For me its generally a force for good and if nothing else it gives me a platform from which to shout at the world. If the world chooses not to listen then hey. 
Its also a terrible waste of time. How many hours have any of us spent clicking away down some long winding path like a dog chasing a rabbit, until finally we discover we have no idea where we are or how we got there.

If you click on any of the blogs down the right hand side of this page, and then click on any of their favourites and so on you'll find a lot of interesting stuff. 

I did that just the other day and found gold. Then I couldn't remember where I'd found it and its taken me a while to re-trace my clicks and track it down. But here we are;

Its a bit of a post of a post of a post this one but bear with.....
The original post is here earwigoagin.

From Chesapeake Light Craft;

Some customers are so unskilled that it would be better not to sell them a plan or a kit. "So many people these days can't read plans at all. When a part is symmetrical around an axis and the plans only show half a part, some people build half the part. That's happened twice in the last month. One guy made half of the deck and the bottom. We were very nice. I guess if you can't laugh, you have to cry...You can't make assumptions about anybody."[Professional Boatbuilder, Number 152, pg. 26]

Bugger! 

Slack Alice

Slack Alice.
A Happy New Year to all our readers. 

Here's something that's been hanging around the drawing board for rather too long. 
I can't quite remember when it started, it must have been at least a year ago, when Alice first came into view.  
As usual, life with all its false starts and dead-ends has conspired to make sure she hasn't been built, and I must confess there are some doubts about her character which make me wonder whether I should risk the ply and epoxy. 
She'll be slippery, and a bit tipsy too, but maybe she'll give a little thrill now and again. 

The New Year has begun, the days are beginning to get a bit longer,
there's some MDF in the garage for moulds,
"These night's are getting warmer and it won't be long 
  Won't be long till the summer comes"