I Almost Cried

I went to Greg's for another round of work last night. When I got there, I saw something that almost made me burst out in tears. Greg had virtually cut the boat in half.

After rolling the boat, Greg measured the width of the boat, and it was something like eight and a half feet wide, roughly six inches over the maximum width allowed without getting a permit to tow a wide load. Greg had originally decided to risk it... after all, the width would be difficult at best to measure. Apparently he changed his mind.

In order to get the width reduced, Greg put a relief cut in each side, from the top to about three inches from the bottom. He then used straps to pull the hull to the width he wanted, and then filled the relief cuts with thickened epoxy and re-taped the hull, inside and out. He cut through the spray rail and everything.

It's his boat, so he can do what he wants. But had I known what he was thinking, I'd have done everything in my power to talk him out of doing that. We could have used straps and epoxy and pulled the hull in, attaching it to the frame pieces, and things would have been much less invasive. Additionally, the bottom is probably ever-so-slightly hooked now, and the spray rails will likely have a noticeable bend at the cutting point. The biggest thing though, is the fact that we're going to have to re-sand and re-paint this scar, and probably re-tape it a couple more times as well.

I almost cried.

Bigger than I Realized

I can't describe how nice it is to be doing something other than sanding and fairing. The stringers have been removed, and we're now beginning to tape the internal seams. Greg taped the front transom over the weekend, and we both taped the rear transom last night. During last night's session, my younger daughter climbed inside the hull and cruised around on her Heelys. That was when I realized just how big this boat actually is. I took a video of this, which is posted here.