It has been pretty quiet on the boat front around here. It has been too cold to actually go boating, and I have been too busy to build a boat for some time. I have an article, mostly done, about some leeboard repairs that I have been working on. I also have a second mouse boat, completely cut out, that is nearly ready for assembly. I simply ran out of 3/4 inch strips of Douglas Fir that I need to put it together, and I haven’t had time to bug my neighbor into ripping some more for me.
Someday maybe I will have a table saw of my very own.
Actually, the more I think about it, the more I realize that, even though I have not written in my blog for some time there has been a lot going on in my life lately, and most of it has at least something to do with boats or scouts. I almost certainly should have been writing far more frequently. Looking at my media library, it is even clear that I intended to write about all that has happened, as I have uploaded pictures.
As I sat down today, my goal was to write about the Lazy Weekend Canoe that I started building this weekend. However, instead I have decided that I am going to doing a bit of journaling and talk about what has happened in my life recently. I can write about the canoe tomorrow.
A New Job
First of all, since I last wrote, clear back in October, I have been laid off at my previous employer, and started work at sling.com. On the whole this has been a pretty positive experience, although it was definitely stressful at the time. My previous employer offered a fairly generous severance, and it would have been more generous if I had stayed the 3 months that they wanted me to stay. However, sling.com made me an offer that I couldn’t really refuse.
KaeLynn did tell me that I could take a percentage of any money that I negotiated from sling.com over and above their initial offering to build boats, and so I not only got a bit of a pay raise, but I now have the funds (and permission) that I need to build more boats. Other than a stressful few weeks it was basically a win all around.
A New Calling
The week after I started my new job at sling.com, I got called into the Bishopric of my ward. For those of you that aren’t LDS that might take a bit of explaining. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we do not have paid clergy. Each church unit (called wards or branches depending on the size) is lead by members that live inside the unit boundaries. I am not the new Bishop, thank goodness, but I am one of his counselors, and being a counselor in a Bishopric requires a pretty significant time commitment. That also means that I am no longer the Scout Master, although I am still the counselor over the scouting program. There are boats tied up in that story as well.
Plans, Plans, and more Plans
I have watched the videos of our last adventure on Nephi’s Courage over and over again. They warmed my heart when the weather turned cold, and they cheered me up when I was laid off. However, I couldn’t escape the realization that if I wanted to take my whole family boating with me then I would need to procure a larger boat.
After an extensive search I purchased plans for the Michalak Deansbox, and I hope to build it this winter. That should give me plenty to write about.
At about the same time that I was scouring the Internet to find my dream sailboat build, the Young Men’s leader in our ward also came to me with the idea to take the boys on a paddling adventure this coming summer. As you can probably imagine I thought that the idea was genius. I love being able to combine boating and scouts. He wanted to build kayaks out of PVC pipe and stretch wrap, but the boats looked clunky and apparently require constant stretch wrap repair. So I volunteered to find something more refined that we could afford to build. Actually, I did a bit more than that. I also promised that I would build a prototype.
I looked into skin on frame boats, foam boats, and plywood boats, and I even purchased plans for Michalak’s Toto. However, it soon became clear that if we were going to transport the boats that we would need canoes instead of kayaks so that we could put two boys (and their gear) into a single vessel. Two sheets of plywood would net us a single Toto capable of floating about 250 pounds. Three sheets of plywood, however, would build a Lazy Weekend capable of floating more than twice that. Not to mention the fact that I don’t really trust some of my boys with a solo command. Canoes would mean that we would only have to build (and tow) half as many boats. This is good, because I dream about sail boats. These canoes are just a side show.