CurlyShavings

There is something special in a name. Words are important and certainly the words we associate with ourselves or our interests carry more weight as they are almost names. So:

mySawdust.com

Sometimes the only thing that gets produced when working with wood is sawdust.

Because shaping and touching wood is magical.

There are now less than two weeks before my local Boy Scout council's Webelos Resident Camps (which I run) and so the rest of July will be spent completing preparations and then actually running the two four-day, three-night camps (7/21-24 & 7/26-29). So boat work is finished for the rest of July.

Current pictures:
Looking aft at rudder with gudgeons and pintles, tiller straps and tiller!
Looking at hull with deck in place.
Looking aft down centerline at deck with mast partner, then cockpit and then transom.

Here's where we stand:

Hull

complete and primed, shoe and skeg attached—needs paint

Hull inside

complete and painted—needs deck/hull glue scraped, touch-up and detail painting

Rudder

complete with all hardware—needs paint

Tiller

first coat of varnish drying—needs more

Centerboard

complete—needs paint and toggle and fid made

Deck

in place, screwed down and glued—needs mast hole cut, screw holes filled, fiberglassed and painted

Deck coamings

mahogany purchased, need completed after deck fiberglassed

Floorboards

need making

Mast

needs more rounding, dumb sheaves drilled and painted

Gaff and boom

cut to size and need finishing

Other stuff

need to make six blocks, Jonesport mooring cleat & three cleats, need to have hull inspected, receive hull number and registration numbers and need to christen her

In other words, our August launch date is in jeopardy.

This was Patrick O'Brian's 9th book in the Aubrey/Maturin series and the title just about says it all. Most of the time is spent with some scent of treason threatening our heros' actions in one way or the other.

It was a good read but certainly not O'Brian's best. The ending left me scratching my head and wondering if I was missing some pages. A few points seemed contrived: the emphasis on Aubrey's men practicing their small arms and the repeated emphasis on how Aubrey had sounded the entire harbor in his youth. Both are important details but didn't need to be singled out quite in the ways that O'Brian accomplished.

On another note, this was the first book (in my editions of the Aubrey/Maturin series) that included a map.