The oldest son and I have started work on a CABBS Optimist Pram. We figure it will take us about a month, hopefully less since we intend to show it at the Cleveland Mid-America Boat Show from January 16-25, 2009 at the International Exposition Center.
We're members of CABBS and selling plans to the backyard boat-builder is one of the group's fundraisers.
We are building this boat on speculation, with the hope that someone will decide to purchase it. If you're interested, please drop me a line or post a comment!
Tonight we took the pile of wood in our garage and turned some of it into a strongback for the boat. It took us longer to clean up the garage than it did to get the strongback assembled. So far, nothing fancy was used, just a chop-saw, a tape measure, a square and a pencil. Oh, and some #8x3.5" deck screws and a cordless drill.
The Optimist Pram is a small boat; ours will end up not meeting the exact specifications required by the Optimist organization but will be pretty close. I'm told they are excellent training boats; supposedly, "at the 2008 Olympics over 85% of the medal winning boat skippers were former Optimist sailors."
So maybe, there will be some interest in our little boat. We're hoping to raise enough capital that we can fund the purchase of materials for a kayak in 2009.
Here's the pile of wood we started with. We typically buy our lumber from Terry Lumber in Peninsula, Ohio.
Terry (and Jean) let me root around in their woodpiles; over the last six years I've kept their piles neat, taken some extra board feet when I didn't need to and generally behaved like a good lumber-yard citizen. They've got the straightest 2x4s, the best clear cedar and the nicest bunch of lumberyard employees a guy can ask for.
Oh, and they can get you anything. Marine plywood, stainless fasteners, you name it. And the hardwood they stock is incredible. If you ever need some teak or mahogany or walnut or chestnut, they're the place to go.
Back to boatbuilding: we started at 6:30 and finished just after 8pm. (Again, most of the time was spent clearing the garage!) Watch this space for further developments.
