A Tale of Two Boats

A little History

I want a boat. Not just any boat, but a boat that I can sleep on, fish Lake Superior on, take my daughter on and feel relatively safe on. My daughter has a form of cerebral palsy, so it has to be stable as well. Oh yea, I have to be able to trailer it also. I have wanted this boat for a long time, and have told my daughter that some day we will have a boat that fits our needs and wants. Someday. In December of ’03 I had some surgery and had to live on the couch in the living room for about eight weeks, as I could not go up and down stairs. Each morning my daughter would climb in bed with me and we would talk about the things we were going to do when I recovered. Things like fish and camp. Each day when she helped me with my therapy, she would talk about the fun things I would be able to do when I was better. Someday was getting closer. I have never cut Emily much slack in doing things even with her CP. We figure out a way for her to do something or make adjustments, but she still has to do it, we won’t do it for her. That came back to haunt me in a big way. When the therapy hurt, and I would say I don’t think I can do it, she would check her watch and say, “ Dad, you have two more minutes, don’t quit!” Where had she learned that, not from me?? I decided that someday had gotten a lot closer.

12 sheets of 1/2 set up to scarf (click images for larger views)

We went to the local boat show to look for a boat. That trip opened my eyes in a big way. One, the rudeness and insensitivity of the public to a man and his daughter who are not “normal”. I was in a wheel chair at that time, and Em was my driver. We were ignored, told by one resort that they would not be comfortable with people like us at their resort, had other resorts refuse to give us their brochures and had sales men refuse to help us look at a boat. The second big eye opener was the price of a production boat! Yiikes! I am not going to spend that much money on a boat, for two reasons, one, I don’t have that much and second, I cannot see putting my family that far in debt for a boat. So much for the boat show.

Finished scarfs

Plan B

You can find anything on the inter net, and I was betting that there might be some used boats to be had at reasonable prices. I was right, we found a couple, one was in Florida, that was not going to work, too far away. We found another that looked like it might fit the bill, but the add said it needed some work. In an exchange of emails we found out that it had fallen off the trailer while going down the highway. It needed a new hull! That was out. But in my searching, I found this thing called stitch and glue boat building. A novel and new concept to me. It became something of an obsession for a while as I read and re-read anything I could find out about it. I bought books; I lurked on the fringes of chat groups and decided that I can do this. My daughter and I looked at many different boat designs, and settled on the Micro Trawler designed by Phil Bolger. One of the books I bought was Boats With an Open Mind and in the list of sources was a place called Common Sense Design. Common sense, sounds like my kind of place. I looked them up on the web, and ordered a set of plans. Gerry and his wife are among the most patient, long suffering people that I know of. Even when I forgot the time change and called them at 5:00am. He answered all my questions and replied to all my emails. He got a lot of them when I was recovering too. He also included a set of plans for something called a pram with the plans for the Micro Trawler, and Emily decided that she needed to build a boat at the same time I did.

Box keel with both sponsons attached

January of ’05, another surgery. However, this time I had plans, books, chat groups and lists of stuff to help with the healing. Now instead of talking about going fishing, we talked about building the boats. Our boats! It helped the therapy go better, even though I still claim it is torture. Emily and I spent many hours looking at plans, listing the amounts of stuff I would need to buy and in general dreamed about our boats. My wife was not quite as excited as we were, especially when we presented her with our list of “must have” stuff. OK, maybe we were a little over the top on some things. One of the chat groups is a Micro Trawler group, and we were invited by the owner of another Micro Trawler to come out to see his. This was a wonderful help. It confirmed that my daughter would be able to get around in the boat, and it really helped my wife catch the dream that Emily and I had. She was now almost as excited and we were about the boat and building it.

Emily sanding on her pram

The Building Starts

I was mostly healed, and it was time to start the gathering of the materials that we would need to build. I have made some alterations to the plans, so the materials list is a little different from the usual one. I have added 4 feet to the length of the hull, and have made the cabin full height rather than the step down in height. This is an A.M.A. project, As Money Allows, so price of materials is an important part of the equation. I called the local suppler of marine plywood and was told that it was $12.00 per square foot. That’s right, $384.00 per sheet. I might as well buy a production boat at that price. The epoxy was over $100 a gallon, so I never even asked about the fiberglass cloth. The builder of the Micro Trawler that we looked at suggested I contact Noah’s Marine (www.noah’smarine.com) as they have much better prices. I did, and he was right. Much better prices even with the shipping. I ordered the plywood, a roll of fiberglass, wood flour and epoxy. Never thought I would be buying a bag of sawdust.
I need to put a plug in for Noah’s here. There was a mix up with the trucking company, and my materials ended up at a truck dock six hours away, not at the truck dock twenty minutes away as they were supposed to. Noah’s went above and beyond in getting my order shipped to my door, at no additional cost to me. They are a great company to work with.

Stitching transom to side

I bought fiberglass in a 110-yard roll, and needed to cut it into three-inch strips for the seams. I have a leg vise on a portable stand that I can move around the shop. PHOTO I attached a piece of 1” scrap to the bottom of a 1’x3’ piece of hard board, like the stuff counter top is made from, and drew a line down the hard board, three inches from the edge. PHOTO I made a stand from some more scraps 1” material for the fiberglass roll and pulled the glass off the roll onto the stand. We would cut several strips of fiberglass and then epoxy them. For the epoxy, I took a scrap of plywood, attached 1” scrap all around with sheet rock screws and used that to wet out the strips. PHOTO We made sort of a production line, one person cutting, another person wetting out the glass strip and my wife and I applying them to the seams. After we had filleted and glassed all the seams on the inside, we flipped the hull and went to work on the outside.

Fiberglass stand and strip cutting stand

The Set-Back

Several of these photos are staged; not photos of the actual work taking place. I apologize for these, as I really like to see the photos of people doing the work they are talking about. It helps me get a better idea of what they are doing and how they are really doing it. But, we had a set back in October. I had all my hand tools in the garage and when I went out to work on the boat on Saturday, they were all gone. Along with the camera we had taken the photos of the project. We had been robbed, and they crooks took tools like the palm sander, the angle grinder, the cordless drill, all the drill bits and the belt sander. This was not part of the project budget. I checked some pawnshops, they did not have any of my stuff, and the sheriff said we would probably never see it again. Arrrrgh! Oh well, what to do. I got to go shopping at Home Depot! You have to look at the bright side, I did get some new tools.

Emily and I working on our boats

Back to Work

With the new tools, I had to get back to work. We sanded the hull and the seams, then glassed the whole thing. I spent a fair amount of time sanding the fiberglass and when I thought I had it smooth we primed it. Every ripple that was invisible before now sands out. So, I did some more sanding. I am using Valspar paint, available at the local hardware store, and a lot more affordable then other marine paints that I have seen. At this writing, I have the hull bottom painted, and the side primed. I am going to spend some more time sanding the sides before I paint them, as the ripples are really bad to me.

Emily painting trawler

The Trailer

I decided that as long as I am building the boat, I might as well build the trailer. OK, I called a couple places and they want a ton of money for a trailer that I would still have to do a lot of work to so it fits the hull shape. I bought plans for a trailer from Glen-L and went to the steelyard. After looking at the plans for the trailer and the hull shape I started cutting and welding the trailer together. I am a self-taught welder so my welds are called gorilla welds. Strong, but ugly. I do not have many photos of the trailer construction, they were in the camera, or I just forgot to take them. I made one major mistake on the trailer and have to get that fixed before I put the hull on so I can finish working on the boat. When I figured the height of the bunks for the sponsons, I added the total of all the elements together. Not bad so far, but when I had finished putting the 2x4’s on the frame my wife looked at it and said it was not right. Unfortunately, she was right. I had added the 3” of the 2x4 into the steel and cut them all too long. Now I need to take a torch to them, cut them all off and re-weld them 3” lower.

Working on trailer

Progress to Date

At this writing, it is mid January ’06. I hope to have the boat done for the Minnesota Messabout. Not sure if I will make it, but that is the goal. And my daughter has named both boats. Her pram is named “Trinkel”, and the Micro Trawler, “Someday”.

I would be happy to talk to anyone via email if you have any questions, and will try to send updates as I am able.

Emily and I tracing batten for pram panels

Thanks for listening.
Stephen Collins

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