Going back in time to better days..

A bunch of updates ago I said that I would get around to posting pictures of the little sailboat that I built a bunch of years ago. Well, I forgot about it until some little thing jogged my memory and I remembered.

So anyway, here's the little boat that I built from total scratch quite literally in the driveway.

I made it from plans and the type was called a 'Weekender' which was aimed at being able to sail on Saturday, spend the night somewhere, and sail home on Sunday. It was 19'6" on deck and a little over 23' LOA including the bowsprit. Except for the sails, it was all handmade from scratch.

The mast was made out of a quarter-sawn Douglas fir 4x4 piece that I found at this ancient lumber yard up in Port Canaveral. The keel was three laminated layers of 1x12 Douglas Fir that ran the entire length of the hull. Yes, I built it from scratch and it was attached with silicon bronze screws. Try to find those if you can. They were obscene expensive, but they will never, ever, rot or rust.

It had a group 27 deep cycle battery that ran a large trolling motor off of the transom. Wasn't all that fast under power, but it sure was quiet!

All of the exposed wood rub rails, grab rails, porthole rings, mast, boom, jib club foot, etc all were stained and had three coats of Epifanes varnish. They were beautiful and were like glass. The hull had two layers of 6 oz fiberglass hand-laid with epoxy and a white two-part epoxy roll/tip finish. Even the rudder (which for some reason isn't in the picture) was hand shaped, stained and varnished.

It even had hand made non-skid on deck made out of ground up walnut shells that were laid out on deck and captured with epoxy. It was really trick how it worked out.

The cabin was a small cuddy-cabin that could have slept two people quite comfortably and had a forward hatch that propped up for surprisingly good ventilation.

It was named 'Opus' which means work. It was my one piece of work that I was very proud of. I still get neighbors walking by that ask what happened to the boat.

Yes, that is a real ships wheel for the helm and was mounted against the lazarette. This allowed full cockpit mobility without having a helm right in the middle of the cockpit sole.

It sailed pretty good and the gaff rig got many, many waves and pictures. It's an old timey way of rigging a mainsail and it really isn't seen that much anymore. You can just see the bottom of the gaff in the extreme top of the first picture. I always wanted to rig a topsail and a staysail (pronounced stay'sl) jib for it. Then I could have legitimately said that it was a top'sl schooner.

The coast guard guy that came out to inspect it to allow a HIN (Hull Identification Number, similar to a car's VIN number) application was shocked when he pulled up in his truck. He filled out the paperwork first thing and said that he was expecting a bathtub with a broom handle mast, but was stunned when he pulled up to the curb. It really made me feel good as he went over everything and said that he couldn't find a single thing to ding me on.

So what did become of it? Well, I sailed it for 2 or 3 summers and decided that a bigger boat was needed. I put it up for sale (sail?) on a couple of web bulletin boards that were dedicated to what was called 'backyard boatbuilding'. Well, as it turns out, a guy out in Arkansas saw it and fell in love with it. He wanted a boat that he could take his wife out on in the evenings on some large freshwater lake. He actually drove all the way down here and bought it.

The last I heard was that he got it back up there, but some weeks later had a massive heart attack and they ended up selling it. Somebody in Nebraska(?) bought it and I pretty much lost track of it after that. I did get a picture from a friend many months later showing what looked like Opus but had been repainted to white with brown trim (ugh..). It was a lousy picture and I can't find it at the moment.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. When I built it, I was big into boat-building lore. I found several references that it was considered good luck to put a dime under the mast foot as payment to Charon to pay for the crossing of the river Styx if the boat ever sank and all hands were lost. So instead of just any old dime, I found a Canadian dime that of course has the schooner 'Bluenose' on it and I actually did put that dime under the mast foot (the very bottom of the mast on the keel of the boat). It was still there when I sold it.

It was a fun boat and I had a good time building it. I always wanted to go up to Maine and learn traditional lapstrake or clinker style of boatbuilding and build a much bigger boat (a la the movie Message in a Bottle?). I guess it just wasn't meant to happen as I really don't see that ever actually occurring. Of course I say that now. Next month my plans could get turned completely upside down and who knows? I sure would love to do another one. That would be a project of a lifetime.