I like Hammocks.

[No Idea]

I like hammocks.

I like nice trees in nice places to hang them in.

The answer seemed simple.

Canoe over there.

Er......

Not admitting I managed to roll mine over, got my head stuck in the mud and my rear stuck in the canoe....

Not getting in that thing again.

I must go on a diet, or get a ferry to use as a canoe...

 

[No Idea]

Time to get a boat.

I am an expert on boats.

The pointy end is the front and the sails go on the top.

Not going near a motor boat.

One of us would blow it up.

 

[No Idea]

No Idea where to find a boat.

Looked on Ebay.

Found one!

18ft long sailing boat.

It was blue and it was £27.

So I bought it.

 

[No Idea]

It was a lovely boat.

It had been carefully stored under a tree.

Its fibreglass was peeling off, but I was pretty sure I could soon fix that - with a little help from the kids.

 

[No Idea]

It had mast and sails

Oh, and a short mast that turned out to be called a boom.

I think it might have had a few problems, but was feeling confident.

I could almost feel the excitement of more trees!

 

[No Idea]

We found a trailer and took it home and put it together.

Seems the big sail is supposed to go in the boom.

It would be a learning curve as I hadnt sailed a boat before.

We were told to rub it back with some wet and dry.

Having got some, I went to B and Q and bought a big belt sander and some 40 grit belts.

Several thick coats of paint - and runs later......

 

[No Idea]

...we painted the top.

 

[No Idea]

Had to rebuild the trailer as the wheels looked like they would fall off.

Turned the boat over and ground the bottom.

Found a flap wheel would hike out all the chunks of loose gell coat.

There wasnt that many holes in it.

The centre thing was rotted to about 1/4 inch thick.

Seems fibreglass wont stick to teak, so we varnished it

Fibreglass will stick to varnish - I think.

 

[Robbi]

brill !!!!!

 

[No Idea]

We got some galvanised steel bent to make a new axle and got new stub axles.

....still sanding....

Filling the centre thing.

Painting the hull after fixing it.

Shiney paint!

 

[No Idea]

Still that small problem of how to sail....

Went to the library and borrowed a book, like you do.....

Didnt understand it.

There was all these pictures of wind on this side and on that....

Eventually, I got some A4 card, some selotape, some fishing twine and took the kids to Sainsburys cafe - as they had straws and I needed a mast.

 

[No Idea]

We built a paper boat in there so we could set the sails and blow it to see what would happen.

I think this is called reaching

This is with the wind astern. Not sure why the wind gets stern, but so long as I know what to do about it....

Wind on the quarter

Close hauled.

Thats it. Now I am an expert boatist ready to go hammocking on distant shores....

Well, a mile or so away.

 

[No Idea]

Rebuilt the steering thing

and its stick

While the hull was upside down, I noticed the boats ribs inside were all broken, so we fibreglassed them and fitted some new 3x4 wooden ones just in case they thought about breaking again.

Was then happy with the hull.

The stainless bits were off the mast, so we drilled out the bits of rivets and replaced them.

Our strong man built the trailer

And put the boat back on the new trailer.

 

[JonathanD]

Absolutely certifiable. Must have bootneck blood in ya.

 

[No Idea]

The steering thing looked ok

We put the mast up and started sorting out all the bits of string.

Most of them were either missing or rotted.

This was a bit like a jigsaw puzzle without the picture as we hadnt seen one whole.

The mast was huge.

It rained in it and the water ran straight out the bottom.

I decided that was probably bad and that we should fix it before going hammocking with it.

We hadnt taken the metal strip off the bottom.

There was some holes under it.

So we fixed them and put it back together.

Found some cracks under where the mast stands

 

[Robbi]

but absolutly great !!

you put a great big grin on my face mate !!

 

[No Idea]

We thought it was fixed, so we pushed it in....

er.....

back to the drawing board?

 

[Robbi]

LOL ! classic !

 

[No Idea]

Turns out it has bailer things in the bottom to get teh water out.

They let it in if you leave them open.

It was still leaking along the strip, so we ground it back and fibreglassed it on.

The sails had some tears in them.

I just managed to fix them when I blew up the sewing machine.

It also broke all its needles.

Still.....

Time to try again.

 

[No Idea]

Almost, but still not quite good enough.

It stays on top of the water for more than minutes now, but there was still something wrong. Forgotten what.

Next time, maybe...