And a Quick Lick of Shelac

Whitey the Whitehall Skiff has been sent to the paint shop for final finishing.

RIgging Started.

A Couple More Boat Pics

Deng and Anna's Wedding

We went to Vu and Anna's wedding today. The venue was Vu's sister and brother in law's new home in South Yarra and Anna's and Vu's parents travelled from China and Vietnam (respectively) to participate.

A traditional Chinese serving of tea was observed .

I was delightful to catch up with Mr Shi and Mdm Jung after two years since seeing them last time.

Whitehall Build Update

Deadwood has been attached to th keel. Stem is fitted and faired now . The center board box is made up with the glue drying. The mast step, gunwales and thwarts have been dry fitted, but will not go in until after the centerboard box is installed.

Whale Attempts to Wreck Boat...

Shortly after the last closing plank was fitted and the Whitehall skiff removed from its moulds a white jealous whale attempted to wreck the boat.

Rosemary Hodgson Concert

Rosemary was Steve's guitar teacher back when Steve was ??14 -15 years old. She now specialises in 17th century musical instruments and we took the opportunity to see her play at Sunday's ABC Sunday Live concert held at the Iwaki Theater this Sunday. Rosemary played the lute as accompaniment to Steve Grant - base and Vivian Coleman - soprano, also brilliant solo lute performances. A wonderful concert.

Owen has Another Operation...

... and bounces back once again.

Owen spent the past weekend in the Royal Children's Hospital. This was for another operation. This time it was exploratory plus some remedial work. Doctor Mike O'Brien discovered that the little tube between his kidney and bladder was split in two at the kidney and kinked and rectified this. Owen was a little quiet on the first day after surgery, was wakeful on Saturday night because the morphine tube blocked causing a blister on his leg, but the following day was up and about. We left him with his Mom this evening happily chomping down on his toast and Vegemite and expect him to be discharged Monday.

Photos from Peru Trip

This spot is reserved for pics from Sue and Dim's trip to Peru and Argentina,,,, When we get them. Update --- Yerrrr we got 'em... Excellent pics.. Looks like they saw lots of exciting sights and ate well too.

Like My Tats?

I am trying to learn finhgering for Melody notes -ABCDEFG- (any newby to learning music will recognise my dilema) on my birthday present...

a new Yamaha Keybord.

Garboard Strakes Now In Place

An New Member of the Family...

...of planes.

It is a Sargent 277 I fond in the local old wares and antiques shop. I haven't seen this style of plane before and after some help from the guys (Squiggle gum and Giuliano) at Woodwork Forums and some googling have identified that they were last made in 1940. It looks pretty good, but only has about 1/8" left on the blade, so it has seen a lot of work. I think I got is for a good price. Who cares - I like it, especially the fact that the design is so different from the Stanley planes I have. Now for the search for a new blade. Hmmm...

Oh... and when I was focused on my buyat $60, Gaye came up with this fabulous little tea pot ...

at $15. How cool is that.

14 Foot Whitehall Skiff

Inspired by some of Clive's models, I have decided to have a go at model boat building myself. The boat I have selected to build first is a Whitehall 14 foot skiff. The Whitehall was not a ships boat, but designed primarily to be rowed and was used around the waterfront's of New York and Boston by boarding house runners (and others) requiring a fast easily rowed seaworthy boat.



The plans are from John Gardner's, Building Classic Small craft. I have used New Zealand Kari for the build and adopted a 1"to 1' scale.


Frame layup with keel fixed to the frame station profiles.





The shear strake is the first plank to go on. The plan calls for this to be overlapped on the second plank in the manner of a clinker built boat, but as this is my first boat I have gone for carvel build throughout.


Second plank placed adjacent to the shear strake.

Third plank on.

Fourth plank on. Next plank will be the garboard strake against the keel.

Yarragon Trip

For this trip Clive and I decided to travel around Gippsland. Timing and route was open ended, with my only constraint to be back in Geelong in time for the Apollo Bay Race starting 3:00am Saturday morning.

We could have picked our weather a little better. Wednesday was to coldest May day for 10 years. It was also wet and windy. Never the less a great trip. Day 1 we travelled by train to Stony Point; ferry over to Cowes on Phillip Island; then cycled to Inverloch where we stayed for the night.

Day two we cycled to Leongatha via Meenyan. We were very lucky with the rain. Fronts came rolling over the horizon at a regular rate, but we managed to avoid them until when sitting in a cafe in Meenyan a 50 knot squall came thru almost ripping the awning off the cafe entrance and dumped a whole bunch of hale. The run to Leongatha was on the rail trail. Not very nice when wet as it threw grit up into the gears and brakes on the bike.

Day 3 we were not so lucky. Mainly dirt roads and mostly raining. Arrive at Yarragon missing the train by minutes. Stopped in the local cafe for two hours waiting for the next train. Train back to Dandnong then 17 klm cycle in the dark back to Clive's.