Every picture in this blog

Stoke

Since we are in the depths of winter, some of you may be building your own Goat Island Skiff and dreaming big dreams of open water and fair winds.  Of salt on your lips, sun in your eyes, trailing a wake of phosphorescence through the seas of summer.  Fear not intrepid reader and intrepid builder-- our rock hurtles forward to the coming warm season.  Your sawdust on the floor will tomorrow be the dust of yesterday and you too will be sailing!

In the meantime, I have just realized I have quite a library of pictures that document the building of the Goat Island Skiff and my own subsequent adventures.  If you would like to peruse my photobank please see my Goat Island Skiff Amateur Style Gallery hosted on Picasa.

I hope it helps you, intrepid reader, to stave off the dark and the cold, and offers guidance for those first time boatbuilders.

Onwards!

End of the 2011 Season

Boooooooo.  I think my sailing for 2011 will be over in my Goat Island Skiff.  I definitely did not do many things I wanted to do this year, such as another camping trip in Casco Bay and a little more sailing.  Like last year, I did sail significantly more than I blogged about-- Im not going to write about every outing, but there was less total epicness as last year.  Lack of work kept me more homebound.  I was just trying to save my $$$ the most possible and had a tough time justifying the gasoline expense.

However, I had a great time up at the Small Reach Regatta and my bro and I had a great trip on his Aquarius 23, as described in the two posts below.  It was decidedly a non Goat Island Skiff trip, and hence an aberration to this blog, but hopefully something you enjoyed.

Stay tuned, Im really hoping to actually build a permanent boom for her this winter.  Really.  Honest.  

Fair winds, intrepid readers!

Little Chebeague Revisited

Hello intrepid readers!

Last year Al from Brooklyn and I made a camping trip out to Little Chebeague Island in Maine.  Al in Brooklyn constructed his own Goat Island Skiff, and he drove up to do a little camping.  As the intrepid reader will remember, it was blowing great balls on the way out, and it took us all day to sail back.  On Little Chebeague I realized that my precious camera had been soaked through and through-- ruined by the salt water.  Fortunately, we met two MIT (maybe Harvard? whatever-- one of those awesome schools in BOS) students doing an economic study of the MITA, and they graciously took some pictures for us.  I received them today.  Here are two:

Goat and campsite

Intrepid heroes-- author (left) and Al from Brooklyn (right)

This was a great trip.  We compared the differences between Bourbon and Rum on a nautical adventure, and explored the cosmos from our beach looking up into a starry sky.  The Bourbon/Rum debate needs more analysis, and the cosmos are awesome.  What more should I say?  Additionally sailing is quite cool, we decided.

Sailing season is almost here, intrepid readers, so bottoms and up and get your boats ready!

Christmas greetings and a couple of other things

With Christmas still happening in many parts of the world, Id like to wish everyone all the best for the festive season and a happy new year.

Advertising, this blog is running at about 10K page views a month, thats astonishingly good, thanks all who are interested enough to come and read. But its attracting increasing numbers of people posting advertising, anyone wishing to do that should first contact me so I can vet for appropriate content and work out what its worth, or Ill pounce on each post with the delete button.
Too many, or off subject ads are a distraction that we dont have to put up with.

Me? Ill be bathing the dog, he found some interesting things to roll in while we were out for a walk yesterday, then Ill be using my new sawbench to make the boom and yard for SEI. I want to be out sailing her very soon and will report as I get on with that project.

So all the best from summertime in NZ, its a near perfect morning here with the temp at about 20 deg C and rising, perfectly calm and clear weather and its looking like a perfect day.

Trekkies will know this one "Live long and prosper".

Annie Hill Voyaging on a small income revisited

I called on Annie last week, shed sent me the email and pics below, and I had other reasons to go north to Whangarei where she is at the moment.  Shes taken over my friend Marcus Raimons shed, and is busy building a replacement for the deep keeled junk rigged conversion of a Raven 26 production yacht thats been her home for some years now.
She has enjoyed that little ship, there is much to like about it but as she says, for her lifestyle there is a lot of prime water in New Zealand that is shallow. That plus being able to run her up the beach for a bottom scrub or maintenance is a saving, and Annie is very good at "saving", she can live comfortably on less money than anyone I know.

Her new build is really interesting, Designed by David Tyler, ( I know the first name is right but might have to correct the surname, apologies David if I"ve not got it right.) with a lot of input from Annie its her dreamboat, the one that she wants to spend the rest of her life sailing and living on.

Its to be 26 ft long, she says thats the "magic number".   Has a big slab of steel under the centerline, that will add immensely to the strength of the boat as well as being ballast, has two housed bilgeboards which double as legs when the boats grounded, junk rig of course, an outboard mounted in between the twin rudders, those with their skegs being strong enough to act as  supports when the boats aground, and an interior scaled to suit Annies small frame.
 For scale note the Barbie doll and her comments.

By the way, I impressed upon her that her fans would be expecting a book out of this.

So without further ado, heres her email and the pics. Way to go Annie!

My inbox is overflowing --
and I undoubtedly owe you a reply to a letter you wrote me ages ago.  The trouble is, that its probably going to be quite some time until I get round to sending you that reply.  I do, however, have an excellent excuse: Ive started building myself a boat!  I have been assured by one who presumably knows me well, that I could reasonably be described as having lost my mind, but thats what happens when you turn 60!

I love Fantail, of course, but North Island is an area with lots of shallow water, and I want a boat that can take advantage of this.  In addition, Fantail is now 30 years old and I dont really want to be maintaining a boat of this era in another 15 years.  So Ive decided to build my perfect boat, which, hopefully, will see me out.  Below is an impression of the finished boat (although mine will be painted in different colours) and a photograph of the model that my friend, David, who designed the boat, and I made.  The blonde lady represents me: she is the right height in her high heels and including the topknot, but the rest of the proportions are a bit iffy!) David is helping me in the early stages, before sailing off over the horizon leaving me to carry on alone.  But I have heaps of supportive friends, here, so feel fairly confident that when I need a second pair of hands, there will be someone I can call on.

So please forgive my not being in touch, and forgive the fact that I probably wont be much of a correspondent for another year or so.  But once my little boat is launched, I promise Ill try and catch up again.

All the best

Annie