The First Board

  For those that are wondering why this post is call "The First Board", a board in this sense is a length of a course taken to windward, either a port or starboard tack for a set distance.  I also mean it as a pun.  I consider the start of my adventure in building my sailboat an upwind battle as it will take a lot of time and patience.  So I have the plans and I have built a model, now for buying the materials for the real boat.
   I am fortune enough to have a Menards and a Fastenal in the town that I live in so I went both places to scope out what was available.  Menards had all of the wood that I needed and Fastenal had the fasteners.  I bought the wood and fasteners and brought them home to my 12x20 garage.  I look the two sheets of plywood that would be used for the bottom and a few of the 16' 2x6's used for the mast, chines and gunnels and made a lay out table.  I then laid the other two pieces of plywood on the table and tacked them to the table, end to end, so that I could measure out the sides.  After measuring, I cut the sides out with my Skil saw set to a depth the would just penetrate the plywood.  I then set these aside and started on the frames.  Now I am building the boat with fore and aft watertight compartments to be used as storage ala the Mayfly 14 plans, so I cut the frames to accommodate this.  The webbing is 1/4" plywood.  I glued the ply to the frames along with a deck beam at the top.  I made the top deck beam with enough material above the frame measurement so that I could cut a crown into them.  I glued all of the frames with PL Premium construction adhesive.  ( I have since found out that PL Premium is water resistant not water proof.  I hope that I do not have future problems).  Next was to make the hull 3D.  With the assistance of my beautiful wife and a lot of clamps( one can never have enough of these), I assembled the frames and the sides.  Now it was time for a beer and to admire/scrutinize the look of the 3D shape that now resembled a boat.  After a few more beers and a few tweaks to the assembly I glued and screwed (stainless steel 3/4") the sides to the frames.  And there I left it till I could work on it some more. This post makes it sound like it took a small amount of time, not the case.  It took two weekends.  Approximately 20 hours, working when I had time.  Sorry no pictures as I did not have a digital camera at the time.