Loose ends.

Laptop

Kip and I went to Knoxville yesterday to purchase a replacement computer for the laptop that was stolen.  Thanks to the generosity of pocketnaomi, cflute, durconnell and Anna, we could actually stretch to the same kind of computer we had before (a little more advanced owing to 2 years of computer developments.)  We are very grateful for the help that made this possible!   We have named her Minerva.

We promptly put OpenOffice and Eve Online on it.  I thought OpenOffice was a big download because it took 15 minutes on broadband, but it paled next to the Eve client which took four hours!   Of course the very next thing that happened on Eve is that Kip and I were mining a nice grav site and jerks drilled into our wormhole and attacked us for no reason, destroying ships that were worth more than the ore we'd mined.  That's Eve for you.

Boatshop / Next Build

I have spent the day disassembling cradles, sorting leftover planks, and in general getting ready to make the next boat.  The boatshop looks very empty without a boat in it, but I will soon fix that.  I am still trying to decide what design to build; my current clever plan is to go over to Carson-Newman tomorrow and see if I can use their Wonderful Drafting Table to loft both the Rob Roy from _Canoecraft_ and the Vayu from _Rushton And His Times..._  (Note that "Vayu" is the name of the specific Ugo Manley {later edit: Arg!  Not Manley!  Manley wrote the book and owned the Vayu but the measurements were taken by Orvo E. Markkula!} took his measurements from--like my Wee Lassie II's name is "Constance."  I have heard that since the final shape of a Rushton canoe would depend on the elm ribs and the cedar planks kind of wrestling each other to a standstill after the boat was taken off the form,  no two were precisely alike.  This is great because I think "Ugo" is ugly but I kind of like "Vayu" so I now have an excuse to call it by a name I like better.)

People make a big deal out of lofting, like it was some really hard thing to do; I totally don't get that.  You take your list of heights and widths, make 2 perpendicular lines on the paper, one vertical and one horizontal--measure the height on the vertical line and the width on the horizontal line and make the dot at the right height and width.  When you've drawn the dots for one station, use a curve to connect them.  Do the same for the other stations.  It's a bit tedious if you don't like that sort of puzzle, but I did the Wee Lassie II in an afternoon.  (Though the WLII had the numbers attached to little thumbnail sketches, which may have made it easier; maybe I shouldn't talk till I'm finished.)

Anyway once I have both the plans drawn out I can compare the hull shapes better than I can when they are lists of numbers.  If I like the Vayu's hull shape, I am thinking about reducing the plans by 10% or so in height and width.  That would make it a boat with a 27 inch beam, and about 10 inches depth in the center. (I was misreading last time when I said it was 15 inches deep--it's only 11 1/4; my bad.)  If I also reduce the length 10% it becomes a 13 1/2 foot boat, which is pretty close to the Wee Lassie II, and probably short enough to do with 14 foot planks which saves me money (shorter boards tend to be cheaper per board foot.)  That also changes the distance between stations from 1' 10" (I was wrong when I said 2 feet last time; again, my bad--I was just dashing things off when I should have been checking) to 19 3/4" which may or may not be enough to make a difference, but seems worth trying.

I've built 2 boats.  Maybe it's time to try my hand at modifying a design.  More extensively than I did with the Wee Lassie, I mean :-)  And the Vayu is arguably of historical interest, while I am frankly pretty sure that the _Canoecraft_ Rob Roy is basically an homage, name-wise, to the famous early canoe (and there were several of that name, one of which was a full-fledged 21 foot sailboat; damn MacGregor anyway) but not any serious re-creation of the design because the _Canoecraft_ Rob Roy is asymmetric--the stern half is slightly wider than the bow half.  I'm pretty sure this is a modern development in canoe design.  (Of course, I thought tumblehome was modern too, so I could be wrong.)

Of course by the time I've messed with the Vayu design, plus constructed it using a technique that was completely unavailable to Rushton, it's moot how historical it could be said to be.  (And no, I will not be trying lapstrake with feathered laps to produce a completely smooth surface rabbeted into an oak keel and stems made from spruce knees, thanks anyway.)  Rushton *would* have used fiberglass if he'd had access to it, I'm sure; that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

League Stuff

Also tomorrow I need to get started on the booklet for the League of Women Voters.  I don't know who the mayor of Jefferson City is (it's presently a tie and there will probably be a run-off election) but I could at least do the rest of the elected officials.  Plus I need to ask the Chairman of the County Commission to speak to us in January, since I'm in charge of January's program.

Sigh.  Well, at least I can work on boats part of the day.