Two new boats to look at.

Forever Young and Gannet have been added to the "launched" section on the blog. They are right at the top of the pictures of boats if you scroll down a little bit.

Forever Young is new (one year old) and Gannet is an old gill net boat that we built.

Sorry for not keeping up on the blogging, very busy at the shop, I'll do better next week (or tomorrow).

Before and After.

The site front page is fixed. I complain about the web site once and instant repairs happen. Traffic to the blog was the highest yet, but because there was no new content, average time on the site was the lowest yet. The fans have spoken, more boat talk less of everything else.

Funny exhaust elbows (pictured) had to be removed from the motor of the 36' Calvin. The old exhaust had developed a leak where the two elbow were connected. Bolts between the two had deteriorated and allowed the wet elbow to slide down. This was letting a small amount of exhaust into the engine room every time the engine fired. A consequence of this is everything under the deck is coated with a little bit of black. The wet exhaust elbow in the upper left corner of the first picture is suppose to be white. This was a wet exhaust system and its getting replaced with a dry exhaust. As I'm getting ready to explain what is happening it occurs to me that some of the readers might not know the difference between a wet and dry exhaust system. Explanation time.

Wet Exhaust: The exhaust from the motor is routed through a water jacketed elbow and the exhaust and the engine water travel through fiberglass pipe until both exit the boat. On the 36' Calvin the exhaust port was located on the side of the hull near the stern on the port side. Other locations for a wet exhaust exit would be through the stern of the boat or out the bottom of the boat. The underwater exhaust port has been the popular choice at Clark Island Boat Works.

Dry Exhaust: The exhaust from the motor is routed through stainless steel pipe to a vertical muffler until the exhaust exits above the cabin top. Flex pipe (pictured accordion pipe) needs to be added to allow for expansion of the exhaust system. Without the flex pipe constant heating and cooling would lead to cracks in the pipe. Because a dry exhaust isn't water cooled it will need to be wrapped with a high temp blanket to protect the rest of the engine room from the intense heat.
On this exhaust the port on the motor was 3" but to reduce any possible back pressure it was recommended to get the exhaust pipe to 6" as quickly as possible. Our staff welder/metal artist accomplished this by welding a 3" elbow to a 6" elbow. The next segment (not pictured) will be a double flanged pipe to get the exhaust to the far port side of the wheelhouse. Then up to the muffler and out though the cabin. John has this on the run, hopefully the exhaust can be completed by the end of next week.

The new elbow is so impressive that this post was just going to be a pic of the new elbow and the word "WOW" in 4 inch block letters. If I had stuck with that plan this post would be on time. I couldn't cheat the fans, all 6 of you, you deserve better posts. My goal for tonight is going to read some other blogs and see how people start sentences (personally i start most with THE, I, and the letter O). There must be more options then this......

In other shop news: I took a slack day and hung out with my nephews. The fuel tanks for the 36' Calvin have been started, a new bulkhead has been added to the boat (so the old laz bulkhead can be removed) Jeff was sick and stayed home. Dan and Clay gel coated the forward cabin of an old lobster boat (not pictured). John welded. And the boss didn't return from his vacation. He should be back today.

If you want to know how many posts out of thirty this is then you've read them all and I don't have to tell you (13).

Sunday Spotlight: Sea Hag

This post should be listed in the "on time" side of the ledger. It was started at 6pm and my intention was to finish it directly. I had to stop for dinner then a series of distractions and some cold medicine..... Anyway its 2:20 in the am, lets see how it goes.

Sea Hag is a 36' Calvin Beal that was finished in 2003. The boat is primarily used for catching lobster and lives in Rye NH. Based on reader feedback that are all the boat details that you are going to get. If you'd like to learn more about Sea Hag, please leave the following comment "I've got to know more about that boat". Keep checking back in the comments section for more and more details as they are requested. The rest of this will be an interesting story about the relationship between the owner of Sea Hag and Clark Island Boat Works. The facts might be exaggerated and/or changed to make for a better story.

Scheduling the completion of a project can be very difficult. Things will happen to delay a launch: other repairs take longer than expected, underestimating how long things will take, and unannounced vacations can all make a boat take longer than anticipated. I think in the case of the Sea Hag we just underestimated how long the project was going to take. The owner was looking to have the boat completed in April, like most lobster boats, and it had become obvious that we weren't going to have the boat done until much later. As you are reading this you might be asking yourself "why would he be talking about a boat that was late?" or you might be asking "is he trying to make my decision to pick another boatshop easier?" or you might be asking "why is the kid blogging at 2:20 am?"

Anyway, June of 2003, the owner of Sea Hag and 2-3 of his pals make the trip north to check progress on the boat and to help in any way they can. Back in 2003 there was no internet so the owner had no idea what he was going to be seeing until he arrived at the shop. The owner was not at all pleased with the amount of work that had been completed, and knowing that the boat launch was still weeks away he became irritated. He quickly progressed through the 4 levels of irritation.....

1. Mumble to yourself.
2. Kick dirt on shop floor.
3. Stare at boat while shaking head.
4. Mention something to the boss.

At the time I was just a worker and luckily didn't have to deal with the customers. That was my dad's job. And truthfully I didn't hear the conversation between the two, but my dad says it went like this.

"when is the boat going to be done?"
"as soon as possible, we're working as fast as we can."
"yeah well you said it was going to be done by blahblahblah and it clearly isn't going to be."
"the boat will be done when its done."
"discouraging comments, grumble grumble, blahblahblah....."
"look, we are trying to finish your boat. now you can either see if there is anything you can do to help or maybe you should just get in your car and head back to Rye."

Awkward silence throughout the shop for the next couple of hours, then complete attitude change by the owner. No more comments about the boat, he was actually in a good mood. We worked the rest of the day then the owner, his 2-3 friends, and myself went golfing. This has nothing to do with the post but I killed those guys on the golf course. The owner was a pleasure to work with for the rest of the project. The boat was finished in early August and the owner was extremely happy with the boat. And although it was late, he was extremely happy with Clark Island Boat Works.

Every year I go to Rye and help out with yearly maintenance: repair hauling side, phillyclad the deck, touch up the gelcoat.....And every year I get great Red Sox tickets. The owner of Sea Hag is one of my favorite customers, his boat lead directly to another project "Fish Tales", and from what I hear he will praise Clark Island Boat Works to anyone that will listen. Sorry we were late with your boat, thanks for your continued support.

I can't tell if this post is good or not, it might get deleted in the morning. Normally I wouldn't talk about a late project but I guess the moral of the story would be...........complaining doesn't help. (we're working as fast as we can)

How about that great photo at the beginning of the post. That's the best pic I have of this boat, if you have a better picture of Sea Hag please email it to me. 11 down, less than 20 to go.

Tanks out. Gross out.

Hello people of the world. If this is your first visit to the blog then I would recommend reading the previous posts before you continue. After you read those other posts this post will make more sense and you can see how much my posts have improved over the last 8 days. 27 visits on day two of the stat tracker. Site traffic is up 200% in one day!!! If this trend continues by the end of the 30 days we'll be rolling everyone on the planet (do the math if you don't believe me). If you first-timers disregarded my advice at the beginning of the post and are still reading........nice.

Dan Jr. and Clay started in with the crowbars and freed the tanks from the boat first thing this morning. Ropes, blocks, pry bars, and 4 workers were need to dislodge the tanks from the boat. Then once the tanks were pulled up we tipped them to the side to pump out the rest of the diesel fuel (I subcontracted that job to one of my employees the thought of diesel makes me want to vomit). After the tanks were totally empty we tied ropes around both ends and lowered them off the boat and onto the floor.

Photographic proof that the tanks are indeed on the floor of the shop. Also pictured are the parts of the deck that were removed yesterday. The scum line that you see on the tanks is where the foam was attaching the tank to the hull. The foam ended up being the toughest part of this job so far. All the foam was drenched in fuel, water, and slime. Even though the foam had been softened by the fuel it still was very tough and could only be broken out in small pieces. Dan Jr. and Clay deserve all the credit in the world for sticking to this job, I worked on other projects as soon as the tanks were on the floor (pictured). After using the vacuum to pick up all the water/fuel they used flat bars to break up the foam. I was going to bring the crew out to lunch today but after 30 min of playing in that scuzzy foam Dan and Clay reeked and we would have been kicked out of most dining establishments. I can't even explain the foam without using profanity and even then I don't think that words can do the odor justice. So..... If you are interested in getting a sample of the diseased foam please leave a comment that says "I need to know what that foam was all about" and your address and I will be happy to send you a small sample, for 6 dollars.

As you can see we have plenty of samples and most of them are in mint condition, limit one per customer. Supplies are limited so act fast, all sales are final, satisfaction guaranteed.

In other shop news I put a radar stand back on a 40' Wayne Beal after John (our welder) had shorted the aluminum stand. The owner had been having troubles getting the boat in and out of buildings and even transporting it over the road. Now with the shorter stand these problems should be eliminated. The entire crew was involved in the tank circus in the morning but afterward Jeff focused on the arch on the 38' Northern Bay. Pictures of a completed arch should be available by the end of the weekend. John began fabrication on a stainless steel 8" exhaust port. Someone brought us donuts for break, which we all appreciated.

Post number 9 in the books. Three pics (so lazy), by post number 23 it will be all pics no words, then maybe when I have nothing left, video post. My favorite part of these posts is the forced comments that I make at the end, I hope you are as uncomfortable reading them as I am writing them. The boat stuff should be enough.

Of the 16 unique viewers to this blog, 1 from Brazil and 1 from India. I thought that was cool so I decided to share. Its probably just a computer that scans all the blogs in the world gathering information on people to use against them when they least expect it. Or not.

So easy to destroy a boat.

This would be the worst time to walk into the middle of the operating room. All the plywood has been removed and the crossbeams have been cut to get to the leaking stainless steel fuel tanks. Everything under the deck is coated with a fuel/soot/slime mix, clean up begins tomorrow. This deck probably took a long time to build its a shame that we removed it in two days. The fuel tanks have been drained but they are tied into the boat with two-part expanding foam. Foam is no match for a crowbar so the tanks should be dislodged early Friday morning. There are stickers on the top of both tanks with the company's name that built them along with this, "Satisfaction Guaranteed", the owner of the boat should be contacting them about the two leaky tanks. I didn't include the name of the company that built the tanks because I wouldn't want anyone pointing out all my mistakes.

The wet exhaust was simple to cut out, the hole in the hull will need to be patched. I had the welder look at the exhaust elbows and after he stopped laughing he made a plan for routing the new stainless steel dry exhaust.

All the fuel lines have been removed from the tanks and labeled, however some of the lines might need to be replaced depending on their condition. So far so good, nothing unexpected, but problems are certain to develop, they always do. I am addicted to using commas, I use them way too much, and I usually use them incorrectly, react to my statement.

In other shop news: The support arch on the 38' Northern Bay was submitted and given the green light. Full speed ahead on the arch in the morning. Because the owner lives in Georgia I drew options of what I thought the arch should look like and sent him a picture via the interweb. He then printed the picture and drew another line and sent it back to me. How did decisions ever get made before the internet? That arch decision would have taken 2 weeks and 6 postage stamps.

Thanks to one of my subscribers now I'm tracking the traffic to the blog (using Google Anayltics). Nine views today, very strong. I would take the time to list you all individually here but I wouldn't want to embarrass anyone. My goal for the next 10 days is to get the number up to 30 views. So tell your friends.

Also, I think that I am using the "Labels for this post" box incorrectly. I've been labeling them number 1, number 2, 3, 4, etc... I think I'm suppose to be labeling them with words that say what the post is about (boats, fuel tanks, motor, etc) Good thing only nine people are looking.

More work is always good.

Biggest complaint about the blog so far: the titles to the posts are awful and unoriginal. I can't disagree, I will try to spend more time coming up with puns and word play in the titles. For the time being you'll have to get by on the great content. You will be happy to hear that the number of people following the blog has risen from zero to .........zero. With all the effort that I am putting in there should be more followers. My comfort level with people even being my "followers" isn't very high so lets just call them fans.

A 36' Calvin Beal (pictured) arrived at the shop today and the timing couldn't be better. The "new engine" project (see post #2) will be finished tomorrow so one repair is concluded so another can begin. This boat was originally finished at Fraser Performance and built for a lobsterman in Maine, the boat has since changed hands and fishes out of Rhode Island. The boat is in good shape but the list of things to fix is slightly major.

1. Remove all deck hardware
2. Remove deck
3. Remove fuel tanks
4. Remove wet exhaust system
5. Build 2 new fiberglass fuel tanks (130-160 gal)
6. Build 2 lobster tanks under the deck (500 - 750 lbs)
7. Build new stainless steel exhaust.
8. Build new deck (plywood, fiberglass, sand, and gel)
9. Reinstall hatches and add two new Anchor hatches (24" X 40") for the lobster tanks
10. Make a lobster tray out of aluminum that will fit into fiberglass pipes attached to the lobster tanks under the deck.
11. Everything else

Eleven things, not a big list but some of the tasks on the list might take a couple of days. We are hoping to accomplish this job in 4 weeks. However, once the deck has been removed I will have a lot clear picture of what this job is going to entail. Tomorrow we will start ripping up the hatches and hopefully by the end of the day the boat will be dried out.

Trivia: The owner of the boat had to travel 14 hours (by water) to get the boat to Rockland, Maine. He arrived today at 2pm. Did he leave really early or really late??

Actual work that happened today: New Motor Project: filled hydraulic tanks, non-skidded the forward floor, installed the stereo, cleaned boat and prepared for transportation. 38' Northern Bay: met with a fabricator from Nautilus Marine Fabrication to plan for the SS rails (bow rail, hand rails, ladder, and radar arch) met with a woodworker from Hewes & Company to make a plan about teak trim, more sanding and gelling on flybridge. Along with the 36' Calvin (pictured) arriving another boat was delivered for repair.

I have no evidence to support my theory but I'm quite sure that these posts would be much better if i didn't write them at 11:30 at night. Tomorrow look for a post around 5pm, then post a comment if you like it more than these late night ramblings. I will always play to the crowd.

24 is the number of posts left and the number of posts left is 24.

Will I be able to quit........