Friday, October 23, 2009

Plywood to Pocketship in less than 2 minutes

As promised here is a little video of "So True" from a pile of plywood and epoxy to a boat on the water. The music is the boat's namesake song "So True" by the Black Seeds.



I would also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for their generous compliments about the boat and blog. I will continue to make some posts especially when we get back on the water in 5 or 6 months. I also intend to post a few things I would do differently if I had a do-over on my Pocketship construction.

We will be away in Australia for 5 weeks this winter visiting my son (who lives there now) and my daughter (who is there on an an extended visit of at least a year). My son and his wife are purchasing a 32 foot boat to live on so I am sure I will have some boat maintenance/projects to keep me busy when I am there.

Additional thanks to the friends, relatives, neighbours, and ex-colleagues who assisted in flipping the boat twice and getting it on the trailer. More thanks to those of you who posted help on Pocketship.net and Pocketship designer John C. Harris who was always speedy and very helpful in his responses to my emails for technical support on my build.

Finally, the biggest thank-you to my first mate who brought me down to earth when I was becoming boat building obsessed and was able to remind me this was a fun project that I shouldn't be getting stressed about.


My brother very thoughtfully purchased this Rolex Yacht-Master II watch for me in celebration of the launching of "So True". I friend of his was in Hong Kong and brought it back for him. I don't think he really spent $33,000 on me but it is the thought that counts. But, it does look authentic down to the smallest of details; so if you don't tell anyone that it's a replica no one needs to be the wiser :-)

9 comments:

Steve said...

What a fantastic montage. And thank you so much for sharing your build with us. Watching your progress over my morning coffee was always a treat. Take care on your vacation. Will be looking forward to hearing about your ship board adventures this summer.

Hopefully by then, I will be on my way to building mine.

Take Care…

Unknown said...

I can't wait to see videos of SO TRUE in action.

Dave C. said...

I can't wait either to see her back in action; hopefully we will have a shorter winter this year compared to last.

Unknown said...

You Sir, are a master! Congratulations on completeing your project.
We procrastinators all applaud your grit and skill.
One question, what made you choose to build from scratch as opposed to the kit?
Regards
Peter.......Richmond BC

Dave C. said...

I saved about $2300 by not buying the boat kit and sailing hardware kits from CLC. The details are outlined in my expense report.

http://pocketshipadventure.blogspot.com/2009/08/pocketship-expense-report.html

My estimate is that it took me 100-150 hours to transfer the patterns and cut out the parts. Of course, if you order the kit you will not have the initial fears that I had that I would be inaccurate and the boat would not fit together. :-)

Also , with the kit you do not have to do your own scarf joints as puzzle joints are already cut for you.

Unknown said...

Are the plans reusable Dave?

Dave C. said...

Theoretically, the plans are reusable. The 280 page instruction manual is available for $30 from CLC if you just want to see how the boat is built but you need the patterns and plans with the measurements to build the boat. I sent away for study plans on several other boats before I decided on Pocketship. As with all boat plans that I know of when you purchase the plans you are obtaining the rights to build a single boat. Most companies for a nominal fee will let you build additional boats from the one set of plans. I did keep all the patterns and blueprints as reference in case I need to do repairs or replacement parts. Of course, now my patterns are full of hundreds of pinholes where I transferred the patterns to plywood.

Unknown said...

I am planning on building a model of the pocketboat. Does the book include the plans display the individuals parts with its measurements?? In other words, does the instruction manual have a smaller scale of the full size patterns with measurements so i can build a model?

Dave C. said...

There are some small diagrams for cutting out the parts from the plywood sheets but no measurements. The diagrams are probably too small to accurately get measurements from.