First Cuts!

After annoying the folks at the local exotic lumber yard (the wood is exotic not the yard) I managed to acquire enough mahogany to cut and layup the blank for the keel! My original thought was to use teak but the cost was nearly 3 times as much as the mahogany. If I screw this up I will only feel 1/3 as bad.

The Okume arrives today and the plan is to make the butt joints this afternoon and hopefully start laying things out this weekend.

Hopefully Andrew will get to come see his (pre)boat with his mom this weekend.

Glass and more glass!

Wow, that's a lot of glass! I managed to find a relatively local source for both the fiberglass and the MAS epoxy. Deliveries are only one day away but I think I have everything I need.

Sunday was spent starting the clean up from the last project (Wavelength 24 rebuild) but there is still a lot to do. Sailing is more fun than cleaning but I wish I had been more diligent.

I've been reading everything I can about the build process and can't wait to get started. My hope is to have her in the water summer of 2011. Wow that seems like a long ways away.

Still pondering a couple of build techniques, I plan to spend some time staring at the plans and the templates rolled on the floor this weekend.

Just ordered a Fein Multimaster, can never have too many good tools!

The plans are here!

This is my first blog post chronicalling the build of our i550 sportboat!

We race a Wavelength 24 in Eugene Oregon and wanted something that is easy to trailer and fun to sail so we choose the i550. How can you beat sailing a boat you built yourself?

Thanks to my deceased father-in-law Hank for the inspiration, I wish you were here...

My son Andrew turned 6 months last weekend and the plans for his i550 arrived today! We purchased the fullsized layout and immediatly had them spread all over the floor!

The 20 sheets of Lloyds of London approved Okume will be here next week!