Lofting the side!

YEAH mateys! Enough baloney, time to get to business! Tonight I began to transfer the plans of the GIS on paper to the plywood. This is called lofting. I have plans that give me the dimensions of the sides, and I grid out the plywood and make marks where instructed. Subsequently, I will "connect-the-dots" if you will, and have the curved shape of the boat.

Storer instructs to draw vertical lines across the plywood at 300mm intervals. The majority of the points will be along these lines.

I got home today from a hellish trip at work, which included a missed commute and three hours of sleep the night prior. Fatigued, I set in motion the boat. Promptly, the shit hit the fan and I became a superstitious paranoid sailor. Which is what sailors are naturally, except I wasn't sailing, I'm building my boat. The two pieces of ply I picked matched together quite nicely as far as the grain was concerned. The flowing pieces seems melded as though one, and I took this as a fortuitous sign. Alas, one corner of the plywood had a small crack through the first layer of ply. This was my first dilemma. Do I let the crack stay on the side of my new boat, or use this piece for something less critical, like a seat? I decided to use another piece of ply just so everything was right on the first aspect of the boat. But now, the grain did not match. Had I split a perfect union of two pieces of ply? WOE! I finally went with integrity, and said a quick little sailor's benediction (OH! Plywood! Let me draw on you with grace!), and began drawing my 300mm lines.

I thought I was a veritable rockstar, marking out my 300mm lines at the top and bottom of the pieces of plywood, with plans to match them up to make sure all the measurements were the same. They were, except near the center of the boat, where I had upward of 5mm of difference between the top and bottom marks. This took a while to figure out, and while the points are measured from the top, I wanted this to be relatively spot on, as Storer differentiates some spots by 1mm. Accuracy, in my mind, is paramount. After struggling for a bit, I went for ice cream, came back, and kicked it up. Soon, all the lines matched and verified each other. On to the dots!

The measurement delineating the side of the boat came quickly, until I realized that all vertical measurement regardless of position on the side come from the top of the plywood, not the bottom as the arrows allude to. This I chalk up to my lack of skill reading plans. What tipped me off was that the stern was freaking huge, and since the side, once cut, is flipped over to the remaining plywood, I realized there would be little space left for the hefty bow. Stern is normal sized now. Phew! Glad I caught that one before I started munching into $60 plywood. The whole ordeal took 2:25 min, primarily due to rooky mistakes, but this is why I'm tracking this, so other neophytes like me can count on something realistic as opposed to the "It took me a weekend to cut, build, and glue this boat" shtick.


This is me, lofting. Notice my brave countenance and the infant life-jacket to protect my bony knees. This is symbolic, the life jacket means nautical pursuits, the infant means I have no idea what I'm doing.

The dots for one side are done. Now I need to find something that's 17' long and flexi-like so I can connect the dots in a smooth motion. This is called a "batten" and I'm not sure what I'm going to use.