First Row!
So we had the trailer, oarlocks, and oars. And we just had to make sure that nothing leaked before the grand first sail. And we have a pair of great friends and neighbors who are members of a canoe club on the Allegheny River just a few miles down the road from my shop. So even though the boat is not quite finished all these elements came together on a lovely spring afternoon (4/19/06). Here's what happened:
Rex and Betty with Goldberry on the ramp at the Sylvan Canoe Club in Verona, PA. Rex turned 90 in February. His hips are a bit delicate, but we have some hope of getting him into a canoe this summer! That ramp is very narrow, so I backed down slowwwwwly.
Goldberry on the ramp while Tara and I take off straps, install the rudder, and so forth. I thought this was a great view down into the boat. The decks and gunwales now have three coats of varnish (three more to go).
At the canoe club they are used to launching, well, canoes. The ramp is very shallow and we have not had too much rain this spring, so the river is very low - in a normal year the truck would be in up to its wheel wells. With the centerboard up, a Ness Yawl draws only about 10 inches of water. Here the rollers on the trailer are barely wet! If I backed up any further, the trailer wheels would drop off the ramp into the river mud. We almost gave up at this point....
Don pulled, I pushed, and we levered the boat off the trailer. I am very grateful that the ramps at the lake where we normally sail are much steeper.
Afloat at last! Don is ankle deep in river mud and the water is none too warm. He has been a huge supporter of this project and here he really went above and beyond the call. I started cutting the station molds for the boat almost exactly a year ago. I probably would be a tad more sane had I made this a two year build, but once I got going I just couldn't slow myself down.
I'm rowing and Tara is at the helm. I can't wait to see her under sail. She rows easily, even with oars that aren't set up quite right (they were a generous gift from a friend and need a some work to adapt them to this boat).
Me at the oars again, this time we Betty as a passenger. We hauled up the rudder blade after testing the mechanism. I didn't need it under oars and the water at the dock is too shallow. Here I'm backing water to get away from the dock. She rows just fine backwards.
One last shot, with Tara holding the dock lines just so. What a day!