Happy New Year!

Tree Boat

New Door

Fifty year old cardboard Levitt house.





Replacing the window with a rotted sill

with a door. put a floor in the bee hive for winter and restricted their access so they can put their little bee feet up against their fire and keep warm.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas
from All of Us at the
Atta Girl Boat Works
Best Wishes for the Year to Come

Whazzup With This?

Light hearted youth at the helm.







Put last coat of bottom paint on TOP PRIORITY. Old fashioned bottom paint smells divine (in small amounts) and glides on kind of like troweling compound. The stuff seems thick enough to seal cracks and fill joints.

Naming

TOP PRIORITY got her name tonight. Took me awhile to find a paintbrush, but I got a base coat down. Tomorrow I will buy a better brush for lettering and fix up the job.

Because of the holiday season the volunteer roster has been sparse. SILENT MAIDs battery boxes are in progress, and TORCH is getting carlin extensions. Jeff spent a while talking with some folks from Italy. I know Jeff didn't understand much Italian and their English was pretty limited. The boats are however beautiful and need no words to speak for themselves.

Snow Boats

Cookie boats on a snowy day and URCHIN out in the yard. Yes, she really does have a cover, but she disrobed for the photo op.
She is a workboat after all.

Bottoms Up!

Wow! The bottom paint came today, How exciting! I couldn't wait and put on a coat of green first after friends helped roll the boat over again. What a nice present. Woo Hoo. Maybe I will paint red stripes tomorrow. Both colors looked nice. It was hard to choose. Gina suggested port red & starboard green. I think maybe just red polka dots. Move over Bert Dow.

Cookies

sailboats

Yep, More Varnish

Pretty soon now I am going to stop using SPARTINA as a workbench. I think this is the last coat on the seats. I painted URCHINs garboard planks and scraped the port bow section.

ARTEMIS

Artemis was one of the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Artemis was often described as the daughter of Zeus and the twin sister of Apollo. She was the Hellenic goddess of forests and hills, child birth, virginity, fertility, the hunt, and often was depicted as a huntress carrying a bow and arrows.
She is also the third John Brady tuckup built 25 years ago. She is currently in the second floor, small boat exhibit at Independence Seaport Museum.

Hardware

TOP PRIORITY got her hardware back today, Dave spent a while bedding down her sheaves, bronze mast ring, traveler, etc. There is a small punch list. We shifted her poppets to give her topsides another coat of white. Green and red bottom paint was ordered so I can give her the Bert Dow treatment. Very High Class ;-)
TORCH getting her carlin extended.
SILENT MAID moving batteries.

Stranger

Who is this masked man? Father Christmas?

Tuckup Paint

Peter, Paul, and Bob. Ed & me too! All the oatmeal cookies went, TOP PRIORITY has new shiny paint, a clean waterline, and some varnish. Pretty good presents I'd say. Wish I had the camera tonite, there were two Santas, one elf and a jester working on the boat. On the other hand, it's good I did not. I cleaned paint off her hardware and found the traveler. Got to make a pin for the rudder float. Came in on Tues and straightened out her waterline, gave the topsides another coat.
Wanted to comment on your blog. "Your waterline looks nice,but we all know that unless you're a fast bailer the true waterline is closer to the sheer!" Tom S
Gee, and I even raised this one an inch over the last one (mostly to cover the Delaware River flotsam stains than I know we will acquire.)

Paint and Varnish

TORCH gets new bulkheads and floorboards.






Tuckup rudder and varnish. Cookie John does them up right.


Varnish on URCHIN, sheerstrakes, seats, & sheets. Oiled aft quarter after sanding and transom after scraping. Sanded garbord aft strake.

Boatbuilding Changes Lives

Sure changed mine, but not the same way as Joe Youcha's program with kids.
see movie

v-v-v-Varnish

Yup, more varnish on URCHIN today. Port sheer, all seats. Oiled transom and starboard quarter after another couple hours of scraping.

Beginning to Look Like Christmas

King Plank Etc.

Silent Maid was having bunk surgery, lost her blocking for the boom crutch, and traveler. John designed a new folding crutch, She reflects her surroundings.



TORCH lost her kingplank. The X is her bronze cross banding to reduce twist by triangulating her frames and planking. The O is her mast partners.
The X is repeated on her hull by the afternoon sun. Rich and Hartly planted a forest of cedar in the old screwholes in her frames.













TP got sanded and more paint and varnish. Sheerstrakes Burgundy red, varnish on rub rails, SILENT MAID white on deck,

RubRails

Bob, Tom, Pete, Paul, Ed, Mike, & me.
Sanded & primed bottom, topsides, & sheer.

Flipped the boat.
Sanded and varnished daggerboard, tiller & bowsprit. Sanded topside of rudder.
Sealed, cut & fit bevels, screwed rubrails to hull with bedding compound spred on both sides. Bunged. Cleaned up & washed brushes.