Friday, January 13, 2012

A decision must be made today...

Why cops will love SOPA with an instant speak of the devil, will Republicans walk their talk, and Krugman shares a good point...

Not that I'm superstitious, but I am a sailor and it is Friday the 13th so it is a good day to kick back at anchor and, just maybe, build a new dinghy.

I was going to build another Bolger Tortoise from Payson's "Build the New Instant Boats" but have been thinking that the stretched Tortoise would be no bad thing either. On the other hand, the Skimmer, otherwise known as the poor man's whaler, kinda makes sense as well.

The stretched Tortoise (which can be found in "Instant Boatbuilding with Dynamite Payson") has a lot to say for it... Greater capacity than the Tortoise, a little more elbow room and it will row that little bit better than its smaller sibling. Being a "box" it's also really simple to adapt into a two-part nesting dinghy...

The Skimmer (plans are in "Build the New Instant Boats") would make the most sense if I wanted to use a motor (both the Tortoise designs are non-motorable without some serious reworking of the design) but truth be told, I'd really rather go back to rowing for basic dinghy commuting.

Anyway you look at it, all three boats do the job, use the same amount of materials/labor and will get you from the boat to shore and back again finest-kind.

The downside is, I really wanted to build one of Wooden Widgets Fliptails but that would entail getting materials from stateside and I kind need a dinghy NOW so an instant boat makes the most sense as I just need to hit the local lumberyard.

That said, if a certain seller of boats in Washington State and an inflatable boat company in Idaho had their collective shit together, I could spend my weekend spearfishing or dealing with other more pressing projects that need to be done...

Listening to It's A Beautiful Day

So it goes...