In the beginning...

So we've had plans to build this for a while now. It was probably 2 years ago that we trekked up to Maine in some really miserable weather to pay Laughing Loon and Rob Macks a visit. To be honest, I wasn't blown away by his designs initially, it was Leslie who decided that the Georgian Bay fitted her needs. But I heard and liked what he said about the design and the potential for modifications. We talked about those mods and what the implications of them would be and I too was convinced that the design would be right for me.

From laughingloon.com

 Rob Macks spent a good couple of hours talking to us about the build process, showing us around his shop and demonstrating some of the basic techniques. All for 1 set of plans and a second license to build for me... I have to say I thought he was very generous with both his time and his knowledge.

 It had always been my intention to get started on this project that year... but life kinda got in the way... actually I think it may have been the master bath refit plus some jewellery box stuff etc...

3rd January 2012... we are back on the project... we've gone over the plans again. Looked at our notes on the scaling process and begun to look for cedar suppliers. It is our intention right now to cut and mill our own strips. Both of us would like to use a predominance of Northern white cedar and use western red for accents. Of course the only problem with this is that the northern white only seems to be available up to 10' or 12' lengths, the western red seems to be available up to more than 20' in length. But if everyone else has been using the northern white in shorter lengths and scarfing it together then you must be able to do it pretty well and nearly invisibly since I have never noticed it on the strip built kayaks and canoes that I have seen. So maybe the whole issue is moot...

We need to build strong-backs first and also some saw horses to put them on while we build. If we are going to mill everything ourselves then we will also need to make up some out-feed supports too. I am thinking that the saw horses may be able to double up for that use.

Time for some thought on cosmetic personalization of the design too, so that we know how much of the various woods we will require. I'll put up some sketches when we have that...

Our old website with the construction of our sailboat, a Merlin Rocket, is here still:

http://home.comcast.net/~jvpkeeling/

JVK