Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
less, of course, they are rotten. A wooden boat is wonderful outside of the tropics away
from the effects of dry rot, fungi, and the dreaded teredo worms and termites one finds
there. A wooden boat rings with the divine majesty of a cool forest, tempered by the pas-
sage of time taken for trees to grow tall and the joy of fashioning a little ship from the
honesty of good wood with all its wholesome aromas, but sadly it was just not practical for
the trip I envisioned.
No, concrete and wood were clearly out of the question, and I turned to the next most prac-
tical and inexpensive choice of material: fiberglass.
Fiberglass was the amateur's choice, and there were plans and kits for the would-be back-
yard builder. The method most used by one-off builders is the foam sandwich method,
which involves making a wooden mock-up of the hull built upside down on a strong plat-
form called a “strong-back.” This basically has the builder making ten stations of the hull
starting from one end of the boat, called the transom or the back end, and spacing the ten
cross-section shapes of the hull through to the other end or bow. These are similar in profile
to the ribs of a wooden boat.
Déjà vu's keel was laid upside down on scaffold planks and bricks on a farm in Northriding
in the middle of 1972. She had metal frames bolted down and strips of timber were wired
to her ribs. Thus her carcass took shape, and to it we painstakingly stitched sheets of poly-
urethane foam, which were then sheathed in several layers of fiberglass. (It is torture when
some of these foam crumbs drop into your eyes, as they will do when one is inside the hull
looking up to receive the needle and sisal stitching: they are like shards of glass.)
We were rank amateurs and were finding out the hard way. I can vividly recall hurling
prematurely resin-hardened rollers all over the farm in violent fits of temper. The absolute
agony was fiberglass prickles in the skin; the only escape from them in the evening was a
stinging hot shower, copious amounts of red wine, warm supper, and Judi's sweet company.
The building of Déjà vu will remain with me, and I'm sure with Judi, until our dying days.
It was a time, it was a time.... It tested our very souls, our mettle, our resolve, and it almost
on several occasions nearly beat us! We fortunately were young and energetic and had a lot
of pleasant diversions to help us along, but it was itchy, sticky, tough going!
When finally the skeleton had taken form, we had to clad the cabin top and sides and deck
and cockpit with special marine grade plywood, epoxy glue, and brass or stainless steel
screws. It all had to be sheathed in fiberglass again and filled, screeded, and faired with
blocks of sandpaper and elbow grease! We now had a very strong sealed and bonded hull
and deck and basic interior of a seagoing yacht. It was another milestone, and we celeb-
rated aplenty! We threw a big party and invited lots of guests, including Judi's parents, Vic
and Miki, as well as fellow boatbuilder friends we had recently met.
