Lightning & skiff progress

A rainy day on the outside but lots of fun on the inside!

Chris, George, Jim and Ray all on hand today and lots of progress resulted.

The Lightning was the prime focus:

Ray sands bench seat inserts...

George and Chris rip out the gunnel stock from a 20' Mahogany plank

Jim polishing the bronze chainplates

Bronze chainplates done!

Meanwhile a little work got done on the last skiff built on Big Daddy Festival Weekend....

George marked out the "sculling notch"
and jig sawed it out...

Chris begins making the transom "pretty"

And finally it is time to get the mast and boom for the Lightning down from our spar rack!





The unseen George feeds the spars to Ray and Chris..

We sorted out the rigging which looks well done and complete although a few things will have to be replaced. Some of the turnbuckles are a bit agriculteral looking and some fraying has occurred!

All and all a great day in the boatshop!

A Laurent Giles Sandpiper Travels to the Glen

There has been a lot of excitement amongst our rabid sailers over the gift of this boat and while it is truly a magnificent gift for us, the story of why she was given is less joyful. Her builders were Howard and Sally Williams, beginning in 1987. Meanwile Howard built quite a few other smaller boats, many of which are still at Sally's in Tobermory. Howard passed away last year at age 80 with the Sandpiper essentially constructed but not fully finished. There are no spars - we are researching what rig to use - the plans show a few choices but gaff sloop seems most likely - and there are no fittings, motive power (calls for 1 cyl Yanmar), tiller or interior.

A special thanks to Udo Nixdorf of Georgetown and Tobermory for putting all this together and being a good neighbour to Sally!

Yesterday was our scheduled day for picking up the Sandpiper so Chris Rogers, George Graham, Grant Reynolds and I took a Ferris Beuler Day Off to fetch her....

Sandpiper just emerging into first water - it is raining!

Chris, Udo, Sally, MB, Grant and George

After a real neigbourhood pot luck lunch and sharing lovely storys of boating, we are off with Sally standing in the road waving...



She trailed beautifully and got lots of attention at our Timmy stop in Owen Sound

Safe home to the boatshop, now we just need to make room inside...

Done! but a bit tight.

George and Grant sponge out the rain water.

So thank you Sally for a wonderful gift that will see some kids get sailing! Meanwhile we need to scrounge a few little things including the Yanmar, brass port lights, sitka spruce, deck fittings, etc, etc. Should becoming part of the Sandpiper's future appeal to you - come on out!