Wow, long time no post, but we've been frankly exhausting ourselves with this project.  Lemmessee, where did we leave off? We finally got done with the damned Epoxy. After a lot of trial and error and cursing and everything we own either being sticky or ossified, we finally completed epoxy on the hull.  The seams, as aforesaid, are done in 6 oz tape, which is doubled on the leading edges to help protect them.  The whole hull up the to gunwale is covered in 4 1/2 oz biaxial cloth, and then two coats of epoxy over the whole surface. The squeegee proved a much ..read more

 The boat has told us her name.  Her name is "Dragonfly," because she'll flit lightly across the water.  Just thought you'd like to know. M ..read more

 Well, I almost called the initial wood order right.  I forgot that I had to use some of the 2X4's as cribbing, so today I'm back off to Lowes for more wood. . .also more screws, didn't count that right either apparently. Ah well, it's scheduled to be beastly hot here today, and frankly we got a bit overcooked yesterday, so a bit of a short work day isn't out of order.   We're doing this build in two segments:  The first is the hull itself, through fiberglass and paint, and then, after we flip her over, the topsides.  I could have done a single wood and foam order ..read more

 So here we sit in the rain, with Hurricane Ian having just clobbered Florida and the rain headed our way.  We've covered up everything we can cover and will just have to sit tight for the next three or so days until the rain passes. sigh Ah well, ten years ago when we built Floating Empire (Go back to the very beginning of this blog if you wanna see that.) we went through the same thing, stymied by rain and wind until we finally got the boat closed in and could work inside. It's the process. Fortunately, there is wine. M ..read more

 . . .or:  Why is everything sticky? Yesterday we started--finally--fiberglassing the seams on the hull.  It actually went pretty well. This was tiring, but actually went pretty well. We're using a marine epoxy from the Epoxy Resin Store on Amazon, available here.  We chose this particular one because it's UV stable, reasonably priced, and doesn't produce and amine blush when setting.  So far, so good.  It gives a reasonable amount of working time before kicking, and the surface when cured is really hard.   While I'm on the subject, do you know ..read more

 It always amazes me how inconstant these builds are.  Some days, you're handling large pieces of wood and they go together into large structures and you go "Wow, we got a lot done today."  Other days your working your ass off on the little niggly bits and you end the day wondering if you've done anything at all.  Both of course, are work that needs to be done.  One of them is just hard to see except for your splinters, the other can be seen from space.  Carry on. Today we began sanding and filling in the gaps in preparation for what we hope will be fiberglassing ..read more

 We began sheathing the hull today, using tightbond III glue and decking screws. A whole LOT of decking screws.  Guess who's going to Lowes tomorrow to get some more. Everything takes longer than you think. We're countersinking the screws and will be filling all of them in prior to fiberglassing. More shortly. M ..read more

 We actually began construction on the new shantyboat yesterday, measuring and notching the chine logs only to have my jigsaw die on us. This is $800 bucks worth of wood?  At least the marina is providing us a nice space to build. Marking the chines for notching.  Hull is, of course, being built upside down. and then my 10 year old jigaw died. Now, of course, it's pouring down rain.  Seems to me we had he same weather problems building 'Floating Empire' ten years ago. . .  . . . .has it been that long?  Jeez. So as soon as the weather ..read more

  Alright, so it's time So we've decided to actually bite the bullet and build a new vessel.  We've spent the last month going over and over photos, plans, sketches, and a host of construction videos and we've finally distilled down what we think we want to build. Floating Empire II--which will tell us her real name eventually-- will be a 24 foot shantyboat, a riverboat designed for thinwater exploring and comfortable living. Simple designs like this EcoCat shantyboat most appeal to us. The result will be a barge-hull box on a raft, drawing only about six inches o ..read more

 As we head into our first decade on the water, we've been talking about the limitations and advantages of some of the vessels we've inhabited.  More to the point, if we build another boat like we built the original Floating Empire, what would it be?  What elements would we include or carefully dis-include?  This is of course a highly individual list, but here are a few of the things we agreed that we definately want to address on any new boat. First of all, Choke Points.  One of the reasons for moving aboard our current Carver dock queen was the major series of choke ..read more