Building Falcon

Building Falcon

Research and education added about a hundred,
maybe two hundred, books to my already insensibly
large library.

I spent the majority of my spare time learning and
designing, sketching and shopping, and of course,
wandering through the forests of masts in coastal New
England boatyards and marinas. I finally found a place
in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, where a man was
collecting old molds and selling hulls. The hull I went
down to investigate is actually the one in the
background of this picture. It is a 47' full keel offshore
sloop design with a pretty forward underbody and a
disturbingly ugly aft underbody. The owner also
wanted way too much money for it.

One of the 'old sayings' I'd discovered at this point
focused on what the old-timers referred to as 'blow of
the eye'. "If you see a hull and it looks wrong to you, it
probably is. You do not need to be an accomplished
sailor or a naval architect." The old pastime of wandering
through winter boatyards and looking around while
waiting for spring pays dividends. Most of the boats
stored there are good boats with good hulls, and you get
used to it. After crunching all the numbers again, I knew
my finances could not support the 47 footer, and opted
for a hull out of the mold in the foreground of the picture.
It was described as a "32 and a half foot replica of
Slocum's 'Spray', with a 12 and a half foot beam and 5
foot draft. The mold was built by one 'Hans Otto Horne',
somewhere in Florida and sometime around 1953." I just
got a hull and designed my own version of a schooner.
This is the hull where it was stored after Hale Pauley
screwed it up. I didn't see any good in complaining
about being taken and just made the best of it.

Something that sadly escaped my attention during my initial inspection of the hull, but can be seen clearly in the stern view
above, is that the right side of the hull is thinner than the left side. A few measurements later and I confirmed the truth: Pauley
had laid up two more schedules of 24ounce woven roving and 1 1/2 ounce coarse strand mat on the left side than the right
side. Brilliant. I don't know if it's booze, years of drug abuse, or just being high as a kite on the fumes of curing polyester
resin, but the bozo screwed the pooch and left me with a big fix before I could even start building a boat.

But, even before that, I glanced at the cloudy sky and felt the approach of autumn in the air. The location I'd been lucky
enough to arrange was about 20 feet from the waters edge on the northern tip of Lynn Harbor in Massachusetts. A lifetime on
the New England Coast brought me a healthy respect for the weather that was certainly on the way and I had to build some
kind of suitable shed to allow working through the winter.

As briefly as possible, I met a man named Nebelkopf who was involved with condominium development on the location, and
he offered me the spot and whatever water and electric resources I might require in exchange for my help (at a reasonable
rate) in the complete, frame-off restoration of a 1959 Cadillac El Dorado Biarritz. There was also an abandoned building on
the property (barely visible behind the tree in the stern shot of Falcon's hull) that was scheduled for demolition. The building
was a metal structure of 50 feet by 100 feet with a second floor made entirely of wood. He offered me the wood if I could
remove it. Done. After a huge amount of effort.

It turns out that part of the support for the floor comprised of 120 Douglas Fir beams that measured 2 1/2 inches by 7 1/2
inches by 22 feet long. It's like the best Christmas stocking present ever! I couldn't believe it. Without saying anything, I
worked like a dog disassembling the entire loft and carefully stacking and grading the lumber, pulling a full 55 gallon drum of
nails out of it as I did. I carefully hid the very best of the big beams in the middle of the pile, knowing the owner would
suddenly see the value of the huge piles of long beams and being sorry for the deal he'd made, want something more.

Luckily, there were also about 100 22 foot 2 by 8's and forty or so sheets of 3/4 inch plywood, none of which I had much
interest in, so when the vultures swooped in to scavenge, I defended the cache like a rabid Hun and out of the kindness of
my heart and generosity of my glowing soul, allowed them most of the 2 by 8's and all the plywood. That way I didn't have to
carry the crap around any more. I kept about half of the 2 by 8's to make the trusses and scaffolding for the shed, all the 3 by
8 beams and all the 1 inch pine flooring.

With the useless lumber
disappearing over the horizon along
with the cackles of the takers, I
separated the rest of the lumber into
two piles: one for the boat (all the
very best of the wood) and the rest
for the shed. They even left behind
some of the damaged plywood,
which you can see at the rear of the
shed.

I sent away for and received a
large, tough tarp (you might also
include 'heavy' in that description)
that was white on one side to reflect
the summer sun and help keep the
shed a bit cooler, and black on the

other side to help warm the shed. I also wired in some old 8 foot fluorescent lights, and this picture is the first tryout of the
lights with the tarp in place. The white inside also made it brighter.

Officially, winter was here. It just hadn't snowed yet. A large pile of
lobster pots can be seen directly behind the shed where they are
stored. Don't believe a word about lobster pots stinking like the bottom
of the ocean at low tide. You can hardly smell them at all once they're
frozen. If you breath through your mouth.

I worked 16 and 18 hours a day closing in the shed with heavy, clear
plastic, stapled on with canvas strips and wood battens to survive the
winter winds. I also lashed down the heavy tarp as though a hurricane
were coming. I'm intimately familiar with New England winters. It held,
and more, it warmed up the shed inside. It became quite comfortable in
there and made working fairly pleasant.

I also worked on building a scaffolding around the hull, and closing in
the back end of the shed with wood and plastic and the front with a set
of doors 12 feet high and 8 feet wide. I also built two small doors for
easy access. It snowed just days after I finished closing it in.

I've always liked this picture. A hundred little cans of auto touch-up paint were gathered up and placed on a makeshift table to
see if there was anything of any use before they were all tossed. A half dozen or so friends and I talked and passed the time
opening them and slobbering the colors in a stripe across the doors, for no reason other than to see the colors. Later on that
day, after everyone had left, I cut a silhouette out of some thin plywood, painted it black and tacked it to the door. It stayed
there for two years while I built Falcon. I also got kind of a kick out of the arched window over the doors. That was some kind
of a desperate compromise to join the shed roof to the door frame in as reasonable a way as possible.

I built the doors and frame together on the ground as one large assembly and stood it up one night in a desperate and
ridiculous affair that almost left me pinned on the ground beneath them. As I nailed and screwed the frames, doors and
hinges together on the ground, right in front of the opening, it got heavier and heavier and I began to wonder how I could
stand the assembly up and get it in place. I brought a barrel over and lifted one corner and kicked the barrel under, then the
other corner. I put a five foot 2 by 8 in the middle and shouldered the assembly higher, propping the 2 by 8 under it. I put an 8
foot 2 by 8 under it and slowly worked it up higher and higher, until the entire assembly was propped at a 45 degree angle
with an 8 foot 2 by 8 holding it up. I wondered how heavy it was, and if I might possibly be able to just push it the rest of the
way up, so I got underneath, in the middle of the doors, put my hands straight up over my head and tested the weight.

The 8 foot 2 by 8 came loose and fell, bonking me square on the back of the head, then falling to the ground. I was so
surprised that my knees buckled and I thought I would collapse with the whole weight of the doors and frame on top of me. It
was very cold and late at night and I heaved against the weight, pushing the doors up and slipping my hands lower. In about
20 seconds, the doors were upright and I pulled one of them open to stabilize the assembly. I had to do it because I would
have been SO ashamed to die like that. Good grief. My back hurt. And my head.

There is a condition of the mind that those who
possess it know and those who don't will never
comprehend. It is an efficiency of mental resources
that allows you to carry on tedious tasks like an
automaton, without applying a higher level of
concentration, which is instead busily working out
future difficulties. People like to call it 'multi-tasking',
but those who use the phrase most frequently are
those least likely to understand the concept.
Consequently, I never use the term.

While stapling on all the plastic, I was working out the
big doors. While fastening the doors, I designed the
small doors. While sorting the lumber, I struggled with
how to satisfactorily make and install a pair of brutally
tough sheer clamps. This picture shows the final
result. I found the two clearest, straightest, and
heaviest beams in the stack, and from them cut four

beams which I finished to 2 inches by 2 1/2 inches by 22 feet. Next, I cut and epoxied a 26 inch scarf in each and joined the
pairs into two sheer clamps that were almost 40 feet long.

The beams were heavy and unwieldy, so I suspended the first one from the shed trusses and tried to force it into position in
the hull. No go - not a chance. Next, I secured block and tackle to the ends of the suspended beam and began to curve it like
an archers bow. The minor groaning of the wood didn't frighten me, but the explosive failure of the scarf, followed by me and
everything else crashing down into the bilge scared the hell out me. You know - for a second. I got over it.

An inspection of the scarf revealed no damage, simply that the feathered end of the scarf began to lift and the joint itself
inevitably peeled apart. I redid that scarf and put it aside to cure while I started again with the other beam. This time, prior to
bending it, I wrapped the feathered tips of the scarf joint with some tightly drawn .020 stainless steel safety wire. The beam
bent perfectly and the joint held without a problem. Next, some epoxy and every clamp I owned held the sheer clamp in
position while I bolted it every 8 inches with 5/16 stainless steel flathead screws, washers and nuts. It brought a new stiffness
to the hull that I liked.

The bolts securing the sheer clamp were countersunk both on the outside of the hull as well as on the inside. You can just
see them in the picture above. At this point I burned up three perfectly good, though old and dated, circular saws as I trimmed
the entire length of the 3/4 inch thick fiberglass hull down to the newly installed sheer clamps. The saws filled with fiberglass
and resin dust and actually caught fire in my hands. Still, they made it through the job. I, on the other hand, still shudder when
I think of how coated with fiberglass and how itchy I was for days.

The next project was the shaping and installation of the main beams. Everything was notched into each other, epoxied and
bolted. Many of the trickier beams were laminated up in place and secured or positioned using some methods I had to come
up with on the spot. Certain dimensions were the product of long design and study, or investigation of the hull itself. For
instance, the position of the athwartships beams at the forward and aft ends of the cabin were a product of design specs. I
knew where the cabin roof should start and end. The aft end of the cockpit was more or less forced by the position of the
rudder and the angle of the keel.

The sides of the cabin and width of the side decks were more complex, however, and I first had to determine the floating level
of the boat and adjust the blocking with a hydraulic jack and pyramid level (clear hose with water in it) and scribe a waterline.
From there I used a plumb bob and level inside to outline the cabin sole, and from there determined the deckhouse size so I
would have standing headroom wherever there was floor. Once I had the right layout, I laminated in the cabin side beams.

Even though the second picture was first, I like they way they look in this order. I installed four 5/16 stainless threaded rods
on each side, countersunk into the hull on the outside and clamped with washers and nuts on the inside. They also had
washers and nuts on both sides of the cabin side beam to perfectly locate the beam during the fabrication and installation of
the short deck beams. Each of these beams is notched into the cabin beam and sheer clamp with a tapered end, epoxied and
bolted with 5/16 SS bolts, countersunk to facilitate deck planking. Also notice the heavy triangular gussets between the main
deck beams and the sheer clamps. Those are also epoxied and bolted. This boat is strong.

Frankly, there were times when I was having
so much fun and making such good
progress, that I just didn't stop to take many
pictures, even though I usually worked 14 to
18 hours a day on the boat. Of course, I also
took time away to earn money, but not
nearly as much as you might think. The first
winter, however, was fairly dominated by the
restoration of the Cadillac. You know what?
I'm going to stick the Caddy section in right
here. It isn't that big a deal and I sure don't
need to dedicate a whole section to it.
The picture to the left was taken sometime
during the second summer, the first being
when I was salvaging the wood. By this time,
the plastic on the shed had sun-rotted and
was all torn away, making for a great
summer shed. A short time later, as in the
shots below, new plastic was installed and a
hole was cut through the big doors to allow
the bowsprit to stick through.

All the framework was smoothed and coated with epoxy, and as you can see in the second picture, I used the same method
with the SS threaded rod to locate the cockpit side beams, which were also laminated in place. There is a degree of this that
is purely artistic in determining arches and curvatures, spacing and dimension, but once again, if something is structurally
unsound, you'll see it. I've always liked the way the finished deck framing looked, and after 20 years, still have no reason to
doubt it's strength and integrity.

Okay, then, lead, lead, lead.
The hull was originally
designed by Horne to have
5500 pounds of boiler
punchings and concrete, or
some other such unlikely
substance deposited in the
bilge. Of course, he also
designed the masts to be
chopped down in the nearest
City Park, and the rig to be a
ketch. And worst of all, he
designed the deck to be
recessed about a foot below
the sheer. Great googely
moogely. I wasn't up for any
of that. I wanted 8600
pounds of lead for a 43%
ballast ratio, and I got it.

Lead was hard to find in any
serious quantity and at the
time it was between $1 and
$2 per pound, supplied in 50
or 60 pound ingots.

Averaging, I had to guess at about $13,000 to buy enough lead for ballast. Ouch. I started picking up loose wheel weights
along the roadside as I walked around town. Then I started buying buckets of old wheel weights at the tire stores for 15 cents
a pound. A friend with a lead washer business began selling me his scrap, lead sheeting with a million little holes punched in
it, and millions of tiny lead discs punched from the center of the washers, also for 15 cents a pound.

A guy at a boatyard told me there was a 2500 pound lead keel from a sunk boat that they'd load onto a trailer for me for $500.
Done. Now we're getting somewhere. The last stop was a boatyard in Marblehead that had a 5500 pound lead keel lying in
the bottom of the haulout slip. Apparently, it had torn out of the bottom of an old boat during haulout, and been there ever
since. Once I squared it with the old boat owner, the yard picked it up and put it on my rented trailer for a measly $200. Now,
all I had to do was get it back to Lynn and off the trailer.

The trailer was a U-Haul and rated at 2500 pounds, so when the 5500 pound keel was set on it, it squatted to the rubber
bumpers and almost disintegrated them. The axles bent and the tires squashed and everybody but me laughed. I still had 20
miles to go. Fortunately, I'd had the foresight to lay a dozen 2 inch pipes in the bottom of the trailer to help with rolling it out.

With my teeth clenched and my eyebrows arched til it hurt, I eased the groaning load to the boat in Lynn, where a bunch of
people gathered and wondered how in all that is sane and rational, was I going to get that thing off the trailer? No problem. I
told them to stand back and I got a lever and tried to roll it on the pipes. No deal. Not a chance. Okay then, I put a jack under
the trailer tongue and released the car and parked it, leaving the trailer alone in the middle of the yard, right in front of the big
shed doors. Then I began jacking up the tongue, the idea being to make it easier to roll out. The higher it got, the scarier it
got. People laughed nervously and stepped cautiously backward as I went back and forth. All of a sudden it moved. I jumped
back and the lead rolled out of the trailer and the trailer shot across the yard like a pinched watermelon seed and the damn
ground shook when that keel slammed down. Easy as pie. The keel now lay as if it were nailed to the center of the Earth. It
took me two full months to cut into manageable sized lumps.

I built a wooden dam to keep the lead from flowing aft into the rear bilge, then
began laying lumps of lead into the bottom of the keel as I melted pot after
pot of lead, scraped off the impurities, and poured it carefully onto the lumps,
melting it all together into one large block. I found I could melt five pots of
about 40 pounds each, per hour. I also had to keep bringing more and more
lumps from outside into the boat.

I did the entire job in one 46 hour session, and when it was over, I'd melted
7100 pounds of lead into the keel. It took a week to cool. When it did, it
shrank a tad and I poured a gallon of tropical mixed West epoxy around it,
which oozed in around it and cured, then I fiberglassed it into the bilge.

Something about the keel trunk that I haven't mentioned is the fiberglassing I did around it during the big project to thicken up
the starboard side. Somehow, somewhere, I seem to have lost the pictures I took of that particular job. I know I had them, but,
yeah, well, you know. It occurred to me that the entire lead keel casting COULD possibly tear loose from the keel trunk and
plunge straight through the cabin top, IF Falcon got pitchpoled by a big wave and slammed down on the water upside down.
This scenario is spooky enough without the keel lead launching itself into the great black at the bottom of the ocean, leaving
a giant hole in what would now be the bottom of the boat. Not to mention that the boat would now have no reason to roll back
upright.

So there I was, already all sticky with resin and fuzzy with a million glass filaments halfway to my elbows as I finished the side
work (probably a little high from fumes as well). I ground a proper prep into the surface around the top of the keel, a foot up
into the bilge and a foot down into the keel trunk, then laid up a full half inch of thickness on each side, creating a one inch
bottleneck at the top of the keel trunk. The added material also brought the hull thickness in that area to a full 2 inches.
Falcon's hull is built like a tank. Yeah, I know - heavy - but blah blah blah - I don't intend to run around, but a thousand things
have happened that I never intended, and I'm sure grounding will soon make the list.

There were very few pictures taken of me during this whole boat building thing, but I do have one and I've decided to include
it. I hope it doesn't seem vain, though I doubt many will think so since I look like a homeless vagrant, but It does give a picture
of who is doing all the talking here.

By this time I was finishing up all the main framing, laminating in the forward cabin arch beam and the aft cockpit arch beam,
and preparing to melt in the lead.

"What happened to all the time?" you might ask. Well, it's like this - - - lead. Sailboats have keels and keels are made of lead
and lead is difficult to get at best and very expensive at worst. Not only that, it's a tad tough to move around and work with.
More on that in a minute.

I'm older now with less hair, but I still own
the shirt. No, that's not true. I tossed it a
month or so ago. That's what happens
when you store things in sailbags by
accident.

The beams selected for the main floor
stringers and braces were all clear and
hard. I had to use some old boat builders
tricks from old books to shape them so
they fit perfectly, then I epoxied and
fiberglassed everything to the hull and
each other.

Again the shed was filled with the smell of
fresh sawdust instead of polyester resin.
Gratefully, the West System epoxy I used
for most of the work had little or no odor.
If it did, I couldn't smell it. I don't smoke
anymore, but at the time I did and might
not have had the best nose for those
things.

All the floor timbers were aligned to be perfectly level from fore and aft as well as side to side. Naturally, I constantly
rechecked the level of the hull itself many times during construction, or a tool like a level is worse than useless - it becomes
an enemy tilting everything to one side. After adding 7100 pounds of lead to the hull, I had to be sure it hadn't crushed any of
the blocking into the ground or pressed a stand away from center.

Fitting and installing the engine beds is another critical job
that required a large number of things be underway at
once. For one thing, I had to have the engine I'd be using,
as well as the gearbox, motor mounts, prop shaft, and the
cutlass bearing fitting. The only way to be really sure the
engine beds were in exactly the right position and at the
right height, was to have the engine and shaft in the boat.
Everything hinges off the shaft. Falcon's hull left no
options as to it's position, so I started there. It had just one
spot and it had to be level. I already had the engine by
now, but left that section to be added after this one for no
particular reason. Anyway, after assembling the engine
and setting the motor mounts to the middle position, I took
all the necessary measurements to make the mockup
above. I bored a 1 1/4 inch hole in the center piece to
accept the shaft at the correct height and attached the flat
panel to the new engine beds with screws dead center
where the engine mounts would be. From there, fitting the

engine beds to the complex curves of the hull and bilge were easy. When it was right, I epoxied and glassed the beds in
place.

1959 Cadillac El Dorado Biarritz Convertible

In truth, this is not my kind of car. Still, I must admit I had a
fairly good time doing the restoration. Everything, and I mean
EVERYTHING, was stripped off, cleaned,properly
reconditioned or replaced with an appropriate alternate.
Restoration aficionados are extremely finicky about what
constitutes an acceptable replacement part in a true
restoration project, as well as what materials are used and
exactly how each job is to be done. Many a hopeful restorer
has actually totalled the vehicle by doing it wrong. The man
cleaning the engine, Cary Nebelkopf, became obsessed with
this attention to detail and strict adherence to the rules in every
respect. At least he wasn't a fussbudget or cheap. It cost
$10,000 to get the right skins, have them dyed exactly the
correct shade, and have the seats and door panels properly
reupholstered by a select professional who does this kind of
work for a living. Everything said and done, it was worth it.
Every bit of it was worth it.

Nebelkopf put $100,000 into this project. There were times when the money was spent over and over for the same
component, such as the taillight assemblies, because the ones he kept getting were simply not good enough. When I gently
quizzed him on his mental health, he just grinned and said, "Someone will buy them from me." Meaning the extras, of course.

I couldn't be happier when this project was finally done, because I just wanted to work on the boat, but it wasn't too long after
the car was finished that Nebelkopf told me I had to get off the property. The original deal of "you finish my car and I'll let you
stay until you finish the boat," vaporized almost as soon as the car was done. For me, it did not come as a surprise. I wrote
some things here that were thoughts straight off the top of my head, but an email from an old friend convinced me to look
again and I found the statements to be mean spirited and unneeded, so I have removed them. Cary threw me out and I saw it
coming. Leave it at that. We haven't spoken since.

When the car was done, there was time to make it to the very last show of the season. It turned out to be a beautiful fall day
and the Caddy took first place overall, best in show or whatever. I forget, to tell the truth. Somebody offered Cary $175,000
for the car and he turned it down, quite honestly, as I thought he should, feeling the car would draw more money soon. I was
wrong. We were all wrong. It wasn't long before more versions of the car were on the market and the prices fell. The last I
knew, Cary was using it as a daily driver. It is a great car.

Another guy who did considerable work on the car was Dave Bourbeau, who wrote me the email. He lives in Florida now and
I'll have to ask him what ever happened to his restored 43' Egg Harbor Sport Fisher.

Updated February 9, 2009: I received a site Contact email from Cary yesterday thanking me for toning down the angry
remarks, and making a good job of taking the sting out of the old injury. Perhaps I never should have written them at all, but
as a result, I no longer feel any hostility toward him and feel a bit foolish for having been so immature to include the
comments in the first place. Anyway, after 20 years, an important bit of healing has taken place and I'm glad for it.

Back To Falcon

I have decided to make estimates of the approximate years that these activities took place. They are only
guesses, however, but should be fairly accurate.

1986

1987

This just in: Sunday, March 29, 2009 - Bill Refakis, creator of the 59 Biarritz Survivor Roster on the Cadillac & LaSalle Club,
made contact with me and informed me that,

"I research these 59 Biarritz survivors, and purchased from Cary a 62 and 64 caddy to help finance his project, for all his
insanity, the car ended up owned by the owner of the Coney Island, Brooklyn waterfront and was stored in a waterfront shed
for 10 years, and ended up quite rusty and crusty!"

That's kind of a shame, because the car WAS nice and there was certainly a lot of money poured into it. Too bad.

I may never remember where I heard about the Pathfinder Marine Engine, But I'll never forget that the price was right. For
$2000 I bought a good used Volkswagen diesel engine and all the conversion components to make it a Pathfinder. It's a great
engine.

Volkswagen made millions of these engines, ranging in horsepower from 48 to somewhere near 100. As far as I know, they
are all able to be converted to a smooth and powerful, as well as fuel efficient, marine engine. I started with a 48 horsepower
unit but have since moved up to a 52 horsepower model. The stronger engine is really MUCH stronger because it produces
about 50% more torque over the entire RPM band. One of the best features of the Volkswagen engine is that it was designed
for smooth and quiet automotive service, and sounds nothing like the pure industrial diesel boat engines that sound like
they're trying to throw a rod every time you start them. So far, there is no evidence that the 'rock crusher' sound effects of the
other engines offers them better service or longer life. Besides, you can get a fine replacement for the Pathfinder core at any
salvage yard for under $300.

After stripping it down and scrubbing and solvent washing every last nook and cranny, the block and every part were
carefully taped and painted. I also located the Pathfinder people and got drawings and specs, bought a new Volkswagen
Service manual, and compiled a significant stack of documentation. Too bad I didn't get it before I over-torqued an injector
and cracked the cylinder head. The engines one weak spot - aluminum cylinder head. I patched it up and it held, but I knew
I'd be replacing it soon.

All painted and assembled, with nothing yet to do but install the injectors and crack the cylinder head. After more than twenty
years, I still like these strong little engines. They are compact, powerful, and the smoothest little marine engines I've ever
found.

This is the instrument panel I made out of miscellaneous
instruments that never worked and a piece of scrap
Plexiglas. Well, the ammeter and the engine hours thing
worked. It was a sort of 'make believe' panel that fooled
others into thinking I had the whole package. I think
someone might have been fooled. It made me feel better to
make the effort, but the result was disappointing.

Here we go again into something totally different, requiring
more tools, more skills, and unique injuries. All during this
project, people brought me supplies I couldn't turn down.
One such item was a 14 foot bar of 2 inch stainless steel

round stock. Another was a long solid round of one inch stainless. These formed the basis for Falcon's rudder, I was sure,
but had no idea what to do or how to do it until it was time to do it. I measured the boat with the deck framing and cut the 2
inch stock down to 9 feet, then secured it to a scrap piece of plywood and drew out the rudder's shape. I wandered through
the dump that the lot I was working in had become until I found and abandoned trailer with an appropriate sized hole in part
of its frame. I inserted the 1 inch round stock and climbed it, bouncing a little until it bent slightly, then went back to my little
rudder drawing jig and tried it out. A little at a time, the 1 inch bar curled into the shape you see here. I cut the excess off the
bottom end and used it to form the diagonal brace at the bottom. The last bracing I did was some 1/2 inch square stainless
bar stock I bought at a salvage yard.

I bought welding rod, borrowed a welder,
and commenced to weld. My Uncle Angel
taught me the basics of welding when I
lived on his farm through many summers.
Uncle Angel taught me most of the things
that are important. My father was not
much into liking me. When I had the frame
completely welded, a friend I'd recently
met dropped by to see the boat and when
he looked down at the rudder assembly,
he asked, "Who the hell welded this?" I
might have had a fleeting thought about
blaming it on a pack of drive-by

1988