It feels great to see this hull completed. I hesitate to say finished because it still needs sanding and fairing. Some of it has never been sanded at all. I got to thinking about how long it has taken and figured out that, had it been done start-to-finish, it would have taken three of us only fifteen 8-hour days. Of course, we've never worked more than six hours at a time.

Lots of other things have been done concurrently. A good deal of the interior is already in place. Yep! I'm really pleased. Recap of activities since November and recent crew additions. Pete came by once again in December, we got some more planking done and discussed "boats to build". Somehow, the subject never gets boring. He's coming down again later this month. Santa brought Gardner's "The Dory Book", Chapelle's "Yacht Designing and Planning", Buehler's "Buehler's Backyard Boatbuilding", Calder's "Boat owner's Mechanical and Electrical Manual", another Patrick O'Brian novel, and several sci-fi's. Mongo and I put in a session at the beginning of the new year. Cleaned up the entire shop. Who would have believed there could be four humongous bags of trash scattered about?

Mongo brought Michele along and we got back to planking. The usual, three or four sets per day. About mid-January I ran out of plywood! (Early last Summer I made an abortive attempt at building a plug for the keel weight. Abortive because after committing the wood I found out that I couldn't bend it to the desired shape. It wound up as scaffold planking.) Brian enters the picture.

Until I got back down to Harbor Sales, we busied ourselves sanding the inside of the hull. Last week of January, I went to Harbor Sales for more wood. I needed one and a half sheets to finish. I bought three. Brian needed two sheets for his rudder, so I got those at the same time.