Why does this feel like homework?

30 posts in 30 days, what was I thinking. These self imposed deadlines are killing me. Most of the time I just burn off a post to not fall behind even further. What I should have promised was one post a week for a year, I would have been more posts but I wouldn't have to write one every day. Alright, enough complaining, lets get this over with.

Erika is fixing the site, pics are available to some of the older boats in the "launched" section. I will try to provide better, up to date, pictures to the boats that have been missed. Plus I have to learn how to link the posts up with other pictures on the site and pages within the blog to decrease the bounce rate and increase the average time on the site. You are all reading too fast. 48 visits yesterday with an "average time on site" of 1:48 and that number is higher than it should be, one of you was on the site for 14 min. Thanks.

Previous posts have talked about building new fiberglass fuel tanks for the 36' Calvin. Pictured is the tank mold used to make the tank shells. After the shell is completed the tanks are cut to the desired height. Baffles are added and glassed into place, this cuts down on the violence of the fuel splashing around inside the tank. A top is screwed on and then the entire tank is glassed with multiple layers of fiberglass. Once the tank is dry it is sanded and pressure tested. 2-3 psi of air is pumped into the tank then dish soap is brushed on the tank. If you see bubbles the tank fails the test. Do not exceed 5 psi, the tank could explode. This hasn't happened yet, but the fiberglass doesn't stand much of a chance against a compressor with over 80 psi in it.

Once the tanks are finished they will be pushed to the stern of the boat and fiberglassed into place. I was going to hold them in place with 2-part foam but I wouldn't want the person ripping them out in 40 years to blog about how much of a pain it is to chizzle out old foam.

In other shop news: 36' Calvin = exhaust across the engine room and through the deck, removed the windows, built supports for the fuel tanks to sit on. 38' Northern Bay = sanding, glassing and cleaning. 35' Lobster Boat = prepped the forward floor for gray gel. The CAT salesman stopped by the shop and said that the new boat market is slower than he has ever seen. Rumors of another couple of repair jobs surfaced from multiple sources. Good thing boats always break.

The boss is back from his extended vacation. I'm sure that the posts will get better now that I can do more work during the day. Focusing on the 38' Northern Bay will be my task for the day. I was going to take a couple of days off and go to Hull, MA. That plan was canceled due to the weather, so I have to go to work. Tough to believe how boring this post is until you read it. I can't do any better...........maybe someone will fall down at work today. Reader suggestions on future posts would be helpful. Click a link, hang out, leave a comment.

www.clarkislandboatworks.com

Before and After.

The site front page is fixed. I complain about the web site once and instant repairs happen. Traffic to the blog was the highest yet, but because there was no new content, average time on the site was the lowest yet. The fans have spoken, more boat talk less of everything else.

Funny exhaust elbows (pictured) had to be removed from the motor of the 36' Calvin. The old exhaust had developed a leak where the two elbow were connected. Bolts between the two had deteriorated and allowed the wet elbow to slide down. This was letting a small amount of exhaust into the engine room every time the engine fired. A consequence of this is everything under the deck is coated with a little bit of black. The wet exhaust elbow in the upper left corner of the first picture is suppose to be white. This was a wet exhaust system and its getting replaced with a dry exhaust. As I'm getting ready to explain what is happening it occurs to me that some of the readers might not know the difference between a wet and dry exhaust system. Explanation time.

Wet Exhaust: The exhaust from the motor is routed through a water jacketed elbow and the exhaust and the engine water travel through fiberglass pipe until both exit the boat. On the 36' Calvin the exhaust port was located on the side of the hull near the stern on the port side. Other locations for a wet exhaust exit would be through the stern of the boat or out the bottom of the boat. The underwater exhaust port has been the popular choice at Clark Island Boat Works.

Dry Exhaust: The exhaust from the motor is routed through stainless steel pipe to a vertical muffler until the exhaust exits above the cabin top. Flex pipe (pictured accordion pipe) needs to be added to allow for expansion of the exhaust system. Without the flex pipe constant heating and cooling would lead to cracks in the pipe. Because a dry exhaust isn't water cooled it will need to be wrapped with a high temp blanket to protect the rest of the engine room from the intense heat.
On this exhaust the port on the motor was 3" but to reduce any possible back pressure it was recommended to get the exhaust pipe to 6" as quickly as possible. Our staff welder/metal artist accomplished this by welding a 3" elbow to a 6" elbow. The next segment (not pictured) will be a double flanged pipe to get the exhaust to the far port side of the wheelhouse. Then up to the muffler and out though the cabin. John has this on the run, hopefully the exhaust can be completed by the end of next week.

The new elbow is so impressive that this post was just going to be a pic of the new elbow and the word "WOW" in 4 inch block letters. If I had stuck with that plan this post would be on time. I couldn't cheat the fans, all 6 of you, you deserve better posts. My goal for tonight is going to read some other blogs and see how people start sentences (personally i start most with THE, I, and the letter O). There must be more options then this......

In other shop news: I took a slack day and hung out with my nephews. The fuel tanks for the 36' Calvin have been started, a new bulkhead has been added to the boat (so the old laz bulkhead can be removed) Jeff was sick and stayed home. Dan and Clay gel coated the forward cabin of an old lobster boat (not pictured). John welded. And the boss didn't return from his vacation. He should be back today.

If you want to know how many posts out of thirty this is then you've read them all and I don't have to tell you (13).

This web site is so broken....

This would be a better front page then the blank square living at www.clarkislandboatworks.com.

I've been trying to direct traffic to the site and its been working. A major drawback are all the people telling me that the front page is broken. These are people that know the shop still exists and navigate to the other pages, not allowing the lack of a front page to totally ruin the cibw experience. However I have to believe that if a person stumbled onto the site through a google search for "+fiberglass +clark +lobster +maccaffray +boat" and they found a blank page, they would probably head for the exit. Just when the blog seems to be taking off, the rest of the site is going to be my ultimate downfall. I mean this is suppose to be a professional business and our web page is a joke. Totally amateur. By now if Erika, my web site designer, is reading this she is at 7 (out of 10 on the anger scale). For everyone noticing broken stuff on the web site..........It is all my fault. I have been neglecting the web site for around two years and Erika has tried to hassle me about it, she even set up this blog figuring that I would get bored and type something every once in a while. Even the blog laid dormant for 3 months or so. Then Erika goes on a trip to Texas and I start using the blog. The site traffic triples in days and everyone is pointing out all these broken pages, and missing pictures, and awful blogs. Erika will be back in the next few days and I'm hoping she has time to fix up the web site.

Anyone looking to get a web site designed please contact Erika at www.tenaciousdesigns.com. She is excellent to work with and very talented at her job. However if you are extremely lazy and don't mind neglecting your website........she will let you. If you need constant supervision, you may want to hire someone with a more militant background. Thanks for all your help, we should have put a blog on the site 5 years ago. I did paste some code into the HTML of the blog page while you were on vacation, that's what probably broke the front page.

In other shop news: New fuel tanks for the 36' Calvin have to be 10" deep x 48" wide x 77" long to be 160 gallons a piece (231 cubic inches in a gallon). Also on the Calvin: more cleaning, some grinding, some welding, cut and drilled the lifting rails. (I had better slow down on this project if I plan to milk it until the middle of March) On the 38' Northern Bay: arch (not pictured) almost complete, gelled inside of wheelhouse benches, glassed center console on fly bridge. And finally, the real boss should be returning tomorrow, now maybe I can get some work done.

Other ideas for today's blog that didn't make the cut...

1. How much I hate to do paperwork.
2. The future of boat building, or lack of a future.
3. Should NASCAR have rules in place so the Daytona 500 isn't ruined by rain?
4. Best and Worst Music to build boats to.

That last one was never an option but lists look better with 4 so I made it up.

One dozen posts in One dozen days. Can I stop commenting about the number of posts, will it detract from the posts, will it make them better? If everyone who reads these posts got 3 of their friends to check it out we would be up to like 12 readers, think about that for a second.

Sunday Spotlight: Sea Hag

This post should be listed in the "on time" side of the ledger. It was started at 6pm and my intention was to finish it directly. I had to stop for dinner then a series of distractions and some cold medicine..... Anyway its 2:20 in the am, lets see how it goes.

Sea Hag is a 36' Calvin Beal that was finished in 2003. The boat is primarily used for catching lobster and lives in Rye NH. Based on reader feedback that are all the boat details that you are going to get. If you'd like to learn more about Sea Hag, please leave the following comment "I've got to know more about that boat". Keep checking back in the comments section for more and more details as they are requested. The rest of this will be an interesting story about the relationship between the owner of Sea Hag and Clark Island Boat Works. The facts might be exaggerated and/or changed to make for a better story.

Scheduling the completion of a project can be very difficult. Things will happen to delay a launch: other repairs take longer than expected, underestimating how long things will take, and unannounced vacations can all make a boat take longer than anticipated. I think in the case of the Sea Hag we just underestimated how long the project was going to take. The owner was looking to have the boat completed in April, like most lobster boats, and it had become obvious that we weren't going to have the boat done until much later. As you are reading this you might be asking yourself "why would he be talking about a boat that was late?" or you might be asking "is he trying to make my decision to pick another boatshop easier?" or you might be asking "why is the kid blogging at 2:20 am?"

Anyway, June of 2003, the owner of Sea Hag and 2-3 of his pals make the trip north to check progress on the boat and to help in any way they can. Back in 2003 there was no internet so the owner had no idea what he was going to be seeing until he arrived at the shop. The owner was not at all pleased with the amount of work that had been completed, and knowing that the boat launch was still weeks away he became irritated. He quickly progressed through the 4 levels of irritation.....

1. Mumble to yourself.
2. Kick dirt on shop floor.
3. Stare at boat while shaking head.
4. Mention something to the boss.

At the time I was just a worker and luckily didn't have to deal with the customers. That was my dad's job. And truthfully I didn't hear the conversation between the two, but my dad says it went like this.

"when is the boat going to be done?"
"as soon as possible, we're working as fast as we can."
"yeah well you said it was going to be done by blahblahblah and it clearly isn't going to be."
"the boat will be done when its done."
"discouraging comments, grumble grumble, blahblahblah....."
"look, we are trying to finish your boat. now you can either see if there is anything you can do to help or maybe you should just get in your car and head back to Rye."

Awkward silence throughout the shop for the next couple of hours, then complete attitude change by the owner. No more comments about the boat, he was actually in a good mood. We worked the rest of the day then the owner, his 2-3 friends, and myself went golfing. This has nothing to do with the post but I killed those guys on the golf course. The owner was a pleasure to work with for the rest of the project. The boat was finished in early August and the owner was extremely happy with the boat. And although it was late, he was extremely happy with Clark Island Boat Works.

Every year I go to Rye and help out with yearly maintenance: repair hauling side, phillyclad the deck, touch up the gelcoat.....And every year I get great Red Sox tickets. The owner of Sea Hag is one of my favorite customers, his boat lead directly to another project "Fish Tales", and from what I hear he will praise Clark Island Boat Works to anyone that will listen. Sorry we were late with your boat, thanks for your continued support.

I can't tell if this post is good or not, it might get deleted in the morning. Normally I wouldn't talk about a late project but I guess the moral of the story would be...........complaining doesn't help. (we're working as fast as we can)

How about that great photo at the beginning of the post. That's the best pic I have of this boat, if you have a better picture of Sea Hag please email it to me. 11 down, less than 20 to go.

To My Wife

Thanks for everything that you do to help me do my job. Thanks for dropping off payroll. Thanks for filling out checks and envelopes. Thanks for letting me work late. Thanks for being patient when we have to drive "out of our way" to check out a boat. Thanks for picking up parts. Thanks for doing such a great job raising our daughter. Thanks for giving me the time to blog everyday. Thanks for everything, you are the biggest reason that I am able to do my job as well as I do. I love you, wife.

People tuning in for boat talk today, sorry. I don't expect much site traffic today. The first third of the 30 post journey is over. Jaime if you want me to delete this post, I will.