You call that a time table?

The weeks sure do slip by, don't they?  I managed to do a little more sanding yesterday, until the rain started coming down.

Time table wise, I think the earliest I could reasonably expect to put the boat back in the water is spring 2012.  I'd like to do it this year, but there's so much work to be done. (And, it's already spring here in Austin!)

Things to do before hitting the water:
finish sanding below the water line, prep (bung and fill as appropriate), prime and paint
replace the rotten board in the transom, with any necessary structural work
sand, prep, paint above water line
replace starboard trim board, reseat port trim board
replace canvas cabin top (this should be quite an adventure!)
replace rotten board on starboard side at the front of the cabin
replace / repair port prop (it has a big chunk missing!)
engine / transmission work (another tricky bit, those puppies weigh 875 pounds a piece and they need to come out to be rebuilt)
gas tanks need to be checked and cleaned / repaired / replaced
carburetor rebuilds
stain and varnish transom
forward water tank fill fitting and plumbing

After all of that is done, it could hopefully float again, and move under its own power.

Add in a few legalities such as a survey and insurance, and then you have a floating project instead of a backyard project.  Naturally some of the items above require a financial aspect, and planning those things out affects the time table as well.  Left out of the list, except for the cabin top, are the more cosmetic items like exterior stain and varnish, the forward deck, etc, etc.

When you put it like that, it seems like a lot of work!

It's snowing!

I'm about 1600 plus miles from the boat this weekend, and to beat that, it is snowing here at the French Creek Alpaca Farm.  Naturally, no work is being done on the ol' Chris Craft.  I like the annual visit to the relatives, and it makes me very appreciative of the warmer weather we get in Austin.

I thought I might clarify for the audience the purpose of the blog: this is mostly an endeavor to track my progress and document what has been done, needs to be done, etc.  I plan to have a timetable with the tasks and estimates over the next week or two.  Also, I would like to point out that posts will generally be related to boat work, hopefully one or two a week.  With so much to do, and the boating season approaching at full steam, I intend to make this coming warm season a fruitful one.

Ok, but where are we now?

As you might be wondering, if the previous post is the "origin" story, what is the current status of this project?

Well, progress has been what you might call "slow".  Glacial, really, and I could make excuses, but instead I'll tell you what *has* been done over the past 18 months.  To start, I scraped the loose paint off of the bottom using a hand scraper.  Then, I removed the exhaust trim and sanded the transom, tsk tsking the rot along the water line and in the corners.  I removed the trim along the stem below the waterline, and then I started sanding the bottom, starboard side first.  I've worked my way forward above the chine, and the last sanding I did (2/12/11), I spent about an hour on the port side of the bow below the chine.

The sanding I've done on the bow, in two photos that show where I'm headed next, joined because blogger can't put two pictures on the same line??

As you can see, I'm not going all the way down to bare, bare wood.  There are lots of reasons for this, as follows. Any paint that is still there after I've gone by with the sander is stuck pretty well, so I might need a rougher sand paper. (I'm using 100 grit right now.)  The sanding is uncovering blemishes (look at that nasty one 3 boards below the water line!) which will require more sanding later.  Lastly, I don't want to spend the rest of my life sanding! (Then why did you jump into a wooden cruiser project?!)

I know nothing about mahogany Chris Craft, let's get one!

It was a warmish, breezy day in April or May 2009.  It had to be breezy and warm because my friend (let's call him Double D) and I were going out sailing.  As we prepared his boat, he told me that the marina was trying to get rid of an old Chris Craft.  On the way out, he pointed it out to me, and I saw just enough to know that it had some interesting lines.  It immediately reminded me of a hot rod; a jaunty visor over the short windshield.  My view was occluded though, and I did not see the whole boat until we returned.  Once I got another look at the boat, I realized my first view had been of the bow and the first 2 feet of the cabin.  The "windshield" I had seen was actually the forward windows of the cabin, and I was surprised to find it extended quite a bit further, perhaps another 6 foot of cabin, and 6 or 8 more for the cockpit and aft deck.


I was pretty excited about the boat in question, and when I got home naturally I discussed it with my girlfriend.  We agreed to have another look at the boat, and I did some searching on the internet to try and figure out what make, model and year we were considering.  I contacted a boat transport guy and discussed the dismal level of the lake.  All of this contemplation led us into August 2009, the lowest levels Lake Travis had seen since before the boat was constructed!  Little did we know a big surprise awaited us...