Progress, and newspaper article

[tdrown]

Monday I brought my almost finished boat into my school to give a presentation on it. Last weekend I was in a rush to get my boat as presentable as possible. On Friday I finished installing the seats when the belt on the belt sander broke, not the sanding belt, the internal drive belt. That night I flipped the boat with 2 other people. On that same day my mother kindly gave me my birthday present by driving 2 hours to Mays Landing, New Jersey to purchase all the fiberglass and the chemicals. Saturday morning a person who does professional fiberglass came over to help me, needless to say there was a lot of work that needed to be done on the hull. My neighbor was kind enough to lend me his belt sander and his radial sander. Two friends came over and helped, which was much needed. Luckily the fiberglasser built his own car body so he was a pro1 with Bondo. We all worked all day on fairing hull. I made it to the lumberyard 10 minutes before it closed and bought the mast (cedar) and some other parts. The next morning the fiberglasser came over again and by the after noon he said we did in two days what he thought would be a weeks worth of work. A coat of non-wax polyester resin diluted with styrene was applied to both sides. I worked on other things while that cured and we put the cloth on the one side while it was semi-tacky. This was a mistake, as we did the other side maybe an hour later after we were done with the first side, it was a lot less effort. The cloth was cut into a few overlapping sections which made it a little easier to get wrinkles and air bubbles out. After the cloth was on a coat of resin was added and when that was finished we did the other side. When that was done we added another coat or resin to the first side. The boat was then left alone to dry, I will add more coats this week. The prior evening I went to a banquet for maybe 2 hours and helped clean up too. I picked up the flimsy plastic table cloths to make a purely demonstrative sail. That day while I was sanding my friends made the gaff jaws and attached them for me. That night I drilled all the holes in all the spars and added the eyebolts that I purchased last Wednesday, I also assenbled the wheel, ran some line, attached blocks, wrote a paper, and countless other things Sunday night/ Monday very early morning. Later on Monday morning myself, my father, my friend, his father, and my neighbor all congregated a little past 6:00am to flip the boat and put it on the trailer. At school everything went fine. I do have a rather large school (almost 4,000 at the High School) and we have our own PR person, last Friday when my mother came to school to pick up my sister's car (which was at home, but that's a story unto itself) she told her about what I had done and that the boat will be in on Monday. So on Monday a reporter from a very local weekly paper and a big local paper came by. I haven't been in the bigger paper yet, I doubt I will, I don't know how impressive it looks unpainted, but today I was in the weekly paper. The article is pretty good, my only quote isn't the best and he didn't really have to give as much specifics to my supplies. There is an online copy, it should be posted at that address for a week, then I don't know were it will be. The article has a picture, I could scan it and post it, but I wouldn't want to break any laws. I don't exactly look my best in the photo and neither does the boat.

Here is the link, scroll down a little to see the article:

http://www.tnonline.com/online/weekly/parkland/news.html

note: I am unsure how long the article will be there, it is a weekly paper, so it would be safe to say one week.

[Mike Donlin]

Great article, everyone who helped on the boat should be proud.

One minor point, I don't know if cedar will be strong enough for the mast. This has come up in the past and the consensus was/is to hunt up some Douglas Fir or laminate some good 1x material into a mast.

[Barry Pyeatt]

All Right Tyler, Way to Go!

Man that is exciting!

Get it done and call them back to go out when you launch it. They love that kind of exposure, it is great Community news.

Have the PR person contact the bigger paper when you launch and invite them. Tell her that they need to send a photographer too. Just remember a few days notice is best for them. As long as they have a day, time and place, they will try to send someone. Wonderful local news for them and good human interest story.

That is fantastic. You're doing good! :wink:

One little point, suppliers don't need to be acknowledged, unless they are contributing something or a sponsor. IF they are, then you really need to make a big deal of it.

[Guest Anonymous]

If you just ask the paper, they will allow you to reprint the photo and the article as long as you give the paper credit for publishing it.

[tdrown]

what I ment about him giving specifics is that he didn't exactly need to say

...Bondo brand all-purpose polyester fiberglass resin with wax, prefabricated railing...

sort of word for word from the copy of the paper I wrote and gave a copy to him. The prefabricated railing was pretty inconsiquential, but of course he didn't know that. I might post the paper soon, I have to go to play in a hockey game now.

[Frank Hagan]

Way to go! And I thought the quote was perfect:

When asked by school advisors on his intentions for building the boat, Drown paused and replied, "Just looking for a project, I guess."

None of us can say why we build them at first. Its only later that you realize the WHY, and then, you're not even sure you should tell anyone. Its different for everyone, and not something easily expressed in words.

With me, we're pretty sure its my own form of mid-life (non)crisis, as expressed when I finally realized what was going on in my head.

Make sure the Stevensons know about this too! They love this kind of stuff!

[tdrown]

Way to go! And I thought the quote was perfect:

Quote:

..."Just looking for a project, I guess."

I always try to think things out and be articulate but many times that takes too long. Truth is sailing seams like a peaceful and relaxing activity or when the wind picks up exciting and excillerating. I have a bunch of other projects I have got to get around to, there's a frame in the back yard for a shed I was building, I have 10 plus old (486's, 1st gen Pentuims, 386) donated computers in my basement I want to fix up and create a computer cluster with, there's a ton of books I plan to read, and now I am interested in restoring a friend's 62 Jaguar xKE, most of all I have to get a job (although restoring the Jaguar would pay a lot more than landscaping or fast food would, it requires some capital that I don't have). Will there be more boats? I wouldn't doubt it. I just have to move closer to some water.

[Phil Gowans]

Tyler,

You make us proud :!:

I think it's wonderful - one of our own in the newspaper. You represent all the rest of us boat builders in a great way. It's good to see a youth doing things like this. Definitely give the papers a call about your launching. That's something people are going to want to read about.

Congratulations with your boat. You've earned it. You really have been going "great guns" on your construction. I've seen many adults that have started years ago and haven't made it as far along as you have.

[MikeStevenson]

Very cool...As stated, "we love this stuff"! You've made great speed with this project. We have a friend who teaches a tech-ed class at a local high school; she needs to see this.

Thanks for all the information, and for doing all of this so well in the first place.

Mike