More Uses for a Two-ton Crane

My neighbor at the shop came up with yet another novel way to use the two ton overhead crane.

Ben floating over the bottom of his boat with his dad in the background steering the crane to move him into position for applying the next batch of resin.

Kayak Stability

Yesterday I had a prospective boat building student try out some kayaks so he could see what would be suitable for him.  Turned out he wanted a small boat that was light weight and stable.  Also turned out that his idea of stable was much different than mine.  Also had a light come on in my head that illuminated the part of the stability equation that connects stability with boat weight.  The long and the short of it is that aside from form making a boat stable, weight also does, especially for a small boat where the weight of the passenger can easily exceed that of the boat. 
So my prospective student was essentially asking for two conflicting characteristics in a kayak, light weight and stability.  Furthermore, he illuminated once again what I already knew but need to be reminded of periodically that operating a small boat takes some minimum of physical dexterity and strength.  And my prospective student was below the bar on both counts for traditional kayaks.  I could have put him in my sixty pound plus baidarka lounger boat and he would probably have been fine, but he kept telling me that he wanted a light boat. 
So as you might expect, the deal fell through.  No sale on the building of the boat.  Still, I learned something. I know I could have had him build a boat that was sufficiently stable even for his needs but his fear of the boats I did have available was greater than any promises of what I could do for him.

Plywood, the other boat skin

One of my ongoing research areas is what to cover a skin on frame boat with other than industrial fabrics sealed with modern sealants.  Yes, there are animal skins, and I know that people have covered their boats with cow hides, but you see, we live in an industrial society and the imaginary scenario I am creating for myself is that the factories have shut down and one has to operate as boat builders of old did, that is, to find boat building materials in their immediate surroundings.
Perhaps we have to broaden our definition of skin on frame a bit and allow a boat where the skin is the main structural material and the frame is of secondary importance.  Enter the plywood boat.
In my case, not a boat exactly but a plywood pool punt.  The main idea was to not spend a lot of money.  The secondary idea was to provide a stable lounging platform for a pool in an environment that is too cold for swimming for most of the year.

Here is the punt under construction.  One sheet of plywood formed the bottom, another formed the sides.  Height of the sides was just a bit under 16 inches.  Early trials established that 16 inch sides were too high so I trimmed them down to 13. Perfect. The sheets of plywood are screwed to battens inside the punt for additional support.  Water proofing of the screw holes courtesy of 3M 5200. Water proofing of the seams was done with a layer of glass adhered by epoxy. 

Initial trials also established that the sides of the pool abraded the fiberglass that I sealed the seams with so I added some wooden bumpers at the corners and some skid rails at the bottom for dragging the punt in and out of the pool. Then a few coats of gray paint from a five gallon bucket that a friend was tossing away, or rather, giving away. And oh yes, we realize that the pool is greener than it should be. 

The same day we launched the new improved punt we also ran into a small futon and some quilts that a neighbor was discarding.  These are now lining the bottom of the punt.  Very comfortable and stable to boot for someone used to sitting in narrow kayaks.  Sometimes it is OK to trade speed for comfort.

Whatever Happend to Do It Yourself?

Boat plans from Popular Mechanics Magazine

Whenever I am giving a kayak building demonstration somewhere in a public space, some guy in his sixties or seventies will come up and say, "Yeah, I remember building one of these in the Boy Scouts."  The point worth mentioning here is that it is never a forty or thirty year old or even a fifty year old that comes up and says, "Yeah, I remember building one of these in the Boy Scouts."  My statistical sample isn't very large, but it seems to me that sometime in the post-WWII era, people built stuff and then they stopped.

So what happened? 
I have some theories. 
One of the factors that encouraged the do it yourself movement was prosperity and the high cost of wages.  Since most things consumed in the US were made in the US rather than imported, manufactured goods were relatively expensive because of the cost of labor.  So if you made something yourself, you could save on the cost of labor. Also, since manufacturing was still a big part of the US economy, the skills to make things were still valued and encouraged.  Schools were still expected to turn out graduates that could enter a job market where manual skills were valued. 

Folding kayak built from Popular Mechanics plans

And there were magazines like Popular Mechanics and Mechanix Illustrated to cater to do-it-yourselfers with plans and instructions. It seems like the golden age of  home made projects.
The other factor working against home made boats is the invention of roto-molded boats. This process eliminates most of the human labor from the making of a boat.  Kayaks and canoes can be made in a mold.  A little clean-up and some trim is all that needs to be added to make a finished boat.  The cost of these boats is so low compared to making your own that the effort hardly seems justified from a cost perspective.
Still, various plywood boat kit manufacturers seem to be making a living turning out kits for home builders. But a kit is not the same thing as making something off a set of plans out of a magazine.  I suspect that kits are popular because the general level of confidence to make something by hand has declined considerably since the middle of the twentieth century. 

Low Entropy Boat Building

Entropy has generally had a lot of bad press.  Entropy is seen as something undesirable, as a general increase of disorder in the universe.  But, as people like Nobel Prize winner Ilya Prigogine have been pointing out, order in the universe is created by burning energy and creating entropy.  You get a local decrease in entropy or increase in order and organization by a larger net increase in entropy.
So things like culture and technology arise from the burning of energy and the creation of entropy. So if more entropy also means more order and organization, why should we opt for low entropy boat building? That is, why should we do things like build skin boats instead of plastic roto-molded boats?  Interesting question, I think.  While hi-tech (high entropy) boat building produces some fabulous boats, lo-tech (low entropy) boat building is a hedge against energy scarcity.  That is, sometimes it is interesting to design boats for low energy scenarios, for environments where energy is scarce, or for some reason or other, you just don't want to use a lot of energy for esthetic reasons like you don't like the noise that high entropy machinery makes.