New Flotation for our Boat Shed

Oarlock and Sail Wooden Boat Club

January 10, 2012 Update

NEW FLOTATION INSTALLED in the Boat Shed!!

We are pleased to announce that the new floatation has been installed in the Boat Shed today.  The shed is now floating six or seven inches higher than before, and is very stable.  Our Shed Committee, headed by Robert Buller, arranged for the purchase of six tough plastic bins filled with Styrofoam.  Each of these bins provides approximately 800 pounds of flotation.  Skookum Yacht Services from Granville Island donated their time to install the new floats.  The installation was a challenging job, involving the attachment of 800 lbs of lead to each float, sinking the float into position and then transferring the 800 lbs of lead to the next float.  The Skookum guys did a “skookum” job, and although a bit time consuming, the process went off without a hitch.

So now that the Boat Shed has plenty of flotation, we can begin to resume our boatbuilding activities.  There is plenty to be done over the next few weeks.  We need to complete the construction of the workbench on the north side of the shed, and then bring our tools out of storage and install them in the shed.  The Darcy will need to have her bottom painted so that we can get her out into the water.  We may need to rent a heater in order to help the paint dry.  Before painting, the Darcy still needs her waterline finalised and taped – this is a bit of a challenge that some of our more experienced members may want to help with.  So there is lots to do and you can expect that something will be going on at the Boat Shed every Saturday.  Our usual start time is 10:00am.

Also on the horizon is the Vancouver Boat Show – Feb. 8-12.  We will be looking for volunteers to help set up our booth (Feb 7 or 8), to man the booth during the show (especially evenings and the weekend), and to take down the booth (Feb 12^th, in the evening).  We plan on having a “working” booth.  We will take the partially completed Pram that is hanging up in Dave Bradford’s shop and set it up at the Boat Show and do some work on it during the show.  After the Boat Show we will take the Pram to the Boat Shed and it will become our next boat-building project!