Through boat Numbers 01 and 02, I have learned a lot about building a boat. Boat No. 02 continues to teach me that I am far from expert at this.

The little jig I made to do the puzzle joints worked great. It was a total failure for laminating bulkheads. Then, today I put a clean hole through a bulkhead while trying to fix a lamination problem. I am counting on fillets to cover a couple of mistakes.

The big lesson from Boat 01 that I thought I had mitigated was not to build outside. I thought I had mitigated it via experience on Boat 01 that would let me do Boat 02 a little faster: maybe so, but not fast enough. When you can only work on the boat during free Saturdays and Sundays in a friend's detatched garage 45 minutes away, there are not a large number of days in the outdoor building season. Boat 01 was built in a shipping container that was 15 minutes away. I definitely was not doing the container again; the garage is a huge improvement. Electricity is very helpful too.

Summer is ebbing quickly here and I am trying to get things done so I can actually finish this boat in the spring. I will be stitching everything together tomorrow (Sunday). At least it will look like a boat instead of a plank collection. The forecast calls for Monday night to be 47F (which is a little cool for late September, but it is what it is). I plan to tack it together next weekend. After that workdays will be hit or miss until spring.

Another lesson from Boat 01 is not to have a rigid schedule. Fortunately I have internalized that. I hope to be able to do some fillets and interior fiberglass in early October but if not, then spring is coming.

I started telling my interns at work that if they are going to be crushed when they put a lot of time into a project and then I change direction and never use it, then this is the wrong job for them. We try things and then adapt when we see what we have. I try to move my own advice over to this boatbuilding hobby. I tell myself mistakes just mean something different has to happen. (That doesn't make mistakes enjoyable.) I'd never have started Boat 02 if I thought it would go like No. 01. Boat 01 was frustrating from the start (when I drove 175 miles to CLC and the kit wouldn't fit into my car and had to be shipped) to the finish. Boat 02 has gone much better. Experience does count. I know Boat 03 won't be far off once 02 passes its sea trials. But Boat 02 is weighing on me right now.