With much gratitude to members of the Cleveland Amateur Boatbuilding and Boating Society and  members of the Silvercreek Amateur Radio Association, Meyg is "right side up" on 11/28/21 and hopefully will never be belly up again.

I have been building the hull upside down. It is like one of those spacial IQ tests trying to imagine her "right side up". So , I used technology to rotate some photos and make it look like the hull is hanging from the ceiling. It's pretty effecttive.

Hallowe'en has past, Thanksgiving is on the horizon. It took a month, but the hull is glassed and epoxied. Next steps are to strike the waterline and paint the hull before flipping it over. Got the garage cleaned up so I can pull the car in for the cold winter nights. Check out the The Build page for pics and details.

I took one of the pics of the sanded hull and flipped it upside down. The boat looks like it is right side up, hanging from the ceiling.

This has got to be the hardest part of the build, so far. Bending 1/2" of marine ply
(2 1/4" sheets laminated together) is one thing. Bending AND TWISTING is quite another. Look at the Build Page to see the process. It took about 3 weeks. One can never have too many ratchet straps. 

There are items in ones life that take on one's life. A wallet. A piece of jewelry. A T-shirt. Shoes. Both pairs were Christmas gifts from my parents. They lasted years as work shoes tuning pianos and as comfortable casual shoes. Now, they are my boat building shoes.

Phil Bolger is a remarkable boat designer from Gloucester. He is one of the most talked about designers by amateur boat builders. (Power Boaters should be just as interested as sail boaters. Check out his book, Boats With an Open Mind.) One of his most popular and most documented sail boat designs is the Chebacco, a reduced size version of a Gloucester fishing boat. It has a rich history and many builds. The best repository for information on Chebacco can be found on a site maintained by Andrew at chebacco.com. There you can find all sorts of information, links, pictures, blogs, and everything Chebacco.

I sold Blue Note today, a South Coast Seacraft 22. She is headed to Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh. I sailed her for 13 seasons. She represents a "Blue Note" in my life. And even so, she is part of some of the most precious moments of my life, my daughter growing up. She was my second sloop. In the second season of sailing her, I was out in a nice stiff 15 knot wind about a mile and a half outside of Fairport Harbor, nearshore Lake Erie. I was close hauled and heeled a good 30 degrees or more with the gunnels near the water. BANG! Like a gunshot! Instantly no pressure on the tiller and no steering. I let go the sheets and let the sails fly. I looked aft and watched the rudder, which had snapped off just below the gudgeons, slowly sink below the surface. Apparently the fiberglass sheathing had been breeched, the internal plywood got waterlogged and lost its integrity. Even though I spent over a thousand dollars on a replacement rudder and tiller, I could never really bring myself to fully trust the boat again.  For the sake of brevity and focus, let me simply mention here that the most traumatically life changing events of my life, and there have been more than one, involve trust.* Blue Note and I tolerated each other as boat and owner. We did not love each other. I did not do much more "adventure sailing" after that. I stayed with wind below 15 knots. Never heeled her over past 30 degrees. I was annoyed at the way she was rigged and there was no sheeting for the main. It felt like an "unhappy marriage". I decided to move on with my life. I hope she is happy with her new owner. 
Part of the driving force behind Meyg, is the need for a boat that I can "trust". I will know every inch and stitch of her. I will be able to trust her. What I am realizing is that fits into a bigger picture in my life. I feel that it might be an attempt to rebuild trust on a larger scale, with a world that I do not trust.*
Bon Voyage, Blue Note.

I put some paint on the model. Posted some new pics today on the "Model" page.