Floorboards and Crabs

I made some floorboards out of the old Douglass Fir pola beams from the outrigger canoe that I replaced with the new hollow Sitka Spruce ones. I really just wanted to build something on which to test my old fashioned finishing recipe of pine tar, linseed oil, turpentine and japan drier. It turned out pretty well (and stinky). Last weekend my friend Wen and I took the Otter out for another successful crabbing mission. Our beach launch and landing was quite a bit smoother than last time! Here's a photo set of the floorboards and crabs.

New Decks for the Otter

The old rotten teak decks are gone and the new western red cedar decks are on. I used the off-cuts from the 10'8 cedar longboard I made two years ago. I bedded the decks in 3M 4200 and fastened it down with SS screws. Here are few more photos.

Otter update

My brother and I took out the almost-finished Otter a few weeks ago for opening day of crab season. Luckily there are no photos because our surf launch was far from smooth! Some valuable lessons were learned. All in all we landed our Dungeness limit and had a great feast. The real fun, however, was the midinight crabbing session in the canoe the night before. Four of us paddled from Crissy field under the bridge to Baker Beach and back between 10:00PM and 1:00AM. Very cool experience. Here's a gallery of recent Otter pics.

Progress on the Otter

Gary, Ted and Jonny lent a hand this weekend to bring the Otter back to life in time for the Dungeness Crab season opener in November. After pulling out the old rotten inwales and busted breasthook and transom knees, it was clear that the mahogany outwales were serviceable and actually really nice. So, I decided to "restore" the boat rather than convert it to a work boat. Here are some photos of the progress.

Gaviota Coast Adventure

Bart, Kyle and I just returned home from an amazing three-day surf adventure along the Gaviota Coast. Truly spectacular. We paddled in twelve miles with minimal help from the wind, camped two nights on the boat and and then sailed downwind most of the way home before the wind died. I used the small fortress anchor with success and the new Iakos and Pola supported all three tramps perfectly. I've never slept so well.

15 minutes of fame

Here are the rest of David Fenton's photos from the Sunset Mag photoshoot

Shark Karma

Over the weekend my good friend Marco Seandel caught then released this huge shark from his kayak with a broken rod!