Introduction

Late last fall, I bought plans to Dave Zeiger's 16x4 triloboat. The original plan was to build her over the winter by closing in and heating a stall in our unattached garage in Michigan. The work, cost of materials, and cost of heating deterred me from following that plan. Now that it is warming up, enough that glue has a real chance to go off, I thought I would start shopping around for some materials. I really enjoyed reading others adventures in boat building. So I decided to start a blog. Maybe someone might even get inspired to do it themselves. There are several documentations of Dave's larger boats, but none that I can find for the 16x4.

Some day I would like to make a "full size" triloboat (8x32 or so). I really admire Dave & Anke's lifestyle, and may someday follow their footsteps. So making a quick & easy version of their boat will allow me to dip my toes into the water without being pot commited. Having something large enough to go on a short vacation or long weekend, without sinking a couple thousand into a commercial boat that I would have to figure out where to store, marina fees, buying a vehicle to tow, etc., made sense. Another plus is to gain the experience and confidence to go larger if & when the time comes.

One thing I do worry about is not having much in the way of nautical experience, and while I am relatively handy, I do better when I have a clear set of instructions to follow. Dave's blog has enough written to be an instruction manual in and of itself, and the 16x4 plans comes with a small booklet builder's guide. But I sometimes have a hard time visualizing what he is talking about in the booklet, and his blog is so vast a treasure trove that finding something specific can be problematic. So I think my build will involve lots of sitting in a chair, staring at the boat, trying to work out in my mind how to accomplish a particular task. Conquering the list of terminology, both nautical and carpenter's will be a small project by itself. In the end though, it is basically a wood box with a plexiglass top. Surely I can figure it out!

I suppose I should talk a little about myself, and what kind of experience I have. I am a middle age computer programmer/database administrator/business analyst. Happily married to an "aggressively" extroverted wife, where I am mostly introverted. My hobbies in no particular order: black-smithing (forged a knife, onto my second one now), beer brewing (have a chocolate cherry stout fermenting right now), rock climbing (if I can stay injury-free long enough), gaming (spades/pinochle/board games/magic the gathering, D&D), reading (sci-fi/fantasy, and way to much internet blogs & forums), hiking (mostly weekend, hopefully that will change), hammock camping (mostly in the winter).

As far as my practical boat building experience: Growing up, my father had a small wood working shop with mostly basic hand tools, drill & a table saw. Mostly learned by helping him on projects around the house, finishing a basement, building a deck, making a tree fort, and so on. My first and only boat building project was a 16' skin-on-frame kayak. 6 years later, it is still holding up great. Moved onto a 550 acre in-land lake 2 years ago, and the house came with a small 1-2 person plastic sailboat. Been playing around with that, but finding days that I don't have plans, wind isn't blowing to little nor to hard, means I get out roughly 6 times a year. Hope to change that with the new boat.