2023 Wooden Boat Festival

Aquila Sails !  Resourceful Amateurs Re-Build a 34-foot William Garden Cutter

People Involved
- Eben, Richard, Sam, Family and Friends
- Occassionally Mike Gwost. family friend, Shipwright & Artist, Guemes Island

Aquasition
- The Easy Part
- Trucked Aqila from Lopez to our Bellingham shop.

De-construction
- Saws-All Takes all
- Interior, cabin-sides, cabin-top, plank ends, sheer-plank, transom: GONE
- What were we thinking?
- Overwhelming

Our Shop and Home
- 7 people lived in the shop. Aquila tarp-ed outside, for 2-1/2 years
- 24'x48' with 16-ft living space
- Neighbors, understanding but offered to 'beat them up' if they woke the kids again

Gathering Materials
- 1000-year old Yellow Cedar, Black Locust, Red Cedar
- microscope reveals age
- all wood already down, not standing

Frames
- WoodenBoat Magazine Article
- 'scarf laminations'
- Their shipwright friend "you've sistered, brothered, mothered, and lovered"

Planking
- Replacing rot with scarfed (9:1,) yellow cedar
- Reefing, spline-ing, corking

Deck & Cabin-top
- 1/4 marine ply over original solid teak deck
- re-used cabin-top frames
- strip planked with cedar, then glassed

Bullworks & Cap-rails
- laminated fir capped with locust

Interior
- lots of sleeping space
- slatted wood for all surfaces to promote air flow

Floors
- teak floors borrowed from Cheoy Lee
- floor sisters 1/4 galvanised steel, bolted to frames and floors and ballast keel

Keel Bolts
- left original 5 bolts, added 8, threaded into iron ballast keel

Finishing
- primer, 1-part yacht paint
- varnish or oil on brightwork

Launch
- against advice launched at ramp with long chain
- $27 vs $300 via travellift
- Joy, a passage, 100 attendees
- "Extremely Satisfying"

Ten Years Later
- 2022
- regular maintenance, many dives, 1 haul-out
- many voyages in comfort and safely
- many visiting artists go sailing