Herkimer & Perkins: Building Backyard Boats in Buffalo, NY

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Contributors: Your Backyard Boats -- Weekend Skiffers, Seattle

Weekend [plus] skiff in the water

04 September 04: Eric Thomas writes from Seattle with a final update on his Weekend Skiff project:

... finally finished the "weekend" skiff. It floated! I named the boat Ila May after my grandmother. Some friends of mine read an invocation to Neptune and the four winds, and we wasted some bad champagne.

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Contributors: Your Backyard Boats

Happy owner poses with the Ila May.
Just beautiful.
Set up for rowing, but daggerboard case splitting the rower's seat holds promise of sailing days to come, perhaps.

Eric rows to work in Seattle

23 January 04: I got to wondering how Eric's Weekend Skiff project was going, so I emailed in December 2003. He sent back a few pix and an update. I found out an interesting thing ... Eric rows to work! Twenty minutes with the current in the morning and 40 minutes returning in the afternoon. Doesn't that sound wonderful? Right now it's a fiberglass skiff. He's still abuilding on the Weekend Skiff, slowed down by dissatisfaction with his initial exterior paint job and waiting (and waiting, I bet) for less humid weather for a second try. They don't call Seattle the Emerald City for nothing -- some wags say the green tint of the nickname refers to the final ripened color of the tomatoes that folks grow there. Other wags say that the rainfall totals are augmented significantly by the summer fogs. The upshot is that Eric battles humidity when it comes time to paint his skiff.

First try at exterior painting falls prey to humidity. The paint is Interlux Brightside, which I like to use myself. Eric believes that the problem, mottling of the second coat of paint, in spots, may be because of amine blush residue from the epoxy. So he is sanding down and will coat again in drier weather.
The beauty of this boat is more than just a trick of the lighting.

Puget Sound building practices

27 February 03: I got email and pix from Eric Thomas, who is building a Weekend Skiff in Seattle, Washington. He promises to send pix of the finished boat, too. He'd like to hear from other Weekend Skiff builders in his region, especially whoever put a hold on the Weekend Skiff building plans book at the library... .

I felt silly after emailing Eric and asking what this picture showed. I saw a vee-shaped piece that didn't fit my understanding of the design. It's the stem, made from a 2 by 6. I think the fineness of his workership fooled me. The board is so smooth that I assumed it was a 1 by 6 or some such ... . The clamp is holding the starboard chine in place while the glue sets.
The transom gave Eric some trouble, but as you can see, he has overcome that. This photo also shows a high level of finish, and not a lot of extra epoxy to be sanded, and sanded, and sanded, for ever and ever, almost, amen.
06 March 03: Another photo from Eric, showing the bottom in place. That's the keelson sticking out the back. Eric writes, "I would love to hear from anyone else crazy enough to start this process. There must be at least one person who's interested in the design in the Seattle area because when I went to recheck the BUILDING THE WEEKEND SKIFF book out of the library today, they told me it was on hold for somebody else."