Launching day for "Scraps"

In the water at last!

Its only been a little while really, while I’ve not been able to work on her full time its not been long since I drew those lines out on hardboard and started chopping up refugees from the pile of leftovers in the corner of the shed.  She took about 17 man hours to build, including a fairly rough paint job. Not bad, yacht tenders get a hard life and any cruiser will need to build one every couple of years. They get rolled in surf, crushed between the wharf and the mothership, dropped, overloaded, stolen and generally abused so a quick build is often needed to replace the modest but very necessary little craft.

I put “Scraps” in the water an hour or so ago, just slid her off the dock and climbed in.  “Offcuts” was close to 300mm (a foot) shorter and a bit narrower, not as deep in the hull either, and the difference is very noticeable.

Scraps is much more stable, I can stand up in her if I’m careful and she feels good when climbing in and out.

I think I could carry a decent sized anchor and chain out in a bit of a chop if needed, she rows straight, turns well, is about neutral in a crosswind and handled the wind against tide chop here in the estuary very nicely.

I’m here on my own today so until wife Denny comes to visit in a couple of days I don’t have any pics of me rowing the new boat around, but here are a few pics of her at launching time today.

J

" Hi Mum, dont I look cute.  Look,  I've got oars and everything!"

 "Careful sweetie, its wet in there."

 "Its ok Mum, I can swim"

 "But I think I'd better take John with me if I'm going far!"