We wanted to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and the best of the New Year. We have had an amazing year and have so much to be thankful for. In this season we often reflect on all the things we are grateful for. We have been blessed with a home and great kids. We have welcomed new members into our extended families this year- babies and in laws. We have had good health and are still able to do the things we want (no skiing or skydiving). We are surrounded by old friends and new ones.

We have gotten quite a bit done on the vessel this year and hope that in 2015 we will make an even bigger step toward getting Lena Blanche in the water and setting sail.

All the best to you and yours.
Warren and Andrea

After the flood

Hello from the boatshed. Yesterday was a great rain throughout Nova Scotia and Truro got it's share. The cutting room of the boat shed, which is a dirt floor, is soaking but not underwater. It just makes your boots clog up a little with shavings. Scrape them before you enter the vessel! Today, however, was sunny and gorgeous. It was at least 15 degrees Celsius in the afternoon and we certainly enjoyed it while we were putting ceiling in the Lena Blanche. We had a couple of friends drop by to check on the progress and to have a little visit- and to smell the oakum- and we had some other things to do in the basement workshop.
Warren has been making a little forge in which to make the irons for the deadeyes,the boom bails and mast bands,goose necks and all the irons for the schooner and it has a powerful blast to it. When he starts engaging it I will post the pics of our fiery friend.
Today I have pics of the new interior that we are working on. We have 5 strakes of ceiling on so far. We can usually put in one strake on in a day.

 Warren removing the clamps, getting ready to put the next piece in the vessel.

 Each piece of ceiling is 2" x 3" v-joint pine. It will all be painted white.

A close up of the work. All of the nail holes will be plugged before it is painted.

If we don't update before Christmas, we would like to thank you all for your interest in this project and to wish you a Merry Christmas or whatever celebration you celebrate in your home.

December

We are into December and thankfully we are still working fairly steadily on Lena Blanche. She is now planked and we have started to install the ceiling in the interior. We sealed it all with S1 on the interior  and painted all of the ribs with oil paint. Now we're covering it all up with pine ceiling (sealed, of course, with S1 epoxy).
We have taken delivery of 320 lbs. of oakum and 18 lbs. (so far) of cotton so that in the spring we won't be held up with the caulking. All that has to be done before that is planing and sanding off the entire exterior of the vessel..........no sweat.  Well, probably a lot of sweat, but good sweat.

 18 bags of cotton each weighing one pound.

 One bag opened up to have a look at the quality of the oakum. Hemp and pine tar. Mmmmm

8 bags of oakum- 40 lbs in each.

We've had quite a lot of visitors this fall. So nice to meet so many new people and so nice to have folks return who make our boat shed part of their yearly visits. 

Tomorrow it's supposed to warm up again and so we'll be back in the boat continuing with the ceiling. Pics to follow later.