I returned from Vegas with $200 to put into the new boat fund, add this to the money I’ve added from football parking and the savings is up to $300!!! At this point I can buy enough wood to at least start building the framing. Most builders on the Stevenson Project Forums say they run $1200 all told to build a good Weekender, but this is certainly going to be a long-term build, unlike the Jack Dee which was mostly complete after a week of spring break.

So: names? The frontrunners in my mind are: Anne Marie, nine oh nine (yes, this is referencing the beatles song), and….. I dunno…. those are the only two I’ve even considered yet.

Other than that there’s not much else to say in the middle of the semester. I guess my home brews have been flying off the shelves during home football games, but what else is new?

In sports they often talk about the sophomore slump, well, I guess it’s true for sailboats as well. Here’s a recap of the measly three times I got out on my boat this summer.

Memorial Day weekend: my boat arrives at Lake Manitou with a jib boom and jib sail and plenty of excitement for trying out new gear somewhere other than Geist reservoir. The wind was so-so on Friday, though I did make one very important discovery: adding a jib sail requires a wider leeboard, otherwise it’s about like I have no leeboard at all. On Saturday there was really good, steady wind and I managed to sail for about three hours, even using the jibsail somewhat. Sunday sailing when mom and dad arrived was limited to short 20min excursions with a very finnicky Indiana-style wind (coming and going from every direction imagineable)

July 4th weekend: Well, on July 3rd when I arrived there was marvelous amounts of steady wind, but a pretty crowded lake. I had a wider leeboard to try out, but as I was wrestling with the Jack Dee alongside the pier getting her rigged up the large wake from several motorboats lifted my jib boom over the pier and slammed it down repeatedly. I didn’t notice the crack that this had created that run the whole length of the boom at that time. Rowing out (and really heaving to, considering the wind was blowing straight into the dock) I basically pulled the starboard oarlock off of the gunwale chine. During the half hour of sailing that followed my jib furler managed to go awry, nearly putting me in the drink, I was nearly rolled by the wake from several motorboats, and was overall very frustrated and unhappy when I got back to the pier. After a very quick fix (moving the oarlock to stern by about 20inches) and rewinding the jib furler I set out again and managed to sail for almost 4 hours of pure joy. I didn’t really use the jibsail until the last hour, and unfortunately the wind and heavy boat traffic contrived to keep me only on the south side of the islands, but I had a blast. Let me tell you: with the jib sail out and a stiff breeze I can really fly!

Sunday August 16th: A perfect day (especially because it was two days before my birthday). There was a steady, stiff breeze from the SSW and moderately heavy traffic. I managed three hours of sailing, mainsail only. I haven’t fixed the jib boom yet, and that may be a project that gets documented here in the coming months as I’d like to make it ornate (leave any suggestions for a figurehead in the comments). I sailed in the head of the lake, around the islands a little bit, and my grandmother even thought I had an engine on my boat I came by the pier so fast. The two DNR officers patrolling the lake even seemed to take note (or maybe it’s not everyday some bearded dude goes whizzing by on some rickety wooden scow of a sailboat belting out sea shanties…) I loaded the boat up and took her home with plenty to fix. Also, did I mention that most of this sailing happened with a rudder that was barely holding on? Yeah, that too.

Overall I can’t complain. Last summer I sailed much more, mostly because I was at summer school all summer and it’s a shorter drive to the lake than it is to home. Maybe last summer it was also the thrill of the unknown in piloting my little boat around the lake. Who knows… but I’ve got big plans for the future!

Hint: http://www.stevproj.com/IntroWkndrPg1.html    -Oh yeah!

Arrr, I owe you scurvy dogs some eye candy:

Home port is in the background

This summer has been pretty busy as far as the homebrew side of things goes. I’ve just cracked open the first bottle of a Kolsch wheat beer that I brewed in late July and it is very good. It’s a nice light color (gasp, a first for me!) with very little carbonation, but plenty of classic wheat beer flavor with some fruity after-taste. As always it goes down smooth. I tweaked how much water I added to this batch because some of my previous batches had been very heavy specific-gravity-wise, and the results were favorable with 58 bottles from the batch, and a great, light late summer beer perfect for the first few Purdue home football games! Why it’s even gold in color… now if only I could find some black tinted lager glasses we’d be set!

I received quite possible the best compliment any homebrewer can get from the most difficult beer drinker to please: my mother. To her every beer tastes the same. “Tastes like beer,” are her exact words as my dad and I offer her various different brands and styles to try. But, she explained that she liked how little aftertaste and how smooth my classic altbier went down earlier this summer. WIN! (Especially because that altbier was almost 6 months old!!!)

With about a week left before I headed back to school I brewed the delicious dortmunder lager again. 8.4 pounds of malt and three hop additions (including some flavoring hops for 5 mins after the boil is complete) make this a very bold and agreeable beer. I can’t wait to crack open the test bottle here in just under a week. This particular brew should be spectacular as the whole brewing process went exactly as planned temperature and time-wise.

My dad and I build wooden boxes that hold 24 bottles each because I was tired of lugging around about 6 different kinds of leftover cardboard beer containers. Pictures will follow.

I’ve told myself I need to label my beers now, and the labels have been through the testing stage, but with the first big Purdue home football game, and thus the first big homebrew weekend looming, I still don’t have labels on any of my bottles. Thankfully I don’t have much hw so far this semester!

Latest new beer tried: O’Hara’s Irish red. On the suggestion of our waitress at Nine Irish Brothers in West Lafayette I tried this very hoppy red. I’d say think Killians, but with way more hop kick, and a little, teensy bit heavier. Overall very good!

I’ll admit, I’m a pretty flaky blogger. I have lots of great things to post from the three previous months of summer vacation and will get around to it eventually, but for now I will just say that there’s nothing a boy could ask for more two days before his birthday than a sunny, windy Sunday afternoon and a sailboat he built himself.

On this absolutely gorgeous Friday afternoon I will try to substitute a sailing post for all you salty-dogs, rum-runners, and canvas-power junkies out there in the interwebs (a series of tubes) in lieu of not actually being able to sail this weekend.

I sailed with the homemade jibsail on the saturday of my spring break on Geist reservoir. The sail seemed to work just fine (when there was enough wind), and the furler worked flawlessly. A wider leeboard might be in the works, as it seems to overpower the current one if trimmed just a touch too far… though that may have just been the very light wind I was working with.

Overall I’d say that a homemade sail using Tyvek, upholstery thread, and common-sense is absolutely viable for small wooden boats… and is a huge money-saver. I got the Tyvek from my cousin who happens to work for a construction company, so that was free… but I’m sure Tyvek could be purchased from a construction outfit for much more reasonable prices than a specially-made sail. The upholstery thread was cheap cheap cheap as well.

Here’s more eye-candy… ignore that homeless-looking scruffy captain dude at the helm

Just getting underway. I think I need a crew now.

Coming back into the dock on the minimal wind.

I guess it should be noted that I added some stays to the mast to balance the forces of the jibsail, they’re not complicated, they connect to my mast partner and have turnbuckles for adjustment.

This crazy, hair-brained, fly by the seat of your pants scheme just might work. I cut out the jibsail after setting up the rigging and taking exact measurements with some string and tape measures. The sewing is all done with a zig-zag pattern for extra strength (you might want to consider two lines to each hem as well) and I will probably add some reinforcement around each corner before I sail her. The material was actually pretty easy to work with. I would suggest getting an upholstery thread or full polyester thread that wont break down in outdoors conditions… but other than that all the sewing was done on good old mom’s sewing machine.

Here’s the eye-candy:

As you can see my homemade furler works just fine (its some thick dowel with a plywood circle for the bottom and a piece of scrap steel with two holes bolted to the top).

I love beer. I mean, not surprising since I’m a college student and all, but since I got the hankering to take a shot at homebrewing and loved it I’ve become quite analytical about beer. This doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy a good Coors Lite, but now a good 18months into homebrewing I’ve learned quite a few things the average beer enthusiast might not know.

I’ll detail some of the finer facets of my homebrewing strategy in another post, but what I really want to get to is different flavored beers.

I’ve tried Abita’s chocolate stout (highly reccomend it!) which was the first “flavored beer” I had ever tried. Since, I’ve tried a Cherry Stout (which was ok), a peppermint christmas beer (very good), a cinnamon winter lager (also very good), and most recently on my holiday trip I tried a pecan beer (which was very well-made, smooth, and delicious), and an oatmeal stout (which was pretty good, but kind of roughly made).

When I say well-made or roughly-made I mean the overall smoothness or the beer itself, the amount of carbonation (sometimes very hard to achieve as a homebrewer sometimes), any sediment in the beer, and the level of alcohol content. That last one may seem like a stupid point of comparison, but as I can attest, it’s easy to let the alcohol content get away from you and go pretty high for a beer. And also, when you sit down to drink a beer, you expect a certain amount of alcohol, it’s best not to be surprised, especially if you have to drive somewhere afterwards.

Of course taste is a factor, but also kind of subjective depending on each person’s taste in beer styles (see the Bar Arguments page for more on that). Basically, if there’s good carbonation, a smooth texture, no to little sediment and a normal amount of alcohol, you can call it a well-made beer… the taste is up to you to decide.

During the holiday break my father and I took a trip that included a stop on Dauphin Island, Alabama. Dauphin Island certainly isn’t as flashy as some other gulf islands I’ve visited (Anna Marie Island, Florida), but it has some really interesting history and sights. Originally it was hoped that we would be able to rent a sailboat, but kayaks were the next best substitute. The area around the island was surprisingly ‘flat’ with lots of sandbars and the shallow beaches extended out quite some ways. In fact at one point I was nearly a quarter mile from the beach and didn’t even need half of my paddle to touch the bottom! Overall it was an excellent kayak trip because we got to explore both some marshy area and some open water. Oh, bring bug spray.

Rating: 5 of 5 anchors.

Loyal readers (hahar, all none of them!), I have returned from break and have many things to post about over this weekend. But the big news is that my various projects now have a single name to fall under: The Whiskey Bay Trading Company!! That’s all for now, stay tuned.

Here are some excerpts from the gamecaster (who will remain unnamed) for the PSV Eindhoven vs. Liverpool (greatest team ever!) draw today:

“Welcome to the most exciting game the world has ever seen!” (this was probably sarcasm)

“Oh yes, a rubbish PSV Eindhoven side against a lucky Liverpool team. How can we wait?”

” Well, it’s already dull. Duller.”
“Still little happening. Chelsea coming close against Cluj, mind.”
” No goals in the Champions League yet to night. Oh, the excitement…” (this is probably sarcasm too)
” This can’t get any worse. I could go and make a brew and miss NOTHING”
“I went to the same school as Stoke City’s Richard Cresswell, you know. I hope you’re impressed.”
” Only another HOUR to go”
“The new chicknen Fiesta is really nice at McDonalds. Try it with a vanilla milkshake.”
“Robbie Keane on the ball. He is actually playing, you know.”
” Ngog, that household name, is felled bar Marcellis. Not Marcellis Wallace. That’s someone else.”
“One of the dullest games ever seen somehow has two goals in it. Hopes are not high for the second 45.”
“Ngog blazes over from 25 yards. Woeful. Do you pronounce it Ngo? And if the g is silent does that make it No? No?”

Don’t believe me? Check this link:

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/gamecast?id=254723&cc=5901&league=UEFA.CHAMPIONS

In the words of a great internet host: ‘be champions’