Well, I won’t say we’re flying along, but I’m still impressed with the progress! After “figuring out” how to caulk about 2 months ago, I set aside the mallet and irons and worked on other stuff while waiting for the fellas to fair the new hull planking to the point it could be cotton caulked. Well, that was Wednesday. David and I had never done any cotton caulking and John hasn’t caulked anything for a long time (I’m thinking 30 years?) and didn’t appear too thrilled with the idea of picking back up on it now.

So, Thursday a.m. I started caulking with a 10 minute pep talk from one of the experienced wooden boat fellows at the yard. By noon I was tuckered out–not from caulking but from balancing precariously on the scaffolding way up there above the ground! I just couldn’t take swaying on a poorly supported 10′ long 2×12 while 12′ above the ground while caulking chink, chink, chink, any longer. I’d done about 60′ or so. In the afternoon, of course, David immediately “adjusted” the height of the pump jack scaffold so that the wobbly boards were now on a hefty incline as well as being wobbly and high…I gave it a half hearted ‘nother 10 ft then left it to David to work his heart out on “helping me” now that the scaffold was in what I call the “David and John mode”. This mode means that things are set up for them and the other fearless mountain goats of the world; not for people like me!

We’re a little under the gun to get the top 4 strakes of above waterline caulking done quickly (long story about the rubrails not worth getting into right now…) so back at the yard at 6 am Friday morning, I went at it again. This time, David working with me and then in late morning along came the helpful and experienced caulker friend to “inspect” the seams and re-do a couple places where we’d not put in enough (that was me) or put in too much (that was David); the friend was able to stick around a couple hours and by early afternoon quite a bit was completed between the three of us chink, chink, chink. The yard friend had another thing to do in the afternoon, and I wimped out after a bit more time (again, standing on the scaffold gave me cramps of leg tension and back tension–not my caulking “arms” causing the problems at all…) so, after 1 pm David worked the afternoon shift on his own while I did other stuff.

I’m happy to say, though, that 350 linear feet of seams (starboard side, top 6 strakes) were cotton caulked between Thursday and Friday. In the late afternoon Friday, John and David painted over the cotton with primer and John moved the scaffold to the port side of the boat. This morning, we were back at the yard working from 7 am ’till it got too hot to work around noon. Then, we knocked off for the day. The friend from the yard joined us for this morning’s work which really helped get things going. We had about 2/3 of the port side done when we knocked off at noon. David and I will be back tomorrow morning at 6 am to get in the last work on the six topmost strakes on the port side.

I was hoping I’d be a bit less tense on the scaffold since that really seems to sap me of energy–but no, I feel like I’m on a balance beam the whole time. After these top 6 strakes are completed on the port side, the rest of the boat will be caulked from “bottom up” and I’ll get to sit under the boat and to stand on the ground for a bit. I suspect my caulking arm will get pretty tired while caulking “up” from that low position…

More later!