Little Boat

I finally did it, I bought some planes and decided to make a small sail boat. But how small should I go? Small enough for a little trailer...no, smaller, I want it to fit in the back of the truck. So we opted for this sub 8-foot sailer. The eight-ball is a sailboat design from Glen-L boats.

The plans were super easy to follow. Every time I had a question, I would look at the plans and instructions that come with the kit and sure enough, the answer was always there. It's a great first-time project. 

My intentions were to get a small boat that would be easy to pack on-top of our pop-up trailer and haul to lakes around the state or to Rocky Point. I also wanted it to be easy to sail and easy to right in case of an upset, for the kids.

Look at those colors

When I first laid out the plans and had the pieces cut in my front living room it looked small, but when I took it outside to finish up on it, it looked even smaller. 

Upside down getting painted

We got to the beach just in time to see the first indicators of the Tropical Storm Sergio. The surf was big for rocky point and the wind matched. I sat on the beach, trying to pick the perfect time to get the boat out. You may ask what my criteria was for the "perfect time". Well, it was the point at which there were the least amount of people on the beach to embarrass myself in front of. I didn't want to get surfed and smash everything in front of a big audience. It took some doing, but we got the boat past the surf and I sailed into some decent size swells, taking on some water at times. Half sailing, half bailing. It was a very sporty 15 minutes. The excitement wasn't over yet, I still had to bring her back to shore. As I was sailing in with the shore wind, I caught a wave and surfed that bad boy. Mostly out of control, and almost upside down, I made it back.

Sitting on the beach. I'm waiting to build up enough nerve to head out.

I promised myself to get that boat out the very next week, because the swells and wind was too much at rocky point. So we made our way to Cochiti Lake for some low wind sailing. The boat did great. But, we still need a name.

We wanted to pick a name that would represent the size of the hulking 8-foot craft. One of the first things that came to mind was a single cell organism. It just felt right, it is small, simple and it only has a single sail. So we named it S.S. Organism (single sail organism). We might do the artwork when the temperatures get warmer.

S.S. Organism

We figured we put money, blood, cursing and tears into this thing, we're going to milk it for all it's worth. So we took out the boat to use as a prop for some family pictures. I made a wheel for it, to make it easy to wheel it around. It also passes for a great family stroller, watch out BOB strollers.