Week Two

I’m happy with my progress so far, even though I don’t really have a yard stick to go by I feel I’m making good strides. During the week I finished lofting the stations and after another trip to Bunnings (I really should by shares in the business) with Nico to buy some extra tools I started cutting them.

That was a bit of a learning curve and I quickly learnt to leave a generous margin along the edge to clean up afterwards with the rasp/file I brought in the morning.

By the evening I’d cut all the stations and shaped about half of them.

The following morning Nico and I finished shaping the stations and then it was onto building the strong back.

I got most of it built when I received a call from Mum asking if we wanted to come over for a swim and salmon smoked on the BBQ. How can one refuse such an offer? So at 4:00 I packed everything away, grabbed Nico and our swimming things and headed off to Mums.

So the day finished a little earlier than I had hoped but the strong back is almost complete, I just need to add the legs and make sure everything is level.

Otherwise I got an email from Rod today that my planks will be ready middle of the week. I also found out that Gary Dierking makes sails so I will ask him if he can make me one later this year. So my task for this coming week is to buy the epoxy and fiberglass, finish the strong back and mount the stations.

Boat Length

After another series of emails with Gary (I hope he's not getting sick of me!) I've settled on six meters overall length. Hopefully this will mean I can still fit my car in the garage over winter while I work on the boat.

To maximise the buoyancy gained Gary recommended adding the extra 600mm to the middle of the boat. I will also be making the bulk heads a bit longer to help in case of a capsize or swamping (as Gary pointed out it will also mean less bailing).

Gary was also kind enough to send me the plans for a larger ama, which will allow me to add a bit of extra sail area to add a trampoline to the cross beams for resting on

I'm also toying with the idea of installing lockers under the seats with a couple of tackle and storage boxes in them. This will give me a small amount of water tight storage for valuables like phone and wallet.

A productive weekend

I've slowly been lofting the stations onto the particle board I got on Thursday, I got all but four stations done. They will get done during the evening this week ready to be cut next weekend. Because of the proximity of the garage to the Nicolas' room I want to avoid using powertools after his bed time. For the same reason I decided to cut up the wood I needed to make the strong back.

Oops! since I expect to be finishing the strong back next weekend and hope to starting to place the stations I thought I might as well see if the Ulua will fit in the garage on a dianigional.... well it does just... with so little room to spare that it won't be practical. Realistically I'm going to have to make her shorter, just how short we will see.

Nicolas was a great help, I had him placed on the sheets as I was measuring up the stations handing me the nails to mark each point. He even had a go at hammering some nails in.

Last week Gary put me onto a teacher from Onehunga Highschool who has also built a Ulua, I got an email from him on Saturday at it turns out he lives a short bike ride from our place. I called him and had a short chat with him chatting about what he uses it for and how he had found the performance. He's a big fan of Garys' design and through the school he has built three of them! This is very encouraging, I hope to meet with him and take him up on his offer for a sail.

Second Trip to Bunnings

Well I took another look at Gary's materials list and there is no mention of using MDF for the stations. Ply and particle board yes, but not MDF.

so I fired of an email to Gary and it turns out that there's a reason for it. Staples don't hold to well in the MDF edges (Doh!). Oh well I can still use it for the strong back and making a frame to hold the hull in the upright position.

So off to Bunnings I went to get the recommended particle board and timber lengths for the strong back. I've also decided to splash out and get a decent jigsaw as it will be important to make as clean as possible cuts. I'm sure this will be a recurring event through-out this build.

Coming back on the lofting I found on the CD the table of off-sets used to draw up to stations. Because I have the plans, in theory I could just glue them to the wood and cut them out that way, but I prefer to draw them up myself because I'm worried the saw will obscure the lines on the paper as it cuts.

If my drawings are out of line I can always fall back on the paper plans.

Ordered Wood

The Ulua plans call for strip plank construction, with the preferred wood being Red Cedar. It should be said that a glassed Red Cedar boat is absolutely stunning to look at. However to my mind it has two serious drawbacks:
1. Build imperfections will be visible to close inspection.
2. All that beautiful wood needs to be looked after which means lots of varnish!
3. Red Cedar is very expensive

So while I know that all wooden boat will require maintenance, a paint finish will be more resilient than varnish. On the upside it will also allow me to add some of my own details to it.

SO that meant I can use a cheaper wood like Alaskan or yellow cedar. Reading on the other forums I also heard of a wood called Paulownia grown by Rod Laurence which was used by Onehunga High school in their build and by surfers and kayakers. It's reputed to be almost as light as balsa wood which is a good sign.

So I called Rod up and after describing my needs he calculated how much I would need and a price to dress it to the right size for me. So I placed the order with him and in a couple of weeks it'll be ready for me.

You have mail

I received an email last night from Mum that a parcel had arrived for me; that'll be Gary Dierkings' book on building outrigger canoes.

Dropped by on the way to work to pick it up and had a quick flick through it while stopped at the traffic lights. Looks like I can expect to spend at least 300 hours on building the boat. Good thing I plan to do it over the coming year ready for next summer.

First Steps

Now that the Ugly Duckling has been delivered, I feel I can start to spend the money from her sale, so off to Bunnings and Mitre10 it is to get the tools and supplies needed to build my Ulua.

I ended up buying three sheets of 12mm MDF, a T-square, block plane, orbital sander, clamps (12 of them), spirit level, chalk line, duct tape, sanding blocks, extra pencils and a bath toy set for Nicolas. There's a fair chunk of the budget gone already, good thing this is a long term project.


(starting the drawings with Nico's tools handy)

Being impulsive I set out the first sheet of MDF and started to draw up the first station using measurements from Gary's plans.

Spitfire, Spitfire!

Drove to Tauranga today with Matthijs and Irene to deliver the boat to her new owner. The trip went well except I lost the pelican clamp for the Whiting forestay. Very annoying and luckily the new owner was very understanding and declined my offer for me to source one and send it down.



Unknown to me the meeting point was at the end of the runway for Tauranga airport and the airshow was in full swing. So while we were sorting out the hand over, we got buzzed by a low flying Spitfire! What a rush!

Luckilly on the second pass I had had enough time to get my camera out and take a couple of shots. And then just as we were driving off the Catalina comes in to land!



The rest of the day went well, we drove up to Coromandel town for lunch, then over to Garys' place to have a look at his production Ulua. Regretably Gary wasn't home so we only got to admire his boat and not talk to him. After that it was a straight drive home.

Welcome Eloise Hoai Thuong

What a day!

It started normal enough, wake up around 7:30ish Cecile tells me she thinks she's having contractions, ok how far apart? Twelve minutes, ok want me to Call Toni (the midwife)? Yes please.

Call Toni, pass her over to Cecile. Toni (who was about to step out the door and go on holiday) asks us to call her again when the contractions start coming five minutes apart. So thinking I have plenty of time I call Mum, tell her its all go and have a shower.

Get out of the shower, grab a bit to eat, give Nico a cuddle, oops contractions are now 4 min apart, call Toni again. We're off to the hospital, call mum tell to her that there's a change of plans and could she please come over to pick Nico and Cecile's' Mum up. Take Nicos seat out of the car and off we go.

Arrive in hospital at 9:00 and get Cecile settled in, Toni arrives and I head out to park the car. Toni is well liked by the Hospital staff so we have a nice delivery room with a view of the harbour. Its Auckland Anniversary weekend so there are lots of boats including a couple of tall ships on the harbour.

10:08 Eloise is born.