The Triton Daysailor | 2002 Archives: December

Reports from December 2002
12/8/02 12/15/02 12/22/02 12/29/02

Log for the Week Ending December 8, 2002

Triton #100 at Jeff's house before I bought her For fun, today I drove with friend and fellow Triton owner Nathan down to South Dartmouth, MA to visit with another mutual friend and Triton nut, Jeff. Jeff's been working on rebuilding his own boat, Kaynee, hull #30, for a few years now, and I followed his progress closely. The boat was nearing completion, and what better way to spend a December Sunday than to go check out more Tritons?

About a year or so ago, Jeff, in a fit of insanity, purchased a second Triton--hull #100, Sea Witch. His justification for this purchase was that #100 contained six excellent opening ports, which he was lacking on #30. Since new bronze ports are so costly, it made sense for him to buy the old hull--which also came with lots of other hardware, Atomic 4, engine parts, tools, etc.--and more or less use it as a parts boat. Being of a similarly distorted way of thinking, I agreed with his plan. But it got me thinking--what was he going to do with a second hull? I offhandedly mentioned that I could be interested in the hull if he decided he didn't want to do anything with it himself, and promptly forgot all about the concept.

Anyway, we had a fun day looking at Jeff's two boats, as well as a few other Tritons stored in a nearby boatyard. (One can never see enough Tritons!) At some point later in the afternoon, the ultimate fate of #100 came up, and the subject of my interest in her hull was rekindled. Jeff seemed interested in getting rid of the boat, and, frankly, the boat was a prime candidate for the substantial reconfiguration I had in mind, since her deck and interior were--simply put--really beat.

We talked about the prospects for a time and while neither of us committed to anything, I be known that I was still interested in the boat, and Jeff indicated his willingness to sell it as essentially a bare hull (any gear remaining on board will be stripped). But the interest and basic designs that had been burning in my mind for a year or more stayed with me. With a donor hull in my sights, it began to look more and more like a fun--and realistic--project.

Log for the Week Ending December 15, 2002

At some point in the day or two following my journey south, I came to the decision that, yes, I wanted this boat. Jeff and I came to agreement on price--fair for all involved--and, stimulated by the prospects, I pressed forward with some conceptual planning and budgeting. I printed up a number of blank copies of the basic hull profile and deck view, and drew up some basic plans for what I thought my daysailor would look like. I went through several iterations, submitting the designs to friends and family for commentary and approval (or lack thereof). On the third try, I hit upon the look--and overall conceptual attitude--that I was really going for. Some basic online surfing for gear and materials pricing led me to the conclusion that the boat would be buildable for a dollar figure that I could probably recoup at time of sale, given the proposed high quality and classic styling of the boat.

With that done, I spent many hours over the course of the week refining my concept, working on the basic design, and beginning the arduous process of creating a specifications and equipment listing for the new boat, and then shopping the various lists between as many online and other vendors as possible. This was the beginning of a long, tedious process, but by being as thorough as possible up front, I hoped to avoid unpleasant surprises down the road, not to mention get a true idea for what I was looking at, costwise. As of this writing, this process is still very much underway and far from complete. Eventually, I'll post these specs on this site.

In this project are the humble roots of a business enterprise, so my newly formed company will certainly be seeking to purchase all equipment and materials at wholesale or discounted prices. Therefore, even the best prices I find at this point are subject to change and, hopefully, reduction. Still, the process gives me a realistic idea as to the overall cost of the project. More to come on this later.

I made arrangements to have the boat trucked up from MA; it's scheduled for Monday, December 23 2002. Details will, of course, follow as soon as humanly possible. For now, I'm going to put the boat in my yard, off to the side near Glissando. This will not be the permanent space for the boat, but it needs to be out of the way come May when I want to launch my boat again. Later during the summer of 2003, I'll move #100 either to its permanent project home, or (hopefully) to an indoor location somewhere to be determined.

Log for the Week Ending December 22, 2002

I spent my available time this week working on a more detailed pricing comparison and specifications listing for the boat. This list, which seems to continually grow, is still far from complete--but then again, there's no huge hurry to complete it immediately, as little or not work will be beginning on the boat until the spring or even later. This quickly becomes tedious, so I only worked at it a little while each day. Eventually, the specs will be complete, and I'll have not only a list to shop around, but also a handle on the rough cost to do the conversion.

I received quotations for a diesel engine and a new spar and boom, both of which were pleasantly lower than expected. Still, these are the two most costly single items and they represent a large part of the overall budget. As I make more progress on my specifications list, I'll chat more about the items in the progress reports and elsewhere on the site. But that comes later.

I spent many hours building the website you are now reading. I began with a single page site as a sort of teaser on Wednesday 12/18, after I registered the new domain name www.tritondaysailor.com the evening prior. In the remaining days of the week, I created, and ultimately rejected, 3 or 4 iterations of the website in an attempt to try some new ideas and create a fun and interesting site. I ran into browser incompatibility problems, display and alignment problems, and eventually scrapped the base concept I was working on and created the site you now see, mostly on Saturday. I also enhanced several of the pages of my test site with additional scripts and photos. Your comments are welcome as always--drop me an email using the link to the left, or leave your comments in the public guestbook on the site. The site is a fledgling at this point, and will grow in content and interest over the next few weeks and beyond as things keep rolling.

I also worked out a time to have the boat picked up in South Dartmouth, MA, where she now sits, and trucked up to my backyard. I'll be using my regular transporter, Morse Overland Marine from Gray, ME. Steve Morse is a pleasure to work with and has been hauling and launching Glissando for the past few times. We're scheduled to head down on Monday the 23rd to bring me an early Christmas present.

Log for the Week Ending December 29, 2002

On Monday, I drove to southern Massachusetts to meet my boat transporter there and pick up the boat from Jeff's house. All went fairly well, and the boat was successfully trucked back home to Maine, where she was safely--if crookedly--blocked in my backyard near Glissando.

My makeshift tarp draping the cockpit and companionway on December 24th The next day, Tuesday, Christmas Eve, I went aboard briefly to take a series of photos of the boat and to get some sort of cover over at least the companionway and cockpit, since there was no hatch and no dropboards. There was a big snowstorm predicted for Christmas, and I didn't want the boat to fill up with snow. I only had a smallish tarp that covered the aft part of the boat, and I installed it with little finesse, but it got the job done. Later, I'll find another tarp and cover the rest of the boat. In between cooking preparations for a Christmas Eve gathering we were having at our house that night, I made frequent trips to the back deck to look upon my new "beauty" in the yard.

See the detailed photos of the boat in her "as-delivered" condition here.

On Christmas, late in the day, we started getting heavy snow, and before long it blew into a full-fledged classic Nor'easter, eventually dropping nearly 20 inches of snow on us. I was busy plowing most of the night and well into the morning on the 26th, which cleared out beautifully in the wake of the storm. Before crashing into a sleep-starved stupor in the afternoon, I snapped a few photos of the boat in her new snowy environment. The high winds had sculpted some wave-like drifts in her starboard quarter, perhaps a sign of better times ahead? My dogs had fun playing in the snow too. It's amazing how pleasant the day was after such a strong storm only hours before. dropping snow amidst such wind and fury.