Most people who want their own boat just buy one, but Ken Connors had a different approach.
“My grandfather used to put me to work on his little wooden skiff,” Connors recalls. “He built a boat when I was a kid, and I watched him do it.”
With his grandfather’s boat, the “Ma and Pa,” as an inspiration, Connors built his own skiff several years ago, then constructed a canoe. Those proved to be merely preparation for a more ambitious project.
“I just got the bug and took the plunge. I never did anything like this before.”
What Connors did was build his own sailboat, measuring 26 feet from bow to stern, with a mast nearly 20 feet tall. The sturdy vessel has a dark green hull, a cream-colored 21-foot deck with mahogany trim, and a cabin spacious enough for Connors, his wife, Karen, and their young daughter, Ceili.
Amid
fanfare from friends and neighbors, the Connors family launched their
new boat on July 4th weekend. To their relief, it was seaworthy. A little
anxiety was understandable, since it took Connors more than two years
of nights and weekends to complete the construction. He wasn’t sure
he had the experience to take on such a task, but it turned out he knew
how to locate resources.
The Internet was a huge help, in particular an online community called back yard Yacht Builders, at www.byyb.org. Connors explains that the site’s members “built their boats from the same designer, Stevenson Projects of California, which has about a half dozen different designs. “This is their biggest, the Vacationer. The plans were very detailed.”
A key benefit of BYYB, Connors continued, is the members’ forum, where backyard builders compare notes and offer advice. “I got a lot of help from them. You could always ask questions if you got stuck. It’s something my Grandfather didn’t have. Now I help other people who are building.”
Thanks
to his investment of “sweat equity,” Connors’ new boat
was a bargain. “I got the trailer for free, and the motor I had,
so I probably bought about $3,000 wroth of lumber and hardware. Almost
all the blocks and pulleys and hardware I got out of marine consignment.
I only had to buy two new pulleys, plus a lot of other stuff I got cheap
on eBay. That’s another thing my grandfather didn’t have.”
Connors, who works as an appliance repair technician, didn’t literally build the sailboat in his backyard, but he did commandeer his garage as a workshop. The garage is spacious, with roll-up doors in both the front and back. Connors built the hull on casters, enabling him to move the boat” and stick the nose out the door if I needed the room. With the doors closed, it just barely fit in here by inches.”
A boat builder needs some good tools, Connors observes, “I got a lot of use out of the Japanese pull saw, which is flexible and very good for fine cuts and angle cuts in tight spaces. You use a lot of scrapers and sanders. There’s also about 3,000 screws in there, so the screw gun came in handy.”
The construction process called for building the frame, and wrapping plywood panels around it to shape the curved hull. Connors applied fiberglass to the hull, deck and cabin to protect all the wood, then painted and varnished the surfaces. “Sometimes I had to wait a few weeks for warm weather to do the fiberglass, so I would find woodworking things and odds and ends to do in the cold weather.
At times during the past two years, Connors invited his neighbors over for some beer and hot dogs to have a “boat-flipping party.”
“Every once in a while I had to get a bunch of guys to flip the boat over so I could work on the other side. Roll it out of the garage, flip it over, roll it back in. I’ve had a lot of help from the neighbors. A lot of help from Ceili, too; she did some painting and varnishing.
Ceili (pronounced Kay-lee) is Gaelic for celebration or dance, and Connors honored his daughter by naming the sailboat after her. He also appreciates his wife’s contributions. “Karen is a psychotherapist, and she kept me sane during the whole project,” he says with a smile. “She’s very supportive and patient, and giving up her garage for two winters was a pain. She’s going to be happy to get her car back inside.”
The Connors family will be parking their boat right outside their front door as they live just a few steps from the water. Their quiet street features picnic tables along the shore, and a boat ram on the corner. They bought the lot 10 years ago and built a beautiful three-level home, with two decks overlooking Fox Island and the cove dotted with moored vessels. It might be the most scenic view in North Kingstown.
“I saw the lot when I happened to have a job in the neighborhood,”
Connors remembers, “and that night we had money down on it For years
and years, I wanted to have a place on the water like my grandfather did
in Swansea. We were in Providence before, and we’re very lucky to
be here.”
With
the boat now in the water, Connors will have other ways to spend his time.
“I haven’t got much experience sailing, so I’ll be learning.
We took a couple of lessons last year, and we have a lot friends in the
neighborhood who are lined up wanting to go sailing and give me lessons.
“A wooden boat will also keep you busy. There’s plenty of
maintenance, and I still have some improvements I want to make. I have
the other boats to take care of too — have to get them in the shop.”
Perhaps most of all, Connors is enjoying the satisfaction of a job well done.
“Some people ask me if I’m obsessed, because I spent a lot
of time out here. It looks a lot tougher than it is. People can’t
believe someone could do this, but if you take it a step at a time, it’s
really not that difficult.”
Article, courtesy of North Kingstown Villager
Back Yard Yacht Builders
A non-commercial association of amateur boat-builder enthusiasts.
All our wooden boats are Stevenson designs.