I began with an unimposing pile of lumber from a local sawmill, and gradually transformed that into a wooden representation of the plans I'd drawn. Designed with a stern of a caravel, the prow and beam of a Marshallese sailing canoe, and out-rigged like a South Pacific sailboat, there was no other boat like it. I had some unusual design parameters. I wanted to be able to beach her in an emergency, sail even if she were holed, and for her to be unsinkable. If the main hull became no longer viable, I designed the outrigger to be used as a boat in its own right. Not being able to swim, I'm fond of contingency plans.
In two-and-a-half months of daily labour I laid the keel, built the ribs and the frame, and planked in my round-bottomed main hull. I built the outrigger next, relying on plywood and stitch-and-glue to give me the shape I sought. When it came time to join the hulls, I built robust timbers, and by the time I had the mast tabernacle done and finished the mast, I had a better sense of what I'd built.
On launch, the Whimsey floated right at the waterline, proved to be both stable and seaworthy, and before long I was living aboard as I traveled around the inner passage between Vancouver Island and mainland British Columbia.
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