Construction

To begin construction we needed to cut many sheets of 4ft by 8ft plywood into 1ft by 8ft pieces.

First, the keel: 40ft long 1 ft high and 2 inches thick. The bow has an additional 2ft by 3ft section. This was built in a day.

It took the month of July and the frame is almost done.

Next is the fiberglass, then paint and the we turn it over, hopefully by the end of August.

Epoxy and more epoxy

First we needed to epoxy every sheet of plywood, both sides. We had 80 sheets and could do only 9 sheets per day. That took 2 weeks with the rain creating havoc. We wanted to start construction but the job had to be done.

The beginning

After a year designing the Knotty 1, a 40 ft flat bottom canal houseboat, we begin with the site setup.

We leased the construction site from the Britannia Yacht Club. They have been very helpful and encouraging.

We started in June getting the site setup. First we needed a working platform. The concrete pillars and railway tracks were provided and put into placed by the club. I don't know what else we would done; wooden skids were considered.

Next a canopy to keep us dry. We had record rainfall in June. It rained 27 out 30 days. I suppose you guys in Vanvouver thinks that normal; anyway back to the canopy. After much discussion, we finally built a wooden frame and draped the largest tarp we could buy (50ft by 30ft) over the it and then tied the tarp to rebar stakes in the ground.

Finally the building materials arrived: 80 sheets of marine plywood, 55 gallons of epoxy, 27.5 gallons of hardner, plus a bunch of other epoxy add-ins. The epoxy came from the US and the first barrel was punctured in shipping so we had to wait for the second barrel (2 more weeks).