Jersey Girl

Houseboat update, Saturday, November 9, 2019 (Catching up on recently completed work) – While I’m waiting for a warmer day to install the channel and scupper system on Jersey Girl’s aft deck, it’s a good time to put the fiberglassed and primed gull wings into their places on the port and starboard sides of the roof over the aft deck. Not only do they make the whole boat look a lot better, they also help to keep rain on the outside, where it belongs.

Houseboat update, Tuesday, November 19, 2019 – I’ve now installed all those scupper system pieces I made last week on Jersey Girl’s aft deck. Here, you can see how they are arranged on the port side, with the intent they will direct water to any of three places: either overboard toward the side, or into the depressed foot well area, or into the motor well. If the water goes into the foot well, it’ll flow from there through two previously installed scuppers into the motor well, and from the motor well it’ll go overboard through a scupper through the transom. Also, you can see how the hatch openings are surrounded by dams, to stop water from going down into the storage compartments below. And you can see how this system of channels will be topped by plywood panels, leaving room for hinged, flush-mounted hatch covers that will be strong enough to sit, stand or walk on. Finally, you can see how one of the under-deck scuppers leads from the channel system to the port side, along the sheer. Eventually, I’ll install a white oak rub rail along the sheer line, with openings cut into it to allow the free flow of water overboard.

Houseboat update, Tuesday, November 26, 2019 – The hatch and drainage system for Jersey Girl’s aft deck has been installed (finally), and I’ve cut pieces of half-inch plywood to serve as hatch covers on the port and starboard sides. Over the next few days, I’ll finish them up with sealing coats of epoxy and face strips to make them look good. The hatch covers will be solid enough to sit on and to walk across while entering and exiting. I hope the under-deck drainage system will be effective in excluding water from the storage compartments below and sending it overboard where it belongs.

Houseboat update, Saturday, November 30, 2019 – Jersey Girl’s aft deck hatch covers are functionally complete, which is to say they fit and they are well sealed with several coats of epoxy – and they cover the hatches, which is what they are supposed to do. Finishing touches, like fascia boards and hinges will await the arrival of warmer weather. In the meantime, I think they’ll keep the weather away from the bilges, and that’s good enough for now. Today, I’ll start to pay attention to the window openings in the head area on the starboard side and the galley area on the port side. As I work on Jersey Girl, my mind wanders to that time in the foreseeable future when we’ll be on the water, and I conjure up thoughts of what that will actually mean to me. In part, at least, it will represent – more than a conveyance, or a mode of transportation – a portal into a different time, place, world, way of seeing and way of being. Constantly surrounded by the hard artifacts of modern life, we tend to lose the sense of wonder that is of core importance to our existence as human beings. I believe that Jersey Girl, at speeds from zero to six miles an hour, will be a source of restoration.