Jersey Girl · new build
LaunchedJim Norman's 20 foot houseboat, built in his northern New Jersey driveway from 2015 to 2021. The design started from Roy Schreyer's Dianne's Rose, stretched three feet and reworked into his own. Okoume plywood hull over sawn frames and bulkheads, a cabin of cedar posts and laminated roof beams sheathed in pine beadboard, and a fiberglassed arched roof with gull wing panels over the aft deck. Launched on the Hackensack River in May 2021, she now cruises Lake Hopatcong, where she took the Ladies' Choice award at the 2024 antique and classic boat show.
Sept. 29, 2017: Happiness is an unclamped bottom. Its all glued and screwed, and nothing has sprung loose. I've cut away most of the overhang at the bow and will plane and sand what remains until it's flush. I've sealed the entire bottom with a coat of epoxy, so it's protected from the rain that's forecast for tomorrow. She's starting to look a little more like a boat, and less like the fossilized skeleton of a prehistoric creature.
Oct. 1, 2017: I have started work on the side panels of the hull. The thin batten tacked temporarily to the curve of the bow is to tell me how to cut the panel and its supporting framework in that area. I will fasten a cedar plank to the bulkhead ends and trace the curve of the batten onto the plank. Then, I will cut the plank on the traced line, and use it as a template for the side panel at the bow.
Oct. 1, 2017 (part 2): The curve of the side panel frame is pretty good for a first pass. Now, I have to plane it into a sweet curve with no lumps and bumps, and work in the bevel to make sure all the panels in this area lie down as they are intended. Then, when I'm sure I have it just right, I will unscrew the parts and check them for approximate fit on the other side, even though I know the bevel will be reversed. Then, I'll use the parts as templates for the other side. My goal for tomorrow is to get at least one full-length side panel glued up and installed. We'll see....
Oct. 2, 2017. Hanging the side panels temporarily, to check for fit. By the way, the topmost edge of the side of a boat is called the "sheer." A plank is called a "strake." These three pieces, when joined, will be the "sheerstrake." In the second picture, you can see the bow section from the inside. I'll use a pencil to trace the outline of the curve of the bow, then cut that section of the sheerstrake on the line I scribe.
Oct. 3, 2017: Starting to fiberglass the backs of the side panels -- the sheer strakes. I will want to be somewhat neat about this, because some of these surfaces will be visible from inside the cabin. When I lay out the fiberglass fabric, it is opaque white. As I permeate the fiberglass weave with the two-part epoxy mixture, the fabric turns from opaque to transparent, allowing the grain of the wood to show.
Nobody else here is logging a Jersey Girl yet. See the boat.