It's spring and I was still driving around with too much stuff in the car from the house-clean job I got in January. So I spent the whole morning on Thursday cleaning out the car, including wood I had meant for the wood mill (my brother's place), the guitar pickguard material for the switch plates, tools and other parts. I set the wood on top of the car to load later... and then forgot it, got into the car and drove off.
Without watching my speed I hit about 55 MPH on River Road, then of course slowed down. I turned to go over the tracks, stopped at the market for iced tea (and crisps), and then turned, went over the tracks again, straight down Chester Avenue and then along the river (as I often do) to the marina. Upon turning in to the marina I heard this rattling on the roof.
'Oh; I am an idiot! --I forgot that was on there!' Over the next two minutes I just mulled it over, talking to myself. 'Maybe it's still on there. Maybe it's back by the side of the road. Maybe it's in the yard beside the house....'
Stopping the car at the boat I got out to look. The plywood for the galley cabinet was there, half-jammed into the roof rack. One of the mahogany planks was there, simply lying at an angle atop the plywood. The longer of the two mahogany planks was gone.
I worked the whole day (too poor to waste fuel on two trips) and worried about it. I even looked about the boat and searched my mind for any way of replacing it with other wood: but there isn't. I had these planks milled at Edgewater Building Supply about 4-5 years ago, just for this application. They're for the underside of the cabintop to both serve as backing blocks for the handrail bolts and to trim off the edges of the foam-backed headliner material. They want only a notch cut along one edge to receive the foam stuff, which is not installed yet, but I wanted to fit them for length on the two sides and get some finish on them as they're still raw and beginning to look it. So now I was out of luck.
Worse, sap that I am, I worried about the poor piece of wood outside in the drizzle we had in the afternoon. Well; now even if I could recover it, it'd be waterstained (this shows through most varnish unless it's sanded down pretty far first).
Towards evening I was still at the boat and my mother called and invited me to supper. (I am a sucker for any free supper.) I kind of expected this and was saving what little fuel I have left for the trip home for a shower and back down (past the boat again) for her place. On the way home I took the right lane, went slowly, and kept my eyes across the road for some forlorn-looking piece of mahogany with maybe tire-tracks across it. Sadly, I did not see it, went home, had a shower, turned around and started back along the same route for my mom's. I thought I saw it (off the road) and made a U-turn, drove by, decided that wasn't it. Then I saw it! --far off the road, parallel to the train tracks. I made a quick U-turn (in a parking lot with a sign: No U-Turns) and ran across the road to see it.
How it managed to fly 35 feet from the road and land perfectly parallel to the road (and tracks) can be attributed only to the fact that I was doing 55 MPH, right at about this point. The board is indeed waterstained; but I can sand that out. Best of all the corners are all intact. How did that happen? --I can only guess that it blew so far off the car that it never hit any tarmac at all but landed neatly in this grassy area. I've seen pieces of plywood go flying and they usually end up as ovals (no corners) from cartwheeling as they land. This piece survived in perfectly-usable condition.
Now there is yet another piece of this boat with a funny story. Someday (soon) I'll be showing people over the boat and point up at it and say, 'That was the one that almost got away.' If there's any nicks or stains showing it'll only be proof of the story and not considered 'ugly'. (There is really nothing on this boat that's 'ugly'.) It'll be like the backing plate under the foredeck, the ladder/cooler assembly, the 'extra' locker after of the quarter berth, and the 'Uncle Joe' sticks on the cabin sole-- just one more part of Diana's composite personality.
(See here for more of the same....)
I've used so much reclaimed and repurposed mahogany on this boat that it's kind of a motif. Most of the mahogany that looks like it doesn't match is from older boats, such as one C44 that got a major interior-remodeling project done to it. It's mostly 1970s-era wood, which, used in Diana, lends an authentic look. Diana doesn't look newly-restored. She looks like she was always meant to be that way, indeed like she was always that way all along. My cabinetry fits aren't perfect (see Steve for that kind of work - https://www.facebook.com/Notcher-Designs-227378264271864/?fref=ts) but overall Diana has a 'factory' look to her.
Think of her as a Hunter 25 built by Cherubini Boat Company! You'll see when the commissioning party happens!
- JC2
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