We are wrapping up our winter work with Outward Bound here in Everglades City, FL and beginning to turn our attention towards our spring migration back to North Carolina. We hope to make a detour out to the Dry Tortugas in late April, spend some time playing in the Keys, and then move up the southeastern seaboard back to Beaufort, NC for the summer.
The only boat project we engaged in over the winter was the rehabilitation of an old fir plywood sailing pram. The pram, discovered in a barn in New Hampshire, was given to us by family. We decided to covert the pram into a hard dinghy for C'est la Vie. Our Porta-Boat has served us well, but it is time to try out a new system.
Below is an image of the dinghy before we began our rehab.
The yet to be named project boat has come a long way since the image above was captured in January. Here is a link to our album detailing the project Dinghy Rebuild Project - 2012
Today we applied five coats of barrier coating to the hull and installed the first red oak strip of what will become a small keel. Our hope is that a small fixed keel will improve the dinghy's tracking when we tow her astern.
