The final week in April has found us working on finalizing all the projects. By Thursday, all but the steering brake have been completely installed, checked and working properly.

We made a trip to Oriental, NC, to the Marine Consignment store. They have managed our excess equipment from last fall and sold everything. We have 50 foot of excess chain, some safety harnesses that we will not need now that we have replaced them with live vests with the harnesses built into, and our Bahamas Chart kits which I don’t believe we will need again. In addition, we picked up some very affordable additional small fenders to cushion our dingy on the stern, hanging from our newly installed davits.
And, after such a cold wet trip from Florida, Tom convinced me to purchase boots to keep our feet dry. I found a used pair at the consignment shop at a third of retail prices.

I have made a trip to the grocery to stock us up for a couple of weeks so we can avoid having to be in search of places to land a dingy and obtain provisions.

We have ordered some of Tom’s medications from Canada. We have found them a great savings over the US prices and last fall had absolutely no difficulty having them shipped to us. Unfortunately, this time we ordered (Enough to last us until we pass through Beaufort in the Fall) they have so far taken weeks to get here and actually, we are still waiting.

As Friday arrived, without the wheel brake aboard, we decided to put off our departure until next Tuesday. That will give us Monday to make a last stop for mail and return the rental car in the afternoon.

Corey from Triton, brought our wheel brake and of course his bill. It always makes us choke to get the bill, but he is fair with his pricing. While we were chatting Corey suggested that we attend the Beaufort Wooden Boat building challenge, and so we did.

We spent most of Saturday watching the competitors work to make a rowing skiff from some sheets of marine plywood and their building abilities. Each team is comprised of two individuals and this year’s competition had teams from area high schools and area community colleges as well as the other teams. We were excited because Casey, from Triton Marine, who had spent the better part of a week working on our boat with us, was on one of the teams. So, we had to be there to cheer Casey on!

There were beautiful wooden boats of all types on display. I was able to capture some of them to share with you.

Here is a video of one team using a hand router to trim the excess plywood making the bottom of their boat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BElgVIIrREM

The best part of the Beaufort Boat Building Challenge is the water race in these newly built boats. Each team must participate in the relay race where a team member rows the boat 100 feet turn the boat bring it back and switch to the other partner who is also required to row down and back. The problem was that many of the participants clearly had not done a great deal of rowing before yesterday. Many struggled, some lost one or both paddles, a couple snapped their paddles part of the way in or out. It was great fun for the large crowd watching the competition. All in all I would recommend this event to anyone who loves boats. It was a wonderful day.