I picked Chris up from home and we headed down along the coast filled with optimism and joi de vie. The sun was out, the skies blue and the sea was calm with a steady easterly pushing offshore. Quick stop for coffee and onto the site to confirm if our blue tarpaulin had done the job of keeping the rain out of the shipping container.
Great success – nary a drop inside and the tarp was still there. Perfect. Now we could move to the exciting phase of stitching the boat together. Finally we’d be able to see the craft as a vessel, not flat boards of incomplete dreams.
The plan was to place the base board onto the three levelled saw horses and then lay the first side planks alongside. We would then loosely stitch the side planks to the base with copper wire before adding the bulkheads in and stitches those as well.
You’re going to see a post soon from Chris which speaks to prior preparation. A decent amount of preparation will delay or even squish inevitable disasters. Why is this relevant? Simply put, Chris and I were very shortly left scratching our bums and noses wondering where we’d placed the copper wire only to realise it was inside a locked and alarmed building onsite.
Well that burst our little bubble of happy success!
With no viable and legal way of obtaining the wire we switched tasks. Placing the wood away and locking the container we headed to a nearby cafe to nut out a costing plan for the race itself. I found a Crayola pencil one of my kids had left behind in the car and Chris had some old bills that we could write on the back off. The day was still beautiful. The cafe produced some delicious ham and cheese croissants and I got to hang out with my mate dreaming up adventures. Still a great day in my books.
I know you want to ask so… How much did we broadly cost it out to? $AU37,500 not including risk reduction activities, sea container and container dome. Always good to have a basic number to work towards, even if it turn out to be overly optimistic!