Summer Projects

Since I've been given the go-ahead from my oncologist to "resume normal activity," for me that means summer crew projects! Here is a listing of what I've been playing with:

Summer project #1 - the Joan Francis double

At the end of the season we purchased the Joan Francis, a 1989 vintage Vespoli double, from HRRC for $400. The boat needed some work, especially removing the red deck chevron and repainting it with the Bishop Sullivan Green. The frames were also crushed due to previous users tightening the rigger bolts too much and I had to rebuild them. New track risers were also bought and installed. The hull, too, received a complete re-paint. Below is the before and after.

The boat is ready to go, and Coach O'Brien is eager to start sculling training soon. Dates and times to be announced. I suppose we should rename it -- how about Joan of Arc/St. Francis???

Summer Project #2 - More slings

I built two more sets of slings so we can safely rig four boats instead of just two. This project just cost a hundred dollars worth of material and a couple of days cutting, gluing and screwing. The only problem is the storage space in the boathouse is getting a bit tight!

Summer Project #3 - Additional oar racks

This was just a quick project to install two more oars racks, primarily to keep our tulip blades from hitting the floor, but also to provides future storage space for another set of eight sweep oars.

Summer Project #4 - Re-design of Out to Launch

I made two minor and one major modification to the launch to improve its performance and usefulness. The leaky deck hatches were removed and sealed and replaced with watertight inspection ports. New bow spray shields were made and installed. The biggest change was removing the old engine sponson (which created lots of drag and spray) and replacing it with a modified WinTech sponson. The relative difference can be seen in the two videos below, one shot a couple of years ago with the old sponson and the second shot just last week with the new WinTech sponson.

It's hard to tell the speed difference but the lack of spray at the engine in the second video shows how much cleaner the boat moves through the water, resulting in greater speed.

Summer Project #5 - A second coach's launch

The WinTech launch we got from Bishop Ireton is just about ready to go.  As you may recall from this post last October Bishop Ireton High School in Alexandria gave us an old WinTech wakeless launch in deplorable condition (the rowing coach at Bishop Ireton was about to take a chainsaw to the boat and throw the pieces into a dumpster!) Since then the boat has been completely repaired, including a new engine and just needs the registration transferred from DC to Virginia to make it legal. Hopefully it will be in use for our fall training.

Summer Project #6 - A new logo

I liked the ODU rowing logo on their coach's launch and decided display something similar for our team.  With help from Allison Davis and Ryan Powell we now have the Crusader in front of crossed oars. The logo was unveiled at the Boys of '36 showing last night and will be on our launches and a new banner at the boathouse.

Summer Project #7 - A camera mast for the double

    I made a carbon fiber camera mast for the Joan Francis. Another one will be in the works for Wildcat. When finished we'll be able to record any crew in any boat. Additional GoPro camera will make it possible to record events that are near each other in the regatta event schedule since we won't have to wait for a boat to come ashore to move the camera...)