Early thoughts
In the winter of 2010-2011 we did some major rebuilding of the the garvey. A year later we faced repairs of a more subtle nature, the chine logs were springing major leaks. We replaced the chine log fastenings this last spring (2012) and that fixed most of the problem. But residual leaks are still there. We put in a solar powered bilge pump, and that at least made us mooring ready. As I write the boat is on a mooring at River Rats with the pump keeping the water down from these residuals.During all this works we asked ourselves just how long a life can be expected from this boat, giving its design, construction, materials, etc. Informal discussions. But most agreed the Adam Hyler (the Garvey's name) was probably built for 20 years life. We are at year 27. We keep it going using heroic efforts like the above mentioned rebuilding. We believe we can do that for another year or three or so.
It is not too soon to plan its replacement. That means:
- What are the goals?
- What kind of boat serves these goals?
- What construction techniques, materials, and other technical details should be considered?
- What about fund raising?
The email dialog lasted about 10 days more or less, and resulted in several proposals. A fleet of smaller boats, a duplication including technology of the Adam Hyler, a whole new approach with a bigger vessel. The latter got a lot of attentions: a proposed 40 foot "folding schooner" described in later writings. But most interest was in duplicating the Adam Hyler. It matched our program needs perfectly.
On August 14, 2012, we had a face-to-face meeting with all our mailing list invited plus a few others. Eight folks showed up. We had a fine disucssion that lead to a consensus, at least for this meeting. You will find that described in the writings in this folder. I personally reconstructed some of the reasoning and open questions that from that meeting. The rest of the writings lead from those.
Read the goals, next.
Tom Gibson
8-22-12