The Naming of Names

I'm still trying to make up my mind what to name my Nugget, and I would imagine the choice of name would impact my choice of color scheme (which I need to decide upon within the next few months). I've put up a poll to solicit feedback. Here are the choices I've come up with so far:

• Spyglass' Folly - Pretty much self-explanatory, at least for those who are aware of my Spyglass persona.
  
• Fiddler's Green - Ah, Fiddler's Green, sailors' heaven, the opposite of Davey Jones' Locker, where the grass is always green, the girls are pretty, there is always music in the air, glasses overflow with rum, and the pipe bowls are always full of tobacco. The story goes that, in order to find Fiddler's Green, the sailor must take an oar over his shoulder and walk inland until he finds a place where nobody recognizes what he is carrying. Then he knows that he has arrived. This story should sound familiar to anyone who has ever read Homer's Odyssey. In order to appease Poseidon, Odysseus had to walk inland with an oar over his shoulder until he found a place where nobody recognized what he was carrying, and there make a sacrifice to Poseidon. Fidder's Green was also the name of the campsite I shared in the Texas Renaissance Festival's performers' campground with shipmate Marty "Tiburon Tom" Livingston. In fact, the name (for the campsite) was his idea.
  
• The Fates - Three hulls, three Fates (Clotho, Lachesis, & Atropos). Why not? Well, maybe I don't want to tempt them, especially the last one....
  
• Bedlam - This one also goes back to my Texas Renaissance Festival roots. The fictional vessel of our pirate group was a caravel named Pride o' Bedlam. For those who are not in the know, Bedlam was short for the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem, London, an insane asylum.

Meanwhile, the weather has finally begun to cool off a bit (highs in the 80's), so maybe I'll be able to get some work done on the Folly/Green/Fates/Bedlam this weekend.

Amas Off!

With the intense heat we've been having here in Central Texas, I've made very little progress on my boat of late, but I've at least made some. I've finally had a chance to remove the amas. Fortunately, the hinge bolts were simple to remove, but clearly the supports that I constructed were slightly too short, as the amas dropped a bit when the bolts were removed.



Once the amas were off, I noted a bit of paint peeling from the top of one of them. I gave it a tug to see how easily the paint would strip off. Much to my shock, I saw that fiberglass cloth was coming up with the paint.  The glass had delaminated from the underlying plywood, which of course means that I will have to re-glass the top.
A little help was necessary to move the amas. Hauling those things around is a two person job at minimum.  David and I barely managed on our own.
My Nugget naked (without amas).  Now I could get a clear look at the trailer.






I've been giving thought to ditching the centerboard (in order to clear up room in the cockpit) and replace it with a shoal keel fin. (The "Fulô" in Portugal has such an arrangement, and the owner reports that his Nugget handles just fine.) Unfortunately, this would involve substantial changes to the framework of the trailer, and the boat would have to ride higher on it.
I gave a shot at stripping the paint off of one of the amas with Interlux Interstrip, but it performed poorly in the heat.  The solvents evaporated to quickly to do any good. Clearly, I'm going to have to wait until cooler weather to do this.  I also have a few quarts of Soy-Gel on order to give a try. Supposedly, it is effective over a broader temperature range.