Outdoor Ice Skate

I have been watching our little 5 foot swimming pool which is flipped upside down and has about 5" of water in it freeze solid over the past few days. This made me alert to watch out for the freezing of those small patches of water that collect into pools by the side of the road or out in open fields. They are not very deep and they are the first to freeze up. This morning on my way to work, I noticed a great spot only a few minutes from our house. I decided to try walking on it when I passed by it again after work. Sure enough, it was solid. There was a little cracking but no major cracking. I got home, changed my clothes and grabbed my skates. I got my hockey stick and puck out of the garage and headed over. It was about 24 degrees outside and cold but not uncomfortable. A light snow was falling and you could see the moon through a light haze. I laced up the skates and ventured out. I started slow and tested many areas of the ice. There were some parts I stayed away from because of some loud cracking. I think the cracking was due to it being too shallow in some spots. I still had plenty of ice to skate around on. A narrow stretch about 80 feet in length by 15-20 feet wide. What great fun. It is hard to beat ice skating outdoors. I learned to skate with my sister on top of our outdoor swimming pool cover. We would skate for hours. I got started early this year and this is New Jersey to this is a treat. This is really the first time I have ice skated outdoors since those times on the swimming pool cover. I hope for many more outdoor skates this winter. I will keep my eye out for other sites or maybe even make my own backyard rink. I plan to take my son over to the ice after dinner and after he finishes his homework. The moon and street lights will provide enough light to pass the puck around.

Outdoor Soccer Season Experience

The fall soccer season started on August 12, 2010 and just finished up a 10 week season today. This was my son James first participation in organized sports and it really was a fun experience. The team was U-8 Boys and they finished up at 7 wins, 2 losses and 1 tie. Great job! James had 8 goals and 4 assists during the season. Bobby-Joe Esposito was the coach of the team and did an excellent job coaching the boys and having very productive practice sessions during the week. Bobby-Joe is the second highest scorer in the Rutgers college team history and played 14 years professional soccer. We really were grateful to have such a great coach for James first time with soccer. I really looked forward to practices and games. The action was always exciting! Next up is a winter indoor soccer season which will provide more good experience and practice for the boys.

Boat Pulley Hoist System in Garage

One of the problems with having a boat is where to keep it when you are not using it. Let's face it. If it is not easy to use, it will not be used. If it is mostly in the way, you may think of getting rid of it. You could just put it up in the rafters or on the wall, but once up there, it will be hard to get down and you will make excuses that it is too hard to get down, so it won't get used.

I now have two row boats and I was thinking about what I would do with them in my garage. I thought of building a rack behind my garage and I would store outdoors under a tarp. Then, I recently came across a website, by Michael Krabach where he has come up with an inexpensive pulley hoist system to store his kayaks. I loved the idea and had to try it out. For about $50 in items from Home Depot, I made a pulley hoist for my 74 lb. rowboat. It works absolutely beautifully! I love it. The prusik knot to hold the lines is a great idea! It lifts the boat up out of the way quickly and high enough where I can drive a car underneath it and then set down on roof racks. I made 2 safely ropes under the boat as insurance in case of an unlikely pulley system failure, the safety ropes will catch the boat from falling to the floor.

This is so much better than my rafter system I had been using. Once I finally got it up in the rafters, it was not coming down because it was such a pain. With this system, all the work is done by the rope and pulleys using the age old mechanical advantage technique of a simple pulley.

I am now making one for my new Adirondack Guideboat and the boats will stay indoors and out of the way during the winter. Thanks Michael!

Guideboat Construction Pictures

Click on this link for a set of 58 Adirondack Guideboat construction pictures on Flickr.

Halloween Pumpkins 2010

Pumpkins carved from Left to Right by James, Dave and Gib.

Adirondack Guideboat First Launching

Today I launched the Adirondack Guideboat for the first time at Union Lake in Millville, NJ. I got together with Steve from work. His blue kevlar guideboat is pictured next to mine. We had a great time rowing and it was a beautiful fall day at the lake. This was our 3rd annual October row where we get together for a little friendly rowing competition. My guideboat did a little better job keeping with Steve and his guideboat than last year with my Natoma skiff. I am very pleased with my new guideboat and it is a pleasure to row. The glide between row strokes is what I expected and the boat tracks very straight. The fixed pin 8' oars make a big difference in speed and performance too. I still have more to learn in rowing this craft, but the launching was a great success. It is fun to be taken back in time to row a boat with a hull design that was designed more than a century ago. It was built differently back then of course, but the hull shape and weight are essentially the same.

Adirondack Guideboat Finished

A long time has passed by again since my last post, but I have been busy working on completing this boat. My initial plan was to build a "quick and dirty" hull to see how this hull design was. That plan was last November 2009. As the build progressed and more hours were put in, the boat became more than just a fast build. Eleven months later, she is ready to row. I figure it was about 5-6 months of build time because I did not do anything during the winter months. My garage is just too cold in wintertime.

I built her to match as close as I could to Steve Kaulback's kevlar design. She has not been in the water yet so I don't have any water shots. Next week I will. I am also going to put together all of my building photos in Flickr. I can't wait to see how she rows!