The RMS Chimichangas

I should be flying to California right now. Or at least in San Fransisco as I write this. I should be getting ready for phase two of the Point Reyes Lens project. But I’m not. No matter the reason. Instead, I’m home… maybe for the best. After all, I did just wake up from a twenty-four hour nap. That is if you can call twenty-four hours of slumber a nap.

I’m fighting a cold. At least I believe it’s a cold. I don’t have a fever. I feel achy and I’ve a pesky cough and when I get hungry… I get hungry… like starvation hungry. Then I sleep again. The reason for all this? My daughter. Yes, I’m accusing her.

You see, last Sunday, her and her college room-mate and one of their classmates came up to me and said “Do you know how to build a boat?” 

I smiled and said “Sure. Why?”

Now, to be honest, I’ve never built a boat before. However; I am familiar with the principles and practices of boat building, water tight integrity, buoyancy, weight displacement and fabrication with assorted materials so manufacturing a boat for three college kids shouldn’t be a problem. “How much time do we have?”

“Well,” my daughter said…”It can’t be out of wood, it has to be done by Friday, and we can only spend twenty dollars and we don’t have a place to build it. Oh, and we don’t have a plan. Can  you help?”

“Let me see if I can use our work shop first. Also, do you ladies know anything about water-tight integrity? Buoyancy? Weight displacement? Or construction materials?” I asked as I sent a text to my supervisor asking if I could use our work shop and scrap foam and wood.

When I looked up from my phone the answer to my questions was written all over their depressed faces. “Okay…okay… look, don’t worry about any of that right now. First you need to come up with a plan for the boat. You need to find out how much you all weigh. That will tell you how much weight the boat needs to hold without sinking. Don’t lie. Now is not the time for being shy with your weight. Unless you want to sink. Then, you need to have a boat design. Come up with a construction timeline, working backwards from the launch date. 

My phone buzzed. It was my supervisor. His text read “No problem.”

“Ladies, we have a work space and materials. When do you want to get started?”

“4:00 this afternoon.”

“Okay, I’ll meet you there.”

That evening started the birth of what became known as the RMS Chimichangas. It took four nights and days of dedication on all of their behalf. Sawing, screwing, cutting, gluing, caulking, laying plastic and learning how to use the equipment. Table saws, ban saws, chop saws, drill guns and caulk guns. They were eager to learn and listen. No question was scoffed at and all questions were welcomed. I only had to show them once how to do something and then I would stand back and make sure they followed proper safety procedures so they wouldn’t do any harm to themselves or bystanders.

At the start of the project, like most people my age, I questioned their commitment to their project, but by day two, when they drug themselves in with only a few hours of sleep, sipping on coffee, no food in their stomach, doing homework on the car ride over from the college and doing homework during breaks in the building of the boat, I was starting to get convinced. 

By the end of the second work session, when we were cleaning up, the girls were looking at our progress, which didn’t look like much. Just the bottom of a boat with a large sheet of plastic that was curing to the bottom of the boat. “Look ladies, it doesn’t look like much now, we still have a long way to go, but, we’ve got the sides of the boat cut, the pontoons cut, and the plans are sound. If you want we can secure the stern gunnel on tonight and be that much further along tomorrow.”

The frowns of their didn’t quite disappear but they weren’t as prevalent as before. And, ten minutes later, the boat that just looked like a table before, looked much more like a boat. Excitement rose and we all left feeling better.

By Thursday, the outer hull was assembled, the interior plastic liner was glued in place and the inner hull was secured and holding the plastic liner to the out hull. Also, the three section watertight floor was in place and the exterior pontoons. The boat which was initially designed to hold 450 pounds of teenage college students was now designed to hold 800 pounds of humanity and not sink. Yes, they had over-engineered it. And I was quit proud of them. 

They spent the last work session painting the hull, the flag and making sure their home-made oars were in good order. They had their name, their costumes and all that was left was the race. We didn’t have time to test the boat for water tight integrity, but I was positive it wouldn’t leak, after all, in all my Naval training I’d never had a single water patch ever leak on me and I am not about to start now especially with my daughters reputation at stake. 

So we took some time and went over some boating basics, how to row with three people in a boat, stroke count, how to load the boat from land, from a dock, weight distribution, how to turn, how to get out of the boat, how not to be an asshole… okay, we didn’t cover that last one. 

In the end, I sent them on their way with my best wishes and the hopes that they would not drown.

They didn’t drown. They didn’t win. But they did win best engineered boat. 

They gave me the certificate. It’s hanging on my wall in my office.

I love those girls.

Have a great week. I just did.