HARM J Hydro Project: Week 1

This week was kick-off week at the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum's J Hydro Project.

For those of you unfamiliar with the project, The Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum (HARM) in Seattle is working with six new J Drivers and their families to construct and ultimately race 6 new J hydros for the 2006 racing season.
The boats are being built at HARM south of Seattle, as a joint venture between HARM, Seattle Outboard Association and a lot of other great folks donating or greatly discounting time and materials.

This week, Darrell Sorensen arrived in Seattle with five of the six kits and was present for the first 2 hr building session. This week, parents and drivers took a quick inventory of each part in the kit to make sure all the pieces were there, and went through the process of dry-fitting the frames and stringers. Next week, the real fun begins as the Systems Three and fasteners come out and pieces start getting fit for real. We have Darrell up here for one more week, and then we are on our own. We are fortunate enough to have a number of accomplished boat builders assisting, such as JW Myers, J Michael Kelly, Tony and Mike Perman, Ric Montoya, Rocky Peterson and Jimi Oberto there to help and offer technical advice to the fledgling boat builders. Rumor even has it we may see Ed Karelsen down some weekend, if we can get him to put his RC Airplane in the hangar for a weekend.

Attached are a few pictures from the session. You can find the complete photo album at http://community.webshots.com/album/499201500DErQPs

As you can see, there's something that's just way cool about seeing a row of 5 J hydros on their jigs in the shadow of the Atlas Van Lines, Miss Bardahl, Miss Burien and the Miss Budweiser.

I will try to post photos each week so that those who are interested can track our progress.

R-19

WOW GREAT. You might want to get some plastic on that nice floor as the Epoxy drippings will ruin it.

I was there the first week and saw Darell while he and Dave were sort of geting things ready.
Man what a great Idea!!!! I't was kinda cool for me to see.
It was my first trip to the museum and didnt know what to expect. Darell took me back in the wood/engine assembly room and showed me around I think he was as exited to be there as I was, lotts to see!!

Realy cool to see a J hydro siting next to an unlimited ( one extreme to another)
A big thumbs up to all involved in this project!!!!!!:D :cool: