# The Boat



## Woodco (Nov 19, 2016)

My carpenter buddy just posted a bunch of pics of this project we did over ten years ago. I did everything except the hull, and the floor. Cabinetry and woodwork was me. I worked for the contractor directly so I was in charge. Had an architect on site giving specs. We didnt like that guy... Anyway, i was a hell of a project, and I thought I'd share.


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## Woodco (Nov 19, 2016)

I literally cried when I first saw those last two pics. I worked on this thing for about 8 months. Heard the news on Facebook.


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## Woodco (Nov 19, 2016)

a couple more I think I missed


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## Brushman4 (Oct 18, 2014)

I'm guessing the news is that it sunk?


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## lilpaintchic (Jul 9, 2014)

WOW! That's a beautiful project to have put so much effort into! Definitely one to be proud of. I'm so sorry to see the condition of it now...whst happened to it?!?
Heck, I'd cry too if that was my story. That's gotta be like being sucker punched by Bruce Lee. I think i see some kinda floats or something...the white things...maybe that's to contain fuel loss though...i dunno? Can they save it or is it unsalvageable?

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## Woodco (Nov 19, 2016)

It sunk a few years ago. It was in the dock, the whole first floor was submerged, and most of the second. 

A little birdy told me they were illegally trying to weld in something to drain wastewater in the lake, and something blew up or something. They fixed it. My carpenter buddy was hired to redo it after they raised it and patched the hull or whatever. He was with the original carpentry company.

That picture of the dirty kitchen was taken while he was there restoring it. 

The owner kinda screwed the GC over pretty good. It was all T+M, but it was supposed to done in august, but the whole project kept evolving. They had to change the shape of the front of the hull. Those T+G barrell roll ceilings were an idea the head carpenter came up with during the build. Anyway, the owner kept a smile on his face, and it wasnt complete until about Christmas. When it came time for payment, the owner didnt pay one penny in labor charges that incurred past the original completion date. 

We built the three levels in Reno in a warehouse, then shipped the floors down to lake Tahoe, and spent another three months there putting it together, commuting and staying in hotels rooms. 

The owner threw us a badass Christmas party right when we got done. I brought a girl I used to date, and had the pleasure of Christening the boat properly in the captains quarters. Although the Electrician claims him and his girl went down to the hull weeks beforehand, I dont believe him, so I call first.

It cost 1.7 million to build. He tried to sell it for 7, but sold it for 4, I believe, and he still had some part of ownership with it.


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## Woodco (Nov 19, 2016)

I'll tell you what. It was a hell of a nerveracking lacquer job on the second floor. Its about thirty crank out windows with wood panels in between, that I had to do all in one pass. I had to fight tooth and nail just to keep the carpenters out of there for a half hour in the morning so I could do it. Multiply that by three days...


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## Woodco (Nov 19, 2016)

couple more pictures


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## ridesarize (Jun 19, 2012)

Cool project. what dud you use on all the woodwork?


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## Woodco (Nov 19, 2016)

ridesarize said:


> Cool project. what dud you use on all the woodwork?


I actually used car primer. I wanted something really sandable, and the paint store recomended against lacquer undercoater for some reason. I had only been painting for 8 years or so back then. I'd probably do it different now. . The car primer worked REALLY well though. It made the MDF look like glass. If they made it in white, i would use it a lot more. Then I put BIN on that, before topcoating, mainly to hide the primer gray. A lot of that trim looked like crap from the factory. The architect wanted everything in oil, but it was really an impossibility cuz every trade was there everyday. I did quite a bit of it in Satin impervo, and it would look gorgeous, except there would always be one fisheye on something that was otherwise perfectly smooth. It was a no expense spared type of deal, so I could redo everything till it came out right. 

I ended up switching to Proclassic, and redid everything inside with it. It was such close quarters in there, and there were twenty people running around at any given time. The trim got so banged up, I ended up masking off all the wallpaper and everything and resprayed everything.

I had the carpenters build me a rolling drying rack for the cabinet doors.I took 1X3/4 wood stickers from the flooring. Looking down on it, it would be a multileveled # looking contraption. Two boards one direction, then two boards the other way, and build up around a central post made of four, 4X4's. Really good drying rack.

I remember one night I was literally lacquering cabinets while the hull was being sandblasted. Came out great though. Luckily right before I ended up on this project, I had worked in a cabinet shop.


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## Brushman4 (Oct 18, 2014)

Woodco said:


> It sunk a few years ago. It was in the dock, the whole first floor was submerged, and most of the second.
> 
> A little birdy told me they were illegally trying to weld in something to drain wastewater in the lake, and something blew up or something. They fixed it. My carpenter buddy was hired to redo it after they raised it and patched the hull or whatever. He was with the original carpentry company.
> 
> ...


So your carpenter buddy got stiffed? Did the GC go after the owner in court? Please extrapolate.


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## Wildbill7145 (Apr 30, 2014)

Karma will out. Usually does.

Trying to outfit the thing so that waste water drains into the lake almost makes me think the damn thing deserved to sink on the owner. Glad nobody got hurt, but still.


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## CApainter (Jun 29, 2007)

Beautiful story!

How the hell did you get a gig from the flat lands of Tehas to the mountains of Tahoe?


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## Woodco (Nov 19, 2016)

Wildbill7145 said:


> Karma will out. Usually does.
> 
> Trying to outfit the thing so that waste water drains into the lake almost makes me think the damn thing deserved to sink on the owner. Glad nobody got hurt, but still.


Oh, you dont know the half of it. The residents of South Lake Tahoe HATED that boat. Houseboats are illegal on Tahoe. One of the reasons they had to redesign the front end was so they could call it a 'yacht' which technically isnt illegal on the lake, even though there arent any. As awesome of a boat this is, it shouldnt be on that lake.

This boat is the third biggest on the lake. The MS Dixie, and the Tahoe queen are both bigger, but they are commercial tourist boats.

The owner of the boat also owns a lot of land by the Black Rock Desert. Burning Man is practically in his backyard, and he has been fighting it for a couple decades now. He burned a pirate ship to the ground that someone parked on land he owned. He was legally in the right, but it was still a prick move. 

All in all there where a LOT of people glad to see it sink, and were probably bummed that it happened so close to shore that they could salvage it.

The thing is, he was a super nice guy to all of us. There were a couple times where we were there working on a sunday, and he came out with his friends and family for sea (lake?) trials, catered with 4 star food, and he had us come along for the ride, and pig out on shrimp and lobster and Dom Perignon.


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## Woodco (Nov 19, 2016)

CApainter said:


> Beautiful story!
> 
> How the hell did you get a gig from the flat lands of Tehas to the mountains of Tahoe?


This was back in Reno, not Texas. South Lake Tahoe was about an hour and a half away.

They hired a trucking company out Utah. It took 18 hours to get the three sections over the mountain. Then it was put together with a crane at the marina. All the exterior joints I bondo'd cracked out, obviously. We had a big storm and about ten gallons of water collected in the ceiling of the master bedroom which is the front room on the first floor. All the walls and flat ceilings were plywood with wallpaper. We had to skill saw holes in the ceiling to let the water out. 

We had a lot of crazy stories working on that thing...

Incidentally, I had to put a clause in my website stating that I dont paint boats and Yachts anymore. My insurance company almost denied me, due to my reference pictures.


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## Woodco (Nov 19, 2016)

Brushman4 said:


> So your carpenter buddy got stiffed? Did the GC go after the owner in court? Please extrapolate.



The carpentry company got paid. He denied the GC over a hundred grand in labor. The guy was so rich, they knew they couldnt out-lawyer him, so they just bent over... Or maybe one of them caused it to sink. I dont know. I got paid. I wasnt getting a whole hell of a lot, but I got what I was owed.

The guy that really got shafted was the floor finisher. He was just a sub, that had two guys helping him. The architect specced him out a waterborne floor finish, then when they found scratches on it after the party, they hired another company to strip the floors, redo them, then sent the floor guy the bill. He was just a regular guy. The GC got shafted, but he still at least made some money. The floor guy basically had to pay several thousand for doing what the architect said. The GC even wrote the owner a letter, saying "Look, I know you have an army of lawyers, so Im not gonna take you on, but please, just pay the floor guy. He doesnt deserve this, he's, just a regular guy, and its not his fault."IDK what ever happened with that....

I still think everyone should have sued the architect. It was his fault everything started taking longer, and he specced the waterborne floor finish, which is weird, cuz he was very adament about oil, but I think he understood it was not possible to stop work for as long as it would have taken to do them in oil. It was exotic African Hardwood too. 

Everyone hated the architect. A couple people almost threw his ass in the lake. The GC wouldnt let him come to the Christmas party either.

Incidentally, this carpentry company does all the trim and basic setups for all the Victoria Secret stores. They hired me for a couple weeks after the boat, and as luck would have it, they were doing a store in Denver when I was moving from Nevada to Texas. I stopped in Denver to hang with my family, and these guys gave me three weeks of work and a hotel room. An extra couple thousand bucks in my pocket to go to Texas with, and I got to spend a bunch of time with my family. It worked out great.


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## lilpaintchic (Jul 9, 2014)

Wildbill7145 said:


> Karma will out. Usually does.
> 
> Trying to outfit the thing so that waste water drains into the lake almost makes me think the damn thing deserved to sink on the owner. Glad nobody got hurt, but still.


That and he stiffed the labor pool. Screw him and his boat if that's how the jerk operates he got what he had coming.
Still, I'd be heartbroken to see my work go down with the boat if I were involved with that project. I can only imagine the blood sweat and tears (not to mention all the 4 lettered words between the beginning and end of it, lol) that went into it. That's like some kind of "soul" job or somethin...
Not just your day to day humdrum job.

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## Woodco (Nov 19, 2016)

Like I said, I have a ton of stories from that build.... 



My old painting boss got recruited by the GC to be a project manager. He brought me on. My first two weeks there, my entire job was to prime the carpenters cuts on the exterior siding and trim boards. Then, two weeks of bondoing the seams, and spot priming. Then My old painting boss had a bad accident, went into a coma and passed on. Every trade was there every single day. We definitely all bonded with each other

One hungover morning a couple helper kids went out for a smoke, and saw a bum jump in front of a train. people were running up to me: "Dude, you gotta go see this! the dude is in three pieces on the tracks!" 

Me: barely keeping my vomit down.."I'm good....I'm just gonna keep bondoing. Have fun with your body."

I think someone cut a finger off somewhere along the line too.


Then, some of the nights going up to Tahoe, and partying in the casinos for way too long, and almost getting arrested. Wow, that was an intense chunk of my life during that build... 

Since we were right on the lake, I would dump my wastewater in the portopotty. I literally had nowhere else to dump it.

There some story about the original helicoptor that was supposed to go with the boat crashed and people died.

Hell, I had days where I sprayed latex, oil, and lacquer out of my little spraytech pump all in the same day.


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## lilpaintchic (Jul 9, 2014)

Woodco said:


> Like I said, I have a ton of stories from that build....
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Jeeze! Did you get lni for ptsd!?!

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## Stretch67 (Oct 7, 2013)

Woodco said:


> The carpentry company got paid. He denied the GC over a hundred grand in labor. The guy was so rich, they knew they couldnt out-lawyer him, so they just bent over... Or maybe one of them caused it to sink. I dont know. I got paid. I wasnt getting a whole hell of a lot, but I got what I was owed.
> 
> The guy that really got shafted was the floor finisher. He was just a sub, that had two guys helping him. The architect specced him out a waterborne floor finish, then when they found scratches on it after the party, they hired another company to strip the floors, redo them, then sent the floor guy the bill. He was just a regular guy. The GC got shafted, but he still at least made some money. The floor guy basically had to pay several thousand for doing what the architect said. The GC even wrote the owner a letter, saying "Look, I know you have an army of lawyers, so Im not gonna take you on, but please, just pay the floor guy. He doesnt deserve this, he's, just a regular guy, and its not his fault."IDK what ever happened with that....
> 
> ...


National Fixture or Osbourne? Basham?

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## Woodco (Nov 19, 2016)

Stretch67 said:


> National Fixture or Osbourne? Basham?
> 
> Sent from my SM-G930T using Tapatalk


The Carpentry company? I cant remember the company name, but it wasnt any of them. Maybe they arent the only Victorias Secret carpenters...

The company was based in Reno, but the carpenters were from all over the country, mostly around nashville. They live in hotels, and travel around. They did AMAZING work on that boat though...


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## Woodco (Nov 19, 2016)

I just found this video of the making of the boat. Actually, its mostly just the moving of the boat from the warehouse to Tahoe.


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## Brushman4 (Oct 18, 2014)

Great video and music!


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