A Cleaner Deck, New Charts, and a Build Worth Doing

The shipyard has been busy again. This stretch has been about bringing the pieces into better order: finishing a website refit, rebuilding the QR system on a cleaner foundation, choosing how to tackle a new hardware project, and beginning to learn the charts that may one day help guide a real vessel.

A Better Home Port

StormySailors.com has had a proper refit. The new Stormy Sailors Studio theme is in place, the navigation has been tuned, and the site has been checked on both desktop and mobile. The Ship’s Log archive is back in shape too, with its dates and entries showing as they should.

This work is less visible than a new gadget, but it matters. The website is the public home port for the Maker Lab, and it needs to make the projects easy to find and follow.

QR Forge Rebuilt on Cleaner Keel

The QR Forge work has also moved forward. Rather than carry old test material into the next stage, the QR system was rebuilt cleanly. The core pages are responding, and the five-photo “For Sale” migration has passed its checks. There are still words to polish and a few details to tune, but the foundation is in place.

A Badge Worth Building

The e-paper badge project has taken a different tack. The decision is to make it a proper maker build instead of simply ordering a finished unit. That means learning the hardware, doing the soldering if the design calls for it, and understanding how the whole thing works from the inside out.

That is the more interesting route anyway. A badge that has been built, tested and understood carries a better story than one that merely arrived in a parcel.

Learning to Read the Water

There has also been a first step into coastal navigation on the computer. OpenCPN is installed, and the chart collection has been downloaded and organized. Now comes the careful work of getting comfortable with chart folders, display settings and what all those marks and symbols are trying to tell the skipper.

That learning is just beginning. Electronic charts are not something to click through casually; they are tools to understand, check and practise with before trusting them afloat.

Underway

So the current watch is a mix of practical finishing work and new skills: refine the QR Forge wording, keep the website shipshape, develop the e-paper badge as a real build, and take coastal navigation one chart lesson at a time.

No grand launch today, and no claim that every system is finished. Just steady progress, a cleaner deck, and a few more useful tools aboard.

Think Like a Captain. Play Like a Pirate.

— Captain Stormy ⚓