Sea Trials - First Sail

First Sail!

It was a beautiful day. Sunny with 11mph winds. I only went out for an hour to test the rigging. Everything went very well. She sails great.

I need to change some cleat locations and add a tiller extension to make her more convenient to sail. The hardest part was actually securing the boat to the trailer. I'll also get a spar/sail bag for transport and storage.

As I was by myself, only 1 picture. I'll add more soon.

Trailer build and registration

Finally back to work after a long winter. I ordered a trailer from Harbor Freight. It took about 4 hours to unpack and assemble. Then another 4 hours to wire the trailer and the car.

In Michigan I needed to display 3" tall letters for registration. So now I'm legal. If I could do it over, I would have gotten a narrower font.  The height was dictated by state law.

Sail arrived

The sail arrived. Was a nice day today so I rigged the sail for the first time.

I'm choosing to lace the sail to the mast. At least for the first few times out.

Winter is coming...

I'm waiting on a sail and a trailer.  It is going down to 31 tonight - so time for winter storage. The boat wont see water until 2016. I'm already excited about next spring.


Ryan came home from practice while I was experimenting with the rigging. He hopped in. I learned that I'll probably need to add a tiller extension. I've got all winter to decide whether to buy one or make one.

Rudder assembly mounted. This is one of the areas that I deviated from the plans. I elected to use pintles and gudgeons instead of eyebolts and rod.

Experimenting with the rigging.


























If we get a warm spell after the sail arrives, I'll rig it up. If not I'll be back in the spring.

Go fever

The end of sailing season is quickly approaching. It is tempting to rush steps or skip them altogether so I can get on the water. It is tough to contain this go fever. For the last 10 days or so all I have been doing is sanding, painting, sanding, and varnishing. Tedious work.

Below are pictures of my current progress. I still have several more days of sanding, painting and varnishing to go.

Still much to do including:

• Several days of varnish, sand, paint
• Mount rudder, cleats, oarlocks, inspection plates
• Decide on final rigging and purchase/mount appropriate hardware
• Register with the state and apply mandatory lettering
• Purchase/assemble trailer
• Get a sail

Dagger board, rub rails, trunk trim. Milestone 1 complete!

Today is a milestone. All wood parts are fabricated and installed on hull. Still much to do but getting closer now.

Well starting to paint the hull before finishing construction was a minor mistake. I thought it might be easier but I was wrong. I had to be very careful adding the rub rails and the cap for the trunk so as I didn't ruin the paint job.

Daggerboad is now laminated, shaped and stops added.

Trunk cap installed. First coat of epoxy on the daggerboard hanging in the background. The final piece, the port side rub rail, was added!

SAND, prime, SAND, paint, SAND, varnish, SAND...

Sand, prime, Sand, prime more, Sand, paint, Sand, varnish, Sand ....

You get the point. Sanding and more sanding. This post wont be updated for a while because all I'm doing is surface preparation and final finish.

On this picture the hull has 2 coats of primer on. Seats still have only epoxy. The rudder/tiller assembly is complete. It has 3 coats of varnish. I'm happy with the results.

Interior of hull fully painted with 2 coats of primer and 2 coats of Easypoxy. First coat of varnish has been applied to deck and seats.

Installing the trunk, mast step and mast doubler.

Time to cut a hole in the deck. Regardless of the apparent messiness of the lines, I made the measurements quite carefully.  I rechecked it multiple times.

The seat was in the way to cut the final few inches, so I flipped the boat over to finish the cut. Nobody was home to help so that was quite a task.





















Trunk finally glued and screwed to hull.






















Mast step and mast doubler installed.

Mast and sprit boom

I ordered the wood for the mast blank from CLC boats. It was glued up from 3/4" x 2 1/4" planks. I then glued it up into a 2 1/4" x 2 1/4" x 16'3" long spar. I then tapered the blank on 3 sides to form the mast.

























Next day: Potential disaster averted. When I checked the cured mast I noticed that the last 4 foot section glued on was out of plane. I did not have a straight mast blank! I'm not sure how this happened. Maybe I accidentally kicked it while working on the rest of the boat? Maybe I was working on an uneven floor? I don't know. Eventually I realized I had a solution due to the plans call for the mast to taper. I had enough extra wood at the taper to fix the problem. Instead of cutting the taper to the middle of the mast, I could cut it all on 1 side. So the final mast and taper were straight even though my mast blank was not. In the picture below, the chalk lines are not centered in the warped blank. Even though the blank is warped , the chalk lines are not.





The cured mast needed to have both ends tapered on 3 sides. I did this with a hand held power planar. By the time I had finished I was ankle deep in wood chips. Then I rounded over the edges with a block plane and as usual sanded.

Mast installed for the first time.






















The boom was built in a similar manner.

Deck, bow eye and splash rail.

Added the deck and bow eye. 

Added a bow eye. This was not in the plans. A fellow builder alerted me to add this before I enclosed the deck. I'm glad I did. Thanks Ron!






















Cut, fit, glued and screwed on the deck.

Attached a laminated splash rail. On my first attempt I cracked the wood trying to fit it to the curve of the deck. Second try worked fine. After this piece cures, I will add one more. In effect I'm laminating in place.

Seats and bulkheads installation.

This week I installed the seats and the bulkheads.

First I joined the seats with brass brad nails and glue. I had a bit of trouble figuring out how to clamp the side supports at the proper location, glue, drill pilot holes, and  nail the brads all the time keeping the work pieces stable and at right angles. I eventually succeeded. Then I created a thickened epoxy filet on the inside seams for strength. After curing, I dry fitted the seats to the hull to get a proper fit. After much sanding, carving, and filing I managed to make them fit snugly to the curves of the hull. There are no straight cuts on a boat.

I glued and screwed cleats into the hull to support the aft seat and installed the aft bulkhead.

I glued the top of the aft seat in with thickened epoxy. All interior surfaces were coated with a layer of epoxy. All seams covered with a fillet. This process was repeated for the forward and middle benches. Finally I installed the forward bulkhead.

Installing sheer clamps

After the sheer clamps cured, I installed them onto the boat. I made my first inside compound miter cut. It took me a few tries to get  it correct but in the end it worked out well. The bow end also required a compound bevel. I then used thickened epoxy to glue the sheer clamps to the hull and used every clamp I owned (then a few more that I didn't) to clamp it all down.

Scarfs, skeg, jig, sheer clamps and rub rails.

Scarfs, skeg, jig, sheer clamps and rub rails... Boat building has a lingo all its own.

My cypress arrived today. First thing I did was to make a jig to cut an 8:1 scarf joint. This joint is used to create a single long piece of wood from smaller ones. If done properly the joint will be stronger than the wood itself.

I cut the scarfs for the sheer clamps and the rub rails. With a quick touch of the sander these two pieces are prepared to be glued into 1 long piece.

I then glued them  together with thickened epoxy. They have to cure overnight so I started working on the benches.

Here I am rounding a bench edge with a block plane. Followed by  more sanding of course.

Skeg attached. Pictured before shaping and sanding. It cleaned up well. (not pictured)

Small Parts.

I made the skeg by cutting one end straight and tracing the other end against the rocker of the boat then cut to size.

I made  the mast step and mast partner doubler, and cut holes in the bulkheads for inspection plates.

I glued the rudder cheeks to the rudder spacer. Glued the trunk side to the trunk spacers and glued and screwed the mast step to runners.

Tiller and rudder head.

I made this boat dolly for $29. The wheels will be re-purposed for another project when the boat is finished. This thing worked great. I stored the boat in my garage and I would "wheel it out" to my driveway to make cuts and sand. This made moving the boat around very easy. I was using a furniture dolly but after adding the skeg I needed something that would straddle the skeg and still support the boat.
















Note: To better organize this blogs layout, items on this page were not necessarily made on the same day. I would typically work on a large piece of the boat and when I had extra time and energy I would make a small part. These are all grouped here. The rest of the blog is in true chronological order.

Fixing the glassing operation. More lessons learned.

This morning I cut off most of the excess fiberglass cloth. Then upon examining yesterday's work, I noticed several issues.

First where the 2 pieces of cloth overlapped there were very noticeable bumps. Also I think I used way to much epoxy. In some areas you can see pooled epoxy bumps(like drips). In 2 small areas the tape came away from the wood (like an air bubble under the glass).

So I figured I better fix these issues now instead of putting a second coat on. I decided to sand all the bumps down with an orbital sander. This took a long time. Epoxy, it turns out, is difficult to sand. I then cut out 2 small pieces of cloth and patched where the air bubbles were.

After all was smoothed again I added the second layer of epoxy. Much thinner this time. For this layer I was suppose to use a foam roller. Between the roller and mixing larger pots of epoxy, things went much faster and smoother this time.

Lessons learned:

• Less epoxy to wet the cloth.
• Trim up cloth neatly before using epoxy.
• Take your time and get out any bubbles or ripples in cloth.

Overall I don't believe these are structural issues. I'm also hoping that more sanding and more thin layers of epoxy will cure all this. I will see. Maybe I should read a book on this.


One Day later...

Well the epoxy fixes seam to be a success. Hull is looking much smoother. So I sanded everything down again and rolled the third and final layer epoxy onto the wood. Hull is looking good.

Next mission is lumber. For the last few weeks I've been looking for the correct wood for the internal elements of the boat. This is not so easy to find. Home Depot and Lowes does not have what I need. Time is getting critical. I only have a few steps left to do before I need this lumber. Frustrating.

Glassing the hull

Work began to fiber-glass the hull. I first laid out fiber glass cloth over the entire boat. I then applied epoxy over the glass (wetting the glass) with a plastic squeegee. This was surprisingly difficult. First I underestimated the amount of epoxy needed. I was mixing it in too small doses. I spent more time mixing than applying. Second this can be very messy work. Tough to get the sides without dripping. I still need to add at least 2 more coats of epoxy over the next few days.

Fairing the hull

Today I "faired" or sculpted the boat. First I cut the cable ties as close to the hull as possible. Then I sanded where epoxy leaked though the seams and I rounded all edges with an orbital sander. Finally I sanded the remnants of the cable ties and any other area that needed attention.

Then I added epoxy thickened with wood flour to fill in the holes and panel gaps. Then sanded again.

Gluing - Mix mix mix

Last Friday I ordered epoxy, fiberglass tape, fiberglass cloth and wood flour online. The package finally arrived today, so I began work this evening and glued the boat.

Step one was to apply epoxy thickened with wood flour to create a curved "fillet" in all the seems. After making a nice smooth fillet, two layers of 3" fiberglass tape are placed over the fillets and saturate with epoxy. Finally a coat of epoxy is rolled over the entire interior.

My wife was a huge help with this step. She mixed the epoxy why I applied it to the boat.  Essentially she made and mixed epoxy for over 2 hours straight. Half way through the process my son Ryan came out to help. They were both terrific and this saved me hours of time.