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.