Major update

It's been about year since I update this blog. Sorry to any followers of this blog for the prolonged absence. The boat is complete now except for rigging, which I hope to finish some time in June. Large life experiences have happened within the last year including a one month trip to Europe I made with my son Max. I'm moving future updates on this boat to my own website due to the clunkiness of the blogspot format. Please see this page for updates in the future.

Random Yet Significant Progress

I ordered some parts from JMS Online (www.jmsonline.net). Two 6" deck hatches, one 8" deck hatch and three 5/16" bow eyes. JMS had good prices. Delivery time was typical. I'd buy from them again, and probably will. One 6" hatch goes at the bow, as will one of the bow eyes to anchor the base of the jib. The hatch there will allow me to access the nuts to the bow eye below the deck, and to inspect the nose compartment and pump out any water that may get in there. One 6" hatch will go at the rear of the cockpit floor to allow pumping out any accumulated water. The 8" hatch will go on the top surface of the far rear compartment by the rudder. The other two bow eyes will be used to anchor the bases of the water stays that will strengthen the akas (ladders).



I really wanted to install the forward bow eye and deck hatch when they arrived, but in a typical case of "one thing leads to another" I realized I needed to install and finish the nose deck surface first. I couldn't do that until the lips to the big deck hatches were installed. So I bit the bullet and installed them. They were much more complicated than I thought they'd be. After ripping 3" wide strips of luan wood and cutting sections for the side-to-side pieces of the correct length with 90 degree end cuts, I realized the end cuts needed to be angled due to the sidewalls and chine logs being in a "V" shape. And, the angle varied for each piece of wood since the sidewalls were closer to a "V" at the middle, yet vertical at the bow. After re-cutting new strips, I installed the far forward one first, then the rear one, and then stretched strings from the top of one to the top of the other. That way I could line up the two middle ones so both the front and back deck hatches would be in the same plane. After installing the side-to-side lips, I installed the side ones. Lots of epoxy, screws to hold them together while the epoxy cured, and thickened epoxy fillets at corners and around the edges where they meet the deck surface. Will make the hatches "real soon now".



The bow. I epoxied the luan wood top on and weighted it down with various high density items. Sanded, then laminated on the glass. Two layers at the tip of the nose, and an extra patch where the bow eye will go. Have since painted with another layer of resin for the first filler coat. Will be fun to cut the hole for the deck hatch, drill the holes for the bow eye and install it.


Here's the mast base. An earlier post showed the framework below with fiberglass reinforcing. This is one layer of luan, then a patch of fiberglass, then a piece of 1/2" beveled plywood, another layer of fiberglass and then one more piece of beveled 1/2" plywood. The idea is to have a strong surface where I can screw in whatever I want for any mast that I choose. The screws shown in the picture are only to hold things tight together while the epoxy cures. They'll come out tomorrow.



The daggerboard box again. I added a wedge of 2x4" lumber with some fiberglass on top to help brace it. I keep envisioning a catastrophic crash into a log at 20 knots. I know the daggerboard won't break, and now I don't think the daggerboard box and hull bottom will break. I wonder what will? I mean might?


A close up of the reinforcing wedge.


A view into the cockpit. If you look carefully, you can see what I call the "crash bone", which is the beveled piece of cedar laminated to the bottom of the hull that goes from the back of the daggerboard box to the bulkhead at the back of the cockpit. This picture also shows the two luan bulkheads I'm laminating in to help support the cockpit floor. I'm using 3/8" douglas fir plywood laminated with fiberglass cloth on both sides for the cockpit floor. I tested 1/4" fir plywood at the lumber store for this, but it was pretty obvious after stomping on a piece held up by a couple of blocks of wood that it wouldn't be strong enough for the floor.


A view of the cockpit floor panel with freshly laminated fiberglass cloth, tented and curing with a heater.


Here's the top of the daggerboard with the 1 1/4" wood dowel epoxied in. The dowel is stabilized with rubber bands while the epoxy cures. Note the curvaceous handle.


A close up of the wood dowel stop set up for curing.

Back to Work

I've been slacking on posting lately even though I've been working on the boat. Finally finished sanding the hull exterior. Also finished sanding the daggerboard, then moved on to what you see below.

Finished shaping the rudder and glassed it. Had to do a poor man's vacuum bag job on the bottom when laying the glass around the curvy bottom edge. That means applying the epoxy and glass, then wrapping with Saran Wrap and shoving the end down into a box of moist sand. It does a pretty darn good job of keeping the air out of the glass layup, but doesn't get rid of excess resin like real vacuum bagging does. Seems like a nice shape though.


I drilled bigger than needed holes for the the pivot bolt and holes where the shock cord will be routed through for keeping the rudder down. Filled the extra large holes with resin, and will drill the right sized (smaller) holes through the resin. That way no wood will be exposed and the pivot bolt will have a good durable surface to pivot against.


Starting to cut panels for the top of the hull now. Here's the one for the bow. I have 3 "bow eyes" on order. They're basically U-bolts. One for the bow to catch the base of the jib. Two for the water stays that'll brace the ladder aka.


Here's the framework that goes below the mast. It's nice and strong. One inch thick cedar epoxied to bulkheads reinforced with multiple layers of glass. Multiple layers of plywood will go on top of that. On another note, I bought a new/used mast from Igor, a nice guy who owns a Tremolino. The mast is made by Proctor from England. It's made for a Flying Dutchman, is aluminum and has a tapered top. Super lightweight too. Turns out the Hobie 14 mast I'd planned to use was cracked at the bottom. It was too short too, so the new mast is a good thing.


A view of the cockpit with the cedar rails epoxied in to support the plywood floor, which is about 15" from the top surface of the hull and about 14" from the bottom.


A close up of the rails from underneath. They're beveled and reinforced with fiberglass.


A prototype of the daggerboard slot, made with luan plywood and two ripped pieces of cedar.


Here's where the daggerboard slot will go.


Here are the actual pieces of luan that'll make up the slot sides, laminated with epoxy and fiberglass.


Time to finish the centerboard. I decided it'll be approximately five feet long. When fully inserted, there'll be about 3'-9" of board protruding from the bottom of the hull. That ought to do it. Now time to make the handle and the stop that'll keep it from sliding down into the slot.


A close up showing the partially drilled holes for the handle and stop.


Holes drilled out and lines drawn to finish cutting the hole for the handle.


Shaping the handle now.


Now with the stop inserted for a test fit.


And glassed.

Shaping the Daggerboard

I had to take a break from sanding the hull, so I thought I'd shape the daggerboard. This, after deciding to make a daggerboard rather than a swinging centerboard. I had considered this design because it eliminated the below-waterline pivot bolt, but decided to make things simpler with a daggerboard.

Here's a printout of a NACA 0009 profile that seems to be common for daggerboard profiles.


And here's a little template I made from plywood that roughly matches that profile for the 13.5" wide laminated cedar plank I made.


I drew lines at the half-thick mark on both sides of the plank, and also drew lines 1/3 of the way back from the leading edge where the thickest part of the foil would be.


Tools used for shaping; first the planer, then the belt sander with a 60 grit belt, then a block of wood with 60 grit paper, then the foam backed sanding block with 60 grit paper. Here's the plank with the trailing edge of one side planed.


It's planed down to the half-thick mark (blue Sharpie line) on the trailing edge.


A view from the end, lying on my strong back.


Now the leading edge side is planed.


Another end view with one half of the plank roughly shaped.


Now finished. Rough shaping to final sanding. It's ready to be laminated with fiberglass. The leading edge is made with a piece of oak for better impact resistance.


A view from the end. Before shaping the plank, I worried a bit about how much this weighed. Well, a ton of wood was removed in this shaping. So much in fact that my shop vac filled up with cedar shavings while planing. It's very light now.

Glassing the Hull

I was a bit worried that I didn't have enough fiberglass for the hull, but after measuring out a piece of my 60" wide roll as long as the entire hull I realized I had way more than enough. The tallest part of the hull side was 30", so I cut the piece down the middle and laminated those pieces to the sides using a foam roller from the nearby Lowes home improvement store.


I thought I'd need a helper to do this, but rolling on epoxy at the top of the strip of cloth worked well to hold it in place.


Then it was just a matter of rolling out the rest of the cloth. I mixed up about 4 16 ounce cups of epoxy to do both sides. Seemed like a lot. Now that I've sanded the sides I realized a lot of that epoxy got sanded off.


After doing the sides I did the bottom. Here's the rough cut cloth laid on the bottom.


Then trimmed to size.


And laminated on. I added a second layer of glass on the front half of the bottom for better abrasion resistance when beaching it.


Here's the hull after sanding the bottom, the transom and one side. What a major pain in the butt it is to sand this, even with a good random orbital sander. I ended up using 60 grit paper on a foam backed sanding block (a re-purposed grout spreader with a nice handle) prior to using the random orbital sander. It's a lot of work to get rid of all those shiny low spots. Seriously tedious work. With the hand sanding it makes for an awesome upper body workout though.


One more entire side to go still. SIGH.


I bought another 3 gallon kit of Raka epoxy with the no blush hardener. Read about this trick of draining the remains of the old bottles into the new. Was SUPER careful about not mixing up the bottles!