Before I could begin assembling the boat, or even building the larger parts, I had to take some time off and remodel the shop. When I bought our house, the previous owner had 10 kids. To obtain more bedrooms, the owner divided the original 2-car garage in half, turning it into a 1-car garage and 2 additional bedrooms. Now I needed the shop space, and, since my kids have all grown up, I had no need for two extra bedrooms. So out came the crowbars and sledgehammers. Now, at long last, my shop looks like this:

After working in a 10 x 20 shop for all these years, a 20 x 20 shop feels enormous! The Navigator lower panel sitting on the sawhorses seems almost lost, where before it would be difficult simply to walk around it.

Now that I have the space, I have been able to work at a much faster pace.

The lower panel has been scarfed and cut out.

The keel batten, made of recycled mahogany, was installed, as were the seat front stringers. Note that I chose to end the seat front stringers at bulkhead 5. I asked the designer, John Welsford, and he gave this the O.K. There is no need for them to continue forward of B5 and they are uncomfortable to step on.

Next came installing the centerboard case, which I built many months ago. It fit perfectly on the first try. I was glad that I built the centerboard and centerboard case together so that I could ensure that everything fit and operated properly before installing them in the boat. The interior of the case and the centerboard were both fiberglassed.  I was able to carefully control the amount of gap between the board and case. I was able to drill the pivot hole perfectly aligned by using the Shopsmith in drill press mode. These things would have been much more difficult to do if I had built the centerboard later on.

I used the Shopsmith in Horizontal Boring mode to drill the tow eye hole through the stem.

Installed the stem and bulkheads 1, 2 and 3.

Followed by bulkheads 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and the seat fronts. This is the most exciting part so far about building the Navigator. Its amazing how quickly the boat goes from a collection of bulkheads to something that really resembles a boat at this stage!

Next, on goes the transom

The next step is adding the stringers, but once the stringers are on it will be more difficult to reach the center of the boat. I decided this would be a good time to install the mast step, and to put a coat or two of epoxy on.

After coating with epoxy, the surface gets very rough as the epoxy raises the grain. The best tool by far for smoothing epoxy is a cabinet scraper. It is much, much faster than sandpaper and doesnt put clouds of toxic epoxy dust into the air. I got mine at Sears, but Duckworks carries them here.

To make the mast steps, I glued up a big block of mahogany, squared it up on the tablesaw, planed it to the proper thickness using the handy Safe-T-Planer.

Cut the center hole and drain hole. I lined the interior of the square hole with several layers of fiberglass and epoxy for wear protection. Before installing the step, I put a layer of fiberglass between the mast step and keel batten, again for wear protection. Then epoxied it in place and ran 4 stainless steel screws up through the lower panel, keel batten, and into the step from below.

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As far as we can tell, the Endo Corporation of Japan was a 6-time repeat client, ordering 1/4, 1/2 and 1-tonner racing yachts in the early 1970s. Most of not all were built by the Kato Boat Company of Yokosuka City, Japan in either wood or fiberglass. Here we have the one-tonner Sunbird II. She was built of wood and launched in 1970. She is based on a very well utilized design, #2062, but with modifications (optimizations) to her rig, keel and rudder.


Heres a look at her shape.

Principal Dimensions
LOA 38-7"
LWL 29-7"
Beam 11-5"
Draft 6-6"
Displacement 17,903 lbs
Ballast 7,180 lbs

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Satanita is a sister to the famous Firebrand, design #1780. She was built by Keith Atkinson of Auckland and launched in 1965. Looking at the plan list it appears the only change was the reverse transom, whereas later boats built to this design benefited from a separate rudder. The above image is a newspaper clipping, and is the only image we have of her.

It is interesting that later sisters of this design benefited form a separate skeg and rudder. The former owner of Satanita sent us the image shown below which looks to me like someone added a separate skeg and rudder, removed the old rudder, while maintaining the original keel profile.  Thanks for sending this image.

According to that owner:  When I bought Satanita there had been a crude,(in terms of design) modification whereby the rudder had been removed but the full keel profile left. A small rudder on a skeg had been fitted only a short distance from the keel. This appeared to have increased the wetted surface and the boat was totally unmanageable in reverse.

Heres a shot of the original keel and rudder configuration on Firebrand.

By following the link to the posting regarding Firebrand one can see the S&S revised keel profile, skeg and rudder at the bottom of the article (general arrangement and inboard profile for C4).

While we are on the subject of Firebrand, heres a letter we unearthed from her original owner to her then new owner describing her sailing characteristics.  Its an interesting read.  Please simply double click for zoom.

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Design 363

Last week I posted an article about design #370, a World War II Air Rescue or Crash Boat, used to rescue downed pilots during the war. Here are a couple of more designs of the same type, designs #363 and #366, both designed in 1940.

Design 366

#363 was designed for Oxford Shipyard of Oxford, Maryland and #366 for the Seabrook Yacht Corporation of Seabrook, Texas. Multiple copies of each were built.

Principal Dimensions #363
LOA 29-4"
LWL 26-3"
Beam 8-7"
Draft 2-6"

Principal Dimensions #366
LOA 36-4"
LWL 34-3"
Beam 10-5"
Draft 3-6"

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Heres Windalier at the 1st ever Annapolis Spring Boat Show being held from today, April 27 through Sunday, April 29 at the Annapolis City Docks and surrounding vicinity.  Shes design #1615.  The boat is currently on the market for $395,000.

Broker Jeff Grey will be at the show all weekend.
Contact:
Mobile: 774-454-7638
Email: jgrey@sparkmanstephens.com

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This expedition yacht was designed with a steel hull and aluminum superstructure. Between 2004-2007 we seemed to have a whole lot of clients asking for expedition style boats. This is just one example. We have proposals between 68-154 length overall with various deckhouse configurations.

Power was to be provided by twin Caterpillar 3412E - B rated engines producing 720 hp each for a top speed of 14 knots. The main engines were to be close coupled to mechanical, fully rotational Schottel "Z"-drive propulsion units.

Here are the plans.

Principal Dimensions
LOA 120-0"
LWL 110-5"
Beam 27-10"
Draft 8-3"
Displacement 687,680 lbs (1/2 load)

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After rigs and finishes timber selection must be a close third on the List Of Issues That Divide Wooden Boat Builders. American Red Oak gets a terrible press for its tendency to soak up water and fall apart overnight. Others contend that if treated properly and the end grain sealed Red Oak can last for decades. This might involve epoxy so Im glad the oak Ill use will be European.
Planking is just as contentious. Theres a web of requirements with a sweet spot in the middle: durability (rot resistance), workability (with cutting tools), strength, lightness, ability to bend and not fracture (Whats the opposite of brittle? Pliable?), low movement and high abrasion resistance are all desirable.
Cedar has been called the Boatbuilders Friend. Ill put aside the question of which cedars really are cedars for the moment. Western Red Cedar, Yellow Cedar and Port Orford Cedar (and all the other names by which they are known) are durable and much lighter than Larch, the traditional British planking, but theyre also softer. This boat will be beached, so whats durable and hard? Larry Pardey planked his boats with Teak. Fantastically durable but heavy and quite a challenge to work. Not to mention desperately expensive and politically incorrect on at least two levels.
So what will I be using?
Paul Gartside specifies Yellow Cedar or Spruce for the planking of his design #127, the sheerstrake and transom should be in mahogany. That should be the end of the discussion. Do what the designer says. But Yellow Cedar is imported from North America and Mahogany is a tropical hardwood. Its not Teak, but its not entirely uncontroversial.
Id like to use domestic timber if possible. Sadly most of our Larch now comes from Russia or Scandinavia. Thats little better than importing it from North America. Its also much heavier than the timber specified and will make a difference to the weight of what should be a small, easily handled boat.
What other choices are there? Adrian Morgan is finishing an Iain Oughtred design in Scots Pine at the moment. Our only native conifer has been so thoroughly harvested that Morgan can now trace the provenence of his timber to the Queens estate at Balmoral! Perhaps using domestic timber is asking too much?

Boatbuilders, and writers about boatbuilding, maintain that quartersawn timber is preferred. Easier said than done. I contacted a few timber merchants for small quantities of different timber. The response from Sykes was representative (but the only one written down), "The boards will be flat sawn (end grain running horizontally) – if there is a chance of some Rift/Quarter then we will include it but we cannot guarantee it." This was a bit disappointing from a yard making this offer: "If you require quality, hand selected timber, for boat interiors, exteriors or hull construction please contact us to discuss your requirements." Its understandable though, Im not about to offer them a big contract and perhaps Im being too picky.

In stark contrast was the response I got from Tristan Stone at Stones Marine Timber. It should be understood that Tristan runs a boatyard as well as a timber yard and so specialises in a few timbers imported from North America and sawn specifically for marine use. Four days after contacting him I have a selection of offcuts sitting in my front hall for testing.
I also have the benefit of his knowledge and experience. His yard maintains a fleet of clinker dinghies built of Sitka Spruce, the timber with the highest strength to weight ratio. He was very happy to talk through timber choices, where the trees are felled, which way they should be sawn and so on.

Im "testing" these in a few, subjective ways. So far Ive planed the edges and faces in both directions and planed a sloping rebate (gain or jerrold) on one end of each plank.
To be fair all five planks worked very easily with sharp tools. One look at the reversing grain on the Khaya Mahogany had my Stanley 5 1/2 champing at the bit. No tearout, no difficulties whatsoever. It was lovely to work.
In fact only one of the planks put me off. The Western Red Cedar felt indistinct under the rebate plane and I could only plane the face in one direction. No amount of honing and plane adjustment could encourage an even shaving despite the apparently straight grain of this rift sawn piece.
If I had to pick a winner so far it would be the Yellow Cedar. Very crisp to plane.
Each plank has wonderfully straight grain, is quartersawn, or in the case of the Western Red Cedar, rift swan, and clear (free of knots). These qualities are, perhaps, even more important than species when comparing how easy they are to work.
Once Ive cut them to a similar thickness Ill bang some nails in and see which splits the least.
Then I need to work out how to simulate half a century of use in a couple of months. I might just ask someone who maintains old boats.

contd in Planking Timber 2

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Fossil Bay, Sucia Island, near the Canadian Border in the San Juan Islands is the scene for a gathering of small boat enthusiasts the second weekend in July.

This year was a quiet one. The weather was postcard perfect, unless youre a sailor. Boats came and went in an erratic schedule, so it was hard to tell how many attended. A couple big production boats were in the line-up, which was a new twist.

For the sailors, the week was a tease. When a breeze came up we were all seduced but most often, once out of the harbor, boats drifted on the tides while skippers and crew baked in the sun.



Please make no mistake - getting up to a brilliant sunrise every morning is a wonderful thing! I suppose it would be brash to take credit, though Im convinced the weather was so fine because I made up a heavy-duty boom tent that could stand torrential rains for weeks (nay years) on end. That tent became my penance. It is so heavy and ungainly (and I must say unattractive) it took an hour to set up and an equal amount of time to strike. If it werent for the heavy dew fall, I might have abandoned it altogether.

Lets look at the line-up...

Katie Mae belongs to Lynn Watson of Port Townsend. She was built by the Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding, under the supervision of Ray Speck
She is a modified 21 foot Drascombe PeterBoat.
Well sailed and an exceptional design, she is hard to keep up with.
I include this photo to demonstrate the contrast of vessels found in Fossil Bay.

Heres Joel and Tim Bergen in their Welsford Navigator, Ellie. 
Joel has some more details about this gathering on his website.

Paul and Arnie sailed in from Cowichan Bay, Vancouver Island, BC.
Pauls boat is a Friendship Sloop designed by Jay Benford, named Friendship. Weve talked about Paul and his fine boat before.
Arnie is a former bosun in the Canadian Navy and an accomplished sailor. It was a pleasure to make his acquaintance.

Marty Loken, from Marrowstone Island brought his newest acquisition, a Iain Oughtred Willyboat.
Marty is as bad as I am about boats - if he loves um he has to bring em home.
Marty runs the Island Boatshop on Mystery Bay, Marrowstone Island, east of Port Townsend.

Ron Mueller cruises the San Juan and Gulf Islands every year in his power cat, Just Enuf.
This plywood EcoCat from Bernard Kohler has a king sized berth, standing headroom galley, and a private head. Ron stores two inflatable kayaks and two folding bikes in the starboard ama. Cruising speed is 10 knots with a top speed of 15 knots, using a 20hp outboard motor.

 

Bob Ennenberg hails from Vancouver, BC, where he built this Jim Michalak pram, Duck. Its Bobs first build and I was impressed how well it sails. He has no permanent furniture inside and its a regular ballroom down below.
Bob is a grade school teacher with perpetual good humor. Hope he comes back next year.

These folks were not here to join us, but what a happy coincidence!

Their beautiful vessel is a Connecticut River Shad Boat.

James McMullen showed up from Anacortes, WA in his sail-and-oar boat Rowan.
James had places to see, so he was there only one night. He told me later that he covered over 60 nautical miles in four days under sail and oar alone. The man has ambition!

James is part owner of Emerald Marine in Anacortes.

And here we have Jamie Orr of Victoria, BC in his Phil Bolger Chebacco, Wayward Lass.
Ive had the pleasure of sailing with Jamie quite a few times, though Im a bit tired of looking at his transom. The Chebacco is an amazing little boat and Jamie handles her well.
Thanks to Jamie for all his organizational efforts concerning this rendezvous!
He has a website to keep us updated and is one of the best cat-herders I know.

You recognize this guy. Its Doryman in Saga. Jamie was gracious enough to circle around and take my picture before he took off for the horizon.
The jib was an experiment and well come back to that later.
Saga is a modified William Atkin Valgerda faering.

I call this the Mother Ship. Chuck Gottfried, his wife Shay and good friend Dean chartered a Baba 30 for the week. Not my cuppa tea, but what luxury!
Here we see Dean firing up some Super Tramp on his digital music player just before breakfast. Not my cuppa either, but the man is happy and thats all that counts.
They sailed in company with some old friends in a C&C 35 and Im sorry to have not gotten a photo of them.

Martin Schneider came from Port Townsend in his Allegra 24 cutter, Clover

Thats a lot of boat in a tidy package. I hope to sail with Martin someday.






That about covers it, hope I didnt miss anyone.

The slideshow from Sucia Island 2012:

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It started with Camp Tipsy. Alex and I started talking about what we could build, what kind of floating contraption would excite us.  We were unequivocally unanimous in wanting something like a tiny cabin that floats.  Something that we could escape to.


Or maybe it started earlier.  Maybe it started with the river floats.  For years, Id built homemade rafts and floated down major American rivers with friends.

On that first trip, when I was trying to rustle up friends to join the adventure, heres what I wrote "This is not white water rafting. Were talking rivers with class zero rapids. A floating river. A lazy hot summer day eating found apples sort of river. These adventures remain low on specifics, high on general concept, mood, and emotion. Part of an experiment and a belief in the power of boredom to inspire."

In 2005, a few of us set out on a punk rafting adventure, building a raft out of found and scavenged materials and floating for a week, Huck Finn-style, on one of the largest fastest rivers on the continent, the Missouri.

We lived to tell the tale (barely), and so year after year, we took longer and longer adventures, floating a handful of rivers on completely ridiculous homemade rafts. After that first raft trip, we invited others, launching with whole punk raft flotillas. The experience has been life changing.

Alex and Jen and I were at Camp Tipsy and it was Happy Hour at our camp and we were drinking gin and tonics and maybe the alcohol contributed to our grandiose and ambitious scheming, or maybe, honestly, Ive always been that way.

Camp Tipsy Hot Tub by ropersf

We were looking at all the bizzaro floating contraptions and nautical imagining.  We didnt want to go fast or swing or be propelled by some Rube Goldberg propulsion system or even soak in a wood-fired hot tub, so much, at that moment, as we wanted to sit peacefully on our own floating front porch and watch the madness of the rest of the world.

We decided to make a floating cabin, a shanty boat. 

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A few weeks ago my daughter Lillian and I sailed up to Abaco to haul out and paint the bottom of Hogfish Maximus. I really like going to Green Turtle Cays boat yard Abaco Yacht Sevices because it is run by the Roberts family and is the cleanest yard in the Carribean Sea and the south east. HFM had not been hauled in 5 years time. Because I do not belive in insurance for my boat I cannot haul in the states so have been hauling out in Cariacou in the Grenadines and Green Turtle where the first world lawyers have not gotten involved. Since launching the HFMs I would have spent at least $ 12,500.00 US on insurance so far. We have gone through 5 hurricanes in her during this time watching over her our shelfs using the 8 anchors and all the anchor roads to go with them. Being on board full time means you are continually watching after your home so the main risk is being around other boaters. Liability insurance I can see using if you are doing a lot of marina hopping as in Europe. With our shoal draft we try to anchor away from the crowd which is an advantage. By anchoring in shallow water boats cant drag down on us as they run aground first. We also lure a lot of boats to try and anchor next to us this way as we look like a deep draft vessel.

Buying bottom paint for an affordable price has gotten to be a challenge. We need 5 gallons for 2 coats and at the current retail prices of $450.00 a gallon its getting to be a major cost.

But being a scrapper I am always thinking years down the road so when I come across a deal I invest. The paint we have been using for quite awhile is International commercial brand that I bought 3 five gallon buckets of for $500.00 4 years ago at a junk shop. We put HFM on the beach now and again and paint about 75% of her this way on the tide. The bottom we have to dive to keep clean. I feel the oceans around all the small islands have gotten very nutrient rich over the years as growth now takes no time to grow. Hence the latest full bottom job. We have one 5 gallon bucket left so I hope the continually sailing about will keep it mixed up till we need it.

Here you can see the little chine wings that I put on these flat bottom designs. They are adaptions of

Henry Scheels keel design. It really works well with the dagger board up and the rudder full up we can still tack and sail to weather in about 31/2-4 of water with minimal slippage . Of course we now have a motor so we can cheat if we want.

The rudder draws 49" when fully down and has to be pulled into place. The tackle will break if we hit a whale or a coral head going full speed. So just like a big dinghys. We have not hit a whale yet but hitting the bottom in our quest to go where no other sail boats have gone before is a regular accourance.

 

Hogfish Maximus 38x 11x 27"

Jubalee 40x 11x 28"

Hogfish 32x 9x 20"

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