Rudder Update (belated)

I'm sorry it has been so long since I've written. I made some HUGE progress on the boat, and even took it out, a couple of months ago. But immediately thereafter we went to Colorado, and then I got back and almost moved to Scotland, and then the opera season started and I just haven't had two minutes to type.

I think the last I posted (in JUNE!) was the sail mockup, with the crossbrace for the mast held on by clamps, and the canvas loosely draped over the spar to give some idea of how it might work.

The following weekend (the July 4 weekend), I bit the bullet and permanently added the mast brace and secured the step of the mast onto the bottom of the boat, using the very last of my fiberglass epoxy.

You'll notice that I also added some half-decking, for and aft, to close the bow and stern of the boat. There was no practical reason to do this (and I've lately found a pretty good reason to have not done this, so those will likely disappear.)

Once I got the mast step locked into place and capable of sustaining load, it was time to rig the sail. For Reals, as the mariners say.

I lashed the sail tightly to the spar with short lengths of cordage.Red arrows indicate the lashing of sail to spar

Having done that, it was merely a matter of laying along the running rigging and hoisting the sail. As you may recall, I spent some time thinking about this in advance, and came up with this plan:
It was merely a matter of putting those plans to practice.

And, voila!:

Here is the halyard, highlighted in blue, to match the drawing:
The idea was to simply pull on the halyards, and up would rise the sail to its yard.
And, you know what?

IT WORKED!
It ultimately takes three sets of ropes to work the sail: The first are the halyards for dropping the sail from the spar (explained and highlighted in blue, above.)

There is also the main halyard to raise the spar itself (and battened sail) from the base of the mast to the top of the mast, highlighted below in red. It is secured to the spar (horizontal pole), run through the center block (pulley) at the top of the mast, and then straight down to the crossbrace and lashed (tied off) at the base when the sail is raised. If you untie this and let it go, the entire sail, spar and all, will drop to the deck.
And finally, there are the sheets, which run from the clews (bottom outer corners of the sail) back to the stern of the vessel (what I will somewhat indulgently call the quarter deck), highlighted below in yellow:
When the sail is lowered and drawing, I simply need pull (or let fly) one or both of those to change the direction and tautness of the sail.

Of course, I have yet to try this in practice. I did take the Ruddy Duck out subsequent to assembling this mast rig, but I had both boys and left the mast at home. So it has yet to be sea tested.

You can see from this illustration, though, that, with everything rigged properly and a breeze from abaft the beam, it should work well.
I am pleased.

Sail Mockup

I fiddled around with things a little more last night. Again, none of this work is set is stone, but I did want to get a sense of scale, practicalities, et cetera, before doing this thing for real.

When I rigged the mast the day before, it seemed to me that the 6' horizontal yard was disproportionally short. So I decided to try an 8' horizontal, and it seems to be a little better ratio, height-to-width.

Just for ducks, I decided to loosely tie on the sail (a duck canvas tarp) to the yard before raising it, to just get an early sense of what we'd be looking at:

Obviously, things are not rigged properly, but it's enough to get a sense of things.

One thing I noticed is that this sail, even without being properly rigged, and without sheets to hold it taut against the wind, provides a very large surface area (48 square feet) that can catch the lightest breeze. I don't have the mast "stepped" into the deck, it's really just gravity and friction against the bottom of the boat that's holding this rig up. It was a very calm night last night, but one little gentle breeze came through the back yard (barely enough to ruffle leaves on the trees) and it blew the whole sail/mast rig over. I think when I get it rigged taut, with the thwart and the step set into the deck, it's going to be able to provide some pretty good thrust.

This mock-up also affirmed an issue that Mary originally raised a couple of weeks ago, when I was last musing about sail plans: I'm not going to be able to see where I am going.

I laughed her off at the time, but I'm starting to wonder if she might not have a point. Clearly, I'm going to have to periodically raise the sail (or part of the sail) to be able to see ahead. I'm also toying with the idea of moving the sail thwart back further towards the second rib, and putting Midshipman Henry in front of the mast to act as lookout.

Because I'm feeling like sharing, I'll let you in on my idea for the sail rigging, which is based on traditional methods, but with a slight modification.

In a traditional square rig (as I understand it), the sail is tied to the yard across the top, and then there are furling lines which run from the top of the mast to the bottom corners.So, when you pull down on these lines (1), the corners "furl" up diagonally towards the top center of the mast(2).
My idea, which I got while looking at our Roman shades in the office, is to have a second pair of blocks out at the ends of the yard, so that when the sheets are hoisted (1), the corner of the sail will raise straight up to the yard(2).
This way, I could pull on one or both of the lines, and get the sail to many different shapes and sizes, relatively easy. And, when I don't want the sail at all, I can pull them both all the way to 100%, hoisting the sail up to the yard and out of the way.

Anyway, that's the plan. The next step (possibly tonight) is to epoxy the inside of the boat and the spars (mast and yard), and then I'll be ready to rig the sail on Friday.

Mast Mockup

I went home last night and it was such a beautiful evening that I decided to work on the boat for a little bit. But when I went to get it to bring around to the back yard, I realized that I hadn't mowed the lawn this past weekend because of all of the rain, and, as I always tell the kids, you have to do your chores before you can have fun, so I got out the lawn mower instead.

I started mowing the side yard, when Charlie came up and asked if he could mow the lawn. (Mind you, this is no altruism on his part: it's pure calculated mercenary-ness. He didn't ask to be paid, but he rolled the dice, figuring that if he volunteered and did a great job, there might be some cash for him in the end. And I have to say, he did a really good job. And so there well may be some cash (or prizes) for him in the end. (There's a new gameboy game that he wants, and we'll probably go get it for him this weekend in preparation for the drive to Colorado next week.))

In any event, with my evening freed up from lawn mowing, I was able to re-devote the time to mast stepping.

As foretold, I put the boat on the grass, and clamped in the mast thwart in a couple of different places to see what looked right. (A "thwart" is a horizontal brace in a boat - imagine a canoe seat: a board running across the width of the canoe for the paddler to sit on. A mast thwart is a canoe seat with a hole in it for the mast to go through.)

I tried it all the way up front at the first rib:
Note: to secure the mast in place (when I decide where it's to go), I'm going to attach a mast seat to the deck (floor) of the boat, and also rings around the hole cut in the thwart. For these, I'm going to use closet curtain-rod brackets:
The installed mast looked so good, I decided to mock up the block system and the yard for the sail.

I drilled a hole through the top of the mast, to which I could attach a line onto which the blocks (remember, this is nauticalese for "pulley") could be attached. My plan calls for three masttop blocks: one for the halyard (the rope used to raise the yard (pole) onto which the sail is attached), and two for the sheets (the ropes that actually control the height of the sail itself.) The halyard will use the middle of the three blocks:Note, this is not the final fine work, but it's just roughed out to give a sense.
I then tied the yard to the halyard, and raised it:Viola [sic]. A basic square rig.

I must admit, I was pleased.

Then I used my "eye", and it seemed like that might be a little far forward. With a wind pressing on the sail, it might serve to drive the nose of the boat down into the water and slow it down. So I moved it back to the second rib:

This looks more balanced to me, but I wonder about space for the whole crew with the mast stepped this far back.

So, I split the difference and put it between the two ribs:
To my eye, this looks like about the correct position. I need to figure out exactly how I'm going to affix the thwart to the pirogue. I'm thinking I'll attach short sections of the rub rail oak to the inside of the gunwales, and then screw the thwart onto those. Conceivably, therefore, I could rig the mast and take it out for trials and if it's badly placed, I can just move the thwart brackets forward or back as the need dictates.

We'll see. It's a long way from finished, but it's gratifying to see that the rough ideas I've been sketching in my notebook seem to have some validity.Left, preliminary drawing of the three-block rig.
On the right, a subsequent drawing, with halyard in red and sheets in blue for clarification in my head.
Fred, any thoughts?

Finished Boat

For once in this entire project, a step of the building process went exactly the way I pictured it in my head.

I mixed up the epoxy, added the sawdust, mixed well, and applied. One smooth coat over the entire exterior. Made exactly enough. There's really not much more to say.
(You can click on any picture on this blog to see a larger version.)





The Boat

Friday Cleanup, Pt. 1

I got out there about 7:00 this morning, hand-sanding the boat. If I'm going to get it in the water while the girls are here, I have to have another coat on the outside this afternoon. I hand-sanded until 9:00, and then power-sanded after that.

I got the rough edges and screw-ups sanded down. Then I lined the inside seams, where the bottom (or "deck") attaches to the sides (or "sides") with strips of fiberglass/epoxy, to further strengthen the boat.

Then I flipped the whole thing back over and sanded the crap out of it. It's pretty much set for the final outside coat this afternoon.

And by "final" I mean "nowhere near final".

A second coat of epoxy will make it waterproof and water-ready. But I will -- in the near future -- need to add some fiberglassing reinforcements around the edges and I'll need to clean up the stringers, too.

And, of course, adding the deck, sail rig, transom, rudder . . .

But all that remains to get her in the water is one coat of epoxy on the bottom. I suppose I should get a bottle of champagne and settle on a name.

Fiberglassing Sucks

Sorry. Not a very polite title there, huh?

After 39 years, I've come to know myself. I'm good at some things. Like Excel. And . . . um . . . well, I'm really good at Excel.

What I'm not good at? Detail-oriented projects that require patience and quality physical craftsmanship.

Guess what fiberglassing is? It's a detail-oriented project that requires patience and quality craftsmanship.

It started so promising. I decided to do the "tricky" parts first: the pointy ends. I cut enough cloth to cover the first two feet of boat, and then trimmed it down and cut "darts" (if that's the word I want) to overlap the cloth over the bendy parts. I mixed up a litte epoxy, added a little sawdust for coloring, spread it over the hull, laid out the cloth, applied more epoxy, and squeegeed it down.

And, in truth, the first pointy end went pretty smoothly.

So I did the other pointy end. Pretty much the same process, pretty much the same result. Flat application, pretty smooth and clean.

Then I tried to do a bigger piece for the main body of the boat. Larger cut of fiberglass, more epoxy. This is where it started going badly. I should have used much smaller pieces to cover the boat carfully. The "stringers" on the bottom and sides created air pockets under the glass, and when I worked hard to get one out, it would appear somewhere else. The epoxy started hardening, and so I had to work more quickly. Much less perfection than the ends.

But, in the end, the entire hull was covered in glass and epoxy. It is messy in parts, but that just means sanding down and doing patches here and there. It's not the end of the world. Just like glassing the original pieces (in my failed butt joints): you have to start somewhere and then build off of that. The building process is, as Fred told me at the start of this, mostly just a matter of fixing screw-ups. And, to quote him further:

And when you are ready for that final phase, remember that fibreglass and epoxy resin, augmented with assorted thickeners and enhancers, can adequately address any and all perceived deficiencies, aesthetic and otherwise.

My biggest concern now is that I'm getting low on epoxy/hardener. I should have enough to re-coat the whole bottom and do the inside. But I'll need to get more before I can make changes and additions (like cutting the end of the boat and adding a transom.)

But first things first. I want to finish the boat (and by "finish" I mean "make watertight") tomorrow so that it can hit the water on Sunday.

Some pics from yesterday:

Above you see the first go at fiberglassing. I mixed four different batches of epoxy, each with a slightly different proportion of sawdust, hence the variegated color. I kind of like the different hues. After I get it sanded down and apply the covering coat, this should be somewhat evened out. (You can see the edges of fiberglass (white cloth) hanging down below the rubrails, towards the ground.) Yes, the pointy end in the foreground was glassed, too. It just had the least amount of sawdust mixed in to the epoxy so is a lighter color.)

As I was finishing up, a major thunderstorm rolled in, but I couldn't cover the boat, as the plastic would stick to the EXTREMELY TACKY epoxy. So I had to build a tent:
One thing I didn't mention is how great it is to build a boat barefoot. Until my last day of construction (when I sanded it down last weekend), I had done all of the construction shod. But last weekend, I worked on the boat barefoot, and it was really great. So I continued barefoot yesterday.

Not so great, as I ended up epoxying grass and dirt and seedpods to my bare feet.
I had to soak my feet in acetone to clean this off. Whoops.

Big Day

It has been a very Boaty weekend. I won't lie to you (Thomas never lies!): I am tired.

After I (very generously, I thought) posted this morning about the boat triumph yesterday, I got the following message from the one person who had nagged me for the update (in case you haven't guessed, it's my mother, Mary).

I think if we did less partying would have had a more factual building report. Too limited in words. But it certainly is big. No pics of cutting bottom or attaching same. You get an f on report card

There's a wonderful book called "Ball Four", written by former Yankee pitcher Jim Bouton. It was the first tell-all sports autobiography, written at a time when even reporters traveling with the team would not print all of the (true) stories about the ballplayers' carousing, boozing, and carrying on. It was a club, and a very secretive one at that. Then Bouton wrote this book--exposing some really seedy underbelly of professional baseball--and was reviled by the baseball community. I don't think he ever worked in the MLB again. (He went on to invent Big League Chew (bubble gum packaged to look like chewing tobacco, in an effort to keep kids off of tobacco) and last I heard he had founded and was running the Vintage Base Ball Federation, an old-timey baseball league, playing by the rules of 1880. But I digress.)

In the book, he tells a story about Mickey Mantle, who asked the Yankee manager (maybe Leo Durocher?) if he could have the next day off. Durocher said sure, and Mickey hit the tiles that night. Stayed out all night drinking and partying, and finally made it back to his room around dawn. He spent most of the game huddled on the bench, trying to sleep, but as luck would have it, in the late innings, the Yankees were down by a run or two with men on base, and the manager needed Mantle to pinch hit. He staggered up into the bright sun, grabbed a bat, stumbled to the batters box, and hit the first pitch for a home run. He trotted the bases, and collapsed back on the bench, right next to Bouton. According to the story, Mantle leaned forward and peered at the screaming fans with bloodshot eyes and said, "They have no idea how hard that was."

That is how I feel about this morning's post.

I will try to make amends now.

Yesterday's job was pretty straightforward, as I had predicted the day before: I traced the boat outline on the plywood "bottom" (leaving a little around the edge just in case) and then cut it out with my circular saw. I flipped the boat frame upside-down, drilled holes through the bottom into the ribs, and then applied woodglue to the bottom of all of the ribs and the sides. I laid the bottom back on, screwed it down, and piled with rocks. (Uncle John calls this the 'glue and stack' method of boat-building.)

Then I mixed the fillet (epoxy + sawdust), and lined all of the seams with it.

Then I went to the block party, talked to Mr Hall (the one person there I knew), who mixed me several Dark and Stormys (rum, lime juice, and ginger beer -- a very nautical drink). After that, I don't remember much.

So, this morning, after the Jeeves pick-me-up, I went out to trim the excess around the bottom.

As is my way, I did this by hand: using the manual hand (that's redundant) saw. This was very exhausting work, cutting at a tough angle, and underneath the sharp-edged rub rail. I barked the back of my hand into this edge frequently and hard enough that it was spewing blood at every cut. You can see some on the side of the boat in this picture of the saw:
After getting as much as I could cut, I sanded down the rest with the sanding attachment on my drill. This was tiring and very saw-dusty work. Photo by Henry
But at the end of that sanding, I truly did feel like I had made a BOAT.

I then began the priddying process. I sanded out much of the mess from the inside filleting job yesterday.

I also sanded the sharp corner/edges off of the ribs and rub rails (should probably have done that before trying to saw the edge of the bottom) so they're more user-friendly.

Sanding doesn't sound like hard work, but the oak of the rub rails especially was exhausting, time consuming work. And it was well over 90 degrees today, and much of the day I was in the sun. It was brutal out there.

I also sanded down the edges of the stringers on the side of the boat. They are made of three-layer plywood, and when you sand down, you go through one layer of wood, and then the (dark) wood glue, and then another layer of wood, and then the glue, and then the third layer of wood. A neat side-effect of this is that the dark glue lines make a neat pattern on the side stringers. I think this looks very cool:
At this point, it was an inch deep in sawdust, especially the corners and edges and joints. So I decided to hose the whole thing off to clean it up in preparation for fiberglassing. (Somewhat ironic, as I had been so paranoid about the wood getting wet for the last month.)
It was while I was letting it dry that I read the afore-mentioned e-mail from Mary, giving me an F. I decided to call her, and in the course of conversation, she (rightly) pointed out that it would be a very bad idea to fiberglass the boat after rinsing it. Now, I hadn't SOAKED it. I just gave it a quick jet with water to get the sawdust out. And, as I said, it was a VERY hot day here today.

But still and all, it wouldn't do to mess up the fiberglassing after having come this far. Plus, it was about 2:30, and I still had to mow the lawn and do some other things around the house (like lay on the couch and watch the Blackhawks game. Go Hawks!) So I called it a day.

I also scrubbed my special, 3am idea from last week. As I've decided not to proceed, I'll tell you what it was: I found some very thin (1/8 inch) oak wall paneling (a 4'x8' sheet). Like bead-board, with 2-inch "planks" (divided by, you know, those little indentations in bead board.) I had planned to cut apart all of these individual 2-inch boards and attach them, overlapping, on the sidewalls, to make a faux "clinker boat".
While I still think it's a clever idea, it would add some unnecessary weight to the boat, and given that I still have to design and add a sail rig, I don't think I should be adding unnecessary weight.

In addition, I really LOVE the look of the wood with the fillet epoxy on it. The baltic birch is a very, very white wood. Even staining it, I didn't think it would take on a very interesting color. But after seeing it dried on the inside of the boat, I'm excited. I'll do a little test on the bottom of the boat, but my plan now is to just add a small amount of the sawdust to the coat of epoxy, giving it that nice rich brown color. I think it will be very nice.

I Dill It

This is going to be a fairly photo-heavy post, as there was a neighborhood block party last night, and I am in dire need of one of Jeeves's pick-me-ups. Fortunately for me, I know the recipe:Raw egg yolk, Worstershire sauce, tobasco sauce, tomato juice, ground pepper.
One gulp.
I feel much better now.

But there was, in fact, some minor clamoring for information on the progress of the boat, so I feel I owe it to my public to give them what they want.

Yesterday:
Boat, awaiting bottom
Bottom, awaiting boat
Bottom attached, using wood glue, screws and rocks
Houston, we have a Boat
The only thing remaining was to add "fillets" around the inside of the bottom, connecting the sides to the bottom piece. To do this, you mix up epoxy, and mix in a good amount of sawdust (provided for this purpose) and press it into the connection groove (like caulk).

This was harder than it sounds, and I don't know how successful the result was. It's certainly messy.
But it's holding together.
I have a Boat.

Today, I do a little clean-up, and priddying, and then, I dunno, maybe fiberglass the bottom?

Edging Nearer

Sunday was a very productive day, boat-wise.
A brief summary:

After connecting the stempost and sternpost on Saturday and allowing to dry overnight, the next step was to attach the ribs and rubrails on Sunday.

What could be easier?Your "eye" will tell you when [the ribs] are in the correct position.
Oh, it will, will it?

My eye had a devil of a time determining when the ribs were in the correct position, and I doubt they did all that successful of a job. It's hard to tell from these pictures, but I fear the craft is not, strictly speaking, symmetrical or square. I don't know how this could have happened, as the sides are of the exact same length, but there it is. I e-mailed Fred about this result, and he replied with the encouraging

Symmetry of form, for the most part, is overrated.

In any event, here lies the craft, with ribs and rub rails attached:Foreground: Boat, Background: Neil
And from above (Henry's room):

There's very little left, construction-wise. To attach the bottom, I simply flip over what is currently on the sawhorses: boat, upside-down on the sawhorses, big sheet of plywood laying on top. Trace the outline of the boat (leaving about an inch of spare room all the way around the perimeter), cut it out. Lay over the upturned boat, glue (and screw) down. Add weight*. Leave to dry.

That will be the boat. It need only to have the bottom piece "faired" -- sanded down to make smooth edges-- and then fiberglassed, and then it will be finished.

I had some trouble sleeping last night, and got a cockamaimie idea for the boat at about 3:15am. I'm going to do a little research: it may be completely ridiculous and therefore not worth posting. But if it seems plausible, perhaps I'll post it. Or maybe I'll just do it and surprise you.

Looking like a good forecast for this weekend. I'm hoping to get the bottom attached on Saturday morning, and perhaps move to fiberglassing on Sunday?


* Again, construction with rocks.