A skiff

[cracked_ribs]

Not much to say today beyond: all the seams are now taped. It looks much smoother in person; somehow the lighting in pictures always makes fiberglass look kind of messed up. But in reality it's fairly decent. The stem-chine-keel intersection could double as tank armour: two layers on the keel, two on the stem, and one on each chine, but they all wrap around the stem a bit, so I think there's 6 layers total in that spot, just on the outside. That'll set up like granite. But the time the inside gets glassed it'll probably get bought up by GenDyn for use in naval gun testing.

Will try to get the fabric on the hull this weekend, although if the weather is nice we might take the complete boat out for fun instead.

 

[Gong Show]

Ramming speed!

 

[cracked_ribs]

Man, it could be a battering ram. I was grinding on it today. It's hard as steel.

Only one task today: prep for fabric. I went over everything looking for air bubbles under the tape but it's very good. There are a couple of tiny spots at the transom, like 1/4 the size of a dime, that might have air behind them. It't hard to tell. But I don't think it's particularly worth grinding them out to see, they're so small. There was one air pocket between two layers that was about the size of my little finger, that I cut out and I'll just pop a little scrap in its place. Other than that it was just a matter of sanding everything with a bit of shine, until it was thoroughly matte.

Probably start getting fabric on tomorrow, depending on the weather and how much I feel like taking the big boat out instead. Winter springs are starting to turn up at Porlier Pass, I hear.

 

[cracked_ribs]

Another simple update: one side is now sheathed in fabric. It took around six hours; I probably could have done it in three during the summer, but in the winter it requires a fair bit of effort to heat everything.

I'm not sure if you can see the marks on the glass; there's a black tick with a sharpie every 26 inches. Why every 26 inches?

I figure it like this. My 12oz biax is 50" wide. 36x36/50 is 25.92, so every 26 inches of fabric should eat about 12oz of epoxy, if I'm doing exactly 1:1, which would be pretty good for a hand layup particularly in cold conditions.

But I'm ashamed to admit I couldn't sustain an exactly 50% glass layup. I nearly made it, but at the end, I had to mix 3 extra ounces. I'm not going to do the math just this minute but I believe that makes for a 49% glass layup. Good enough.

One thing I am very happy with is the extreme uniformity of the layup. It's the heat gun, I have to go over every inch and it gives me a huge amount of control over the end result. There were almost no air bubbles in the entire taping process, for example. Every area that looks even slightly over- or under-epoxied, I just hand-squeegee, using the heat gun to control the viscosity. It's slow but it works very, very well.

I might try doing the second side tomorrow, I haven't quite decided yet.

 

[bryce]

Your not going to taunt everyone with a flybridge then bail on this project in the bottom of the 9th are you.... can’t handle that again.....work looks amazing this far

 

[cracked_ribs]

Your not going to taunt everyone with a flybridge then bail on this project in the bottom of the 9th are you.... can’t handle that again.....work looks amazing this far

Legit LOL. No, I'm in this for the duration and there will be no fly bridge.

But there will be something. Not a fly bridge, but something. That's all I'm saying.

 

[cracked_ribs]

Your not going to taunt everyone with a flybridge then bail on this project in the bottom of the 9th are you.... can’t handle that again.....work looks amazing this far

Oh and thank you for the compliment; I'm working hard to do it well. I think it'll be a good boat.

 

[cracked_ribs]

Well, that's all the glassing that HAS to happen on the outside, although I think I'll throw a layer of that 7725 twill on the sides, overlapping the chines. I don't really like leaving plywood without glass, even with epoxy. It's overkill but the 7725 is only 8.8oz and that should soak up around 100oz of glue. For the minor weight penalty, I think i'll be happy, especially since there is minimal interior framing on the sides.

I'm totally exhausted, though. I might well take tomorrow off of boat building. My wife did a great pork roast tonight, which I wasn't expecting and discovered when I finally came inside, so that took the edge off.

Definitely feels good to see the hull glassed up.

Hard to believe I bought the plywood four weeks ago tomorrow.

 

[Gong Show]

The wood looks so nice.
The glassed wood looks so nicer!
Beauty

 

[cracked_ribs]

The wood looks so nice.
The glassed wood looks so nicer!
Beauty

Thanks man, this is the moment that screwed me on my last build...I got the deep saturated wood tones and decided to finish it all bright woodwork.

This thing is getting paint. Hauling the art project up and down the beach twice a day last year was torture. I want fish blood on this thing.

 

[cracked_ribs]

I apologize for the lack of updates - things were very busy at work and I am spending a lot of time editing in the evening.

On top of that, the progress was pretty boring for a few days - I sanded the hull enough to get the binding threads knocked down and it was a fair bit of work. I don't really trust anything to adhere to a shiny surface so I went at the whole thing, making sure every inch of it was thoroughly scuffed, without cutting through the glass fibers. It was slow and labour-intensive.

Today I laid on the 7725 Rutan, which is a lighter weave, but allegedly very strong. It's about 11 pounds of extra weight, total, to put this on either side but it also finishes out a lot smoother than biax and I'm paranoid about leaving surfaces unglassed. This is overkill but for 11 pounds, I don't mind. Now I'll never worry about bouncing cannonballs off the side or sticking a gaff through the waterproof membrane.

Starboard side is finished glassing; I'll try to get the port side done tomorrow.

I also picked up some dimensional lumber: meranti 1x2s which I'll rip lengthwise for spray rails, and 1x3s which I'm going to try to turn into reverse chines. The reverse chines should knock down the spray anyway but my boats spend a lot of time bouncing up against docks etc and I'd rather have a spray rail to take the fender hits than the paint.

Oh, I also patterened a stem, which is purely decorative, but which I think will suit the classic sheerline. But I didn't take a picture of it. I'll laminate a couple of 1/2" pieces together for that, and bed it on with peanut butter, but probably also tape it. It's a pointless piece of trim but I like the look. I'll tie it into the keel; I think it'll look right on this boat. A bit of a Doug Hylan flourish for a fairly plumb bow.

 

[cracked_ribs]

Pretty busy today - the wife sold a couple of bikinis (she designs them and makes one-offs for people who want her specific stuff) and it's a big enough pain to go to the post office right now that I figured I'd better do it. They only let a few people in at a time so there's a big lineup outside and it's better for me to do that and her to stay at home with the kid so that ate most of my time after work.

But what I did manage to do was get the stem cut out; this'll get blended into the hull down at the cutwater and give her a pretty classic profile, I think. It's two layers of 1/2" ply, staggered for a half-lap joint where it'll join the keel. It'll make her more prone to bow steer in following seas but I'm not very worried about it; this boat will probably never see water I'd consider especially rough and if we get caught out I'll just slow down a bit and cork along.

 

[Dorman Point]

Pretty busy today - the wife sold a couple of bikinis (she designs them and makes one-offs for people who want her specific stuff) and it's a big enough pain to go to the post office right now that I figured I'd better do it. They only let a few people in at a time so there's a big lineup outside and it's better for me to do that and her to stay at home with the kid so that ate most of my time after work.

But what I did manage to do was get the stem cut out; this'll get blended into the hull down at the cutwater and give her a pretty classic profile, I think. It's two layers of 1/2" ply, staggered for a half-lap joint where it'll join the keel. It'll make her more prone to bow steer in following seas but I'm not very worried about it; this boat will probably never see water I'd consider especially rough and if we get caught out I'll just slow down a bit and cork along.

That’s going to give her a really sweet profile. Reminds me of my old 1954 22’ Turner Sea Skiff. She had a beautiful almost-plumb stem with a very fine cutwater. With a deep keel log and a flat stern section, she pretty much went wherever she wanted in a following sea - I was just along for the ride. The saying among the old guys who remembered the Turner water taxis was that you would look over your shoulder to see who was passing you, and it was you! For that reason some of them had a second rudder forward (mine didn’t). However, she ate up a stiff chop like it wasn’t there and mushed softly through the heaviest head swell - a beautiful soft ride. With the weight of the glass, I think your boat will have similar characteristics. Should be a lovely riding hull, and she’s looking really good.

 

[cracked_ribs]

That's a beautiful boat and I'm definitely trying to replicate that head sea performance; I'll run a full-length keel in hopes of keeping my behind, behind, but no doubt about it, the only way to overtake waves in this thing will be to keep the nose in the air. I'm HOPING that the bow, which gets quite broad very quickly as you move up from the waterline, will prevent her from plunging too much but with the very shallow V I'm using every trick I can to give her a soft ride in chop; we'll see if I pull it off or if this turns out to be a harebrained idea.

But I am a sucker for classic looks; that's why I love that boat in your avatar.

 

[Gong Show]

The other forum I frequent is a sailing forum.
It is virtually unmoderated, so the thread drifts are epic.
One thread, about driftwood furniture at a campground, ended up with a picture of a West Pointer outboard work skiff.
Lines look a bit similar to this project and this is such a nice picture:

 

[cracked_ribs]

Oh interesting! That's extremely similar. Funny, I thought I knew every single design in this size range, from the Jericho lobster skiff to the Hylan Point Comfort to the Mertens FS17 to the Devlin Candlefish. But that one I've never seen...and I basically ripped it off. Well, hopefully it runs really well and everyone who uses it loves it because I'm about to be stuck with one.

 

[Gong Show]

I think it confirms that you have a good eye and appreciate some classic lines.

Let your google fu work on Alton Wallace and the West Point Skiff.
I did not know about this particular builder/designer either until the above photo was posted in sailing forum thread.
Then I lost an hour or so of billables.
640 × 407

 

[cracked_ribs]

Well if nothing else I'm definitely stealing that sales pitch, she sounds great.

Although the one thing I didn't do that I now regret a little is include a bit of tumblehome. I tried to pull it in a little bit but I was never happy with the proportions I got, so I ran with what I had. But other than that it's humorous how similar they are, especially considering the West Point is strip built, and mine is a plywood cored composite. You wouldn't think one would translate well to the other; it's very hard to replicate those curves in sheet material. But I guess I stumbled across a rough approximation, somehow. I'd post my original concept sketches but they'd give away too many surprises this early in the build. I'll post them at the very end and we can all compare the reality with the sketch and grade me on how close I got.

I looked over some photos of different WPS builds...there are some beauties out there.

 

[Gong Show]

I'll say it again, you have a good eye and I can't wait to see it in the water.
Still eager to volunteer as test skipper, or ride shotgun...

 

[Gong Show]

Her stiff bilges
I knew that would win you over!