Glued mast step and rub rail

I glued the mast step to the top of the cabin.  There are also screws securing it from underneath.  It looks very strong.

The mast step glued to the cabin roof.  Still needs some sanding.

 I also installed the rub rail and a trim piece along the edge of the cabin roof.  They are both made of white oak.  Not much explanation necessary here.  I just cut out the pieces roughly, glued and screwed them to the boat, then sanded smooth with a belt sander.

Rub rail and cabin side trim just after gluing.

Rub rail just after gluing.

Cabin side trim just after gluing.

Cabin side trim sanded flush.

Oar Making - Part 1, Lamination

I'm making some oars for axillary propulsion. Hopefully these will be adequate and I won't need an outboard motor.  I'm going to install some oarlocks on the tops of the coamings ... details on that in a later blog post.

I've spent a lot of time pondering a number of issues regarding the oars:
 - if oars for this boat even possible, since its so wide (6'6" beam) and has coamings,
 - the length of the oars necessary,
 -where the rower would sit ... there are no thwarts to sit on like on a row boat,
 - whether to buy or make the oars
 - and, most vexing, where to store the oars out of the way while sailing.

I've never made oars before, don't have the right tools probably and have no idea what I'm doing, but I decided to make some 8 foot long oars out of some rather cheap pine 1x8 boards from the local home improvement store.  Total cost is about $40 for two oars and a weekend of work.  8 ft oars will not store anywhere on the boat.  So while sailing, I'm just going to leave them in the oarlocks, rotate them so they are lengthwise with the boat and lash them down to the top of the coamings.  They shouldn't be in the way.  I was considering some 7 ft oars that could fit in the cabin, but that's too short and retrieving them from the cabin would be annoying.

There are some equations for calculating the length of the oar based on the beam of the boat, but they suggested that I make 9.5 foot oars, which are too long to lash to the coamings while sailing.  8 ft is the longest practical length for this sailboat I think.  (I can also just barely fit 8 ft oars in my car, so that'll be convenient).

After doing some research online, I learned that store bought oars are not balanced correctly and too expensive.  I found some oar plans online by a guy called Culler.  His plans show oars with long narrow blades and are balanced for easy rowing.  Here are some links to the free plans I'm using:
www.riverswest.org/Pete_Culler_Oars.pdf
www.cmdboats.com/pdfs/Good_Oars_E-Book.pdf

The oars are laminated with 3 layers of 3/4" pieces of pine (one of the recommended varieties, others include spruce and doug fir).  I just cut the pattern from a 1x8.

An oar in pieces before lamination.

 Then I roughed up the surfaces to be glued with 50 grit sand paper, wet the surfaces with unthickened epoxy, then glued (with thickened epoxy) the 3 layers together.  I clamped the oar to the edge of the workbench, makings sure that the oar is straight while the glue cures.  The cheap wood I'm using was a little warped, but the oar should come out straight. I'm of course being careful to not glue the oar to the table.

An oar being laminated together.

 Next, I'm going to taper and shape the oars, removing any material that isn't an oar.  Shouldn't take too long.  That will be shown in "Oar Making - Part 2".

Spar Making - Part 1

I've started making the mast and boom. They are going to be made of Douglas Fir wood. I debated between wood and the (infinitely more popular) purchased hollow aluminum extrusion. I decided on a wooden mast because it's slightly cheaper, has more character, and, most importantly, fits with the whole spirit of this do-it-yourself project.

The mast is going to be hollow box-section and the boom is going to be a solid rectangular section. Here is the cross-section of the mast from the plans.

The boom is about 9 feet long and the mast is about 18 feet long (just a few inches shorter than the garage). The lumber I purchased is only 12 feet long, so I need to scarf together pieces for the mast.

The pic below shows all the douglas fir pieces of the mast and boom cutout and ready to be glued together. The pieces on the right are for the boom. The longer pieces on the left are for the mast. An important detail to notice is that all of the scarf joints are staggered, so that they will not be all in one spot of the mast. This makes the mast stronger. (Also shown in the middle of the pic are some oak pieces that will be the rub rail along the shear line of the boat ... not related to the spars.)

This took me an entire Sunday, because all of the pieces had to be ripped (cut lengthwise) and then planed (shaved down to the correct thickness). Then the diagonal scarf joints had to be cut for all the mast pieces. A table saw and a bench planer are pretty much mandatory tools for these tasks.

I've also started making the mast step. The mast step is where the base of the mast rests on the boat. There can be large forces traveling through this joint, so it need to be built stout.


The mast step in the plans doesn't seem quite strong enough to me, so I've decided to beef it up a little. Here is a pic showing the side of my mast step (left) compared to the one shown in the plans (right). I'm also going to secure everything with big screws and lots of epoxy.

On this boat, the mast step performs another function, which is to support the mast while the boat is being trailered. So the spacer block of the mast step should be angled on top to match the angle of the mast in the trailered position, as shown in the pic below.


Here is a pic of the mast step during the initial dry fit, just before gluing.

Companionway Frame

The excess plywood of the cabin deck is trimmed with a hand saw and then sanded flush with a belt sander.


The frame around the companionway opening is screwed and glued in place. The plywood is sandwiched between two pieces of frame, making a slot for the companionway drop board (or removable door) to secure in. The two holes on the lower horizontal frame piece are for drainage.



The companionway drop board (a piece of plywood cut to shape) is being trimmed to fit the opening. Since the sides of the opening are at an angle, the door only has to be lifted about 4 inches to remove from the opening. I plan to make a top hatch that fits over and around the drop board, so that it should be fairly water tight. I will probably put a little circular window in the drop board too.


I've also been sewing the large main sail together.

However, we had to move outside of the small spare room into the longest hallway of the house. I needed enough room to fit the rolled up sail on either side of the sewing machine when doing long seams.

Here is a homemade sail-making tool that I can't live without: a short length of plastic drain pipe cut down the middle. This makes a great clamp to keep the sail rolled up.


I'm almost done with the mainsail and I haven't gone into too much detail about it on this blog. Part of the problem is that the sail is always rolled up, so it would be difficult for you to tell what the pictures were trying to show. So I'll show more details about the sail when I can unroll it and run it up the mast. For now, it'll stay rolled up in the spare room.

Cabin Deck

The cabin frames are now finished. The companionway opening to the small cabin is now starting to take shape. Like I discussed in a previous post, this opening has been modified from the original plans to make the boat more safe in my opinion.

The windscreen plywood has been installed and trimmed to shape. Sailboats were kinda funny looking to me at first, not having a see-through windshield.


And now the last large pieces of plywood are cutout ... the cabin deck. Since these are the last large pieces of plywood going on the boat, I'll go through the whole detailed process of installing them one more time.

First the boat is used as a pattern. The plywood is clamped in position and the shape of the cutout piece is traced onto the plywood.


The pieces are cutout a little larger than necessary, just to make sure they aren't too short after they are bent into position. Then each frame is traced onto the plywood pieces.


Using the traced outlines of the frames as guides, pilot holes for the nails are drilled. This almost guarantees there will be no misplaced nails that miss the frames.

All surfaces are coated with straight epoxy, followed by a generous smearing of thickened epoxy.

The cabin deck is fastened at the centerline with a row of temporary screws (to be removed after the epoxy cures.) The plywood is bent over the frames and nailed into position. The nail heads are countersunk slightly into the surface of the plywood, then covered up in thickened epoxy.

All of the epoxy oozing out underneath needs to be cleaned up and filleted before it cures.


After the epoxy cures, the excess plywood is trimmed flush with the frames and cabin sides. I don't have pics of that, because I haven't done that yet.

Next I'm going to frame the companionway opening with some pieces of white oak.

Cabin Frame

The frame for the windscreen and cabin deck (or roof?) is under construction. The windscreen and cabin deck are both cambered or curved, so all of the frame pieces have to be sawed out from larger pieces of lumber in a curved shape. The windscreen base is glued and screwed directly to the fore deck.

The cabin deck frame members are glued and screwed to the cabin carlines. The front frame member is a bit tricky, because it has to match the curve of the cabin deck and the curve of the windscreen. To accomplish this, the front frame member is cut out with a slightly larger curve than the others and installed at an angle. All of the frame members were roughly cut, then installed on the boat. Then they are trimmed to shape. So the lumber cutting didn't require a lot of precision and isn't as complicated as it looks.

After the frame members are installed, the top-centers of them are notched and a king plank of 1/4 inch plywood is installed. The king plank stiffens up the structure considerably.


The shape of the cabin is starting to become apparent.


The windscreen plywood is ready to be installed. Then, I'll finish the back part of the cabin frame, which will include a cutout for the companionway hatch.

I have some extra time to work on the boat during the holidays, so I'm hoping to get a lot done in the next week or so. I'll keep you posted.

Foredeck and Cabin Sides

The foredeck and side decks along the cabin have been installed. These are glued and nailed to the frame members.


The cabin sides have been made and installed. I modified the design to make the cabin sides and the cockpit coamings all one piece. I cut out a cardboard pattern first to avoid mistakes, then cut out the plywood. This helped me get the bottom curve right.

The pic below shows the cabin carlines being glued and nailed to the cabin sides. You can see some scrap pieces of 2x4 that have been cut to a curve and clamped to the assembly. This will make the curve of the top of the cabin side is the same as the bottom.

Here are the cabin sides all glued and nailed to the boat. I checked the angles to make sure everything looked right before the glue dried. One side was at a different angle than the other, so some ropes and clamps were added to hold everything in the right spot while the glue dried.

These window openings will later be sealed water-tight with acrylic windows.

Here's a better pic of the scrap 2x4 pieces that will later be removed. If you look close, you can also see a small slot in the side deck. This will be for a metal strap called a chainplate to pass through. The chainplate is where the standing rigging wire attaches to the hull. (more on that when I install the chainplates).


The next step is to install the frame members of the cabin roof and then install the cabin roof and cabin front. This will be a very similar process to the foredeck construction.

Side and Aft Decks Glued and Nailed

The boat spent some time on the front lawn this weekend so I could pick up some plywood with the trailer. All the granny knots made when tying down the plywood reminds me that I need to learn how to tie knots before I go sailing for the first time. But I got the plywood home without it flying off and the trailer works great, besides being a bit bouncy without a boat on it.



The aft and side decks have been glued and nailed down. Before I glued the side decks on, I attached some pieces of Doug Fir to decks (nailing from underneath). These are the bases for the coamings. As you can see, the coamings are going to be curved nicely.

The holes in transom are also shown in the pic above. The top hole is a drainage hole for the motor well. The middle two are drainage holes for the cockpit. These holes may or may not be above the waterline, so I may need to plug them when sailing ... we'll see. The lower holes are drainage holes for the bilge, which will be plugged when the boat is in the water.

The boat is now safely in the garage again. In the photo below, you can see some notches in the coaming base pieces. This is for drainage, so water will not pool on the side decks along the coamings.

Here's a closer shot of the motor well. Just a watertight plywood box. The bottom is sloped toward the drainage hole. I still need to put a little oak cap along the back edge and round the edges a little.

I also glued and nailed the cockpit sole (floor). I cut some round holes in the floor for access to the back section of the bilge. These holes will be fitted with plastic watertight hatch covers.