Some really good reading about a seriously good cruise in a pair of open boats

There are days when being an “armchair admiral” is not such a bad thing.  To sit warm and comfortable, listening to the wind shrieking and laughing at you as it tears through the trees with the driving rain rattling on the windows and shaking the doors is a very pleasant thing.  It’s a time to dream of warm days, sparkling water, golden beaches and gentle breezes.  Of meeting people who enjoy the company of small boat sailors, exploring places where one can pretend that no human has ever been before, seeing new vistas every hour of every day and  watching spectacular sunsets before retiring to a comfortable bunk and listening to the water lapping at the side of the boat.

Its such a day here, springtime, and I wont go on about it because I’ve said it all before, springtime can bring tough weather here.  But I’ve been sitting in my bunk, the boat surging at its dock lines, the wind doing all that stuff while I read this wonderful account of a cruise in a pair of “my” boats in Shark Bay, waaay north of Perth in Western Australia.  It’s a great story, well written, well illustrated with both pics and video, so get your coffee made, sit down in a comfortable place, and read on.

http://www.gaffrigsailinginwa.org/shark-bay-001

Many thanks to Author Paul Ricketts and cruising companion Peter Kovesi for sharing this, and to the “open boat” Yahoo group from which I got the above link.

Great stuff guys, keep up the good work.

More paint.

I usually try for Thursday or Friday for each weeks post, but I’m a day or two early this week.

Painting is happening.  Yeehah! Not far to go now.

When painting, the undercoat tends to show up all the nasties, the blips and bumps that should have been sanded out the holes that were not filled, the  high spots that should have been taken down, nail heads that still show and the glossy bits on the epoxy that should have been flatted off.

All the bits you don’t want people to see. 

So I paint early, just one coat of primer undercoat, then go over it with the sander and filler,  that’s where I’m at now with SEI.

I’ve got one end primer painted, I’m sanding at the other end, mainly with the magic FEIN multitool in triangle sander mode, the point of the triangle amazingly effective at sanding the radius in the corner fillets, and I’m finish sanding and am hiding the worst of the blemishes with filler back in the stern.

I figured I’d try a little of the colours, I’ve gone lighter and brighter than usual as the paint, apart from the gunwale, is satin finish so wont reflect as much light. That plus selecting from a tiny square of colour on a piece of card with two dozen others is a bit of a raffle.

I have mixed feelings on the result, it’s a bit “toy soldier”,  maybe duller colours next time.

But the paint has been bought, has been mixed and is there, so that’s whats going to be used.  I’m sure I’ll get to like it in a while.

Bright colours, they look better when the paints dried to its satin finish, and I think I'll put a little more green in the mix to make it slightly darker. Might even do something to dull the red a bit.

Still, whats life without some experimentation.

 The shops in a mess I've some extra gear and nowhere much to put it so the next job after the boats done is to build more shelving up high.  Need that storage.

But the boats looking ok, I've not made an exceptionally nice job of her, she's a hurried build but structurally ok.  Really she's a testbed and proof of concept build, and I've had rather a lot of other things that needed attention so its a bit of "do as I say not as I do" in this case.

In places the paint looks good, hides lots of sins, the next coat will hide all that. I’m working my way forwards with sander, filler and brush as the wind howls in the trees around the shed.  Its rough water out there on the estuary, with the wind against the tide its definitely not kayak weather.  Inside the shed, working away dreaming of days out on sparkling water with gentle breezes is just fine, so being in here with the paintbrush and sander is no hardship.

Hiding from the spring weather

But its not a complete loss of time.

Its Thursday evening, I'm still house sitting my sisters house up in the bush at the top of the hill. This ia a very peaceful place, and I’ve been able to spend some time working on the drawings for both SEI and the Saturday Night Special.  I’ve written building guides for both, materials lists, and some words of general advice.

Both sets are now done, all ready to go out and help people create their dreams. They will be sent off to the print shop and I’m expecting them to be scanned and back to me in digital form about Wednesday next week.

Tomorrow though I’m onto the next one that’s the boat that I’m drawing for my own use, for a particular project / voyage / adventure I have in mind.

“Long Steps” is  if you like a slightly larger version  of Walkabout, long and slim, a reasonable rowing boat that I expect will sail well. She has though the centre area of SCAMP including the self draining cockpit floor with a water ballast tank under, a similar raised locker and veranda “cabin” which like SCAMP provides high up bouyancy to assist righting after a capsize, gives much dry storage and some shelter from the elements.

She will be cat yawl rigged, that’s two masts, a big balanced lug main and a triangular mizzen, will have the same offset centerboard that has been so successful on SCAMP, that gives space in the cockpit which is to be wide and long enough to sleep in, and I am drawing in an area aft of that with the full depth and width of the boat in which to stand and move about when sailing.

I'll be carrying a swimming pool bean bag in there so can sail in some comfort.

The boat is intended for very long range voyaging, at times in areas where there are no harbours for overnight refuge so she will be set up to lie to a sea anchor.

Im going to get this far enough along to allow me to start the new boat, I’ve got two other design projects plus a couple of small modification drawings to do as well.  I need to get them done so I can get out sailing when summer gets here.

Adventure cruising? The years keep ticking past, there are only a limited number of them and no one knows just how many each of us have, so its time I got out there and did some serious adventuring.  My philosophy is that life is what you use to build up the memories that sustain you in your old age.

I’ll have a pic of Long Steps in the next posting on this blog, the current working drawing is a work in progress, and as with all works in progress it’s a mess and wont make a lot of sense to anyone but me.

Oh yes, it will be back to sandpaper and paintbrush on SEI next week.

Watch this space.

Progress on SEI, and a really good evening out

I've been working away in the shop, fitting the seat tops and filleting them, turning the offcuts into doublers under the edges and sanding out the odd dribbles of epoxy,  read on.

Blog 4 September

Its getting close,  today I fitted the forward seat top.   Tis is in two pieces joined down the middle and glued in to form  to form not only the seat but the top of the forward bouyancy tank, as well as bracing the mast box.

 Filleting, the white stuff is a low density filler from Epiglass with a little cotton mill fibre ( glue mix) mixed in, thats for strength. The brown is Microballoons but underneath that is a smaller fillet of straight glue applied about 6 hours before.  

So that’s done, yesterday I fitted the doublers under the edges of the center thwart and the after seat ( which should be referred to as “Stern sheets” but I’m not that “correct” in my terminology).  These doublers make a big difference to the feel of the boat, stiffening the overhanging edges of the seats considerably as well as giving them a much more “solid” appearance.

These adoublers re made from the scrap left over from cutting the big parts, there wont be much more than kindling left when I’m done with this project,  successively smaller parts get cut as the project goes on,  so the scraps get smaller each time around.

Stern sheets, the doublers sitting on the seat  above where they will be fitted underneath the overhanging plywood seat edge.

Center thwart.  This is a great way to use the offcuts from the planking, makes a much nicer job of the edges of the seat. Next job to do is to glue them in, then round them off.

Forward seat tops to come next.

So tomorrow its at them with the angle grinder and sander to finish off the endges, round them over and fair them.  Then some filleting, more sanding,  and then its time for paint.

I must say that the Fein Multimaster is an amazing tool for sanding fillets, the point of that triangular sanding head with 60 grit paper on it does a very good job, effortlessly and quickly.  I love this tool and would almost own it just for that.

Paint, the outside looks good,  two coats of primer, and two coats of  satin finish paint looks good, so tomorrow I’ll be splitting the white between two containers and pouring a little of the dark green into one to get the pale green for the interior and then start swinging that paintbrush again.

Tonight, my friend and next door neighbour Emily Scott sings.  She has won a scholarship to the UCLA School of Music where she will study in the Masters classical voice program,  this is seriously top level stuff!  I’ve been to a couple of performances and she’s got me converted to Opera.

Tonights performance is a fundraiser, she’s got to get enough money together to live in Los Angeles for two years to take up her scholarship, and I’m going along.

We’ve had shared dinners, helped each other out some, and enjoyed each others company.  I’ll miss her, all the very best Emily.

http://www.creative.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/news/news-2014/2014/07/scholarship-helps-talented-singer-find-her-voice.html

Here’s her facebook page, well worth a look.

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=675895038&fref=ts

Time I got myself tidy, don’t need the black suit and tie but epoxy and paint covered overalls wont quite cut it.

( I went, full house, I listened, I enjoyed the concert immensely)

Swinging the paintbrush.

The big day has come.  Well, a slightly bigger day than some!  Its been a bit warmer of late, about 17 deg C here this afernoon and with primer paint on and sanded it seemed like a good idea to paint the outside of SEI’s hull.

Resene make really good paint,  the staff at their open 7 days a week branches are better informed and usually more helpful than those in the big box hardware stores paint dept, and I often use their paints.

This time I felt that I’d like a change from the usual high gloss enamel, I’d tried their water based enamel on the kayak and while its easy to slap on, and durable in terms of its ability to survive the elements it does scratch easily so I was looking to see what other alternatives there might be.

Sure enough they’ve got a semi gloss satin finish solvent based enamel called “Lusta-Glo”  ( Who thinks these names up?) . The spec sheet said all the right things, and within the limited range of colours in this paint type there were a couple that were close so,

Dark green hull, I bought a can of white which will have a few dribbles of the green added to paint the interior with, and a rich russet red for the gunwales and maybe a boot stripe along the waterline.

I put the first coat on today, brush coated, stroke lengthwise diagonal one way then the other then tip off lengthwise. 

It brishes nicely as long as the brush is kept fairly full, looks ok.  I like the idea of the satin finish, its more workboaty in its look plus I have to admit that one of the things that I like is that it tends not to show the defects in my building quite as badly as high gloss.

Its a little darker than this in reality, not quite Hunting Green or British Racing Green but about as close as the limited palette for this paint could get.  Looks good, but the data sheet says that it won't have its natural finish for a day or two after application.

I have to say it goes on well, no trouble keeping a wet edge and feathering the new paint in as you go.

Just as a by the way, I'm trying to reorganise my shop, thats why its all untidy.

It’s a bit of a landmark in the build,  I’ll give her another coat on Sunday then flip her back over a couple of days later and get on with gluing the seats in and tidying up before doing the tinting trick with the green and white before painting the interior.

Soon.  The end is in sight, in this case it’s a double end.

Roll on summertime.