Damo's Sailing Boat and Tow Vehicle

[Adoom]

I feel like it needs a viking style figurehead to intimidate the other boats. 

[yoeddynz]

Buy a classic volvo tow car so can have legit volvo viking things like the old truck badges 

[dmulally]

Finally finished the anchor wet locker. Took quite a while with the cold weather and epoxy drying. I did a few lay ups of cloth especially in the bottom of the well and fixed on hardwood doubler plates to all sides for me to change my mind where I need the anchor bolt to live. 

When I put on the rub rails Ill put some around the opening as the rope and chain will stuff it up. Will either just screw it on to be able to replace or attach some rubber to it. You can see here where the drain hole is. The locker is all angled towards that one hole. 

Most of the decking is now on also. One more piece to fit that I'm not happy with so leaving the room until the rest have set to go and attack with the plane and belt sander. When I get that on and it all dries it needs a LOT of sanding and then I'll fibreglass the deck to the top plank. That way I can just screw on the rub rails without needing to epoxy it on to seal up the end grain. 

[dmulally]

Repost. Here is a whaler. 

[dmulally]

Repost. Here is a whaler.

[dmulally]

Last of the top decking put on this morning. Lucky I did wait as I forgot I had to cut the hole with the correct angle for the mizzen mast in the hardwood doubler I put in a while ago. Phiew. 

Starting to look even more boaty now. 

[Stu]

Damn this is looking good! I bet the total of build hours is getting up around 11 billionty.  Excellent work!

[dmulally]

1 hour ago, Stu said:

Damn this is looking good! I bet the total of build hours is getting up around 11 billionty.  Excellent work!

Haven't kept a tally but I do work on it an hour or so a day mon-fri and 8 hours a day on sat-sun. A professional boat builder I know who knocks these together suggests that a pathfinder is 600 hours and charges around $60k to build. It's smaller and less complex than a whaler having a flat transom. 

I would assume I'm double the time of a professional and use three times as much epoxy/offcuts etc. 

 

[dmulally]

Next up on the vagenda is to start sanding and faring the bodywork. If the weather improves Id like to do some more painting inside but wont rush it as last time it all just ran.

The other thing I need to sort out is the rudder and fabricating the pintle and rudder strap. 

[felixx]

This is just as cool as @ThePog building the dynafari imho!

[dmulally]

9 minutes ago, felixx said:

This is just as cool as @ThePog building the dynafari imho!

Speaking of... here is the Dynafari holding the new mast and sail for my whaler. 

It's 25% smaller sail area but was 75% cheaper than new. I'm doing a raid via Picton ferry to collect it on Friday. 

 

[dmulally]

Went and grabbed the mast and sail from the South Island. Was a pretty smooth trip apart from the coppers pulling me over 10 mins into the journey to check out the uterus. 

Nice guy but he was supposed to have a sensible chuckle rather than burst out laughing when I wound down the window to ask if I were speeding. 

Also picked up some throttle controls for the outboard. I thought I was buying one but apparently I bought the lot. So if anybody needs one sing out. 

[cubastreet]

You don't have too many controls, you have too few boats

[dmulally]

Today I got the bow roller holder thingy glued on. I don't even have a bow roller yet so it's a bit of a wait and see what happens. I still have to properly shape it yet so Ill do that when I have the roller. There is a gentle upward curve on the bow that the piece I put on doesnt have. 

The thing to the right of the tabernacle is an off cut from making the false stem. For now it will provide a back stop for the coaming. I can always cut it down or perhaps it can provide a centering notch for any removable cabin top. 

Coming up next is the mizzen mast step which I'm going a little rogue from the plans but not by much I swear. Then shit loads of sanding and shaping the deck and epoxy coating it three times. 

[dmulally]

The mizzen mast step is in. The plans have it as a hole in the deck (with a doubler) to hardwood block in the bottom with a hole drilled in it for drainage. I did all that but rather than leave it at that I bonded in aluminium tube which is a couple mm over the mizzen mast diameter. 

I cut it all out and set the holes for the mast to be at the designed 9 degrees rake with a drainage hole in the bottom which should all run down and out of the outboard well hole in the floor. The mast step was coated with three thick coats of epoxy (still have to somehow paint it on the inside yet) and with the tube roughed up with a grinder and cleaned down with acetone. Not sure what I'll do with it yet but might paint it as it'll get dull fast if I polish it. Looks like a pretty sweet exhaust as it sits now. 

Now to get onto faring the deck to the planking and cover it in glass at the bow and just epoxy everywhere else on the top deck. 

 

 

 

[dmulally]

So much sanding. I still need to do more shaping on the inwale but have thus far concentrated on where the rub rails will go.

A lot of people epoxy their rub rails on but I'll just be screwing mine on as although they'll be steam bent hard wood, they'll also be bashing up against docks, trailers, somalian pirate vessels etc so I'll probably consider changing them in my lifetime. Silicon bronze screws into the top stringer it shall be. If I were gluing it on I would just leave the join on the top plank as it is as the thickened epoxy is really good at filling gaps, but this way I'll do it properly. There was quite the discrepancy between the top plank and the decking in places so I put a layer of thickened epoxy around the entire outside and in places used sellotape to help hold the shape to the top plank. 

It came out ok and only a couple of spots need more filler which I can do today at lunch. Then it's onto the inwales to give the curves some better symmetry from side to side whilst leaving enough room for the outboard to rise and fall easily. 

[dmulally]

I spent probably too much time cutting the inwale to match the outer shape of the top decks and there isn't too much different but it is less straight. When it comes time to put the coaming on I'll take it a little more seriously. I don't think it is far off however. It did require a few changes to the stringer thingies but nothing too drastic and I didnt have to build a new steam box. Of which I need to do for the coaming. 

Before:

After:

This weekend has two jobs to do. One is to coat the top decking in three coats of epoxy with cloth around any spots I'll be using to stand on. 

The other is to make the hole in the rear planking for the mizzen boom which is called a boomkin for some reason. 

So far I'm one coat deep in the deck coating and it'll be a case of going out there every now and again to feel for it being tacky but not too wet or dry to do the next coat. If I miss the window I have to wait a day and give it a light scuff. 

 

[keltik]

I've seen reference to a 'bumkin' in the racing rules (while researching ways to bend them) and wondered WTF it was.

So does this design have a mizzen boom which is sheeted to the bumkin or does the sail sheet directly to the bumkin with no boom?

[dmulally]

 

This is the standard sail plan for the mizzen and below is the boomkin and boomkin related pics for me to reference this weekend. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[dmulally]

So the boomkin hole is cut and I raided the spares bin for an old mast I had laying around to mock up a boomkin. Thing is I quite like it so I might use it until I make a new main mast with larger sail plan etc. 

It has this cool copper plate that helps me line it up to the slot to install it through the plank which has a hardwood doubler on the inside. There were a few hairline cracks forming so I wrapped it with cloth and thickened epoxy. It's sitting in primer and I'll have to hand sand it smooth yet as it has only been planed and power sanded so far. I also have to put a tapered hole in the peg to hold it in place through the bulkhead. 

The plans have it going down to a finer point at the end but whatever. Next on the vagenda is to sand the shit out of the planks before flipping it over hopefully next weekend.