Wrapping Things Up

I wanted to start on the sail today, but it was a perfect day to do some burning. I had a bunch of brush to burn plus scrap wood and the temporary worktable/bench that I had made out of the pallet that the plywood came on. I cut it into a few pieces with a skill saw and lit it up. Burn, baby, burn.

I've set aside the entire day tomorrow to sew on the main sail. We'll see how it goes.

Tiller Extension

I've known that I was going to have to make a tiller extension sometime. Not a big project, but a necessary one. I knocked it out in a couple afternoons.

Before I put the tiller on the boat, I marked my bench top with its curve. I screwed down some small blocks, cut three strips of 1/4” ply 3/4” wide by 30” long, and glued them up. Once cured, I routed the edges with a 1/4” roundover bit, did some final sanding and voila: I have a strong extension. I’ll probably attach it with a piece of line or bungee cord and maybe some Velcro on the outer end. Hoping to do the sail this week. I ordered a few remaining pieces of hardware and line last night. I do have a big problem though. I discovered a huge issue with my house: HUGE. Trying to figure out if it can wait two weeks while I finish the boat. Me-o-me-o-my!

Couple Minor Things

We've been on a quick trip to Indianapolis. Got back this afternoon about 5:00. We ate some supper and I decided to fiddle with the boat.

I finished the mast step and tried to fit the boomkin. It was binding in the transom, so I took my rough file and worked a few of the edges and sanded a side of the boomkin that was "dragging". I also sanded the bottom edge of the boomkin so it would slide into the strap. It fits nicely now with just a bit of friction which it's supposed to have.

Then I took a look at the swing room for the rudder. I knew it was hitting a bit when I attached the rudder. A couple shavings with the chisel and she can swing a full arc now.

I'll need to do a little touchup painting but that will be easy.

 

Mizzen Mast

I've been laying low for the past week. Robin and I wore ourselves out doing 3 parties and the reveal in four days. However, there are several things yet to do to finish the boat.

Monday afternoon I went to work on the mizzen mast step. I cut out four small squares of ply and cut holes in each to match the diameter of the end of the mast. Then I did a trial fit before gluing them in. I used ratchet straps to position the mast in the correct orientation and rake. I just "eye-balled". That'll be good enough for me.

I did make sure it was aligned with the main mast. I think I got that one pretty straight as blogged earlier.

Here's a pic of the three straps holding it in place. 

Here's one showing the four blocks of ply being glued up. I wrapped the end of the mast in clear plastic wrap so it wouldn't stick. I was a little apprehensive about the method. The weather was quite cool, so the epoxy was a lot longer curing. In fact, after about 14 hours it was still tacky to the touch. That might have been good as I was able to get the mast out of the step. I will probably have to sand the end down slightly for an easy fit. 

I should post a pic of the step. I'll try to get that later. 

Here ya go:

It's not the prettiest thing on the boat, but it should do the trick. I may fill in those gaps at the back and side with some thickened epoxy.

The BIG REVEAL!

What a week! 30+ hours of work on the boat and trailer capped off by the BIG REVEAL! As some of you may know, I am a pastor and I wanted to let my church in on the big day.

I finished the week installing the rudder and tiller. I think they look right. I may have to shave the tiller slot a little bit to allow for a fuller range of motion, but that should be easy enough. 

Sunday was the big day. When I returned home from the a.m. service and lunch, I had to clean up the boat which was simply a matter of getting a few leaves out, vacuuming up some dirt and saw dust and wiping the inside down a little. I came up with the needed ratchet straps, two for the mast and two for the hull. I secured the bow eye to the trailer with one and the mast to the stands with two others. I wrapped the oars and mizzen mast in sheets and tied them to the thwart and aft stand. I loaded the daggerboard and boomkin into the SUV. Lastly, I applied the two sets of the name of the boat to the cove stripe and covered them with heavy white paper to be hidden until the set time. Then I had to jockey a boat and another trailer around. I moved the Hunter to the street, the utility trailer off to the side and hooked up the CIY.

By then it was time to go to church. My wife and I pulled out of the driveway and headed to church. Oops! I forgot to secure the hull to the trailer with the fourth ratchet strap! A half mile down the road I made a quick U-turn and went back home to take care of that. Once we got to church I set up the boat on the lawn behind the church ready for the big reveal. 

My wife and daughters decorated the fellowship hall very nicely in a nautical theme and set up for a "tailgate" style light supper of hotdogs and chili, chips, cookies and soda. You can see the boat in the background. 

All of the suggested boat names for the boat are on the pennants draped along the wall. 

Here I am ready to reveal the boat's name. We had let the church members offer their suggestions for boat names and we got some good ones: New Kidd on the Dock, Out to Pastor, Almost Heaven and more. We even got some funny ones like Breaking Wind - LOL! I did not guarantee that I was going to use one of their names, but, in the end, I did. 

And the name is........... (drum roll)

Perhaps you've heard of the "Jesus boat" which is the nickname that's been given to a boat excavated near the Sea of Galilee that dates to the time of Jesus, well, now there is the "Disciple Ship". I kinda like it. 

The evening went well and people liked the boat. I think it showed well. Here she is put to bed.

There are a few minor things that I need to finish on the boat and then there is the mainsail to build along with setting up the rigging. My goal is to have a launch by Thanksgiving! Let's get 'er done!

Devil's in the Details

I believe Thursday will go down as the longest day spent on the boat thus far. I lost track but I'm guessing I spent at least 10 hours if not more on the boat. On what? The DETAILS! 

I started by lining up all my hardware with the appropriate boat parts. Then I went out to the boat and attached my two brass cleats to the forward bulkhead tabs. They will serve to tie off the line that I have running underneath the inwale. I also attached four strap eyes on the four bulkhead tabs which will give me a place to hook two ratchet straps to hold the mast down while in transport. The aft ones will also give me a place to tie off my mainsheet bridle. 

Next I tackled the deck plates. I soon realized that I had bought screws that were too short. Ugh! That meant I'd be making another trip to the hardware store. No big deal really because I discovered I was going to need some other things anyway. 

About that time Robin and I decided it was a good time to make a shopping run. We went to two hardware stores shopping for more hardware, got lunch and stopped at two grocery stores and two big box stores. We returned home around 2:00 and I immediately went back to work and worked until 8:25. I stood the mast up to see how it looked. It appears to be slightly out of plumb. Ugh!!!! That's my M-O: never plumb, level or square - no matter how hard I try. Oh, well. Can't fix it now. Maybe somehow I can straighten it up. May not matter a whole lot. The boat is seldom level anyway - LOL. 

I installed the mast gate. In order to do that, I had to cut to length and drill holes in two pieces of brass flat bar that I  had ordered and do the same with a piece of aluminum flat bar. I attached the brass and will save the aluminum for later. The gate is ok, but not a perfect fit. Oh, well - again. 

I attached my oar locks. In the process I inadvertently reversed the screws on one side. I switched them. The smaller ones still seemed tight. They were actually the same size just one shorter that the other. Didn't make that mistake on the other one. I sat in the boat with an oar and used a suggested method for locating the locks. I attached them two hand lengths in front of the thwart. It felt good so I went with it. 

Around 8:30 we made another run to the store. We stopped at three stores: Academy Sports for 50' of 3/16" rope for my tie off line and the two big box stores for more hardware. I think I'm still missing at least one bolt that I need. Not gonna make a special trip for that one.

I went back to work at 9:30 and stayed outside 'til after midnight. I finished the deckplate buttons, tied in the tie-off line and then went under the house to work on the rudder. I made good progress and should be able to hang it in the morning along with installing the drain plug. Both of those items will require some 3M 4200. I'll also affix the tiller to the rudder, howbeit without the one bolt I'm missing. 

Here are a few pics of the mast up and tied to a cleat.

The boat is about ready for the big reveal on Sunday night at church, but there is still much to be done before launching. 

Update: That mast thing has bothered me since I looked at it. Today I took a closer look. The trailer is not level and the boat is not quite sitting on the trailer level. I took a straight board and laid it across the gunnel and set a drywall T square on the board. Eyeballing it again it looks pretty close - maybe off 1 or 2" in nearly 17'. I can live with that.

Trailer Done

I finished the trailer refit today. Boy, has it been a long two days! I'm logging 13 hours for the last two days but it may actually be a little more than that. I took some vacation time so that I can get the boat ready for the "Big Reveal" at church this Sunday night. The boat will not be done but I do want it to show well.

Today I installed the last two bunks, the trailer winch and the jack stand. The bunks took four tries to get it right. The fit was so tight I had to really figure out to get it in with the parts that I had. I wound up putting them near the outside of the trailer frame within a "Y" at the outer edge. 

One thing I noticed today: the boat is not level on the trailer. Ugh! I had my suspicions with the aft bunks not being of equal height. Same happened with the front ones. I had "eyeballed" the trailer from the rear. Looked close. After doing the bunks, I looked at it from the front: obviously off. I'm not going to make a big deal of it right now, but imagine that I'll want to correct that at some point. 

I also installed the winch today. It required a good bit of effort. The thing is super heavy and awkward to handle and the post was too big for the u-bolts. I took my granddaddy's old big hammer and pounded on it for a while and made it fit!

I also installed the bow eye. It was barely long enough to go through the inner and outer stems. I'll have to go back and add some 3M 4200 before I take her out on the water. I have a tube but I have to use it within 24 hours of opening. I'll wait until I have several things to do at once. 

And here's the jack stand. It's like brand new. The guy I bought the trailer from must have liked me because he threw in the winch and stand at the last minute for no extra money. Two big ticket items. 

Now it's on to the hardware. I did make a stop at Lowes this afternoon so I'll be ready to go with that part of the project. 

Boat on Trailer!

Sunday afternoon we moved the boat to the trailer! What a milestone! One of the last ones except of course the launch!

I had to put the carpet on the plank, but that wasn't too big a deal. 

We weren't able to move it until after the evening church service, so we did it in the dark. Here she it:

Today I spent seven hours (that's right - 7 HOURS!) working on the trailer bunks and supports. What a grueling task. It took 3 hours to do the back two bunks. After lunch I worked on the front ones and never got them done. I'm up to plan "D". Will try that tomorrow. I think it will work. I did manage to get a forward support installed. Trying to do this on the cheap so I used what I had. I thought that would be easy but everything I did was wrong! Ugh! Finally got it together, but the the roller doesn't role. I may try to loosen up the blocks of wood so that it will. The blocks are too close together. Another layer of plywood between the blocks and the tongue should fix that. 

We'll see how these work. They really done have to carry any weight. They just keep the boat upright. The aft ones are between the aft bulkhead and first floor timber so it should be fairly strong. The second ones are right at the midship frame so they too should be sturdy. The adjustments to the plank seem to be about right. I think I have a good bit of contact from the skeg up to the daggerboard slot. I think I'm going to be ok. I'll certainly give the arrangement a test drive before any serious travel. 

I need to install the winch post and winch and then the jack stand, then I'll be finished the trailer for a while (I hope). 

 

Trailer & Boat Prep

I'm hoping to put the boat on the trailer tomorrow (Sunday). Today I spent the afternoon/evening doing final prep work for that move. 

First, I went about getting some measurements on the shape of the boats bottom. It is not going to sit flat on the trailer plank. I wanted to see where the pressure points would be and if I could spread the load around. I wound up making two wedges to take up what would be "air space" if not filled. Hopefully these will give the bottom more direct contact with the plank on the trailer. They taper from about 1/2" to 0" for one and from 11/16" to 1/8" for the other. I had hoped to get a little more done but ran out of daylight.

I also felt like I needed to get the aluminum runners on the bottom of the boat. Once it's on the trailer that would be tough. I'd like to keep those sacrificial wooden strips from getting scraped up and eventually rotting. Hoping this will help.  A lot of people use brass but that's mucho mulla! There are four pieces.

I've picked up some indoor/outdoor carpet. It shouldn't take but a few minutes to cut it and tack it to the trailer plank tomorrow before we put the boat on it. I don't have the bunks done, but that can come on Monday. I'll also have to jockey my boats and trailers around before moving the boat.