New Bottom

Finisterra was hauled out of the water the day before yesterday to get fresh bottom paint and have some other minor work done. This is the first time Ive had a chance to inspect the bottom carefully and I was pleased to find it in generally good shape. The bottom paint is still in reasonably good condition except for a few small spots on the keel where the paint has been rubbed off. The painters will sand and prime those areas and shell receive two coats of Pettit Trinidad before she goes back in the water next week.

Beneteau 423 Deep Keel

A couple of observations regarding the design of the boat that are not apparent when shes in the water:
The keel is made of cast iron and weighs about 5,569 pounds. My rough calculations indicate that about 40% of its weight is in the bulb at the bottom of the keel. The bulb is about 16" wide at its thickest and fairs into a very thin fin section. I took some basic dimensions and discovered that the fin is about 3" thick at the thickest point with a chord length of 64", for a thickness ratio of  .047 or 4.7%.  The top 8 or 10 inches of the fin fair out to a beefy and wide hull/keel joint. So, if we disregard the bulb and the thickened area at the hull/keel joint, the actual lift generating part of the keel is about 36" high by 64" long, with a thickness ratio of 4.7% and an aspect ratio of .56. I wont go into a technical discussion of keel design here but I would love to hear the designer explain his reasoning behind these numbers.  It would have been a simple matter to design a much more efficient keel using the same amount of material and draft for exactly the same amount of money, so I wonder what the designer was thinking when he or she designed it.

Cast iron fin keel. 

Note how thin this keel is. Racing keels have thickness ratios roughly twice the 4.7% of this one.

So what conditions would this keel work best under? Well, itll never generate much lift on the upwind legs and it sports too much wetted surface and parasitic drag to be much good in light air. It will probably work best broad reaching and running in medium conditions. Our experience sailing the boat certainly bears that out. With all that said, if any of you B423 owners out there want to improve your boats performance, swapping out the keel would be a quick and effective way to go.

How about the rudder? There have been times when weve pressed the boat pretty hard on a reach and the spade rudder has proven to be up to the task of steering her in a straight line. Of course the boat can be pushed hard enough to round up in a breeze but it gives plenty of warning and it rounds up in a predictable manner. There is nothing special about the shape of the rudder. It is a bit over-balanced for my taste, meaning that under power if you let go of the wheel, the rudder will slam  hard over to port or starboard quickly. Im not pleased by this, but the excess "balance" of the rudder makes helm loads pretty minimal when under sail. This means that you can sail the boat with little pressure on the wheel and the autopilot never has to work very hard under sail. I suppose this is a good trade-off, but I prefer a perfectly balanced helm. The rudder stock is vertical and rides in a set of bushings. From a purely hydrodynamic point of view, a vertical stock is more efficient than a radically angled one. In most boats the upper rudder bearing or bushing is mounted to the underside of the deck but Beneteau has chosen to build the entire rudder support system into the hull only. On my last boat, a Beneteau 36s7,  this structure was made of a fiberglass cone about 36" high glassed to the hull with the upper bearing mounted at the top of it. It was a bit disconcerting to see the top of  the cone moving around as the boat sailed in anything other than flat seas. Finisterra has a similar arrangement except that the cone has been replaced by a set of longitudinal and transverse bulkheads which appear to do a better job of resolving all the loads imparted by the rudder. At least I have not been able to see any movement of the assembly while underway. I cant say Im a big fan of this method for securing the rudder stock but from a purely structural point of view it works. The main disadvantage is that this arrangement is heavy and takes up a lot of space.

Slipstream Stainless Steel Propeller

Three blade folding prop is a vast improvement over the standard fixed prop. Notice the small collar type zinc. In our harbor these things need replacement about every six weeks. 

The hull shape itself is very respectable. Its not a particularly beamy boat and the waterlines forward are finer than I expected, while the stern sections are fairly broad. the U-shaped sections forward are about what youd expect and there is no doubt that the 423 will pound a bit when motoring into a head sea. Once again, I think thats a reasonable trade-off for good performance reaching and running.

I was glad to find minimal play in the rudder when I grabbed hold of it and pushed from side to side. My guesstimate is about 1/8 inch in each direction. Overall, I think the hull and appendages are in good shape for our upcoming voyage. The fresh bottom paint should last a couple of years in the tropics.

Mounting the instruments in the cockpit required moving the rope hangers outboard. 

I mounted instrument brackets in the companionway too. I plan to build a removable seat that will fit in the companionway recess. Its a perfect place to be on cold or rainy watches. 

While the boat is out of the water I replaced the speed and depth sensors. Awhile back I bought a Tacktick T104 instrument package for the boat but have not been able to complete the installation of the system until the boat was hauled and I could change the sensors. Now well be able to use the Tackticks for speed, depth, wind, VMG, etc. By the way, out of curiosity I measured the thickness of the hull laminate in this area. Using dial calipers which I was just able to fit through the hole, it measured .66".

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New Periwinkle Launched

Graham Faulkner has launched his Periwinkle named Entropy. She is the first Periwinkle to to carry the gaff-headed Cat rig, and here is Grahams initial report: -

Hello Ross, Well finally she was launched. I picked a dead calm day and put her in at Poona, very light steering as we sailed out into a 5kn n.e drifter, perfect manners. Helm response was good, and pointing ability appears great., Tried out the 3.5 hp outboard and speed was impessive. Now out in the straits we could see quite a storm building from the south so we hoped for say 10-15 to give her a try on the shakedown. Well we had that and more.probably 20 but with little chop as the conditions immediately prior were calm.

On all points sailed well but I was not comfortable running square. Quite a bit of rudder pressure and the boom [loose foot] looked like it may sky so I backed off and ran a full shy. Also grannied rather than jybed in the 20knts. Mast bent at the head maybe 2" but the sail shape was generally good apart from a modification I will make at the throat [need to cut a bit out]. No indication of wanting to bury the bow although my crew and self were well aft.

Q. I need to find a way to slide the sail up and down the mast. At the moment I lace it on but that would be far to slow in the event of an emergency sail drop. Also difficult at sea standing on the foredeck. Any suggestions.

A friend on a cruising yacht took plenty of photos but they will take while to get back so for now a back yard photo and a sail down retrieval photo in the weather. More later  

Here is my initial reply: -

Dear Graham,

Thanks very much indeed for the photos and for the report.

To answer your question I would suggest mast hoops as the first option (either made from laminated timber, or made from rope like a quoit), with them being loose enough for the sail to always drop reliably. If that doesnt appeal to you, then Id use a diagonal lacing pattern which automatically loosens off as the halyard is released.

There are two systems I know of which work well - see attached files. The pdf file is two pages out of Harold Paysons book, "Build the New Instant Boats" in which he describes a lacing method promoted by Phil Bolger. It works really well, but takes a bit of setting up.

The jpeg is a sketch I just did to explain the other method. Note that the diagonal lacing always comes back on the same side as it came around. You would expect it to pull the luff into a zig-zag shape, but it doesnt.

Regarding the downwind manners, the first thing Id look into would be a vang, although that is an additional complication in the rig, and may cause problems fouling the side decks. N.G. Herreshoff used to use a diagonal sprit set between the mast and the boom to form a sort of vang that worked in compression rather than tension, using a snotter to provide the compression. I notice that they use similar systems these days on ocean racers, but the struts are hydralically controlled.

Periwinkle is a small boat, despite her length, and Id be thinking about reefing for downwind work in those conditions. Lazy jacks and a jiffy reefing system make that sort of sail easy to reef, once you get the hang of it. By the way, with a narrow boat and a free-standing rig, it is absoloutely vital that the head of the sail is not allowed to swing out to more than 90 degrees to the centreline of the boat. If the head of the sail swings forward of the beam, you will quickly get out of control in what is called the "Death Roll". What hapens is that the head of the sail drives the boat over to windward, and it quickly leads to loss of control. I used to sail a Finn in competition, and if the head of the sail went forward of the beam it meant an instant capsise - it was over before you even knew it was starting! With an easily-driven hull like Periwinkle, you dont need much sail to make her get up to quite high speed in the sort of winds that you described. Reefing is the key.

Im really looking forward to more photos if you get the chance, but in the meantime, I strongly suggest that you try one or other of the luff systems Ive mentioned, and that you stay off the foredeck - as soon as she gets weight up forrard and up high like that, she will be quite unstable because of her fine forrard sections. However, those same fine sections make her a relatively dry, easily-driven, and soft-riding boat.

Cheers,
Ross Lillistone   www.baysidewoodenboats.com.au

This my rough sketch for Graham

More when information comes to hand

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New Francois Vivier designed Yawl with Clint Chase

Francois Vivier and Clint Chase are busy designing a new dayboat/weekender. This has been a fun collaboration and we have a lot more work to do. By this time next year, it is planned that we will be building this boat in our shop for our family use and for showing in 2012. Francoiss boats are designed with a CAD-CAM approach, meaning the drawings are done in the computer, files are generated, and these files can be used to do CNC cutting of all the drawn boat parts, such as bulkheads, molds, and planking. Some of the design requirements were:

· To be trailerable by an ordinary car, and therefore light, and be able to beach temporarily for loading/unloading.

· To have a large, wide and deep cockpit, comfortable, allowing for fishing and a place where children could be safe.

· To have a stable hull for family sailing but give excellent performance for weekend sails “with the guys”.

· To have a cuddy cabin, with a toilet for women and children, a small galley to heat some meals and two berths to spend a night or two on board, or for napping.

What I am most excited about is getting my kids out sailing again.

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A new rig for a Goat Island Skiff Spruce for Roger Longs Yawl Dory and more Birdsmouth Masts and Spars

The finished mast and spars delivered and stepped into John Goodmans Goat Island Skiff Yawl #1 in Houston, TX. John does the Texas 200 in a few weeks!

To find good spruce you need to go right to the source. I enjoyed some wonderful walking with a customer who is having a Yawldory by Roger Long, N.A., built and wanted the Spruce for the spars, masts, and oars (my job) to come from her friends land. We walked (i.e., bushwacked) and tagged a few nice Spruce trees.

 

Birdsmouth Masts under construction for a Michael Storer Goat Island Skiff. With Michaels blessing, Clint drew a yawl rig for the boat.

 

Varnishing the Sitka Spruce/Northern White Spruce Birdsmouth mast allows the grain of the Sitka to deepen and develop the contrasting lighter-colored Northern White Spruce. You get some of the benefits of Sitka for half the cost by mixing it with the local spruce we get hear in Maine and Canada.

The two masts are for the Goat Island Skiff, a birdsmouth on the left and a hollow-rectangular mast on the right. The mast on right is a customers that I took in to check for chafing and leathered the chafed areas to prevent more.

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NEW! Drake 19

On the Drawing Board

New Drake 19 for tandem rowing, cruising and expeditions

For Fixed Seat or Sliding Seat Rowing

This new version of the Drake Rowboat -- my first design/build project -- really combines all that I have learned as a designer and rower and builder over the years. She is intended with the following brief:

-- fast, stable cruising rowboat

--capacity for two people and gear

--fixed or sliding seat capable

--can sleep aboard on platform under a tent 

--sailing downwind is possible

Drake 19 modeled in Rhino

An important aspect of the boat is its simple sliding seat system : 7/8" o.d. stainless steel pipes run for and aft with 15" of separation on center. The pipes are integrate into the CNC cut structure. A plywood seat-roller floats over these pipes. Any oarlock system can be used, including leathered-round oars, Douglas oarloacks, C2 oarlocks, or the folding outriggers by Shaw and Tenney. However, I think for voyaging in open water that oar-on-gunwale will be the best way, using traditionally leathered oars in horn-oarlocks or to go with pinned oars. I do think 9-9 1/2 oars would be fine for experienced rowers, using folding outriggers to get the spread for the longer oars.

Midship section of the Drake 19 showing the sliding seat system.

The floorboards are show both sitting on the inner keel as floors and raised up and sitting on the pipes to make an over 8 long sleeping platform that finishes flush with the side tanks. These side tanks double as a sleeping platform and as flotation, making the boat self-rescuable in a capsize. 

Keep posted for 3D work which starts very soon.

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New Video of Phoenix III

This video was shot last Tuesday by Paul Hernes, using a camera mount above the transom of his Phoenix III. The conditions were quite light, and Paul was doing a good job of harassing Rich Sutton in his Welsford Navigator until a channel marker got in the way.

 Paul was using a Joel White Poohduck Skiff rig on his boat. As far as Im aware, Paul has three separate rigs for Phoenix III, and uses them interchangeably, as was the idea when I drew the multiple rig arrangement for the design.

Here is a photo of Pauls experimental Poohduck Skiff rig. The sail area is small, but Paul is a light-weight and he seems to like the rig.

The original Poohduck Skiff built by Rick Sutton...

...and the same rig set on Pauls Phoenix III

Phoenix III is a versatile boat, and being relatively small, experimenting with rigs costs very little.

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New Website Currently on the steep side of the learning curve

For those of you who may have subscribed to the new website, I have an uncomfortable feeling that you may have been deluged with "New Posts" as I have been progressing with the process of learning the new software characteristics.  If so, please accept my sincere apologies.

The good news is that Im reading and experimenting diligently, and progress is starting to take place. I hope to get the Designs section and the embryo Shop looking more professional in a few days.

Concurrently, Im working on the construction of a new mast for a customer, and it promises to be a major step forward in home-workshop-buildable masts and other spars, without the need to cut Birds Mouth profiles. Many people dont understand that very small errors in the setting-up of the saw or router for Birds Mouth staves can have a huge effect on the diameter of the finished spar. Also, unless you have a very well arranged table-saw or router table, the potential for disaster is substantial...

They say that, ..pride comes before you end up with mud on your face..., but Im quietly confident that the prototype mast Im making will be faster, safer, and easier to build, and will have one REALLY substantial advantage over a Birds Mouth spar in that the wall thickness as a percentage of spar diameter will remain constant over the length of the mast. In the case of a Birds Mouth mast, the wall thickness (in percentage terms) increases as the mast tapers towards the tip - so much so that many masts become effectively solid towards the tip - not what is wanted at all! We need to keep masts light - especially as we go higher.

More to come when I get through this website business.

Ive got a number of boats under construction or repair, but design will dominate before too long.

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New kits Old kits More kits!

New and Updated Kits

Calendar Islands Yawl under construction
Updated Deer Isle Koster (KDI) kits being cut out West

The CIY hull#1 is being expertly built in Duluth and everything is looks really good. The boat has been set up and planking has started.

The building jig set up was all CNC cut and self-jigging. In a post on the Wooden Boat Forum about the CIY project, the builder says "I have the distinct sense of the boat building itself" as he assembled the building jig and is not planking within 10 days time working on the side.

Here is the boat so far, all photos courtesy of Jim Levang, builder and owner of hull #1.

The building jig set up. All parts are CNC cut.

The stem, bulkheads, centerboard trunk, and transom all set up. They were all CNC cut.

Bottom and garboards attached!

But thats not all! You can also get the updated KDI. This model is not my own design, but drawn originally by Bruce Elfstrom, friend, fellow designer, and small boat guru from Connecticut who plays with boats, particularly Scandinavian type boats on the side. I have done a lot of new design work with the help of three builders of hull #3, 4, and 5. Photos below courtesy of Frank Stauss in New Jersey. He looks to be doing a fabulous job. 

New Jersey KDI.

NJ KDI.

The Deblois Street Dory is getting a few tweaks to the building jig set up to facilitate building and then two kits will be cut. Finally, the last project will be to finish the Drake 19, a new model. A bit of a line up is forming there for this kit. Everything is on track to be done by the end of May. Then I am going rowing and sailing, dang it!

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New Boat CIY 16

The Calendar Islands Yawl 16

A Sail-and-Oar Dinghy for one or two people

The CIY 16 began as a 19 x 6 1/2-foot daysailer design with a deck and coaming with a bit of Herreshoff flavor. A friend who sails the Goat Island Skiff design by Michael Storer wanted a similar boat -- singlehanding, lightweight, lug rigged sail-and-oar dinghy -- but with a hull shape more amenable to Maine waters. I immediately thought of my CIY lines that I had drawn years ago and that had been sitting untouched and in need of inspiration. I had already put the lines into the computer so I scaled them down and reworked them to make this hull. The specs are:

LOA 15 1/2

Beam 5 1"

Displacement ~522lbs

Depth amidships 19"

DWL is 310" x 132"

Cp is 0.54

The hull has a wide plank keel for rolling the boat up and down the beach. The skeg is there for tracking under oars, but the cutaway allows the stern to come through the wind when tacking. The lines are fairly straight forward and full aft. In a breeze she will plane. Yet trimmed on her DWL, the transom is out of the water and the stem is in the water and shell row fine with 10 oars so long as we keep her light. Construction will be 1/4" plywood: bottom and garboard stitch and glue style, with lapstrake sides, about 5 strakes total for topsides.

Its always fun designing something really new. The next steps are to put in all the planks in the model so look forward to that post. Ill be looking for someone to prototype the boat. Let me know if you are interested. Stay tuned!

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Finisterras New Canvas

Before we bought Finisterra it was named "The Cats Meow". The previous owner had proudly applied that name in eight inch tall letters on each side of the hull.  And just to make sure there was no mistaking the name of the boat, he had lots of cats paws applied to the hull in strategic locations on the bow, around the name and across the transom. The boat looked like a big cat had walked up the bow, along the sides of the hull and across the transom before disappearing back into a surrealistic cat dream. It really did look like a cat lovers dream boat.  It only took me a couple of days of sitting in the sun with a heat gun and putty knife to get the name and all those cat prints off.

The dodger and bimini on The Cats Meow were a faded shade of green and were at the end of their useful life when we bought the boat. I like the color green, and I like cats.  But I cant say I like green cats or green dodgers, so the day we bought her we knew wed soon replace the green with new cadet gray canvas. The job is just about complete and we are quite pleased with it.

New Dodger

Its always an interesting experience to design a dodger for a boat. In this case, the stainless steel framework was already installed and was in good condition. The challenge was to use the existing frame to redesign the dodger so it meets our specific needs. I like to be able to see over the dodger from the helm and Lisa doesnt like to have to duck under it. Since Im about seven inches taller than her I was able to adjust the height to accommodate us perfectly. This involved lowering it about three inches by cutting a little off the frames and adjusting the angles of them a bit.

I think most of the dodgers I see around my marina are too tall and clunky looking, which is surprising since virtually all dodgers are custom made. I am also of the opinion that most of the time, the person who designs the dodger gives little consideration to the aesthetic effect of the dodger on the overall look of the boat. I understand that their primary purpose is to provide protection from wind and spray but Im not prepared to sacrifice style for the minimal added protection of a taller dodger. So, perfectionist that I am, I took dimensions and photographs and made CAD drawings of the whole thing superimposed on the profile of the boat and puttered around with it until I was satisfied with it. Then I adjusted the angles of the frames this way and that until I had it all just so. When all that was done, I passed this information on to Dan at Harbor Custom Canvas in Long Beach and he, being a master dodger builder, converted it into reality. We had them build the dodger on our last boat and found their workmanship and service to be excellent in all respects then, and they did another outstanding job on the Finisterra.

Lots of Strataglass for good visibility, a full length grab rail and a zippered roll-up section amidships

I chose Strataglass over vinyl because it doesnt wrinkle, its very clear and its durable. Strataglass is also flexible enough to allow for the roll-up center section, which is very valuable in the tropics. Notice that the corners of the glass are radiused instead of sharp. I like the look of this design better and as an engineer and designer, I have always associated sharp corners with stress risers.

New bimini

Our boat came with a bimini mounted to the stern pulpits. The original was about four inches higher than the new one. My goals in lowering it were threefold.  A lower bimini is structurally more stable, presents less windage and is better looking. It actually provides more shade than the old one because it is about four inches longer and the low height helps put the shade where its needed instead of off to one side or the other when the sun is at an angle instead of directly overhead, which is virtually all the time.

We had snaps fitted to the sides and back, and a zipper on the forward side. These are for side curtains and a filler piece that connects the dodger to the bimini and provides shade over the entire cockpit. The side curtains will be made of polypropylene mesh and will attach to the top rails of the pulpits and lifelines. The mesh is fairly see-through and lets the breeze pass through as well.

This view gives a sense of the proportions of the dodger and bimini

Dodger + filler + bimini = comfortable cockpit

Notice that the bimini extends the full width of Finisterras ample stern. The extra shade this provides becomes more important south of the Tropic of Cancer. It isnt visible in any of the photos but I had Dan weld a grab rail onto the aft side of the bimini similar to the one on the dodger. Its fairly handy as a grab rail, but its the perfect place to put the solar panels. On our last boat I mounted them on the aft end of the bimini and made them adjustable so that I could angle them toward the sun. Thats the next project I have planned for Finisterra.

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New Website in Development

I will continue to post updates at this blog, but I apologize for links not working, etc. A new website is in development and will hopefully have a better way to shop not to mention a nice showcase for the boats! 

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New Stitch and Glue Dinghy

Congrats to Barbara Simon, the new owner of the Willard Beach Dory (WBD), a new stitch-and-glue dory skiff drawn by Roger Long who has retired and is off cruising. Roger left behind a few gorgeous designs for me to kit and market as new boats, the (WBD) being one of them. The others are the YawlDory and a 16 Herreshoff-like double paddle canoe, which is a thing of beauty and may be the only paddle boat I end up putting in the catalog.

The WBD is out of 6mm plywood and will be rowed in and around Casco Bay. Shed be an ideal tender being light, maneuverable and a good load carrier. The oars are our custom spoon blade oars with high quality 14" leathers by Swanson Boat Company.

Stitch and Glue is a quick way to get a boat, but this project was a reminder that this type of construction can take longer than one thinks if you try to get a yachty finish: hiding the fiberglass tape and fillets takes some fairing. With lapstrake, there is a clean plank line to follow. However, the S and G structure is light and strong and relatively inexpensive as kits go.

What other S and G designs do people like that are not available as kits and should be?

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New baysidewoodenboats com au Website almost up

For several days now, the skeleton of my new website has been up and running.

This has been a longtime coming, mainly because of my relative ignorance of things to do with computers and IT.

 My previous website was brought into existence to give people access to the vast number of construction and rigging photos which I have available, and to save me the costs and, primarily, the time involved in sending repetitive emails to enquirers needing help and illustrations - a picture being worth a thousand words, Im told...

Because of my general ignorance of matters relating to computers, I decided to use the most simple of programs, even though many people had told me it was out-of-date. That program was Microsoft FrontPage 2003, and it has served my very well indeed. I was able to follow the simple templates, and before long, I had a website which was simple to navigate (lots of basic buttons on the left-hand side of each page) and allowed me to put up many expandable-thumbnail galleries.

Despite my lack of computer knowledge, and scant knowledge of graphic design, the amateurish website has pulled in an average of between 2.7 and 3.4 million hits per annum for many years. That is page hits, by the way, not numbers of visits - but still not bad.

The new website, which is WordPress based, will display better on mobile devices, will support a shopping cart, will interface with social media (another thing I know almost nothing about), and will incorporate this blog and lots of other things - including, hopefully, a forum. That way YOU can be involved.

For those of you who have already subscribed, please be patient. I will be having a meeting with the website developer, (Julie from  http://www.360results.com.au/) on Wednesday, February 4, and that is when control of the site will be handed over to me for further action - at the moment I cant respond to subscriptions. Julie has done a great job, but has only had a few bits of content from my old website to use in filling out the page content. Once I have official control, and have learnt how to drive the site, Ill start filling up the pages.

In addition to a lot of videos and new plan information, I will be starting to run an on-line shop which will market fittings, books, boatbuilding supplies such as paint, plywood, fibreglass, fastenings, specialty glues, epoxy, and sails etc., etc., Because of my one-man-band status, the development will take a little time. As for the stock in the store, I will be partnering with a selection of very well-known companies, and the materials on offer with be of very high-quality. For overseas customers in particular, my plan sets will be available as instant PDF downloads in addition to the existing printed sets. Printed sets are nice, but the postage which I pay can be as high as AUD$36 for some of the plans. I dont charge that much, so it has a big impact on the viability of my chosen business.

Finally, I am in the process of up-grading my design software, which until now has been of the most basic type. Disregarding hull modelling, which I do in a combination of 3D modelling programs, carved half-models, and hand-drawn lines, my actual plans drawings are done individual line-by-individual line (i.e. manually) using a basic 2D CAD program - AutoDESK (the AutoCAD people) AutoSKETCH 9. Most of my plans contain between 16 and 32 sheets of A3 paper, plus illustrated instruction booklets of up to 70 pages, so the production of a set of saleable plans represents a HUGE investment of time.

My proposed path into the 21st century with regard to drafting should result in better plans presentation, and with luck, exploded diagrams of sub-assemblies.

So folks, thank-you for your patience and support over the years, and stand-by for a bit more action and communication!

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New Plywood Garvey Design

I have been working intermittently on a new 16ft design for awhile, the start of a range of small powerboats for protected water use. The design is still a way off being complete but the prototype is already being built by Kevin Agee in Hampton, Virginia and is progressing well.

I am using a garvey-type hull that can be easily built from either plywood or aluminium. It has Veed sections forward to soften the ride in a bit of a chop, with twisted bottom panels that run out to a shallow V at the transom for easy planing.

The version that Kevin is building has a self-draining wet deck with swivel seats on bases bolted to the deck. It has integral floodable tanks under the deck to hold bait and catch.There will also be a "sit-inside" version with bench seats, with the tanks under the seats.

Kevin is building from okoume plywood, cut from full-size paper patterns that we have supplied. When the design is complete then we will also offer plywood kits, cut by CNC machine. The photos below show the basics of construction as far as it has gone to date.

Bottom panels with slots for bulkhead tabs

Glass-taping joints in panels.

Bottom panels stitched together & bulkheads set up

Sides added and stitched to bottom

Foredeck added and stitched in.

Turned over and laid flat, ready to epoxy seams.

Now Kevin is doing the epoxy bonding of the chines and centreline joint with filled epoxy, prior to removing the copper wire ties, then glass-taping.

This design will be added to our design list in a few months when the plans are complete. See our current design list at http://dixdesign.com/priceabr.htm.

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