Gone Sailing

Point Judith is a nice place to sail from. You can head south and west to Long Island Sound or north and east to Narragansett Bay or the Elizabeth Islands. Summer is coming to a close so it is now or never if Sally and I are going to get a trip in this year. We have been out sailing several times including an overnighter in the Harbor of Refuge. I did a solo trip over to Block Island returning the same day, but I really wanted to do a multi day trip, cover a few miles and explore some new places. On one day trip in the Harbor of Refuge we spotted the intriguing shape of a small cat ketch. We came about and sailed over for a closer inspection and were pleased to recognize that it was Jeff and his two sons in his Core Sound 20. In a brief shouted exchange Jeff reported that they had just sailed in from Montauk. That was a 25 nm sail with a 15+ knot wind off their stern quarter. That would have made for an incredible 4 or 5 hour sleigh ride. Wow I've always wanted to go to Montauk. I shouted back.

 That was the nudge I needed. I started looking for a three day block of available time with a decent weather window. Then a menu and check list and finally packing the boat.

Sally is at the tiller sailing past Jerusalem on the way out of Point Judith Pond.

Wind NW 10-15 knots heading west along the Rhode Island coast toward Watch Hill. Watch Hill came into sight around noon about the same time the wind backed around to the West. This necessitated tacking back and forth through Watch Hill Passage.

A few years ago Sally and I drove to Watch Hill and hiked around Napatree Point. We spotted several interesting shore birds including some Piping Plovers. It was exciting and very different approaching the area from sea, but having visited the area before from land was comforting and made it easier to get our bearings.We rounded Red # 6 taking us around Napatree Ledge. I was pretty sure there was plenty of water inside the bouy and I could see a small boat taking the shortcut over the ledge but we decided to play it safe and round the point well outside all of the rocks. As we rounded the point and looked inside towards our intended anchorage we could see surf breaking. That gave us some additional incentive to stay outside and approach cautiously.

We headed towards the large sandbar that clogs the entrance to Little Narragansett Bay as we approached the bar we hove too for a few moments to plan our next move. We could head over towards Stonington and pick up the marked channel. That would take us over to Watch Hill Cove but it was a couple of miles out of our way following a narrow but marked and dredged channel. Our anchorage was in sight less than a mile across the shallows. As we were discussing the situation we observed a small power boat cutting across the flats and we could see he was following some private markers. Then another boat did the same and we decided to follow. We had a fair wind so in no time we were in deep water just outside Watch Hill Cove.
There were quite a few boats around from power boats to a 45 foot ketch. We moved as far towards the point as we could until the water began to shoal then we dropped the hook a couple of hundred feet from the sandy beach.

This is the sound side of Napatree Beach. Skorpa is facing NW into the shallows of Little Naragansett Bay. Watch Hill is in the background. I let out an extra 100 feet of scope and by pulling on an oar we were able to force the stern towards the shore and step out into a few inches of water. Nothing like getting your feet on solid ground after a passage.

Sally enjoys looking through the wrack for interesting stuff.

Sally is on the short path that leads through the dunes from the sound side to the ocean. After a nice walk we clambered back on board and started supper. Curried rice and vegetables cooked in our pressure cooker made a tasty meal. We had a very quiet night. The wind veered north and eased off a little. The tide went out making the water surrounding our anchorage quite shallow and offering us more protection from the waves.
The wind was predicted to shift from NW to SW on Sunday. We decided to try for an early start so we could ride the favorable winds as far as we could toward Montauk.

Daggerboard Case

In some places I have seen the term Centerboard refer to any retractable board located inside a sailboat that is used to limit side slip when under sail. A Daggerboard is a type of centerboard that slides straight up and down in a case. Sometimes Centerboard is used to refer only to a board that pivots on a pin. So forgive me if I interchange the terms a little.

 This is the side of the daggerboard case. The top is reinforced with a piece of  1 by 2. You could just glue a straight board across the top, but I had fun shaping the rails. I think they look a little nicer and they are lighter.

The case then goes into the boat. The exact location is pretty critical. The case must be directly under the cut out in the seat tops. It must be as vertical as possible fore and aft and side to side.Also you would like it to be in line with the keel of the boat. A lot to keep track of.

I ran a string from bow to stern to develop a centerline and transferred some marks to some boards clamped temporarily in place.

Lots of test fitting until finally I went ahead and glued the case in place.

A fillet and some tape around the case and I will be ready for the seat stringers and seat tops.

Centerboard and Rudder

These are the blades that cut through the water to limit side slip and to steer the boat. I will give them a foil shape blunt on the forward edge and with a gradual taper on the aft edge.

These are the plywood blanks that come with the kit. I have glued them up two layers for the rudder and three layers for the daggerboard. I have penciled in a line that I will bring the initial taper to.

The internal layers of plywood produce a pattern that helps keep the shaping even.

I soaked a piece of braided line in epoxy and set it into the leading edge of the boards. This helps to prevent damage to the blade when objects are encountered.

I covered both the rudder and daggerboard with a layer of glass cloth saturated with epoxy. This significantly increases their strength and resistance to moisture.

While working on the daggerboard I also started working on the daggerboard case.

With the daggerboard finished I can adjust the kingposts so the case has about 1/8 inch clearance.

Winding and Taping

 The sticks laid across the gunwales one up forward and the other aft are called winding sticks. They are carefully placed perpendicular to the center line of the boat. If you squat down and sight along the sticks you can detect even a small twist in the boat. Then by adjusting your boat stand you can get the boat to lay straight. While the boat is just held together with wires it is easy to correct any twist, but once you start adding the seats, bulkheads, and start taping the seams the boat will be locked into its shape.

This is a close up inside the boat near the rear. You can see the copper wires that hold the panels together. I have made epoxy welds between the wires so I can remove them before filleting and taping the seams.

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 Here you get a good view of the temporary bulkhead in the center of the boat. I have installed the seat sides and the aft bulkhead. Graham advised that when building a kit it is important to test fit ahead of time as many pieces as possible. If you are building from scratch you can always custom cut a piece to fit, but the kit parts have little tolerance for error.

 Here you can see how tabs in the seat sides fit into notches in the forward bulkhead.

 Sometimes a drywall screw is the best way to hold a piece in place until the epoxy sets. Screws don't allow the pieces to slip and they can be used where a clamp could not reach. Here are a couple of screws from the bottom up into the transom. Drywall screws are cheap and not very strong. I like to loosen them a little before the epoxy has set. If you don't there is risk that the screw head will break off. Buried under an epoxy coating the steel screw might not cause a problem for quite awhile but I dig them out rather than leave any pieces behind. If you don't loosen the screws before the epoxy has set a soldiering iron will heat the screw enough to make the epoxy let go.,

 The white stripes are fiberglass tape laid out and cut to length.The tape is wound up out of the way and a fillet is laid down in the seam. When the fillet is partly set I apply the tape and wet it out with unthickened epoxy.

Gunwale

The gunwale is the top edge of a boat. Pronounced more like and sometimes spelled gunnel. The gunwales need to be installed early on in the construction of this dinghy, because they add some rigidity to the sides and help smooth out any wobbles in the 1\4 inch plywood.

 The plans call for the gunwales to be made out of 11 foot pieces of 3\4 by 1 1\2 wood of your choice.

A solid piece of wood that size is pretty difficult to bend into the shape. The sheer sweeps in and up quite sharply at the bow. I decided to make my gunwale from two pieces of wood and laminate them together in place on the boat. I brought some wood up from Virginia for this purpose.Some White Oak and some Black Cherry. The first job is to plane and rip the rough lumber down to the desired size and shape. I hope it goes without saying that you do not have to be this fancy I just like to make things difficult.

This is a wide board that a friend Michael Boethe Schmit gave to me many years ago. I have a base that is bolted to the bottom of my skill saw that runs along a guide board to give me a long straight cut.

Then the pieces get a pass through cousin Daves planner.

Fingerboards help make for a consistent cut and save fingers. I made my inner wale L shaped so it covers the top edge of the plywood sides. The strip of white oak was passed through the router to give it a rounded shape.

I left the gunwale long at the bow so I had something to grab and pull with to wrestle the the gunwale into the curve at the bow. A piece of light rope and a pile of clamps are holding the port gunwale in place while the epoxy sets.

Next goes the outer oak strip held with clamps and temporary drywall screws.

Honestly I can quit anytime I want

True I haven't quite finished Skorpa. I have had her out for several sails and two overnights but neither the staysail or the spinnaker has been rigged. I need to apply some nonskid paint to the cockpit area. I also plan to build a cook box. A few other little projects.

So I haven't quite finished my first boat and only launched her about 6 months ago and yet, I have started on a Spindrift 10. This is a kit version of a 10 foot sailing dinghy designed by Graham Byrnes.
I am thinking of a small fun boat that an adult or child of moderate experience could take out on their own.

 I ordered the complete kit. It comes with almost everything epoxy, hardware, sails, all the plywood pieces cut out on Grahams computer controlled CNC machine. There are only a few pieces like the gunwales and the seat stringers that you have to find on your own.

 I have been thinking there might come a time when I could help someone else build a boat, and the Spindrift might just be the right boat.

 All the pieces come in an 8 foot box and are cut from 8 foot plywood so there has to be a way to make the longer pieces and that is the first job. Graham uses his CNC machine to cut a stepped ramp into the plywood. This mates with a similar ramp cut into the piece of plywood to be joined. I first coat the joint with unthickened epoxy after that soaks in for awhile I coat the joint with thickened epoxy and then clamp.

The tricky part is to make sure the pieces are perfectly lined up. The steps cut into the joint help with this, but still once you smear the joint with glue and cover it with plastic and boards to apply even pressure it is difficult to know if the pieces are still lined up. This is the first part of assembling the kit ,but it requires a certian amount of precision. Best advice is to do some careful dry runs and try to come up with a way of knowing if the parts are in proper alignment even after they are clamped. Dry wall screws and clamps are used to squeeze the glued up panels between the scrap 1X8's and the work table.It is very difficult to develop adequate pressure with weights.

On the left are the bottom panels glued and clamped. On the right are the side panels glued and clamped.
Next the side panels are joined to the bottom, but only for a short distance maybe eight inches at the bow.

Graham has fashioned a kind of jig saw puzzle cut to help insure the panels are locked into their proper alignment. The side and bottom panels, port and starboard are all stacked up together and glued. Fiberglass tape is used to reinforce the joint and port and starboard are glued on top of each other so they will match perfectly.

        After the epoxy has fully cured short pieces of wire are used to loosely stitch the two halves together.                                                                       
This is called a butterfly joint and the next step is referred to as going 3-D.

There are some warning that the plywood will be highly stressed during this step and could crack. I soaked the forward section overnight with damp towels and a heating pad. Moving the assembly and trying to open it is very awkward and nerve wracking because of the risk of cracking. Fortunately had a good assistant.

Three patient assistants would be ideal. The long plywood panels want to flop this way or that.

I tied the side panels up to the ceiling because there were only two of us.

Totally amazing to see the flat panels morph into a boat so quickly. I had to apply a fair amount of pressure to open the panels and then the sides wrap back around. The pieces had been so well designed and precisely cut that they went together perfectly.

You have to do a little firm persuading to get the panels to conform to the shape of the temporary center bulkhead and the permanent forward bulkhead.

The plywood bends a lot up near the bow, and takes on a very how can I say nautical look.

Pilgrimage to Vandemere

Launching Skorpa, sailing her for the first time out the breachway and into the ocean, were important milestones but taking Skorpa to Vandemere the home of her designer was particularly memorable. Our trip was a bittersweet mixture of fulfillment and disappointment.  Graham Byrnes the designer of the EC 22 hosts an annual gathering at his shop on the water there. Sally and I went a few days early and got some wonderful sailing in and stayed our first three nights on the boat.

 On Thursday Graham decide to postpone the gathering until the following week as Hurricane Sandy was prowling up the coast. I had been looking forward to seeing some friends that we had met at previous gatherings and sharing my boat with others, but there was no way that Sally and I could stay an additional week. On Friday evening Graham and Alan, an experienced sailor who works for Graham came out with me for a sail. It was cloudy but we had some nice wind. Usually I am the most experienced sailor on board and when the wind picks up I feel a little tense, nervous, concerned for the safety of the boat and anyone with me. With Alan and Graham aboard that was all lifted from me and we just soared along.

Since I started work on this boat Graham has become a friend and mentor so it was very special to go for a sail with him and see how pleased he is with the boat. You can see the clouds associated with the approach of Hurricane Sandy. The winds were beginning to pick up but they were still a very manageable 10-15 knots

Graham had tweaked the EC 22 design somewhat after his extensive experience with Southern Skimmer. Skorpa is the first boat built to this updated design. The design changes included some minor increases in the scantlings. Graham built Southern Simmer to be as light as possible. He has not experienced any structural failures even though he pushes his boat very hard, still he felt a few places should be beefed up a bit before the design was turned loose to the general public. Skimmer did exhibit some lee helm. It was necessary to use the rudder to prevent the boat from turning down wind. Graham addressed this issue by moving the mizzen mast aft a little and the centerboard forward slightly. This brought the boat into balance so little or no rudder effort is necessary to keep the boat going on course. You can see in the above photo that Alan is not applying much force on the tiller and the rudder is nearly centered.

Graham is not as expressive as Alan but they both had high praise for  Skorpa. Both of these guys have a huge amount of experience pushing boats to their limits.

Graham liked the way I had extended the cabin 6 inches further forward and the way I finished the cabin interior adding a small navigation table/galley.

Graham suggested that I apply some non skid paint to the cockpit. That was already on my to do list as the seats get slippery. He also had some ideas for making reefing easier. Alan had some ideas on how to better route the halyards. I would have loved to stay longer and to sail some more with Alan and Graham but Sandy was knocking at the door and Sally and I thought it was best for us to head inland.

Saturday afternoon Sally and I packed up and headed home to Ferrum.