Launch day finally.....

The day has finally arrived and we are going to get wet!

We're off to find some water....

We went to a local lake called "Camp Far West Lake" as it is about the only lake in the area that is nearly full. I guess I was in too much of a hurry to get pics of the launch, Debi was driving the motorhome and I was helping the boat off the trailer. All went well and I tied her up to the dock while we parked the house in our campsite. Here I am motoring into our camp area.

Here she is anchored a few feet off the shore. We tried something called an anchor buddy that is like a bungy cord so you can pull it to shore and climb aboard or exit and then let it out away from the rocky waters edge. The keel still took it's share of bruising so I will have to add some sort of protection for that.

Here are some pics of the weekends fun!

A big step closer!!!

I've been looking forward to getting her rigged...

I got the mast up and the standing rigging mapped out. I'm using the high tech rope for this task called Dyeema. 3/16" for the stays and 1/8" to lash then and provide tension. This stuff is way easier and lighter than using steel cable and probably no more expensive either.

There are still lots of fiddly bits left to do but I am happy with the rigging so far.

The boom...

The boom gooseneck that Matthew made.

A view up the stick.

It was a hot one today so I'll carry on tomorrow morning hopefully.

Odds & ends, this & that...

Lots of different projects coming up soon to get the boat ready for rigging.

This is the masthead fitting my son made for me. There are attachment points for the standing rigging and the main and jib halliards.

The base of the mast is where the boom attaches with a contraption called a boom gooseneck. My son Matthew made this piece for me to my specifications, well I specified incorrectly and told him the mast had a radius of it's diameter. Anyway he made it like I told him so instead of a 3.5" radius on the mount plate, there is a 7" radius. Instead of having him redo it due to my mistake, I just added a pad and contoured it for the correct radius. It is being glued onto the mast now and then I will varnish the rest of the mast.

Boom & Gaff. The ends of all these spars will be painted.

I added this little shelf to mount the centerboard cam cleat.

Centerboard getting its fiberglass sheathing.

And the same for the rudder.

What a difference a little paint makes....

Well I finally got to sanding and finishing up the cockpit for some paint.

Still a little paint work to do here though!

I am also working on the mast and the gaff. the sail is pretty much done except I have to put in the grommets for lacing the sail to it's spars. I will be getting the rigging together before long though I still have the centerboard and rudder to sheath in fiberglass and epoxy. I'm hoping to splash this girl in about a month!!!

How to make it go...

Big brown stopped by the other day and brought me a box of sail parts. All I gotta do is stitch them together. Sure would be nice to have a big sail loft with a sewing pit in the middle.

Well I started sewing mine on a 4x8 ft table on the patio. I did the jib and it was about as big as I wanted to do there.

Then I started sewing on the main, doing as much work as I could on separate panels before trying to stitch them together. after I got all the little patches and reinforcements sewn on, I started sewing together the small panels into sections still small enough to handle. Then finally I moved the sewing machine into the living room and stitched these panels together on the floor were they have nowhere to fall. Hard on the knees but got the job done. There are still a couple of things that need to be done in the middle but it was where a patch fell on a seam so I couldn't do that until the panels were together. Now I have to sew on the corner patches, reef re-enforcements and treat the edge of the sail all around. It was actually kinda fun sewing this thing together.

Back on the job!

Got my glue order so I'm back at it. Here are a couple of things I had been working on while waiting.

I turned these Sheaves on my drill press for the rigging blocks I am making.

Matthew cut and bent these block parts for me.

And here are some of the assembled blocks.

I installed the toe rails as well, I think they are a nice little detail at the edge.

Here is the upper part of the rudder assembly. There is not enough room to put the rudder on yet It'll have to wait till I get the boat outside(It's raining here this week). The rudder is hinged near the bottom of this upper part so if you were to hit something under water like a rock or shallow bottom, it would fold up instead of breaking itself or the boat. Seems like a good thing to me.

I like this tiller as it can be raised up while you are using it, You might want to stand up and stretch or otherwise get it out of the way.

You can also easily remove it from the rudder altogether.

Matthew also made this really nice boom gooseneck for me. He runs a laser cutting machine and he programmed these parts and cut them for me.

Ran out of glue!!!

This week I got the rudder pieces cut out and glued up so that it's about ready for assembly but I am out of glue and I need to glass and epoxy coat it before it gets put together. The mast pieces are also ready for glue as is the centerboard awaiting fiberglass sheathing. so while I am awaiting my glue shipment, I am trying to knock out some other small items that are on the "gotta get done" list.

Last weekend, my son was up helping me with a few things and we were playing around with the mast. Though it's not glued together, just duck taped, we stood it up for a picture.

My son Matthew also made these stainless steel straps to re-enforce the mast tabernacle.

Here is the rudder assembly. It will hinge so that if the rudder contacts something under water, it should fold up out of the way instead of causing harm to itself or the boat.

I am anticipating getting the boat rigged for sailing so I started making some of the goodies required for that. Here are a set of belaying cleats. I will need maybe a couple more of this size and a couple smaller ones as well.

Here I have cut some slats to laminate a tiller for the rudder. All ready to go when my glue arrives.