End of an era

Aerie, the boat I built in Ohio eight years ago, is no longer mine. A series of unfortunate events forced me to sell her for a fraction of her cost (including the trailer). After dragging her over the Rockies to California I had to put her in storage, not having a garage of my own. It was inconvenient and expensive. Eventually I moved her to the back yard, first under a tarp, then under a tent "portable garage." I built a gate in the back fence, which opens up to the grounds of a school. For a few enjoyable outings I pushed her on her trailer over a short stretch of grass to the school parking lot, hitched the trailer and took her to the water. Then the school district decided to rebuild the school and cut off access through that gate. I got Aerie out with only five days to spare before construction started, blocking the gate. 

So I advertised. Got lots of nice comments and vague interest, and a few people who were convinced they wanted to buy her. Several backed out due to advanced age and/or injuries, leaving me with $300 in forfeited deposits. I finally found a good home for her in Santa Cruz, California, just as the coronavirus lockdown was starting to take effect. The photo is from when I rigged the boat fully and tested everything. Apart from some scratches on the paint she was good as new. It broke my heart but she had to go.

At least I have built the other boat in Greece, which I have named "Sophia-Andreas" after the Greek versions of my grandchildren's names. She has her papers in order and is waiting for me when I get there. With all the travel restrictions nothing is certain, but we hope to get there in early June.

So what next on this U.S. side of the pond? I can't be water craft-less, so I am mulling over building a canoe. I was leaning towards a Hawaiian-style outrigger sailing canoe designed by Gary Dierking. But maybe I am too much of a tinkerer to fully stick to someone else's design. So I might build to a Dierking design but re-purpose one of Aerie's original lugsails (which would become a gaff sail). Or build a 15-foot American-style canoe that I have tentatively designed in two bolt-together sections (like the Dierking Wa'apa) with the option of adding an outrigger and sail(s) later. I don't know, and that keeps life interesting.

Flipped again

It took some more rework to get the centerboard to work smoothly: it was getting stuck on the way down. I had to remove the pivot bolt, to which I had foolishly added dabs of epoxy compound at the head and nut ends to seal the holes. It was a devil to remove, with the head getting badly stripped. A lot of sweat equity later, acquired while lying under the boat, I removed the CB and found that the forward end was rubbing against the CB trunk. After rasping a couple of millimeters off the right place and refinishing the  edge, I drilled out the pivot hole, filled it with epoxy, drilled through again, fitted a new bolt and problem solved finally.

The last touches involved leathering the oars and tying loops of line to fit over the thole pins (visible in the photo). Meanwhile my attempt to acquire a boat cover failed, like everything else involving people and purchases off the island in August: first the supplier was closed, then they called it was coming, then called again to say the warehouse was closed until the end of August, which will be too late. So I decided that storing a fully finished boat upside down should be safe, and I got three strong guys to help me lift the boat, remove the bricks and cradles, flip it and lay it on four bricks with styrofoam on top (photo, after touching up puttied holes with paint). This is where it will await my return in the spring. The registration paperwork I hope to complete before I leave, so I will have to get a trailer and hitch and finish the rigging, which is mercifully simple. With any luck I will launch it before next summer. Thanks for reading!

Oars and mast step

While all the rest was going on, I also made oars from 6x4 cm lumber (nominal, it is less since it's planed) cut to 2.5 m lengths. One of the pieces had served as the strongback on which the boat was built. I edge-glued 2x4.7 cm pieces on either side to make the blades. The sawing and electric and hand planing jobs were messy but nothing that a bit of epoxy filleting and lots of sanding could not fix. I rasped and sanded the oar handles and leathers (where the oar meets the thole pin) to cylindrical shapes. The oars are now epoxied and painted. I will fit strips of actual leather to reduce chafing against the thole pins, which are already in place. The end result is a hybrid between the blocky, square cross-section, narrow-bladed oars of the Mediterranean and the slimmer, round-shafted northern oars with laminated blades.

I also made and fitted the mast step. It is a square piece made out of iroko tropical hardwood, with a hole cut into it with a hole saw. I purposely made the hole slightly too small, and it took some rasping and sanding both the hole and the mast tip to assure a good fit. Then I glued and screwed the piece to a plywood base already in place on the bottom, resting on the keel and garboard cleats (I already described how I had to chisel channels for a good fit over the cleats).  Final trials of the mast need a lot of headroom and will have to wait until the boat is out of its sheltered terrace space. At that point I will fit the cross-piece that bolts onto the mast partner.

I also put two coats of epoxy on the spars (mast and sprit) and I am laying on several coats of spar varnish (photo). At some point I will lace the sail on and fit the snotter and brailing line. I also put on the gudgeons and pintles and fitted the moving part of the rudder to its top part, as well as the pivoting tiller to the rudder (last photo). It took some rasping and adjusting, so I will have t touch up the finish.

Meanwhile I inquired about an outboard motor, registering the boat and a trailer and hitch. I now know what paperwork I need, which includes certification by a naval architect, complete receipts for materials and a notarized sworn statement that I personally built the boat. I will pay a firm that specializes in all that take care of the registration. Between peak demand for trailers, trailer manufacturers closing for staff vacations and some car trouble, the trailer and hitch are proving more difficult to  procure. Since I am leaving Greece in about a month, I may have to postpone some or all of these for next spring. Until then I may use a borrowed trailer to test-launch the boat to see how she floats.

Centerboard, rudder and spars

Since the boat is right side up, I had to lift it off the ground by at least 45 cm (18") to fit the CB and put it in place when it was fully finished. I did it with the help of two people and several bricks (first photo). The CB pivots around a 6 mm (1/4 inch) bolt. The rudder needed a pivot bolt of its own so it can be lifted with a line. Gudgeons and pintles attach it to the transom. The tiller I made from pine lumber, and its jaws from two 12 mm pieces of plywood. There is a pivot bolt attaching the tiller to the rudder top, so the tiller can move up and down as needed, especially with the outboard I plan  to use.

Sandwiching lead shot inside the centerboard without mixing it with glue proved very ill-advised. The shot was small, and the gluing of the plywood layers was not tight enough, so the shot was swishing around inside.  I was force to prize the layers apart, not an easy thing given how strong epoxy is. Then I mixed the lead with latex caulk and reglued the CB. The result was an imperfect lamination that made the CB too thick to fit in the CB trunk without getting stuck. The next inevitable step was to use an electric planer to remove a couple of millimeters from one side of the CB. Not something I would recommend except in extremis. In any case, it was done with a lot of flying shavings and some gouging, but after sanding, a little puttying and more sanding the CB was ready for more work.

The work in question was fitting a block to a corner of the CB for raising and lowering it. It involved cutting a semi-circular piece off the top forward corner and chiseling channels for the two stainless steel straps that are bolted to the CB on one end and the sheave at the free end (photo). Both bolts had to be cut very short to fit inside the 24 mm-wide CB trunk. Another sheave is fitted on the corresponding corner of the CB trunk for the lifting/dropping line. Because of the extra 4.5 kg of ballast and its leverage, the fittings needed to be sturdy. The 2:1 purchase from the blocks helps. The CB was coated with epoxy but no paint or varnish, since it will be invisible and protected from UV rays. Fitting the CB into its trunk and putting in the pivot bolt were tough: imagine being on your back with a lead-weighted CB on your chest, under a boat on bricks that could come tumbling down on you, trying to thread a quarter-inch bolt through three holes that need to be precisely aligned. My wife watched over me just in case. I'm happy to say that the CB and its raising and dropping bock and tackle system were fitted well and work fine (third photo).

Before I finished assembling the CB block system, I made the spars. The mast I made from a 4 m long (13' 1") piece of fir, 75 mm (3 inches) square. As in previous times, I cut the corners off at 45 degrees (this time with a hand-operated rotary saw since I don't have a table saw) to make an octagon. I went surprisingly well. Then I used an electric planer and a palm sander to make the mast round. The sprit I made by laminating two 4 m long boards. I had to extend it to 4.3 m, which I did by gluing a lumber extension between two plywood jaws. The latter form a shallow slot for the snotter, the improbably named line that holds the sprit up and adjusts its tension. Planing and sanding turned the sprit approximately round too. Both spars are visible in the next photo.

Paint, centerboard and rudder

Once again, nail setting, puttying and sanding was followed by two epoxy coats on the decking. Three coats of white topside enamel later, the boat is gleaming and bright. I used a little paintable caulk to fill the edges of the decking purely for cosmetic reasons (the joints are solidly glued withe epoxy compound so no leaks are possible). I will need to sand the puttied holes and touch up the sheer strake paint on the outside.

For the centerboard and the rudder I calculated I needed about 6 kg (13.2 lbs) of lead weighting. I opted for lead shot which will be sandwiched between the two outer layers of each, placed in voids cut in the middle layer: a square of 30 cm a side for the CB (for 4.5 kg) and a 8.5 cm radius circle for the rudder (for 1.5 kg). The third photo shows the CB void packed with lead. In calculating the sizes I reckoned on a specific gravity of 11 for lead and a packing ratio of 78% for the little spheres (i.e. the voids between the little balls of lead will be about 22% of the space). I was a bit off and I had a little lead left over.

The fourth photo shows the top layer of the CB laid on with nails  and epoxy and weighed down with stones and a bag of cement. Nothing but the latest technology!

The last photo shows the two main parts of the rudder laminated from three layers. One of them is the pivoting bottom with its own lead ballast inside. I will need to put on the jaws and make a tiller. Both rudder and CB will be shaped hydrodynamically and finished with epoxy and varnish. More in the next post,

More topside work

I cut, fitted and laid down strips of 6 mm plywood to reinforce the bottom where we will be stepping. It proved harder than I expected. I made mistakes, and ripping long narrow pieces with a handheld jigsaw was tough. Then gluing the strips down was hard: I couldn't use nails or screws which would poke through the bottom, so I had to work with many stones to weigh the strips down. Fortunately there's no shortage of stone in our village and property. Photo number two shows the last stone on the tip on one strip which needed extra gluing.

I then set nails, puttied, sanded and gave the insides the first coat of epoxy. The wood looks beautiful, but as before I have to use paint: varnished epoxy would not do well in the harsh Mediterranean sun. Photos one and two show the result.

The next step was the carlins that frame the side decks. I had four meter boards that fit the length with only two inches (5 cm) to spare. I made shallow saw cuts to help the bending, cut one end at the appropriate compound angle, fit the carlin with clamps and the marked the end and cut it at another compound angle. After a fair bit of rasping it all fit together. Repeat for other side. I drilled recessed pilot holes, glued and screwed the carlins on, then filled the screw holes and the saw cuts (second photo).

The side decks are two pieces each, marked, cut and butt-joined underneath. Before laying them on I glued wood blocks to the sides to accept thole pins: per local practice I intend to use them with loops of line on the oars that I will make later on.

The last two photos show the side decks and foredeck in place with epoxy compound and nails. There will be more nail setting, puttying, sanding and finishing, but the carpentry on the boat is done. Centerboard and rudder are already cut and need laminating. Mast and oars remain. Hopefully all will be done before the end of summer.

Foredeck etc.

The last two weeks have been busy. I first put on the rubrails (first photo), which will support fore and side decks, and they contributed a huge amount of stiffness to the sheer strakes. It took a good number of shallow saw cuts to make them bend, and many stainless steel screws driven from the inside of the boat.

I then added an extra layer of plywood to the transom above the bench for extra stiffness for the planned small outboard. I also put in supports for the side decks, visible in the second photo. Some were added to the tops of frames, some to the transom and forward bulkhead, and some were screwed and glued to the insides of the sheer strakes. You can also see that most of he bottom has been epoxied in preparation for gluing down narrow strips of plywood (mostly cut already) to stiffen the hull where it is stepped on.

The I epoxied the inside of the forward compartment and built a king plank down the middle to support the foredeck, reinforced on the side with tropical hardwood.  I also had a blank piece for the mast step and components of the mast partner cut. The two pieces that will take the brunt of the force were glued on and  screwed from the inside with large stainless steel screws, visible on either side of the king plank in the third photo. I suspect everything is stronger than it needs to be, but I'm not taking chances with an unstayed mast.

The fourth photo shows details of the mast partner. The cross piece with be secured with bolts. I still need to fix a small board on the fore bulkhead for the mast to rest against and cut a curve off the inside of the cross piece to fit the mast. Also every corner will be rounded for looks, safety and ease of putting in the mast. The square piece that will become the mast step is visible on the bottom. and will need to be fitted and the bottom cleats leveled before an appropriate-sized hole is cut into it for the mast.   

Finally I put on the curved foredeck, which was nailed and screwed onto rubrails, king plank and reinforced bulkhead (last photo). 

What remains now is reinforcing  the bottom with strips of plywood, putting in the carlins for the side deck, and cutting and laying on the side decks. Then I will need to finish the inside with epoxy and paint to finish the boat itself, before making centerboard and rudder, mast and sprit. But the end is in sight!