A Project Named Clancy - Finale

It floats! 

Only the lightest of airs were present for the maiden voyage, but even that sufficed to move Clancy through the water.  The boat was stable and well balanced with some slight weather helm.  There's a joy to sailing a yar lil' dinghy, even if ghosting about.

Rich Kolin and Bob Pickett set out to enable amateurs to build a fun and capable sailing dinghy in their garages and boat that was "the most sailboat you can squeeze out of a 10-sheet of plywood."  How did reality stack up against Pickett's claims?  Constructing the boat was indeed straight-forward and something a first time builder could easily contemplate.  Of course, the technology of amateur built boats has advanced massively since the Clancy came out.  Kits and plans have become more complete and even easier to build, and the hull forms that now grace plywood boats can carry so much shape as to defy the medium.  Still, Clancy is a purposeful little boat that fulfils its purpose admirably.  

  

A Project Named Clancy - X. The Sail

The Clancy support network that Bob Pickett set up is long since gone, so you are on your own when sourcing parts like hardware or sails.  The plans (both the New Yankee Workshop version and those in the book) do provide a sail plan with enough information that a sailmaker could make a Clancy sail.  Rather than so this, I decided to try my hand at making my own using a kit from Sailrite. 

The kit includes pre-cut panels that are sewn together to form the sail.  It also includes most of the other things you will need, including the thread, seamstick tape, battens and grommets.  You'll need to supply the sewing machine (I bought a heavy-duty Singer for this project), scissors/cutting instruments, and, most annoyingly, a grommet die tool (available from Sailrite).  The kit includes a good set of directions that are sufficient to guide anyone with basic sewing skills through the process.  I had not sewed before, but figured that a sewing machine is just another power tool, so how hard could it be?  I learned that there is some technique involved, but overall the Sailrite kit can be successfully turned into a sail by even a complete novice.

 

I used a Singer 4452 sewing machine with a 110/18 needle and found it to be a satisfactory setup.  The machine was working fairly hard when sewing the thick corner patches, but managed to get through it. Because of the size of the sail, I had to set up the machine on the floor of the living room (a.k.a. the sail loft), else managing the huge panels would have been impossible.  The ergonomics of sitting on the floor, feeding great rolls of canvas through a sewing machine while pushing the foot pedal are challenging and I found that enlisting a helper made a big difference.  As I had never sewed before, before doing anything serious, I used some of the spare sailcloth included in the kit to practice and to set the top tension on the machine to get good stitches.  

The first step in building the sail is to cut out the batten pockets and sew them to the sail panels.  It is easiest to do this before sewing the panels of the sail together, so that you do not have to wrangle massive swaths of canvas through the sewing machine.  Nearly everything in the kit is pre-cut, but the batten pockets are for some reason the exception.  Dimensions are provided, and the pockets can be cut in short order.

The edges of the pockets are hemmed (I had to learn about hemming and seam allowances before that sentence made sense):

This is repeated for all three batten pockets.  

An elastic band is sewn on to the forward end of each pocket.  The batten will eventually end up sliding into the pocket and against the elastic band, which will help hold it in the pocket.  The other end of the elastic band is sewn to the sail in a premarked location.  This was a bit of a pain to accomplish since you have to fight the sail panel and pocket and the elastic at the same time.  After this, seamstick (double sided) tape is used to place the batten pocket on the sail (the positions are marked on the sail)... 

...and all but the aft 2" of the batten are sewn down.  The last 2" get sewn after the leach of the sail is finished.

Next, the panels of the sail are sewn together.  This is a remarkably straightforward process.  The upper edge of each sail panel has a line printed on it.  The lower edge of the panel above is lined up with this.

Seamstick tape is then applied...

 and the panels are taped together:

They seam is then run through the sewing machine twice to receive two rows of zigzag stitches.

After stitching together a few panels, it is starting to look like a sail!

The process is repeated until all the panels have been added.

Having a large "sail loft" is important.  The living room/dining room is the largest open space in the house, and generally fit the bill.

The corners of the sail are reinforced with thick patches, assembled from multiple layers of sail cloth.  These are assembled with seamstick...

...before being sewn to the sail. These are the true test of the adequacy of your sewing machine.

The leach and foot of the sail are then hemmed, and the remaining length of the batten pockets are sewn down.  The original plans call for a sleeve to be sown onto the luff, into which the mast slipped when rigging (a la a Laser).  Since I am using a square-section spruce mast instead of the aluminum tube, I had to modify the luff.  After consulting with the sailmaker at Sailrite, I finished the luff with some sail tape and a bolt rope sewn in.  I then added small eyes every ~18", to which I shackled on external track slides.  The mast will get and external t-track sail track, and the sail will be hoisted via a halyard, and the downhaul will be eliminated.

The final step in constructing the sail is to install the grommets at the corners of the sail.  A hole is cut in the sail (or can be punched using a cutter available from Sailrite -- this makes the job easier and neater, but they are pricey and not absolutely required).  One half of the grommet is placed into the hole, the other half is place on the other side of the sail, everything in placed into the die (available from Sailrite) and pressed together with mighty whacks from a mallet.

Love Me Tender, Volume X

Ready to load on to top of car.  Note the red PocketShip in the background.

Carting down to the water.  Having a kayak cart makes moving the boat around a breeze.  

Initial sea trials consisted of rowing...

And sailing tests.

Time on the water was limited, so the maiden voyage was just a tour of the boat basin 

The simple rig and lug sail were intuitive to use.  

The hull is actually vert shapely, something you lose sight of when building in the garage

The Eastport Pram has excellent stability, making shifting your weight when tacking uneventful.  It has been a while since I've sailed a dinghy, though, and it took a while to get the "behind the back" handoff between tiller and mainsheet back to a graceful motion. 

A real pleasure to sail!

Ready to go home.  The sail gets rolled up around the spars.

Car-toppable fun.

Love Me Tender, Volume IX

Never pause building a boat when the next step is sanding.  Back in 2015, when I last posted (and worked on) my CLC Eastport Nesting Pram, I took a quick break to work on a few car projects, with every intention of getting back to the back as quickly as possible.  Well, the car project went pretty fast, but then it was summer and who wants to sand a boat during the summer.  And then it was fall, and things got busy, and then it was 2016, 2017, 2018...  Somewhere in there I got distracted and built a kayak too.

I finally got back to the pram in the spring 2019.  I has intended to only finish the boat in a rowing configuration, and skip the sail, but, on a lark, I picked up an Eastport Pram sail.  That got me to the point that I began to move other projects out of the shop to make room to resume work on the pram.

The second event that really got me going was competing in the 2019 Edensaw Boat Building Challenge at the Wooden Boat Festival in Port Townsend.  Over the course of two and a half days, my team built a CLC Jimmy Skiff II, complete with sailing rig.  Getting through that and getting sailing gave me the oomph I needed to resume the Eastport Project in earnest.

When last I reported, the boat was freshly sawn in half.  At this point, the boat requires a whole lot of sanding, and a few coats of epoxy, followed by more sanding.  I started by cleaning up the edges of the hull where the cut was made, sanding the edges of the planks flush with the bulkheads, and filling in any voids in the plank-to-bulkhead joints with thickened epoxy.  I also hit any previously unsealed wood with coats of unthickened epoxy.

From tabernacle to tiller

Next up, I started finish sanding, but found it slow going.  To keep the momentum up, I switched over to working the sailing rig.  I took a trip over to Edensaw in Port Townsend (partly just an excuse to go to Port Townsend) and picked up several lengths of Sitka spruce for the spars.  Back home, milled them to size, rounded over the edges, and sanded them down.  On PocketShip, the spars received several coats of epoxy before varnish, but since the pram is going to get lighter use, the spars will be stored indoors, and I did not want to sand all that epoxy, I went straight to several coats of varnish.

Although I had not intended to build the sailing version, I have laid out all the plywood parts back when I started the boat, so I actually had the rough cut parts for the rudder and daggerboard, so assembling and shaping these was straightforward.  I had recently replaced the tabernacle on Solitude III with a brand new one (the old one had some unfortunate damage).  I repurpose the 1" thick solid Sapele from one of the sides of the old tabernacle to make the tiller so the pram, so part of Solitude III is now in the pram!

Switching back to the hull, I started sanding.  I have to say, it took entirely too long.  I recognized this, knowing that it was a sign of out of control perfectionism, but could not figure out what it was I was perfectionizing about.  So, I kept sanding, sanding, sanding.  

At the Edensaw Boat Building Challenge, one of the other teams (representing the Wooden Boat School), introduced me to their "boat sauce," a mix of 4 parts teak oil and 1 part varnish.  This finish can be rubbed on, does not required sanding between coats, gives a nice satin finish, and can be refreshed just by rubbing on another coat.  I decided to experiment with the on the interior of the Pram.  It worked very well when I applied it to the raw wood on the tiller, but just did not seem to cut it when applied to the epoxy-covered surface of the inside of the pram.  So, I switched over to varnish, ending after multiple coats of gloss and a top coat of satin.

The boat gets finished with the two halves separated

Ah, varnish!

For the exterior of the hull, I decided to go with white -- a hackneyed choice, but it just looks too right on this boat to do anything else.  Painting the outside of the hull was more of a pain than I expected.  First, the highbuild primer took way longer to sand smooth than I remember on PocketShip and kept clogging the sand paper.  I do not know whether this was because the can of primer I was using was really old (dating back to PocketShip), or because the temps in the garage were too cold, or what.  Also, just the act of rolling the paint on was harder than I expected.  In many places there just wasn't enough room for the roller, particularly between the skeg, rub strips, and bottom-most lap.  It is a little strange, but it seems to take less time to paint the large surface of PocketShip's hull than the little hull on the Eastport Pram.

With the paint on, the most enjoyable part of any boat build came, rigging.  Here, all the sanding is behind you, you are in the home stretch, drilling holes, driving screws, lacing sails and reeving rigging.    The best method for lacing lug sails appears to be a controversial topic, though I cannot figure out why.  Mostly on the basis of looks, I went with the half hitch method described here: https://www.storerboatplans.com/tuning/lug-rig-setup/goat-island-skiff-rig-and-rigging-details-for-efficient-lug-sails/

With all this complete, the only thing that remains is getting the boat out on the water.

Cruise to Port Townsend - Sept. 12, 2015

I finally had a working boat again.  It was time for an adventure! 

The Wooden Boat Festival in Port Townsend was going on this weekend, and I hatched a plan.  I could tow the boat up to the little boat ramp at Keystone harbor, 4 miles due east of Port Townsend and sail across.  I couldn’t dock at Port Hudson, where the festival is, but reckoned I could get transient moorage at Port Townsend’s other marina, Boat Haven.  Failing in that, I could always anchor just off downtown.  Fellow PocketShipper Jer McManus had brought his boat from Montana, and I was hoping that I could drop by and see his boat, and perhaps lure him out for a fleet sail. 

It took longer than I expected to get packed up and going, and then longer than I expected to get to Keystone, arriving in the late afternoon.  I promptly got the boat in the water, and set sail for port Townsend. 

Beautiful Port Townsend

The waters here are interesting.  Being at the intersection of Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the bulk of the water going into or out of Puget Sound has to make a sharp turn here, creating unusual currents.  On the chart, there is something marked “swirls.”  What exactly are “swirls?”  I found out quickly.  Just outside the harbor there where large circles of smooth-looking water.  Entering one, I quickly had to fight hard to maintain heading.  I got the heck out of that as quickly as possible, and avoided future swirls. 

The wind died off as I approached the edge of the Puget Sound shipping lanes, so I fired up the noisemaker and jetted across.  The wind picked up again as I entered Port Townsend Bay, and I approached the waters off Point Hudson under full sail.  It felt great to be moved by the wind again!

It was too late to execute my original plan of stopping by, and so I settled for a sail-by.  Chesapeake Light Craft’s booth was set up right on the tip of Point Hudson, and so I reached up and down the shore in front of them a few times.  I thought about shouting out “Send out Jer!!!”

The hour was getting late, so I decided to head back.  About a mile from Port Townsend, I hear a “pppppffffffft,” and caught sight of a minke whale that had just surfaced next to me.  I grabbed my camera and waited for it to come up again. He must have been going somewhere fast, because I didn’t see him again.   The wind again died as I approached the shipping channel, so I dropped sail and steamed the rest of the way back. 

I arrived in time for the schooner races

Another interesting feature just off Keystone that noted on the charts are rips.  Well, sure enough there was one right in my way as I approached shore.  It looked compact and I decided to plunge through it rather than go around.  The cop quickly became steep, and I had to slow down substantially to keep things under control.  The boat did fine, but I was nervous as all get out getting through that.  Just as the sun was setting, I exited the rip and moments later entered Keystone Harbour, completing an excellent “return to the sea” mini-cruise.

A good cruise

Centerboardless Sailing

A Taste of Heaven

Recently, many questions have been coming in from various quarters about the status of Solitude's centerboard.  So, after a lengthy period of silence about the issue, it is time for an update.  In short, the status can be summed up in two words: still stuck.

It it not totally for a lack of trying, though resolving the issue hasn't received a lot of effort due to competing priorities.  I had a go at trying to dry out the centerboard and trunk over the summer, in hopes that the suspected swelling would go down.  But, it was to no avail.  On the bright side, it did lead to my one voyage under sail this year.  When I dunked the boat to judge the efficacy of my drying efforts, I also was able to take her out for a short cruise downriver.  After turning around, I found that the wind was favorable for running back up river.  Unfurled became the jib, and carried on the wings of the wind was I.  It was short, but blissful.

So, now, I am resolved to build a new centerboard, and see what happens.  I have the new board cut out and read for lead, shaping and fiberglass.  Stay tuned.

A new centerboard.

Living Dreams

Just over three years ago, I set out to build a small sailboat, and also endeavoured to record the ensuing events, thoughts, emotions, and experiences in this blog.  This marks the 100th post in this blog.  As such, it seems an appropriate time to take a retrospective at all of the events chronicled so far...

Dreaming

Let's talk for a moment about dreams, for why do people build and own small pleasure craft if not to satisfy some sort of dream?  For some it is the dream of building something, something beautiful, something useful, something physical and real.  They are in it to participate in the joy of creation.  Others dream of the places they'll go, the days spent thrashing upwind, spray flying, and the cool nights in a quiet anchorage.   They dream of sailing back in time, enjoying discovering new lands and seeing new things, voyaging where others seldom go.  They look forward to a future of anachronistic adventure.

For me, it was both.  The call of creation surely beckoned.  My being yearned for the primordial joy of losing one's self in the most basic of human arts, using one's hands to turn raw materials into something useful.  This alone would be motivation enough for a project like this.

Yet, there was more.  Reinforcing that motivation, and sometimes even overwhelming it, was the desire to live out the dreams of simple times on the water.  Close your eyes!  Just think! Imagine sailing into port on a summer evening, sun dipping down toward the horizon, a warm, gentle breeze caressing the skin and filling the sails.  Imagine a blustery autumn day, the oranges of land, the sky still blue despite clouds rolling in ahead of the coming storm, the steely grey of the water, punctuated by whitecaps, the thrill as your doughty vessel plunges forward, undaunted. Imagine swaying peacefully at anchor, experiencing quiet and peace, perfect and still, reclining in the cockpit, gazing up from at a million stars that you never existed.   The soul is stirred!

If you have to ask why to build a small wooden boat, you will probably never understand.

 

Reflections on Creation

 

So, animated by dreams, I set out to build a small sailboat.  The boat of choice was a design called PocketShip, penned by John C. Harris.  He designed PocketShip not for a customer, but to be his personal boat, a boat to meet his needs and wants.  It turned out that this manifestation of its designer's dream spoke to the dreams of others as well.  The reaction of others to this design was so great, that John Harris made it commercially available through his company, Chesapeake Light Craft.

A CNC-cut kit is available for this boat from Chesapeake Light Craft, but I eschewed in favor of building from plans.  As another PocketShip builder wrote, "I couldn't really tell people I built my own sailboat if someone else cut out all the parts."  If that sounds a little prideful, it is.  Building from a kit requires 95% of the time and 99% of the skill that building from plans does.  But, for me, there was an emotional need to start from scratch.

I first took pencil to plywood in early November, 2010, laying out the shapes that would define this thing that I was creating.  Two weeks later, those shapes began to emerge from the sheets of plywood.  The result was a collection of strange geometric figures that would have been at home hanging from the walls of a gallery in the Museum of Modern Art.

Soon, epoxy started to flow, welding these elements more and more complex compounds.  Sheets of plywood became a centerboard trunk, basically a glorified box.  More wood was added and that glorified box became a keel, still more two dimensional than anything.  Still more wood and that two dimensional keel became a three dimensional shape, a shape clearly recognizable as the hull of a boat.

Wood was added, epoxy and fiberglass applied, and everything was sanded smooth.  More wood, more epoxy, more sanding.  Over and over, wood, epoxy, sanding.  And each time, things became more real, more finished.

That is not to say that it was one, easy, uninterrupted process.  Errors were made and solutions had to be found.  Motivation had to be maintained when the appearance of progress was scarce and the resulting gratification lacking.  And then there was the time everything ground to a halt because of fear.  Fear that the boat that was taking shape would not live up to the dream.

For me, it was the big epoxy fillets that hold the boat together.  These are not just an important part of the structure of the boat, but they are also exceedingly visible in the cabin of the boat.  And I had a vision of them being perfect.  Perfect.  I wanted people to gaze upon them in awe.  I wanted superlatives heaped upon my handwork.  And yet, when I looked at the work that I had done, I didn't see the perfection I was looking for.  So, I tried to correct it.  After several perfunctory efforts at sanding them into perfection, I became disheartened.  And afraid.  Afraid that I could never bring my work up to snuff.  Afraid that the dream could not be translated into reality.  In my despair, I found myself working on the boat less and less, until, finally, all work stopped.  For months.

The dark lines are the fillets that "weren't good enough"

Salvation finally came in the form of the 2011 Wooden Boat Festival in
Port Townsend.  There my eyes were opened.  I saw fillets.  Real life fillets.  Fillets by professional builders.  Fillets on display boats.  And they weren't any better than mine.  Reality smashed my illusions of perfection, and allowed me accept my work for what it was.  Good enough.

Dreams are just that, fantastical imaginings of a nonexistent reality.  There are no flaws in dreams, a fact which must be recognized when translating dreams to reality, for reality has imperfections.  Those imperfections must be embraced, for the disillusionment resulting from maintaining an impossible standard of perfection will surely kill any dream, any joy, any love.  Flaws will exist, disillusion will be experienced, and it is ok.  You have to make the decision to look past the flaws, to choose to love both the good and the bad.  And you move on.

And move on I did.  The cabin got fiberglass, a sole, and a coat of paint.  The decks went on.  The topsides were stitched and glued.  Piece by piece, the final form of the boat emerged.  Soon, the boat itself emerged from the garage, briefly, only to be flipped over and immediately put back in.  More fiberglass, more epoxy, more sanding, a blues song or two, some paint, and again the boat went into the sunlight, and again it was flipped over and returned to the nest for more of the same.  The next time she emerged, it was for real.  After a brief flurry of rigging action, the boat was ready to fulfil her raison d'etre.  To be a vessel of the sea.

A Dream Being Fulfilled

The act of launching Solitude III on September 4th, 2012. had all the trappings of a dream fulfilled.  Construction of this vessel was complete and I was sailing on her.  Yet, really, launching the boat was just a milestone.  The adventures just started; the dreams are still being fulfilled.

Solitude III has been in the water over a year now, and oh, the places we've gone.  Those dreams of sailing adventures the help fuel the building process are coming true.  There have been early morning sails, after-work excursions, all-day adventures, and sunset cruises.  There have been solo adventures and trips with friends and family. 

So far, sailing has been confined to waters near home, though that has not limited the the adventure.  From the vantage point of a small boat, you see the water from different, more intimate perspective, and allows one to see familiar sights with new eyes and with new wonder.

  
And that's not the end of the story.  The voyages and the adventures have just begun.  The dreaming continues.

Timeline of Major Events (So Far...)

2010
20 September - Ordered the PocketShip plans
12 November - Construction begins.  Bought plywood and started laying out the parts
25 November - Cut out first parts.  Very first part was the doubler for the cockpit storage locker.

2011
19 April - Keel laid.
13 May - Hull stitched
26 June - Hull glued
July-September - Afraid of sanding
October - Interior fiberglassed

2012
January - Decks installed, topsides stitched.
May - Topsides complete and fiberglassed. Rubrails installed
June - Mast constructed
July - Boat flipped.  Hull 'glassed.  #1 hit song, "Boatsanding Blues" released to international critical acclaim.
August - Hull painted bright red.  Boat flipped upright again.
30 August - 2nd-tolast coat of topcoat on upper hull.  Trailer purchased.
31 August - Painting complete.  Transom and rubrail varnishing complete.  Boat licensed
1 September - Keel box built for trailer.  Installed grab rails, drop board retainers and bow eye.
2 September - Installed lots of hardware
3 September - Boat onto trailer.  Spars installed.  Standing and running rigging setup
4 September - Boat completed!  Maiden Voyage!!!!!!!!!!
5 September - Day of rest.
6-9 September - Wooden Boat Festival in Port Townsend
December - Voyage to Langley

2013
February - A German builds Solitude III in two days!
March - Sailing with Gray Whales
May - Overnight cruise to Edmonds
September - First salmon caught
October - Jammed centerboard demands attention!