Interlude

Taking a break from boatbuliding, I spent a week hiking the Wonderland Trail around Mt. Rainier.  Here are some pictures:

And now, back the our regularly scheduled programming.   The clock is ticking on getting the boat done before the Wooden Boat Festival in Port Townsend....

Color My World

100+ sanding discs and one blues tune later, I completed the long-dreaded step of sanding the hull.  Time for paint.  I'm not too imaginative with colors, and have a hard time visualizing the finished product in varying colors.  To help with the visualization, I used a  "paint-my-room" tool available on a paint supply store's website to try different colors on PocketShip.



Pocketship #1 in "PocketShip Blue"



Some re-colored options

Some considerations in selecting a color were:

• PocketShip looks great in dark blue
• The majority PocketShip's that have built are dark blue
• I want a degree of uniqueness in my boat
• Light blue makes it look like a 1986 Catalina.  Not happening.
• I don't want the boat to look like a big Tylenol.
• The color should look spiffy, perky and cheery.

After much deliberation, I made my choice and traipsed off to Fisheries Supply to spend some dough.  I bought a gallon of primer, 2 quarts of Interlux Trilux33 antifouling paint for the bottom, 2 quarts of Brightside for the sides, and a couple of quarts of Brightside and some flattening agent for the topsides.


Taped off waterline

Bottom paint goes on

I levelled the boat and marked off the waterline using a laser level I bought cheap at Harbor Freight.  I though about going the cheap route and using some cheap, clear plastic tubing filled with water, but I'm glad I didn't.  The laser was quick, easy, and worth the money I spent on it.  Another thing worth the money, 3M Fine Line tape...that stuff is great...there was no seepage under the tape.





The paint went on great, particularly the Brightside.  Rolling and tipping worked as advertised.  I did two heavy coats of bottom paint, two coats of primer, and four coats of Brightside.  There are a couple of drips and dribbles that I need to touch up, but it looks great!




What colour is in the can?

Painting the sides...in black and white?

In an attempt to ascertain whether there is anyone out there reading this, I have decided not to reveal the final color selections right away. Instead, I will reveal a clue anytime I get a comment on the blog. Enough comments and I will reveal the color. So, are you out there? Are you interested?



The centerboard is in!

With the painting done, I again summoned the corps of engineers and flipped the boat upright again. I forgot to secure the centerboard. I also forgot to mention that Earlie...before painting the bottom, I installed the centerboard. I remembered the story on Dave Curtis' blog about having to negotiate around a garage door opener to get his centerboard in place. I had a similar challenge. In previous photos, you may have noticed a kayak hanging over the sailboat. Yup, that made it more interesting than it otherwise would have been. 



 

Over She Goes!

Out of the garage again!

Where was I? Oh yeah, I forgot to secure the centerboard before the flip. So, as the boat went out, wham, down went the board.. Fortunately, I had, for some reason or other, put a knot in the pendant, so the board only half-deployed. So, we abruptly reversed course, heeled the boat back up to 90 degrees, slid the runaway centerboard back into the trunk, tossed a piece of tape over the "escape route", and finished the roll. I had remodelled the old building cradle, cutting down the sides and padding it with old carpet, and thence the uprighted boat resumed its place. BBQing followed.

In other news, I'm working under a deadline now...I'm trying to get the boat done in time to take it to Pt. Townsend for the annual Wooden Boat Festival.
Seeing the boat upright was actually a little bit of a letdown.  The feeling is similar to when I attached the decks back in January.  I had become used to seeing a shiny, nearly complete object, and suddenly, all that disappeared, and a more complete view of the work to come emerged.  And, with one month to the Wooden Boat Festival....   ACK!

The Boat Sanding Blues

Sanding a boat is a long, tedious process. Since your mind is not engaged, you have lots of time to think.  Maybe you plot out the next steps of the project, or maybe your even daydream about being out on the water.  Sand long enough, though, and you run out of things to think about.  Your mind spins out-of-control, and you can't be sure of what it'll come up with.  While sanding the seventeenth acre of this boat's hull, my mind was well into that mad, out-of-control phase and somehow, for some reason, it ended up coming up with a song....  Here's the result:

It's not my fault, it's the sander's!

Composites in Action

Taping for Fillets

It''s not obvious, but there are some
monster in place here

I had another three week business trip coming up, and I pushed really hard to get the boat flipped before departing.  In a burst of post-flip energy, I also filled all of the external seams with thickened epoxy.  When this dried, I took the big grinder and set about rounding over corners.  With that done, I did the fillets between the keel and the hull....pretty much the last fillets I'll be doing on this boat.  I sure won't miss doing that!

Then it was off to England.  It rained.  The whole time.  That, combined with the usual long work hours didn't leave much time for sightseeing.  But, there were a couple of fun excursions on the way.  For one, I was able to get out skiffing on the Thames with Malcolm and a co-worker.  Those skiffs are gorgeous lapstrake boats, and they pull oh-so-sweetly.  Getting out on the river is always a blast.  Thanks, Malcolm!

A-skiffing we go!

I also took a long walk along the Basingstoke Canal, and even saw a canal boat that a group of people were taking an excursion on.  Staying on one of these would be cheaper than a hotel and I could tie up within walking distance of work.  Unfortunately, I have yet to convince the powers that be to pay for one of these babies for a couple of weeks instead of a hotel and rental car.

Finally, a really big highlight was that the last week I was there was the week before the big Farnborough Airshow.  Lots of airplanes arrived early and spent the week practicing their routines.  I'd get off of work and just hang out by the airfield and watch!

Eurofighter probably put on the most dazzling pre-show show.

The F-18s were no slouches either!

See the 787 performing was the best of all.  While not as exciting a display
as the fighters, seeing something that you worked on cavorting about is a decided thrill.

With the England trip out of the way, it was time to get back to work on the boat.  An hour or two with the sander lead to smooth surfaces, radiused corners, and generally refined lines.  That quickly, it was time for the 'glass.

Had I followed my approach on much of the rest of the boat, I would have tackled this one section at a time, carefully masking off the borders, wetting out the 'glass, and trimming it back to the tape line.  This is a pretty good strategy for breaking up the work and minimized sanding (no frayed ends). Well, for whatever reason, I abandoned this disciplined process and decided to 'glass the entire lower hull in one go.  Was is jet lag?  Impatience?  Ambition?  Yes.

\Laying out the fiberglass.

It took most of a morning to get all of the fiberglass laid out, smoothed down, and trimmed back.  There are overlaps on all the seams, and in the case of the keel-to-hull joints and where the scarf joints are, I also added a third layer of 'glass.  This boat'll be brutally strong!

The great wet-out begins.

After lunch that day, I started the great wet-out.  I have never tackled such a big fiberglass job before.  I tried to work as quickly and efficiently as I could, but it still took over four hours to get it done.  The end result was ok...I've definitely done better work.  I justify this in that the added sanding time is less that the flow time required to employ the section-at-a-time method.  In other words, there may be more sanding, but I'll get out on the water sooner.

Epoxy has been applied, and it is time to sand.

The subsequent fill coats of epoxy took progressively less time (two hours and the one hour), but it was still a big job.  And this is just the lower hull!  I've already gone through this process on the upper hull and the entire interior of the boat.  Looking back at it all, this really is one big little boat.  And, of course, I'll really get to experience this bigness in all its glory when I hook up my sander and reduce this mess to a smooth surface.

And thus starts the endless sanding....

Transform and Roll Out

The Boat sits in the garage, ready and waiting to be flipped onto her back.  Here it was concieved, here it grew, here it lives contently as it is advanced for towards completion.  It cannot know that a major transformation awaits it and that its world is soon to be turned upsidedown.  The Builder, however, knows, and has been readying The Boat for this day.

Now, the time has come.  The Builder, in preparation, sets about applying liberal peer pressure to his colleagues and is soon able to muster a brave crew.  A date is set, and the clock is ticking.

With the building cradle removed, The Boat sits unfettered.          

The Builder rushes to make everything ready.  The tools, supplies, and scrap wood that had lived in and around The Boat are swept away.  Rubbish is disposed of.  The Builder flits about the boat, sandpaper in hand, knocking down any sharp edges or sundry roughness that had the potential to damage the hands of his pressed crew.  Foam and carboard padding are gathered and staged.  A test run of opening the garage door and deploying the padding is conducted.  In the final gesture of absolute readiness, the sides of the cradle in which The Boat took form are stripped away, leaving her resting on her keel, balancing on a sawhorse strategically placed under her starboard rubrail.  She awaits in readiness.


The day arrives.  Mountaineer, U-Boat Driver, PACSman and The King come out to help.  Some members of the crew have just supped at Restaurant of the The Grouchy Chef, so that they may be strong for the awaiting task. 

The door is flung open and sunlight pours in onto The Boat's bow.  Padding is deployed.  The Plan is laid out for the crew.  It is simple enough: coax the boat out of the garage, roll her, and return her to from whence she came.  The benefits of having gathered over 60 years of engineering experience is clear, and some minor details are quickly ironed out.  The Plan is incrementally improved.

The crew surrounds the vessel and sizes up the task.  The King grips the rubrail and gives it a tug, querying, "is this structural?"  The Builder assures The King that said rubrail is fully capable of supporting the weight of the boat.  The Builder is not as sure as he looks, however, and feels his throat constrict ever-so-slightly as the crew seizes the rubrails and begins to haul.  The rail holds.  The Boat hobbles forward.  A crew of four could have managed, but the task would have been more daunting.  Likewise, a sixth crewman would have lightened the load, but was unnecessary.  With Builder and Mountaineer forward, U-Boat Driver and the King aft, and PACSman at the stern, The Boat sidles into the sunlight.

Mountaineer, U-Boat Driver, and The King contemplate the next step. 
PACSman hides in the shadow of the King.

The Boat is in position.  The Builder worries.  While all rational analysis tells The Builder that his creation is well founded and fully capable of withstanding the loads about to be applied, there nevertheless lurk the phantoms of doubt in his mind.  The dark vision of joints parting and The Boat unzipping midway though the roll cannot be fully dispelled.  His heartrate rises slightly.  The Boat, monolithic in its strength scorns this doubt and in defiance does not emit so much as creak or groan as the roll begins and load transfers from keel to chine.  Soon, the point of crisis has passed, and The Boat is safely balanced on her rubrail.

Halfway there.

U-Boat Driver dives under the keel.  He is neither lifting nor restraining, but merely keeping the boat in equilibrium.  PACSman takes position at the stern and provides longitudinal stability.  Mountaineer and The King position themselves to recieve The Boat's weight as she rolls past 90 degrees.   Mountaineer provides propulsive effort while The King ably controls the roll.  The Builder dashes about from side to side, trying simulateously to help, supervise, and take photos.  His help and supervision are equally unneeded and in the excitement he largely neglects his camera.

U-Boat Driver, PACSman and The King survey the capsized boat.

Swiftly, smoothly, surely, The Boat is inverted.  The Builder takes the opportunity to thoroughly sweep out the garage for the first time in two years.  Padding is re-deployed.  All hands again take hold of the rubrails and the boat is whisked back into position in the garage. 

The Boat returns to its home with a new outlook on life.

The big roll is complete.  Theend is almost anti-climactic.  The Builder breathes a sigh of relief.  Now filling, fairing, fiberglassing, feathering, and a lifetime of sanding await.

Down The Hatch

As far as Rat Pack movies go, Robin and the Seven Hoods is, well, as good of a Rat Pack movie as you have a right to expect.  At one point in the movie, the innocent Bing Crosby character is accepted into the mafia.  The runs out yelling, as only Bing Crosby can, "Oh boy! I'm a hood, I'm a hood!"  That's what was going through my head as I tackled my latest project.  As I continued to procrastinate on sanding and eventually flipping the boat, I decided to tackle constructing the sea-hood and companionway hatch.

This mini-project did not get off to an auspicious start.  The first step it to take some scrap wood and create a patteron for the forward end of the sea hood. The piece is set at 66 deg to the cabin deck s contour.  So, I grabbed a piece of scrap wood, set it up on the cabin deck at an angle of 66 degrees, and traced away.   I cut out my pattern and fit it to the hull.  Not bad.

Using my pattern, I laid out the shape on a piece of 3/4" mahogany that I'd picked up earlier in the day from Martin Lumber.  I set the table on my bandsaw to 66 deg and went to town on it.  Well, actually, due to the way the angle meter on the bandsaw reads, I set it to 90-66=34 deg.  Catch the math error?  After reseting to 24 deg, I made the cut again.  It felt a little clumsy to make that cut, and the bandsaw emitted strange R2-D2 noises, but the operation went fairly smoothly, and the finished result looked pretty good.  It look good, that is, until I held it up to the boat and realized that while I had cut the correct angle on the bottom, I cut the bevel the wrong way on the top surface.  Off to the scrap heap with that one.

The hood sides and and early iteration of the front

Fortunately, I had another piece of mahogany of the right size laying around.  So, I tried again.  This time the angles were right.  Success!  I the laid out the shape of the sea hood sides and cut them out.  A dry fit on the boat revealed the I hadn't been as successful as I had thought.  Ssomewhere in the process I had mis-measured and mond attempt at the front of the seat hood turned out a little too short.  I didn't see a good to save it, so I bit the bullet, scrapped that guy, drove down to Martin Lumber, and bought a new board.  I joked a little with the guys down there about it being a measure-once-cut-twice-scrap-it-measure-again-cut-twice-scrap-it-measure... kind of day.  They smiled.

Round three.  R2-D2 noises from the bandsaw, cut, cut, cut.  This time I'd somehow over-compensated for the shortness of the previous attempt and ended up with a board that was just a little tall.  No problem!  I laid out a new curve at the right height and returned to the bandsaw.  I was about halfway through the cut when I realized something was right.  I had the board backwards and once again was slicing through the board at the wrong angle.  I really didn't want to scrap another board, and I briefly considered filling in the kerf of my half completed cut with thickened epoxy and calling it a day.  But, the vision is to have the sea hood and companionway hatch varnished, and a line of thickened epoxy streaking across the front of the hood does not fit with the vision.  So, back to Martin I went.

If they were smiling when I left previously, they could butshake their heads upon my return.  I snatched up another suitable length of mahogany, supported my local small business some more, and headed for home, vowing as I left that I would not return that day.

My gallery of failure.  From left to right, we have "pattern", "wrong angle", "too short", "too tall+1/2 wrong angle", and finaly "good enough"

I again oh-so-carefully laid out the shape of the front of the sea hood on the board, and proceeded with the utmost caution to the bandsaw, where with infinite care, I methodically and meticulously made the required cuts, whilst the bandsaw again wailed like a distressed droid.  If this didn't work, I was done for the day. 

It worked.  A dry fit revealed no issues and I temporarily assembled the front and sides of the hood.

Assembly!

As evidenced by the rate at which I  was destroying mahogany earlier in the day, clearly I was not in the kind of focused-yet-zen-like state of mind that is condusive to good boatbuilding.  Nevertheless, I soldiered on, knocking out the sides and front of the companionway hatch, and the aft trim pieces for hatch 'n hood, with alarming alacricity. The manual suggests using a plane to bevel the sides and ends of the hatch and hood, but the geometry is simple enough that these bevels can be included when cutting the pieces in the first place.

Frame of the companionway hatch.

Test fit of the assembly.  I may have been on a roll, but that doesn't mean I  was quite thinking straight.  I naturally decided that the forward face of the hatch should face aft, into the cockpit when I snapped this picture.  No, no, no, forward is alway forward. 

I had built up a ton of momentum (no, the units are wrong...maybe a ton*ft/sec of momentum), so despite the hour getting late, and a rumbling in my tummy, I decided to fit the decks.  The plans yielded two oversized pieces of ply that I temporarily fit up, marked, removed, and trimmed.  Easy as pie.

Trial fit of the deck on the hood.

Go-go-gadget adjustable hole saw!

I've been working steadily to check of tasks from the pre-boat-flipping checklist.  I had ordered some Vetus  portlights from Fisheries Supply, and was waiting for those to come in before cutting the holes for them (just to make sure I cut the right size hole!).  It took a while, but they finally arrived.  I opened the box, dug out the directions, and found the size of the required hole.  It specified a hole diameter of 0.125.  No units.  Bad technical writing.  Well, since Vetus is a Dutch company, I could only assume this was in metric units, and given the magnitude, it had to be meters.  Refraining from using Google's unit conversion features, I instead demonstrated my keen mathmatical prowess by converting this to inches by hand.  A smidge less than 5".  So, I set my adjustable hole saw to a smidge less than 5", and started cutting holes in my boat.

I have seeeeen the light!

The PocketShip plans show pretty trapezoidal toerails running along the sides of the deck. I like the design of these...they really look nice. Trouble is, at some point I made the mistake of envisioning grabrails there instead.  After walking the docks at the marina looking at grabrail designs, and playing around with a cardboard mockup on the boat, I decided that it would be too much trouble to make grabrails.  The big stumbling. block was that they'd have to be curved to follow the curvature of the sides of the deck.   I decided to definitely go with the toerails as specified instead.

But thoughts of the grab rails kept dogging me.  Finally, I gave in.  I could at least have a go at grab rails, and if they turned out to be rubbish, I could revert to the attractive trapazoidal toerails. 

I traced the curve of deck onto a piece of scrap plywood, cut it out and fashioned a jig on which I laminated together two pieces of 1/2 mahogany.  I laid out a couple of lines indicating the horizontal lines of the rails, and mesaured and marked the locations of the feet.  I freehanded the curves.  A quick trip through the bandsaw, and I had a pair of rails that I was glad to see looked pleasing to the eye.  A dry fit on the boat validated my initial reaction. 

Finally, after all of this, I could procrastinate no longer.  I hooked up the sander, donned my favorite sanding gear (long sleeved shirt, ancient jeans, respirator, safety goggles, hearing protection) and finished the last (for now) of the sanding of the topsides.  The boat is ready to flip.

Two Years Before the Mast

Growing up, I had a copy of Dana's Two Years Before the Mast sitting on my bookshelf.  I never was really interested in it.  To my under-informed mind, the term "before the mast," conjured images of boring history of some dark, dusty semi-medieval era, strangely resembling Disney's The Sword in the Stone, before they invented sailing.  Didn't sound like a good read.  I am a somewhat vociferous reader, though, and eventually I felt compelled to pick up the book and read it.  I forget when...maybe in high school.  It definitely wasn't what I'd imagined.  It opened my eyes to the world of tall ships and sailing  (and I learned what "before the mast" really means).  I can't say that I've yet recovered from the impact that book had on me, which is a good thing in my opinion.

As I mentioned previously, it was while I was on a wind tunnel test in Switzerland in May 2010 that I became infatuated with PocketShip.  When I got home from that trip, I ordered that manual, just to stoke the imagination and assess how big of a project it would be.  The manual arrived a few days later, and I spent the last few nights of May reading it cover to cover.  On thing I remember is reading the chapter on building the spars.  I don't know why, but just seemed like a lot of fun.  It's been something I've looked forward to since the beginning.

Now, two years, almost to the day, after first reading the manual, I found myself slicing up some beautiful pieces of spruce...I was building my mast.  This was completely unplanned, but I guess it really did turn out to be two years before the mast!

Way back, I had weighed to cost and benefits of fir versus spruce, and decided the lower cost of fir outweighed the benefit of spruce.  As I've invested more time and money into this project, though, I reevaluated my decision.  I decided I really wanted the lighter weight aloft, and the cost differential wasn't that much.   Long ago, I had purchase fir for my bowsprit and boom (and even cut out the bowsprit), and fir they shall remain.  The booms of a gaffer should be heavy anyway for best sailing qualities.  And as for the bowsprit, well...whatever.  The mast and gaff, however, will be sitka spruce. This should make a sizable reduction in weight aloft. 

My "radar reflector."  I have no way of knowing if this will work.

The mast is hollow, of a square cross section, fashioned from four 3/4" staves.  The mast tapers from a 3"x3" box in the lower three-ish feet to a about a 2"x2" at the tippy-top.  Each end has a filler block, making the mast solid at the ends to support the loads of the mast pivot, gooseneck, the various hardware at the masthead.  Taking advantage of the hollow section, I cut a number of strips of aluminum foil, 2"-3" long, to stuff into the top of the mast to serve as a radar reflector.  Those 2"-3" should be right around the wavelength of a ship's radar, and hopefully will light it up like a Christmas tree.  With the Naval station so near by, it seems sensible.  Not that the Nimitz would be able to maneuver out of my little boat's way, but it's the thought that counts.

Todd at Martin Lumber was able to procure some nice, clear, vertical-grain 16'+ sitka spruce planks for me.  As before, my plan was to carry each plank home.  Fortunately, when I explained my plan (prefacing it with "you're gonna look at me like I'm crazy when I tell you how I'm getting these home") to Willie, one of the guys in the yard there, he offered to drop them off for me free of charge.  Another example of how Martin Lumber takes care of their customers.  Thanks, Willie!

The planks were 5/4 (dimensional) rough cut, so I had to spend about an hour running them through the surface planer to get the 3/4" (actual) required thickness.  I wish I had a picture...I nearly filled up a 32 gallon garbage can with spruce shavings!

Staves getting the epoxy-sealing treatment

I carefully laid out the tapers and cut them out with my trusty circular saw.  Then, the part I was dreading...cutting 3/8" deep rabbets in the sides for the fore and aft faces to slot into.  I could just picture wrestling with a 16' plank, trying to keep it up against the fence on the table saw.  I contemplated doing some fancy router work instead, but I finally took a deep breath and fired up the table saw.  It was actually a surprisingly smooth operation.  The rabbets were cut in no time!

From there, the operation was pretty straightforward: cut the blocks for each end of the mast; seal up the insides with a couple coats of epoxy; lather up the mating surfaces with thickened epoxy; clamp the thing together (stuffing my foil strips inside); and wait for the glue to dry.  Actually, there was on more step before I put the final stave in place. 

Blurry camera mode has been enabled...here are the staves ready for the glue-up

I did the big glue-up fairly early in the day, and I used fast hardener, so by the evening, I was able to take the clamps off, sand down the squeezeout and use the router to put a nice 1/2" roundover on the corners.  It looks great.

Still blurry.  I did the glue-up outside so that I'd still have room to work inside the shop.  Note the proximity to the blooming rhody.  Only one bee managed to get distracted from the pink flowers and entomb its rear legs in the squeeze-out.

Blurry mode disabled.  Still a bad picture, though.  Here the mast has been cleaned up and the roundovers applied.

Speaking of bees, I saw one fly into a hole in the garage.  I wondered where the hole lead.  It lead into the garage...and the growing wasps' nest!  I dealt with this quickly.

Test fit of the lazarette hatches

Yes...I'm still sanding and getting getting distracted by a bunch of tasks that I want to get done before flipping the boat.  I managed to get the fiddly trim strips onto the transom skirt.  I made the cutouts for my lazarette hatches.  I cut the hole in the transom for the tiller and the hole in the bow for the bowsprit.  I filled the screw holes in the rubrails and got the dropboard retainer/companionway coaming thingies installed.  Okay, so I haven't actually spent more than a half-hour sanding since last update, but it I will, I promise.