pyorgosp

Had many adventures with Aerie, rerigged her into a gaff sloop, took her to California. Now building a new, also self-designed four-strake15-foot boat (this is a cat with a single sprit sail) in Greece. Hull assembled, will restart work in the spring. For details, as before, see http://176inches.blogspot.com

Adding a jib would definitely upset the helm balance, plus the whole point of the cat ketch rig is not to have to worry about jib sheets and bringing the jib across, but just putting the helm-a-lee for a leisurely tack. If you like the spritsail's low center of effort and gravity and short spars, but perhaps want to avoid some of its disadvantages, I would suggest you go the way I did with my self-designed cat ketch: use two standing lugs with sprit booms. AFAIK it may be the only one of its type, but it's stable, low center of gravity and effort, traditional, nicely short wooden spars, easy tacking, not too difficult to reef. Initial rigging up is a little tricky, though. More details on http://176inches.blogspot.com. But I would not mess with the sail plan of a professionally-designed boat without very careful analysis of Center of Effort and Center of Lateral Resistance. .

I did some research and it seems that sea kayaks tend to have more rocker and less bluff (more acute-angled) ends than the Kudzu Craft offerings.

Thanks Jeff. I'll just have to do some research.

How appropriate are the Kudzu Craft designs for the sea (meaning relatively calm waters such as Mediterranean beaches)? Are any of them more suitable than others? Thanks in advance.

A question: is it foam core laminated with fiberglass? How many layers of whatever?

Spent two weeks finding and fixing the source of the leak, which had persisted despite my early optimism. It was mostly through the centerboard pivot hole, which meant dismantling the ballast box, taking out the lead shot (which had started to corrode) and doing all sorts of diagnostics and fixes. Hopefully the leak is stopped or at least minimized and the lead protected from corrosion. For details, as usual, see http://176inches.blogspot.com ,

Thanks Chris, I had forgotten how close you are. There is no rot and the sail is fine, if unconventional (batwing, sliding gunter). All rigging is in good shape but the mast needs a little epoxy work. I'd be thrilled to have a fellow enthusiast give this little boat a home! I'll send you a private message if I can. I'm away this weekend but plenty of time after that.

Trailer's been sold. Anyone interested in the boat? Looking for a good home before I give it away to a charity.

Another thing: don't mean to complicate your life but you will find that a flat-bottomed boat with a blunt bow is sluggish at rowing and will not track well. For good rowing preformance you'd want a narrow, sharp-bowed one with a v-bottom and a skeg; but of course that kind would be hard to build and to nap in. Boat design, like life, is full of compromises...

The design sounds feasible but you may be over-designing this boat quite a bit. For this size boat 3/8 inch plywood should be sufficient for the bottom, and if there's any curvature in the bottom 1/2 inch ply is very hard to bend. Fiberglassing is unnecessary in my opinion and only adds weight and cost, unless you expect a lot of scraping, but the three 1X4 keels should protect the bottom. I would suggest hardwood for those, and I've found 3/4 by 1 inch oak (actual dimensions) to be good. Ditto with chines on the outside: probably unnecessary. Can't really picture the ribs but once again 2x4s are excessive. Nothing wrong with over-designing but I personally prefer economy of means... As long as there is curvature and flare in the sides, you do need spreaders until the glue sets. What are youg going to use the sponsons for?

Thanks, Frank. I kept the cost down by not using fiberglass, using the most standard paint I could find (mainly so I could always find it in the future), sewing my own sails, and being really ruthless on the chandlery: very simple but functional blocks, clam cleats instead of cam ones, etc.: I find that with this traditional rig, costly, high-efficiency hardware is not needed. I don't know why but I tried hard to keep the cost down as a point of pride. As I mentioned there may be costs that I missed (I just remembered the $12.50 I spent on a closet rod for the mizzen sprit, and $13 for the oar leathers, waxed thread and needles, plus a few bits of stainless steel hardware left over from the past). Whatever they were it was well under $2,300, anyway.

Thanks. The only weak spot in an epoxy/lapstrake boat is the centerboard slot That's where the voids were (where the CB trunk meets the garboard), and they were barely visible. Since I diicovered the leak I used more epoxy followed by caulk along the slot, plus caulk along the inside seams. I hope it is now fixed. The similarity to the CS is not accidental and I credited B&B for the inspiration. But it is more clearly influenced by the Lapwing (also by B&B ). It has a rounded cross-section (I need to post a photo of the transom) with a total of 8 strakes (4 per side). Other influences include boats by François Vivier and John Welsford and the Iain Oughtred Caledonia Yawl. My boat has more freeboard than most of the ones I mentioned and also 50 lbs of lead ballast on the keel batten. The rig really is dinstinclive (or maybe crazy). I did a couple of Google searches and couldn't find a single example of a cat ketch with two sprit-boomed standing lugs. Welsford's Houdini has the same type of sail but only a single one. It's finicky to set up but it sails very well, as long as the tack downhaul is nice and tight. Chris: Have you finished your Caravelle?

So...Nobody cares? No questions, comments, suggestions, advice, criticism, cutting remarks, nothing? After over a year of hard work and steep learning curves, my boat is real, she floats and sails. Why the silence?

First launch was Saturday. Lots of work, mistakes, problems and some good, fast cruising with wind speeds between 15 and 20 miles. Worst were a (relatively slow) leak and an inability to tack (flat out stalled). That last one would have been a real killer, but it was fixed simply by pulling down tight on the mizzen downhaul. Main points: After retrieval I found the leak, and it's through the joint between CB trunk and garboard. Nothing that some nails, epoxy compound and caulk won't fix. Unfortunately the supposedly watertight buoyancy compartments also took on some water, so I have to dry them out and seal them with caulk this time. Clearly epoxy compound leaves invisible holes for water to come through. Rigging her is a pain, and a lot of things can go wrong. It takes two people to do it. On a calm day she could be rigged at the dock, but since the mizzen partner is also the rowing thwart, I would need a motor, which I don't intend to get (yet, anyway). She rows very well, but the high sides and nine-foot oars mean she is not a real row boat. She is very dry (well, except the leak anyway ), weatherly, stable and stiff. She has very little leeway. Also a slight weather helm, which is exactly how I designed her. She can really fly on a moderate breeze. The tacks, and especially the mizzen one, need to be tightly hauled down. I had been warned many times in books and web articles, but I didn't realize that the consequence would be inability to tack. The masts, although slender, performed perfectly well, with no perceptible bend. I can't vouch for them in a much stronger wind, but I am very pleased with them. I need to clearly label yards and sprits so I don't repeat stupid mistakes like I made on first launch. On Sunday I painted the tips of the mizzen yard and sprit blue. Easy to remember, since Blue at the MIzzen is the last one in Patrick O'Brian's series of nautical novels (of Master and Commander fame). For more details and a couple of measly photos (too busy and worried, and no friend to take them from another boat) check out http://176inches.blogspot.com

Aerie is now fully rigged and the 55-week saga is complete. I'm hoping to have her inspected, titled and registered in the coming week and then launch her ASAP. We'll see how she sails! For more details, see http://176inches.blogspot.com.

All but the running rigging done! I didn't post for almost twelve weeks, but I've been busy. The boat is now built, varnished and painted, with only a few details left plus the running rigging. Here it is on its new trailer. Go ahead, tell me with a straight face that she's not a beauty! (PS: I had trouble appending the photos last night, here they are) For more details, check out http://176inches.blogspot.com

I have almost finished building a 15 foot boat I designed myself (see http://176inches.blogspot.com), and I would agree with most everything people have said. - Single-chine stich-and-glue is the easiest to build, and has the advantage of being slightly more stable (the angled profile displaces more water as it heels), but I personaly like a more rounded hull, so I built a glued lapstake boat. Strip building would make a beautiful hull, and so would a narrow lapstrake such as the B&B Lapwing or Francois Vivier's designs (http://www.vivierboats.com). I opted for wider strakes as a compromise between beauty and ease of building. John Welsford (http://www.jwboatdesigns.co.nz/) has several wide strake designs (they are of the hard chine type, made with stringers). - A pivoting centreboard is more versatile and will compensate for changes in wind speed, point of sailing, etc. - A cat ketch rig is harder to prepare for launch but easier to sail, and sprit booms also have many andvantages (self-vanging, less danger of being hit), so B&B designs are a good starting point. - The amount of freeboard, side decks, ability to row, ease of sailing and many other things are decisions one has to make, depending on the conditions you expect to subject the boat. Good luck and keep us informed as you make your decisions.

It's a V-bottom pram design. I've had up to three adults. Used to sail it in South Carolina lakes. When the wind failed we would row it, stopping at beaches for picnics and swims. Best sailing point is a beam reach.

I provided a photo and more details on my original post. I would rather sell to a fellow builder/enthusiast than to anyone who only wants the trailer!

I have built oars with a ply blade, and I am now building a pair (9 ft long) out of soilid poplar. Alas I mostly don't use plans and it's been too much trouble to create them. But I can give you some guidelines: My ply blade oars have shafts of 2x2 pine (1 1/2 inch square actual). The shaft tapers down to 3/4 inch thickness, with a 1/4 inch slot cut into it to receive the blade. The blade is 28 inches long, 6 inches wide, 1/4 inch thick and fits in the slot. There are u-shaped pieces of 1/4 inch ply glued to each side of the blade (they fit around the end of the shaft) for reinforcement. The hand grips and oar lock regions are rounded. I used epoxy for gluing and coating. Not super pretty but have proved very sturdy and serviceable. I can scare up a photo or rough sketch if you're interested.

I am looking for opinions on floor design, so please pitch in. Since my last post I have made the centerboard, rudder, tiller, yards and sails (check out http://176inches.blogspot.com). What remains is the masts and oars, which I hope to do this month, then the floor and finish work on the insides and decking, which brings us to this: My original plan was to have removable floorboards with the oars stowed below (thanks due to Francois Vivier for the inspiration). I now have my doubts both about oar stowage (why not stash them against the bench seat risers? easier to get to, and I won't have to cut notches in the frames under the floor) and about floorboards. Why not have a permanent, watertight plywood floor instead? It's not too late yet! The way I see it, floorboards let any water drop to the bilges (no splashing around my ankles) from where it can be pumped later and dry safely, since the gaps between the boards allow for air circulation. A permanent ply floor needs inspection ports (at least six of them, actually, given that the sub-floor space is divided by frames and centerboard trunk) to make sure water does not accumulate and cause rot. Opinions welcome!

I am building a new boat (see "new design, 15' cat ketch" thread in the Design Forum) and I am offering the old one and its trailer to a good home. The boat is a heavily modified Siren (from Clarkcraft.com) with a batwing sliding gunter rig and no jib, with large buoyancy compartments. Very nice sail and oar boat (homemade oars included), quite zippy especially on a beam reach. Lots of interesting old-time details (eye-splices, wooden toggles, jiffy reefing line, etc.). The trailer is a 12' EZ-Loader galvanized steel affair: it's in fine shape with full set of working lights, etc. Asking price is $700 for boat AND trailer. Location is NW Ohio.

I am done with the boat except for centerboard, rudder, floorboards and some coatings. During the winter I will deal with the spars, sails, etc. For latest progress and information on the rig, including a sketch, check out http://176inches.blogspot.com Any comments and advice welcome!

"Not Dead Yet," even though I haven't posted here for 9 weeks. Have been working on the inside of the boat, and it is slow and picky (and I had some pleasant interruptions). Bench tops are on and I am close to doing the decking, but there is a lot of small things to do. I may manage to finish all but the flooring before the really cold weather sets in, but maybe not. Centerboard, rudder and spars I can perhaps do in the basement over the winter, and I have many months to sew the sails. The floorboards will probably have to wait for the spring. Keep checking http://176inches.blogspot.com.