Yellowtail

Da Deed's bin Done and Da Paint's bin Daubed :shock: Here she is all her all her glory ... well, without things like rowlocks and inspection ports and I'm not even thinking about the sailing rig Cheers Richard

For those of you not in the know, years ago, Gav Atkins designed a small, cheap boat called the Mouse Boat. Most are paddled, but last year, I asked him to produce a rowing version. Enter, the Rowing Mouse. My lad and I built the first one and launched her last year. I've just put together an Image Station album of the building of Scrat - the Rowing Mouse. The link is here: http://www.imagestation.com/album/pictures.html?id=2129062050 You have to be a member of Image Station to view it (I think) but it is free and I've never had a hassle with them. And as a teaser, here's two of the 40 piccies in the album. Cheers

Hey, I got my camera to talk to my computer (don't laugh, it's a sad story). Here's the wee beastie. Bright blue will be added to the gunwale but ... just the outside? gunwale and inwale? gunwale, inwale, knees and that curved doubler on the rear transom? dip the whole thing in a vat of purple and make my daughter happy? Thanks for the feedback boys. Cheers Richard

My Tender Behind - snub nose pram at bit under 8' long - has just been painted. She is now a lovely, overall beige (looks good despite the conotations of the term 'beige'. Now, the colour (which will be done tomorrow - not wanting to rush you). I plan to do the gunwales in blue ... not the purple my daughter wants. The inwale is offset inside the boat - from above, you see 20mm inwale, 20mm spaces and blocks, 20mm hull and gunwale. Question - how much of this do I paint blue? All the inwale (top, sides, spacer blocks, etc), or just the gunwale and top of the hull, leaving the spacers beige? I've been searching for photos for inspiration but am not having a lot of luck at the moment. Some suggestions would be appreciated. Cheers Richard

While it is good for the soul to finish painting your boat, then settle back in a comfy chair and just look ... and drool ... and think wonderful things about your craft ... ... I advise that you do NOT do this before cleaning the brush! :shock: %$^&*grrrr runs @#$#@!grrrrr dry spots *&^%grrrrrrr Richard

Don't overlook tilting trailers. We've loaded big, heavy, f/glass runabouts of the beach in water they were no longer floating in. Sure, the big winch helped but so did the tilting trailer. Richard

Use a heat gun and be prepared to be sickened by how easy it is to get the glass off - that's been my experience, though with much older fibreglass than yours. However, when a coating starts to lift like that, usually you'll find that only enough of it will stick to make the whole job a pain in the moaning chair squasher. If she were mine, I'd get as much of the fibreglass off as possible without going stupid, then sit back and have a look ... and a beer ... and a sook. The amount of glass left will tell you whether to re-glass it or take the lot off. If you do choose to reglass, think of it as very tough paint. You've had five years sailing on it so far ... that's better than a coat or two of enamel would have done down there. And if there is no rot, you're still ahead of the game. Cheers Richard

Over due eh? Redback was supposed to be a 6 mth project. She's now over eighteen months ... and she's only an 8' dink! Richard

**Sob** No-one knows what me boat is. I've just finished taking the paint off the hull. Scary job. This old girl's got a history - repairs, rot, more repairs, plugs. And I've renewed my hate affair with sanding. Richard

Gee, it's in the thirties here too ... only that's Centigrade so it's lovely and warm and the sun's shining and the birds are singing and I'm playing with my boat coz it's perfect boating weater and ... have I rubbed it in enough yet? Cheers Richard

I thought that the approved method was to use words your mother wouldn't approve of, stomp inside and have a therapeutic ale or three. Standing back the next day and asking yourself how big a problem this really is helps. Many a non-perfect finish has been un-noticeable in the real world and sometimes (though not often enough sadly), the imperfections are an improvement. Hint - I don't know where the dust has landed on your boat but if it's a deck, think about the first time catch a squid and the rotten thing inks everywhere. Richard

Thanks for that Barry. I'm searching through their data base at the moment and I've sent an email off to the admin of the site. Perhaps ... Of course, the rotten thing might be a one off design by a backyard butcher. It might be rare and valuable. It might be a pain in the neck. But to me, it's just Henry. My boat. Richard

AAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH Two hundred viewings and not even a whiff of sympathy. Help. I admit, I realised that this was a long shot but was hoping for something. Please, someone suggest a design, even if it's the Battleship Tirpitz. Seriously (pause for hysterical laughter), does anyone know of another site I might try? Perhaps a dinghy racing site or a website with a range of classes listed? The only UK dinghy forum I'm aware of has next door to no traffic and most sites listing classes are just for those used at a particular club. An historic racing site would be the go. I used to have a link for one but can't find it now. As a side note, when I rejoined the ranks of single parenthood earlier this year, I renamed this boat - Henry VIII, after a bloke with a good attitude to ex-wives. Richard

I've got a 12' dinghy. When I bought it, I was told it was a 'Torch' but the few photos I've seen of Torchs are of a different design - they are all double chine boats, this is a single chine. So, what is it? She's about 12'4" long (bit hard to measure accurately at the moment). Probably about 12' along the waterline. Beam is 5'2" but that includes 1" of decking overlaping on each side so 5' to the outside of the hull. Single chine. Very flat V on the hull. I think it originally had a gaff rig or gunter set up. Now she features a cobbled up marconi set up but that, of course, is of no help. Dagger board. Mast sits on the fore decking supported by a very heavy king plank. Framed - very heavy frames. Age? Sixties? Seventies? - ply with fibreglass tape on the seams but lots of nails holding things together. She now features side tanks but they were added by the previous owner - the existing decking is how she came to him. Any help, even if it's just pointing me somewhere else, would be appreciated. As I said earlier, she's always been described as a Torch but unless there were more than one design called the Torch, she ain't one of them. I've attached two photos that show the hull shape. Other photos can be seen on my website. Thanks Richard [attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

Awww. While I'm glad you have your plans, it was a lot more romantic picturing your daughter giving them to a passing fish and the consequent difficulties in building a Weekender under water. Richard

I've got a Heron, racing dinghy. In the bottom, are two venturis. Get water in boat, open venturis, the water rushing past under the hull sucks the water out of your boat. Two problems. Your boat needs to be moving for them to work and moving quite quickly. They rely on rubber seals which, when you get a bit of sand in there, don't. Seal that is. Mine leak like crazy and that's considered normal, but we're working the things off a beach. Cheers Richard

Gravity eh? Old Isaac Newton's got a lot to answer for for inventing gravity. Can you imagine what it must have been like in those days? Overnight, boat design would have had to have been revolutionised to cater for this new phenonoma - gravity. I mean, if there's no gravity, there's no weight, so things would float without any problems. Then this great git, no doubt drunk on cider at the time, dreams up gravity and all of a sudden you've got boats sinking all over the place, not to mention falling off trailers and stuff like that. I makes one wonder doesn't it. So many questions ... like, would I write something different if I had a second cup of coffee this morning. Richard

They say that when naming a kid, you should do a doorstep test - you stand on your back doorstep, yell the name as loud as you can, and see how foolish you feel. I suspect you need to do something similar with a boat. I've got my half built 14 ft Yellowtail sitting in the shed, un-named. But then again, I'm not working on her at the moment (got a dink to finish), so I'm guessing that a name will come once I start. My little 8 footer is called Redback. The design is Welsford's 'Tender Behind', which he admits was a play on words. I decided to take the play a bit further - there's a famous Aussie song about a man who went to the dunny one night, and was bitten on the bum by a Redback (poisonous spider). The two sort of went together nicely. Richard

The plot sickens. Grrr. I'm beginning to wonder if this boat building game is great until you step into the shed whereupon it starts to go downhill. Grrr. The first of my half sized gunwales split before I even had it half bent. Grrrr. So I had a go with another stick, this time after wrapping it in towels and soaking it with with boiling water for half an hour. This helped but not a lot. There I was thinking I'd have to buy another plank and cut some new gunwale stock. And I started thinking about what had been said earlier - especially the armour plating comment. So I dug the plans out and had another look. Sure enough, the only place gunwale measurements are shown is 65x12, buy he says 'ex 65x12'. And when I started looking at the various diagrams that show the gunwale, it's drawn as the same width as the inwales. So I'm guessing it's supposed to be a piece of 65mm ripped in half. Which I now have. So I'm going to use the two halves of my unbroken gunwale to make both gunwales. It's still a hell of a bend - I measured it today. Straight edge from end to end, the sheer drops 4" about 2/3 of the way along a distance of about 7'6". I've got one gunwale bent on the boat at the moment. When that's had a chance to set, I'll boil up the other one and clamp that on. Then glue them. I could go buy some more clamps of course, so I can do them both together. Probably should to avoid warping the boat. Pity I spent my spare cash on beer the other day. And the worst part of it is that I now have no excuse not to mow the lawns! Of course, there's always laziness. Cheers Richard

The deed's been done. I wandered out into the shed this afternoon and ran the gunwales through the table saw. Nicely split down the middle. Well, one is. Ironically, the piece I'd been trying to bend had adopted a slight vertical curve, enough to ensure that it wouldn't run straight down the fence of my saw. Doesn't matter. When I get a couple of hours tomorrow, I'll glue them on. Doncha love this boat building game. So many interesting ways to get it wrong and with epoxy, it doesn't matter. My favourite quote comes from the above mentioned My Welsford - the mistake has not been made in boatbuilding that can not be fixed with epoxy. Cheers Richard

I forgot to mention. I did ask the designer about this. He made a comment about remembering towels and lots of boiling water. I'm not surprised. She's a solid little beastie but with a good reputation. I'm building her solid, buying strength rather than chasing lightness. This doesn't mean she'll be overweight, just good and strong. I suspect she's going to have a rough life as her role will be general dogsbody. And here's the ironic part. I chose this design partly because it'd go in the back of the vehicle I had at that time. I sold that vehicle soon after starting the boat. But I can't wait to finish her, so I can start working on the Yellowtail, that gorgeous 14 footer you see on my avatar. Richard

Oh good, I'm not as mad as I thought I might be. I have considered building a steam box. Am very tempted to. I've even got most of the bits ... and my good mate Mike would like to see one in operation. Hell, I'm getting sick of doing his experimentation for him (he's cunning enough to stay well behind me with his project). Ahh, firing up the table saw is easier. Richard

I'm currently building Welsford's 'Tender Behind'. The gunwales specified are 65x12 mm. The sheer has a LOT of vertical curve - put a straight edge between the ends and the middle dips a good 6". This is in an 8 foot boat. The task now is to fit the inwales (30x20) and the gunwales. I've proven that I can get the inwales to go ... provided I find a nice, flexible piece of oregon - don't you love that BANG when a stick lets go? Scared the willies out of me. But I know I can get the inwales to go. But those gunwales. Man. I've tried wrapping the things in towels and soaking them with boiling water for half an hour - made them very flexible and the horizontal curve went on nicely, but not a movement vertically (bending that 65mm dimension). My plan now is to rip the gunwales up the centre ie, turn them into 32x12mm, and glue them on in two bits. I know that will work, but it precludes any thoughts of a bright finish (I was planning to use paint anyway but ...) Before I fire up the table saw, does anyone have any other suggestions for fitting these gunwales? Early in the piece, I asked the designer why the inwales and gunwales were so large. He replied that the boat, being a tender, was designed to be bashed around and get squashed between yachts. Fair enough. But I look at her now and by crikey, you could squash this little boat between two oil tankers and the tankers'd sink. Cheers Richard I'm building an epoxy boat, held together with bits of wood