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Lapwing #20 aka Hirilondë


Hirilonde

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The time has finally come to sell my Renegade.  I have had some very pleasant seasons cruising and day sailing her, but I just don't get to use her enough to justify the expense of a displacement boat.  My wife and I now rely on summers as a time when we earn a substantial portion of our annual income and cruising no longer appeals to her as much as it used to.  It looks like I have her sold.  I also find myself deciding that an afternoon sail is not worth the effort of the driving and rowing to the mooring for a short sail by myself.  I can launch a daysailor 10 minutes away on a nice pond as well as travel a little when my time and sense for adventure allow.  Rhode Island and Narragansett Bay are home to some of the finest small boat sailing in the world.    And when I choose not to go sailing I won't feel guilty about the non-existent expense of leaving it in the garage.

 

I am in the process of deciding on which tent/garage to purchase as a place to build in and then become home for the new "Hirilondë"  As many here have discovered, how easy it is to store, maintain and launch/haul a boat is directly proportional to the amount it is used.  Being able to rinse the boat off, back it into a secure (from the weather) place and forget about it will add significantly to the ease of use and therefore the pleasure.  Building a Graham Byrnes design will make the rigging and related chores of use as simple as any. And then there is the aesthetics that are very important to me.  Life is too short to own an ugly boat.  Lapwing has some of the prettiest classic lines of any daysailor I have ever seen and sailing Ken Pott's Core Sound at the 1st Annual B&B Messabout has convinced me that a cat ketch is a great design for simplicity, stability and still being able to go fast.

 

I want to own a daysailor.  I have no real interest in camp/cruising.  I want to be able to take a few people out and I want to be able to go by myself on the spur of the moment.  I want a boat that will require little maintenance but look like a classic wooden boat.  I will not have an outboard, just oars which I plan to seldom use.  If I get stuck in light air I will look at it as an excuse to get out of what ever commitment I may miss.  Being stuck out on the water is a pleasure.  Thanks to technology I can always visit the forum from my boat while I wait for the wind.

 

It may be a slow start with winter upon me.  I would like to have it in the water some time this coming summer but will not let a timeline diminish the joy of building.  So I set no goal in this regard.  I do not see any obstacles to build time, but I will launch her when she is finished.  I will have as much fun building as sailing.

 

I see very little change from the plans.  I will likely rig the sheets more like Tom Lathrop did.  I have sailed all my life with this arraignment.  I am considering wooden masts, because I can.  I will start with the sprits as designed, but may consider wishbooms or conventional booms down the road.  She will have way too much bright work and other cosmetic detailing, again, because I can.  I may add a few personal touches to the interior, but want a simple uncluttered look.  I have been looking forward to this since I first saw Lapwing at the Messabout.  Thanks to Tom and Graham for that.

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My sympathy David. I know how hard it is to turn a page on pleasurable chapter of one's life. Glad you did not decide to chuck it all in and move to Colorado to take up bungee jumping or some such. I hope to cross the "Finnegan's Wake" sometime. Good luck PeterP

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Good luck on your build.   I bought the plans a long time ago but like my CS 17 too much to build another boat right now.

 

I love the classic laps and more traditional look of the Lapwing and have never built a lap boat so at the time I thought I would like to build one then ended up building the Marissa.

 

dale

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Downsizing and simplifying is a good thing as we get older and wiser. I would stick with the sprits for ease of rigging unless you plan to keep the boat rigged all the time. We have the wishbone sprits on our CS17 for performance reasons, to have smooth, undisturbed sail shape. I am in the process of making some spruce sprits for use day sailing as the wishbones take too much time to rig up. Don't tell my sailmaker.

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Dave - I had the rigging time down to 11 minutes on Southbound. That was the amount of time between when I got out of the truck to rig, and when I got back in the truck to launch.

You and I seem to be trading places. I just got my boat, Witchcraft, onto a mooring a couple of weeks ago and I'm trying to keep just a little of the convenience of a trailer boat by keeping the dinghy on a trailer with all the gear in it and ready to go.

You can't beat a trailer boat for convenience because you can load and unload all your gear and provisions right there in the driveway and launch wherever you want (almost) - And you certainly won't find many boats that rival Lapwing's looks.

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   Southbound (which is no longer my boat) is a CS17 with sleeve-luff sails.  The sleeve luffs make it harder to reef but easier to launch.  The sails are stored rolled up on the masts with canvas covers over them so the sails don't need to be bent on.  I just pulled the sail covers off the masts, stuck the masts in the steps and we were ready to go. Okay, there was a little more to it than that because I needed to put the rudder on and the outboard, etc. but I think that anytime a minute can be trimmed from the time spent rigging is not only an extra minute spent sailing but an extra chance to sail.  I rented a storage space that was quite close to a lake and was also on my commute so during the summer it was really easy to stop for an hour (or less) of sailing on the way home from work.  I don't think I'll ever find sailing as accessible as that unless I live aboard.

   If I had it to do again I'd go with sails that are easier to reef than sleeve luff sails, but most of the time it was pretty cool to chuck the masts into the steps and sail away - Particularly when there were other people rigging their boats when I arrived at the ramp. :)  There was a gentleman who used to sail a moth hydrofoiler there but I noticed that he was only out when there was a specific amount of wind and it was also not uncommon for me to arrive at the ramp just after he started rigging his boat, launch and sail for a while, see him rip past me at an astonishing speed (Woo!), arrive back at the ramp when he was taking the rig down and leave before him.  I think I spent an hour and a half sailing with a half hour on the ramp and Guy spent nearly two hours on the ramp a half-hour sailing.

   I think Mr. Finnegan will be happy with his decision to build a Lapwing, which is rigged largely the same as a CS.  I adopted Tom's mizzen sheeting arrangement, too, but that doesn't really affect the time spent rigging (and there are better sailors than me - including Graham) who prefer Graham's mizzen sheet arrangement.

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I have no idea.  My whole attitude would have to be different if I were building this on a budget that included labor.  I am just going to savor each phase and put way too much time into this.  I am going to keep track of money spent, but not the hours.  I will have pieces and parts to work on at sporadic times when I just feel like it.  In the end, I don't think I really want to know.

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I thought about tracking hours.  I decided not to.  Do I log hours spent on the beach or swimming in the surf?  On the back porch reading a book?  On the sofa snoozing?  Building is (usually) its own reward.  It takes the tension out of my shoulders and the madhouse out of my mind.  Why would I begrudge myself those hours, or worry if I spent too many of them. 

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I thought about tracking hours.  I decided not to.  Do I log hours spent on the beach or swimming in the surf?  On the back porch reading a book?  On the sofa snoozing?  Building is (usually) its own reward.  It takes the tension out of my shoulders and the madhouse out of my mind.  Why would I begrudge myself those hours, or worry if I spent too many of them.

I never worry about spending too many hours on the build, and I would be at the higher end of the time range.I worry that the project is going to end and I am going to finish. It is the most satisfying and rewarding challenge I have ever done. I hope I like using the boat as much as I do building it. :)

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Many thanks for all the  comments on boat building time. As a home boat building guy (BRS17  plus few Jim Michalak designs)  I do confirm it's hard to control and count the time of a  boat building. It's just a part of a sailing project. But it's for the first time I'm going to outsource. I need to talk to about a price of the hull in relation of time necessary to build it. 

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 But it's for the first time I'm going to outsource. I need to talk to about a price of the hull in relation of time necessary to build it. 

 

Yeah, you do.  This will be my 3rd B&B build, though the first was a Mini Paw and the 2nd a Spindrift.  The Mini Paw was a professional build, but I took it through epoxied and the customer did the bulk of the sanding and the painting.  I found I could make a fair side project hourly rate, but it was no way to make a living.  I would think this would be the same for any of Graham's boats. You want an honest builder who is looking for some extra money doing something he loves to do.  And you will save a lot by having him/her do the set up and assembly leaving you the time consuming sanding, priming and painting.  I feel confident that I will get good results with this boat, but with a bit of a learning curve, I will break no records for time.  I think the only way I could justify building one for money would be to build a second one.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Working on the centerboard. This is a project that proves the advantages of a good scraping of the green epoxy before sanding.

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Gluing the horn.

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The blank.

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Pivot bushing.

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Routed channel to receive the saturated polyester line.

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Gluing in the line

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