Leaderboard

I am in Morocco, so watching videos is tedious. I found the top 2, full length fiberglass battens too stiff for light to moderate winds. I spent a lot of time playing around with Maple, making them of various thicknesses and tapering to thin from a few inches aft of the leading end back to about 1/4 way aft. I am not usually OCD, but when it comes to sail shape, bah, even the rest of the boat, I am a fanatic. I am pleased with the result. The amount of bend can then be adjusted by the tension applied by the Velcro strap holding them in. If you want more info I can post pictures when I get home.

There is a world of difference in how and what you do on a Lapwing, compared to a Laser. Your Lapwing will be used for pleasure sails, perhaps with friends and family. Having access to all those wonderful floatation/storage areas will allow you to take and store PFD’s, snacks, water, sunscreen, rain gear, etc. I have a Bay River Skiff with two hatches. I wish I had installed two more. Once they’re in, they are a non-issue. You’ve done such a fine job on a time consuming build. Don’t rush to the finish line. Take the time to fit her out well.

I happy that "Breezy" is having a great time and is loved by her owner.

Both the 24 and the 26 involves the same steps, just a few more pieces of wood and will handle the same. We never seem to have enough room inside, the more we use one. But after going back and forth between the two sizes, the difference for me would be a bit more room for a head and shower in the 26 if you create a decent layout inside the cabin with about the same creature comforts for cruising and overnighting. Now to speak about Ken and esteem builder of the Bluejacket, both are hard to live up to in their standards of excellence, creation and execution of boat building skills. I haven't updated my thread since I have been in the stage of laminating the sides, which is like building two boats in one with the cold molding process. So if you go this route be prepared to have plenty of patience as you see the boat take shape,,,,,,,,slowly. That's my recommendation to anyone that's never bit off a project with shape before. And I recommend going with a slower harder for your larger glue ups. And be patient and let things dry enough before moving along to your next step if its related to your last step. Wet out properly all mating parts.

Made a Nimrod this vinter. Ejvind Jensen. Nyborg Denmark.

I use Klingspor, and I love them. Very good quality and price. the blue alumina zirconia seems to work well on epoxies without clogging. Anything worth buying is worth getting the box of 50. as soon as it gets dull or clogged, rip it off and get another. Time is more important than money. I am intrigued by the new mesh abrasives, but I have plenty of other stuff to use up first. I also bought rolls of various grits from Klingspor for the longboards, same thing applies here, the minute it looses it's bite, replace it, It feels so good when paper is fresh and working well. I have bought their boxes of short ends and pieces, you get a grab bag of various grits and sizes. they call it shorts and pieces, and you might picture little tiny pieces, but their idea of a "scrap" might be a dozen 50' rolls, dollar for dollar, it has to be hundreds of dollars worth for maybe 20 or 30 bucks. Frequently, I find something in the box that is perfect for what I am doing, but I never would have thought to buy it.

@Don Silsbe I appreciate the cost concern. I even sought out used hardware. I will never compromise on main sheet lay out. It is vital to me to relax and enjoy myself as well as a safety issue IMO.

I knew I would arrange my main sheeting that way before I bought the plans. In any real wind I must have the sheet coming to me so I can either hold it at the ready, or lay it across my leg at the almost instantly ready. Knowing I can dump the main in a split second means I can relax and enjoy myself. This is probably the only detail I disagree with Graham about.

Yeah, like Don, no bottom paint, for the same reason

Samantha, If you search "how to apply the perfect waterline" this should come up. It will help if you read all the post (9 I think). Designer Members Supporting Member 1.7k Website: http://www.bandbyachtdesigns.com Location: Vandemere, NC Posted March 21, 2020 (edited) Amos, We do, here is that link. Edited March 21, 2020 by Designer fix it

I added floorboards to my Lapwing in the aft portion of cockpit. Not for support, but to stay above the bit of water that always seems to be present. I never put them in my Spindrift 9. No real need, and added weight I did not want. It is easy to turn the boat over if any water, unlike my Lapwing. BTW, I did not glass either boat. I did not want the added weight. Light is faster.

Hey Ken - nice work. I love seeing shots of the boat sailing - many thanks for posting. Some are easy to 'off-fend' - but we all know what's right. Sails are indeed a wonderful colour and the mizzen looks easily managed. The main looks pretty full, especially at the head of the sail - right where it is a handful to manage. Your heeling angles suggest that if you don't want to hike on the side deck at all, then maybe a good pull on the snotter line could help flatten the main making it easier to mange in the puffs. A a stiffer top batten might help too. Although the Lapwing is quite a powerful shape (wide) she also carries quite a lot of sail area so the sails can be set reasonably flat and still give plenty of drive. And then the extra area can allow some fun downwind in a breeze. On the matter of controls I'm a total fittings Nazi - I need controls to fall naturally to hand - whereas it appears you are looking around a bit to find sheet cleats - especially the mizzen. I know some have led the mizzen sheet forward to a block near the mast base - I'll be doing that - after over 40 years of racing Lasers I'm too old to adapt. Just a thought. Meantime I'm still taking my orbital sander to bed with me 'cos my hand won't open properly after a day in the shed....

There was one big area of changes that I have failed to mention. The reason was partly because I wanted to make sure it worked, before I broadcast it to our little world. These were the issues that we had with the rigging. 1. One of PadrePoint’s complaints was all the “spaghetti” that was on Avocet. Yes, there are a lot of control lines on a mark 3. I thought I could improve that a bit. 2. Because of the builder’s clever way of reefing the leech of the sail, the reef lines either needed to be threaded on each time, or left attached, and the sails rolled on the sprits. The latter was how I received the boat. I thought this was awkward. And besides, I didn’t have a vehicle big enough to stow the furled sails on long sprits out of the weather. (Plus, I think sails should reside in sail bags.) 3. The clew of the sails attached to the sprits with snaps, which kept shaking out. This is what I did. First, the reefing needed to be detachable from the sprits, but hold up to heavy use. I lashed an eye-strap to the leech block. It goes in end-for-end, and “locks” in place. Sometimes, they lock in so well, I need to apply force to get them out. (I like that.) The end product looks like this. You might also notice that I have replaced a soft shackle for the snap at the clew. These hold very well. The length is 6”. The only problem is that they are a loose part, and can be misplaced. I made extras. If you zoom in on the sprit hardware for reef #1, you’ll see that the bitter end is attached through the eye strap with a stopper knot. The block is attached with a 4” long soft shackle. At the forward end of the sprit, I added two-sided velcro ties, to tidy up the excess cordage. This is especially useful, if Ted decides not to rig one or both of the reefs for a daysail. Lately, we added recleaters to the clam cleats. They kept cleating when you raised the sails. This is the mizzen, rigged properly. (Not like the above photos. Oops!) I made some sail bags, too.

For decades my centerboard was my depth sounder. Then a few years ago we took our Core Sound 20 to the Columbia River, where there are 9ft tides. I bought a battery powered hummingbird with transducer mounted at the transom and the display also on the inside of the transom facing forward. It was an amazing improvement. It came in handy when transiting the shifting sand banks where charts aren't very accurate and I was surprised at how useful it was when anchoring. I was looking at it so much that I got tired of always looking backward while sailing or anchoring. Then last year we went to Puget Sound where there are 15' tides. I upgraded to a full chart plotter with a transom mounted transducer and put the display under the mast step. Another fantastic improvement, but this was a lot more work to do because it takes about .5 amps while it is running, so it pushed me to add an electrical system to my boat (which has other advantages).

Well it’s time I chime in I too used devthane 379 it is one heck of a good paint it can be tinted to whatever color you want. The only slight draw back is that when cured it’s difficult to sand due to its toughness.

It's an extra 23 pounds over what is on the boat now, but that is a concern I share. I have taken to loading the boat in a way that keeps weight forward as much as possible. I wasn't a fan of the mid mount Alan has made in his boat, but I can see the value in it now. I did work hard to make the engine clamp right on the stern instead of using a bracket to keep things forward. We shall see!

I did a deliberate capsize the other day, and righted the boat without using the board at all. I was really surprised how easy it was and it meant I could keep my weight right aft where there is more buoyancy. As a result the bow section scooped up a lot less water than on the previous capsizes. I'm glad that the accidental capsize happened- I'm much more confident about the boat's behaviour and stability now. In fact I've started using it as a way of cleaning the boat when it gets sandy after a trip to the beach. And my 7yr old lives playing underneath the upturned hull

My plan is to do the EC with Skeena in 2024. I would love to talk about your adventure sometime.

@Aphers— I’ve already given this detail, so I’ll keep it brief. Forward floatation worked wonders in my nesting pram. The higher float encourages turtling, though. I made a mini masthead float. (Not shown.)

I’m glad you posted. It caused me to read back a bit in the thread to be reminded about this set of helpful sailing tips from Graham posted by Paul (who is currently sailing his CS17 in Florida this week … he and John Hippe drove their boats down from Wisconsin this past week.) Paul’s post is just prior to this page.

Excellent job FLSailor!! Thanks for posting your achievement. While you were making a significant sail adventure in the EC, Don Silsbe and I were at least enjoying a beautiful couple days in Gasparilla Sound - Charlotte Harbor (West Coast of Florida) sailing Avocet, number 6 of the CS17mk3 line. We made it successfully back to the boat launch after delightful sails (my goals are far less lofty ). It was worth my flight down from Wisconsin. Yours is a significant accomplishment ; I saw your progress in some updates. Congratulations!! And, nice setup.

Hi again, its been a couple years since I posted in this original build thread but just thought that you might want to know that Summer Breeze is now an Everglades Challenge finishing boat. She took me down to Key Largo last week and we had a great time together!

I had a chance to talk with an abrasives manufacturing engineer about 3M cubitron. It is a ceramic grit. It goes onto the paper as tiny cubes. Each exposed edge is a cutting edge. As it is used the cube breaks along micro fracture lines and a particle breaks off. The newly exposed edges of the break form new sharp cutting edges. Cubitron is sometimes referred to as self-sharpening. The sandpaper will remain sharp as long as there is grit on the paper. In contrast, aluminum oxide, the most common grit, will wear smooth and lose its bite even while there is grit remaining. Cubitron requires pressure to fracture the ceramic grit and renew the edge. It is for power sanding only, not hand sanding. A random orbital sander works fine. I asked about non-clogging paper. Most sandpaper advertised as non-clogging is "open coat" sandpaper where as much as 50% of the paper is not covered with grit. The spaces between the particles shed the residue. Some non-clogging papers have two layers of grit. The base layer is closed coat, completely covered, and the second is open coat and designed to wear off as it becomes clogged. I asked about epoxy. The clogging problem, as we know, is from not letting it cure. If the paper clogs with epoxy it is actually buffing the surface, not abrading it. "If there is no dust you are not sanding." Finally I asked about which sandpaper to use. The answer was that for the home project just experiment and see what works best. Industrial users know how many board feet they are sanding per minute and how many total board feet they get per belt. The differences between grit, adhesive, backing and cost become apparent. The home woodworker isn't fine tuned like that.

Thank you for the compliment Ken. I did put a bow thruster in the Bluejacket, a Lewmar 140. I am a klutz maneuvering a boat around and the Bluejacket with little keel and high sides doesn't help that. I had also couple of trolling motors as stern thruster. I am changing those to just propel the boat forward and back. No steering on the trolling motors. The bow thruster can take care of that. By putting both the trolling motors and bow thruster on a remote control it can help loading it on a trailer alone. An electric winch on the trailer is also helpful. Also docking in my regular boat slip was difficult, Wind and cross current. And not to forget a very big expensive shiny boat in the slip next to me. By the time I backed in and could get a line fastened the boat is sideways in the slip. I hope by having the thruster on a remote I can keep it under control a little better. Egbert

I apologize for the recent downtime. The forum software people pushed an update that failed, and it took several days to fix. They have re-issued the update so I was finally able to finish the task. They are pushing everyone to their "cloud solution" at a much higher cost, which I am resisting. I may have to change software, but I want to avoid that; it's a painful, time consuming process that takes days to migrate all the posts, images, etc. Anyway, we're back. I will wait at least a week before applying any non-emergency updates from now on.

New store is finished. I moved it to my website. You will find we are carrying a much smaller inventory now. Sales levels since Covid have dropped dramatically and it is just economically feasible to keep our previous inventory in stock. We are focused on plans, books and a few basic supplies. Our fabric source has dried up and we have no fabrics at the moment. We hope to add it back to the store but finding fabric has always been a struggle. But I am going to keep looking because I was about the only one selling a good polyester fabric Want to say thank you for your past support! Jeff

Designer said, "Probably the best thing in the world for kids is having a Spindrift". When I told my wife this, she said, "so does this mean you're never going to grow up?"

Steve, I am sure that we can find enough okume ply scraps if you want.

Looks like there might be a Festool Domino at work. Wonderful tool!

Don, I can't thank you enough for chronicling your work. I just finished watching the video Alan had made of Carlita's modification and your photos and I'm ready to start. Luckily, I hate jammed c-boards so mine is a bit sloppy to begin with which I think is good in this case. I didn't see in your post much about the downhaul, but one of the pictures makes it look as if it's there. Can you confirm? And what did you do for tackle? I think a release like is used for the kick up rudder is in order, but I don't see it on the plans.

Take your fenders in you landlubber!