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We're currently cruising the Caribbean with our lovely Spindrift 9N. We never saw another one in Europe, but I thought it might be interesting to share some of the Spindrifts we've seen in the wild here. There are always some creative solutions to be inspired by. On the "good rowing dinghy" side, we saw this heavily modified Spindrift 10 in Grenada. I love the oarlocks! He doesn't have an outboard, and rows everywhere with the 2.7m long oars. And goes fast too! This Spindrift 9N we met on Frigate Island. They sail everywhere, as the dinghy doesn't have oarlocks or an outboard. The sail was a cut-down mainsail from the "big boat" using a batten as a sort of a gaff, and they steered with a sculling oar. I believe the mast is from a windsurfer. We didn't meet the owner, but this Spindrift in Carriacou had a stayed mast: Any other interesting Spindrift sightings?

We got the two grandgirls up here for the Easter weekend; their parents come up Friday night. SOOO…. let’s set up Avocet for the first time this year and do a little “trailer sailing.” They did all the steps needed to set everything up as I showed them the “ropes” and processes. (We’ll try out the reefing system tomorrow for something new.). Upon getting everything ready, they headed into the cabin for a snack. At home the family is currently working through the children’s novel, Swallows and Amazons (1920’s… four siblings sail their boat Swallows on a bunch of sailing and imaginative adventures.) So NOW that setup is done, their imagination is kicking in, and some gentle wind is coming up. Oh no, one just “fell overboard” and needs rescue (yes, we practice the drill when on the water… one gets to spontaneously throw a floaty and alert everyone, “man overboard!”) Back aboard and they are starting to get LOUD with orders and imaginative sailing adventures. How do two little girls make so much noise?? (It’s great.) Temps are dropping a bit so I supplied them with a couple blankets for the cabin bunks. Maybe they will chill at some point in their “sailing time”. I rigged the anchor to “lower” for some downtime. They asked about staying in it overnight… getting to 38 tonight… nah. (But, summer’s comin’!!)

Though I waffled back and forth on this for a while, I decided ultimately to go with an electric outboard, at least for now. If we feel like we need a small 2-stroke, I'm confident we'll find one 2nd hand very cheaply once we're in Mexico. I took it out for a little 5NM stroll through the estuary where our boat is kept. Was really satisfying, I can't believe ho quiet these things are. In fact, the noise the water makes against the hull is far louder than the motor itself, especially at the speeds I was running it (100-230W for 3-4kts). I do need to come up with a bracket for it to mount on. Today I used some plastic material so I wouldn't damage the relatively soft wood. Unfortunately the rudder gudgeons are bolted through basically right where the bolts need to be for the engine mount, so I think I will just 3D print something with ASA (UV resistant) that slips over this bit on the inside, and maybe a thin metal plate on the other side. Or I could swithc to screws... I thought there was a good reason I through bolted them, but I really can't think of the reason given the force on the rudder is so minimal.

Finally getting back to this project. A couple of days ago I went back to the store I was at earlier with the less than stellar looking BB to buy a sheet and put a little in water to see what happens. The sheets they had this time looked much better than what I'd seen earlier, with no voids visible in the sides. Honestly, it looked like the same quality of BB we used to get (although a darn site more expensive!). I bought 2 sheets and yesterday cut off a small corner to soak in water for 24hrs, and it still looks fine. No sign of delamination at all. Looks like I'm back in business!

Graham said in more detail what I was going to say. I've seen some pretty sick dogs get well back in my racing days. I bent Skeena's a bit and fixed it with vise grips and a crescent wrench in the parking lot. That SS is pretty thin and bends and unbends easily. Take Care, Steve

Polysulfide is fine underwater. 3M 4200 was designed to have a lower shear strength than 5200. Because the bailer has a metal base, you can heat it with a heat gun to 140 degree F and and it will debond from polyurethanes and epoxy. I do not know how beat up the bailer is but if you squeeze both sides of the wire cam lever near the hinge point it will come out. Rotate the bailer down aft and it will come out. You can inspect the gasket and remove it if needed. All of this can be done in 5 - 10 minutes. The bailer can be trued up at the bench if needed. If I had new bailer that was the same as the old one I would inspect the old base, if the caulk and the base was fine I would swap out the parts and save the new base in case the caulk leaks in the future. When Southern Skimmer arrived at the beach for the EC many years ago, about a dozen volunteers heaved her back to get her off the trailer. After about 4 feet she stopped dead. The bailer was left open as it had been raining during the drive to Florida and was slammed into a trailer bracket. As you can imagine the moving part profile was given a distinctive Z shape. It leaked badly but when I got home and trued it up in the vise and no more leaks. It may still be in there.

Today we picked up a new ePropulsion Spirit 1.0 Plus here in Grenada. At 1kW, it is more powerful than what our Spindrift 9N needs. On that level, the smaller eLite would be a better choice. But we bought the bigger outboard for the bigger battery capacity. Initial test runs in flat water say that at around 120W power we move at 3kt, and BMS estimates range to be 8.5h, so around 25NM. As a bonus, with some additional parts (a cable and a DC-DC converter), we will be able to use the ePropulsion battery as an emergency battery also for the big boat.

Almost finished with the “fill a fair, fill a fair, fill a fair, fill a fair….etc.

I'm with Peter HK on the ranking: You can skip book two, Swallowdale. Very little sailing, lots of boring exposition. Jump right to We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea and then Peter Duck. These are great books, I've enjoyed reading them to my kids and thanks to SteveW one of my current boats is named Wildcat after a boat in the series. Edit to add: Steve, I did change the name to "Kitty", like they do in the movie, just to prevent the giggling from the boys every night when I was trying to read them to sleep! My favorite funny moment from the book is when the youngest makes an illustration in the ship's log, a page entirely full of black ink, to show what it looked like at sea at night.

I think Arthur Ransom's most amazing gift is his ability to capture the thought process of kids and humorously put it them in print. My 8th grade English teacher read Swallows and Amazons to us in class (1974?). One of the main characters is "Titty" which made us young boys laugh. I can see this book being banned for this reason alone. Dumb. I was captivated by the story as I lived that kind of independent childhood. I read it to my daughter Helen when she was 6 or 7 and laughed so much. She became a prolific reader who went on to read the entire catalogue of Arthur Ransome. I named my Sea Pearl 21 "WildCat" for a boat in one of the books. In this day of sedentary children and fearful parents, this book can inspire some independence and trust in youth. We all need more adventure. Take Care, Steve

We finally got the dinghy to the boat today, which was an important milestone since we had never test fitted it on our boat other than with a 3D print I made earlier. I think we like it best under the boom, as its out of the way there compared to the foredeck. We'll have to mount some wooden blocks on deck and then probably strap things down. We also got out for a sail which was lovely. Sailed down to a restaurant not too far from where our boat is docked and got some tacos to celebrate.

You could just mount the motor off centre. That's what I do with my 3.5hp 2 stroke, and it allows me to keep the rudder in place. For a long motor I take the rudder off as it's easier to just steer with the motor. I've found that they noisiest thing about my Spindrift when motoring is the captive rowlocks which rattle like crazy.

Years ago I built a nesting 2 Paws. We lived in “the city “ then and had a very nice older lady that lived across the street. She took great interest in the little boat build and would toddle over daily to supervise the project. When I got to the part where I was to saw the boat in half, she got really upset and actually called my wife at work to tell her I was sawing “the little bateau “ up. Nice to have neighbors that care.

Yeah the reef passage to Le Phare Bleu would be risky under sail the the daggerboard down. Were you removing sections of the mast on the fly? That's something I haven't figured out how I'll do yet, if it ever becomes necessary. I'm not sure we'll make it back to the Caribbean with our Spindrift, but if we go west long enough we might. I am excited to explore the atolls of the south Pacific with one though, I think that could be a lot of fun.

I didn't glass any of my boats, I like light weight. But if I were to glass a nesting boat I would cut it in half first. This way you can wrap the bottom onto the nesting bulkheads as well as the transom and sides.

Hope you're enjoying the islands, and getting some time to go north before the hurricane is fully upon you. I really in enjoyed Dominica -- not the best anchorages, but it's a fantastic island to explore and much less developed than some of the other ones. Also if you haven't already, the Tobago Cays in the Grenadines are absolutely worth visiting. Might be worth adding a bow eye or similar that you can attach the chain to instead? Going over the hull like that I think you'll get chafe. When I was in St. Martin, with an old dinghy and a 2.5HP outboard, I walked up on a guy trying to cut through my chain and confronted him. He straight up tried to tell me it was his dinghy. Like you, I'm sort of hoping that a hard wooden sailing dinghy is not a desirable target for thieves, but the outboards surely are.

Bryan, Fantastic video. Dare I see you are almost in the Leo class of video production/entertainment. That's a high compliment. I built a 11N years ago from scratch and then a Core Sound 20.3 from a kit. Your observation that the kit isn't that much more expensive than the materials is spot on. Plus there is the cost of the time. I will admit I bought the sails from B & B. I haven't used my 11 N in a few years, but the sailing video makes me think I need to get the Suzy J out again once the water here in upstate NY warms up a bit. Thanks, Steve

I added some Pop Up rear cleats. Amos had him on Clarissa and I was envious. I have the D-Rings out the stern which most of the time are good. But often someone throws me a line during a raft up or I want to run a spring line from the stern and I have nothing to tie to. So last week I shaped a couple of Douglas Fir blanks that would fit under the coming and give me a thicker place to bolt the cleats to. I coated the fir with two coats of clear epoxy (had to uncrystallize it again....ugh!) and glued them into place with thickened epoxy. I used these cleats which seem pretty decent and bedded them in. A big challenge was getting a socket wrench in to tighten, but I managed. I used the Sea Dog 4 1/2" cleats. They seem pretty good. I post this for those building. It sure would be easier to put the blanks in there during construction than after, even if you decided you never needed them. Take care, Steve

Well I compiled all the footage I had of the build process and put it into a very long video if anyone is interested!

I did, it works like a bushing and the mast rotates smoothly.

Sure, although bear in mind this is as my yacht's domestic bank rather than electric power for the dinghy. Each battery is four cells and a BMS, the first one was 271Ah and the second was 280Ah. Both BMSs are rated for 200A, so in theory I can draw 400A total from the system. The cells themselves could support 550Ah total current. However I have the system fused at 250A using a Class T fuse (an important point- other high amperage fuses are not rated for large lithium systems). Each lithium battery is separately fused with a 225A MRBF as well. The biggest draw is the 3kva inverter which can draw up to 240A, although I try to keep everything below 200A. As to physical size... I can't remember off hand, but each battery is similar in size to a 110Ah lead acid. Certainly far smaller than 'drop in' lithiums of comparable capacity. They're buried under a berth in our spare cabin and not easy to access, otherwise I would measure them. Assembling the battery takes a few days but isn't difficult. You need you charge the cells up to full and get them all balanced. I used a cheap adjustable DC power supply. Then it's simply nuts and bolts and a few crimps. I used threaded rod and plywood end plates to clamp the cells together, with the BMS mounted to one end. There's a lot of info out there on DIY battery assembly if you're interested.

I am glad that the drawing made sense to you. By the time I reduced the file size of the screen shot and uploaded it, the red lines are almost black on my screen. Yes you are correct. Seeing that you are getting down in the weeds, you could trim the boat down by the head until the mast is vertical and pour in enough unthickened epoxy and let it level out. If you want to go a step further you make another glass tube like the main mast step, not to waterproof the mizzen step but to guide the mast into the step. I did this on Carlita, it is definitely easier to step. When thinking about it, it occurred to that if I dropped the mast in harder than I should, I might damage the the wood fibers on the keel and being hard to see or get at I laid in a layer of glass. If that pretty wood mast rotates in the thwart it will wear away the varnish, you might want to wrap a layer of glass at thwart height. Glass is incredibly hard waring. After about a year of full time cruising, I wore through the oarlock rubbers and into the oar shafts on my tender. I was far from stores so I wrapped the oars in glass where needed and added turkshead stops. They were still going strong when the oars were lost 25 years later.

Hi Sandgroper, Dave is correct, see the red lines on the drawing for the larger mast diameter. The new step will be wider than the keel batten so you need fit a piece of wood to fill in the gap. This is a high stress part so you need to make it strong. The picture shows a poorly made mast step that failed. I am amazed that it lasted as long as it did. What we can learn from the picture is that there were no screws to help carry the shear loads, ply as specified has half of the grain running in the opposite direction making it harder to split and a low percentage of well bonded glue line indicating poor prep. It is better to let the masts rotate so that the snotter does not tighten around the mast when you pay out the sail. On masts in tabernacles we attach the snotter snapshacle to a horizontal loop held by a pair of eyestraps.

It was 10 years ago, but I believe I made the block for the step bigger than in the plans to deal with the wall issue.

I made 3" or 76mm birdsmouth wooden masts for my lapwing. I just made the step a little bigger with a bigger hole. Just make sure you located it according to center as everything else is now different.

Glad to hear about the Beta 38, we will be picking ours up next month. The plan to put as much solar on top as possible, and have as much the domestic loads done by the solar system as possible. It seems the solar panel technology is still accelerating so 1KW plus is entirely feasible. We have space allocated for 3 Epoch 460 ah (or similar ) batteries. The solar system on Kalos, our sailboat has exceeded all expectations. In the almost 3 years we have only plugged into shore power once last winter (our version of winter..35 degrees) to run a small electric heater when we were not in our home marina.

Just been building up the chine edges, transom and bracket with cabosil mostly with a little micro ballon thrown in there to make it easy to see. one pass on both surfaces and then leave the knife edge on there and as it gels cut it off with razor blade and apply coat two. Will sand it tomorrow with a long board and try to shoot a coat of High build primer.

I made hatch boards version 3.0 recently. The 1.0 iteration I made like raised panel doors. Great idea but I made the rails to thin to maximize the plexiglass and the small glue area didn't hold up to the abuse. The 2.0 version I got the brilliant idea to just make a full piece of plexiglass and add some rails bonded to increase the thickness. My dad used to say "it was a good idea, but not a great idea". The plexiglass, not being recessed, got beat up fast and the expansion of the wood meant the rails got loose and only the mechanical fasteners held it together. Version 3.0 pictures coming. An oval plexiglass window recessed into a mahogany hatch board, with an okume keeper similar to the way the cabin portlights were done. I will tell you, cutting accurately to a scribed line and then sanding/planing to a line takes time. And the accuracy isn't as great as the port windows Alan sent me years ago. At the time I bought a "kit" I thought I made a compromise. It was a great decision. FTR, I saw Amos's sailing video recently on FB. It snowed here today, but another month or so.

Graham, Thank you for bringing that to our attentions. Here is the missing dimension!

I don't remember how I located the partner when I built mine, it was 10 years ago. But when I hook my tape over the stem, and measure aft to the center of the partner, I get 20 1/2". The step is then located using the mast tube through the partner and the 1 in 20 ratio forward of plumb to height above step.

I’ve been using a variation of my friend’s system long enough to know that it works. I wanted mine to be less bulky than his. All it really needed to do was position and hold the mast over the hole. And I didn’t want any of that stuff remaining on the deck while sailing. I might switch to a full-blown tabernacle next building season, but this works, and that is a major tear-up.

Feb 12 Side stringers and sheer clamp installation. Sheer clamp - 3, 1" strips, plan says they should be 16'9" they are just short of 19' by my tape. We cut them out of the nicest 2x12x20' SYP I could find, bring a friend to the lumber yard, they dont like it when you "rat f#ck" their stacks without putting everything back as it was. Lumber yard employees are usally very helpful but their helpfulness will disappear as you tell them " theres a good one on the bottom of this stack" We busted 5 of the strips before figuring out the deal, the grain needs to be vertical, at the turn of the bow they actually curve upwards and twist, the wood bends safely when you bend it perpendicular to the grain direction rather than parallel. We thought it was good, as you can see the next morning we arrived to find the outside one exploded in the night. every one that broke, broke while bending around temp frame one. the bottoms of the bracket are sitting in the pictures below, both pre coated with 1708 on the "inside"

A couple other thoughts: I'm really glad I built the 11 and not the 9 or 10. The extra capacity, freeboard, and stability has been great and it's not much bigger on deck. We can sail with 2 adults and 2 kids, and motor with 5 adults And for future searchers: the Spindrift 11n nesting dinghy fits absolutely perfectly on the Sadler/ Starlight 35 foredeck, inside the (still usable) handrails, just forward of the mast and spanning the forward hatch .

My go to bottom paints for boats that's design to sit largely on trailers, most of their lives, I stick to the Interlux Ultra hard bottom paints so that i don't get the chalky residue on my hands, body or on the bunk carpets. This is the case with most Ablative paints. Now of course it cost more and most come in gallon only cans. But your prep work ,unlike if you want the fine arts finish from topcoat paints is fairly simple and straight foward. Interprotect 2000E over your glass work after some fairing compound to fill the weave of course the paint over and proper prep work. This method had worked from this end.