Designer

Don, The missing hatch sides and back were in the original drawings. You definitely have a builder modification. The good news is that what is built looks like it is to plan and shouldn't require any alteration to bring it up to spec. I would add some sides and modify the back to clear all of those nuts. Then put a straight edge on the deck across the hatch to measure the gap above the coamings for the gasket and adjust if necessary. I think that you would be better off with a mizzen staysail. It will give you the most bang for the buck. It is mostly in the cockpit and easier to take down if conditions suddenly get ugly.

I agree with Ken, I am glad that the Bondo has not failed for Reacher. I am quicker than most to try and save a buck but most of the time it bites me in the butt. I built my first stitch and glue Catspaw tender in the late Sixties. The only epoxy that we could buy at the time was as thick as molasses on a cold day. I was aware that polyester resin not a true adhesive so I used isothalic polyester which was the best at the time. I cross hatched the surface under the glass tape with a piece of saw blade and primed under the tape with thinned resin. She lasted a little more than a year of full time use before the glass tape started to delaminate. I made a female mold from masonite and built a fiberglass Catspaw. She was heavier than the plywood version and the hull panels were not as stiff. She was well patched when retired at about 10 years old. The next dinghy was like the first but built with modern epoxy. She was the best of the three and was still going at 25 years when I loaned her to friend who lost her in a hurricane.

Hi Viktor, You are in luck. We have had a number of requests for the Amanda rig on the Spindrift and I have been working on it. The problem with just sticking the Amanda rig in a Spindrift is that the dagger board needs to be moved aft about 6" to balance properly. This is not a problem with the offset board with the trunk going through the side tank. If someone wanted to use both rigs they could just make the trunk 6" longer and have a plug positioned forward or aft for the rig they wanted to use. This may not have much value except for nuts like me that like to experiment. I sailed the Small Reach Regatta in Maine in an Amanda a few years ago and was well pleased with her functionality and performance, beating the whole fleet except for a pulling boat rowed by Tom Jackson to the lunch time beach one day including a Caledonia Yawl. If you have the plans for your CY you should be able to measure what size boat she can carry.

Don, You bring up one of the advantages of creating your own boat, you can fit it out to make it work the way you use it. I have a tricolor masthead navigation light on the main mast which works very well. To remove the mast from the boat I have to have a "weatherproof" plug near the base of the mast. These plugs become troublesome over time due the corrosive environment we operate in. I find that if I smother the terminals in dielectric grease and mount the plug under the foredeck out of the weather I get trouble free service so far. The plug has to be polarized which means that it can only go together one way. With the screen removed I can reach through the port and view the plug so that I can plug it in the right way. It is very awkward trying to plug it in reaching in blind kneeling on the foredeck.

Hi Viktor, We have done most of the modifications you want on different boats over the years. Here is a link to the "Kendrift 9" build log. She is a Spindrift 9 that we modified for Ken to be a lightweight tender for his OB26. Ken said that she weighed in at 66#. If you want the S10 or S11 modified so that it has the dual rowing station and offset dagger-board I would be happy to modify the plans.

Borrowing R&D (research and duplicate) from Steve who unashamedly stole it from Jay. This is not earth shattering but when I saw Amos' neat mosquito screen installation on the forward side of his bulkhead I thought "dummy, why didn't I think of that?" When I was thinking about making my screen I was looking from inside the boat. I made a thick ply frame and glued the mesh to the face, it works. The down side is that every time I get under way I take it out so that I can screw the 6"plastic hatch in. It is not hard to do but it takes a screw driver and I have another piece of clutter to store until I need it. Every time I get under way I make sure that the lockers under the berths are dogged and the hatches are sealed just in case I get knocked down. It has not even come close yet but if it did It could end badly as I am regularly far from help. I now have a mast head float which should add another layer of safety. I carry my canned food and tools under the bunks and my battery is just in front of the ballast tanks and I cruise with the ballast tanks full. I intend to capsize test her again in her current trim. I have driven her hard. One of the things that I really like on Carlita is her white paint above gunwales. It is always cool even on a hot summers day with the three hatches open. The red hull is mostly in the shade. Unfortunately we cruise in one of the buggiest places on earth. With screens in place of the companionway wash boards and both hatches closed and the screen over the 6" hatch forward I am good. Often after I tidy the boat after a days sail I grab whatever I want out of the ice box to eat and dive down below and try to kill whatever came in with me. The 6" screen might not seem like much but I have 12V Hella fan that clamps to the deck stringer just aft of the screen blowing air at me when it is hot and venting out through the companionway screens. The forward bulkhead on the mk3 has the 6" hatch tucked up under foredeck to the starboard side and stays dry even in driving rain. The green lines mark the forward tabernacle and the anchor well. I drew a square of 1/4" 6mm ply and chopped off the corners. I drew five strips of 6mm ply with two at the bottom staggered about 3/16" to form a rabbet which holds the screen in place. A washer under the turn button at the top should make it easy to turn and allow for easy removal.

I think that it is good idea to use your CS17 as a motor boat. We used my BRS15 a lot with a 6 hp motor without rudder and rig. With 3 adults, 2 large dogs and picnic gear she ran at 7 knots. Running solo and trimmed out it seemed a lot faster. We did not have Navionics then, It was generally hard to find an accurate measured distance on the spur of the moment. As best as I can calculate for your boat using a 10 hp motor. @ 600 # all up weight I get 10.3 knots and @ 1000# 8.9 knots. Take this for what it is worth because this is operating at hump speed and calculations can be way off. The ideal way would be to try and borrow a motor for a trial run.

You can go either way with glass taping the inside keel seam. I think that it is strong enough without and that was the way that I designed it. There are a couple of points to consider. First, the boat is rather fragile at this point which means that you cannot hog down on the keel batten too hard to force it into place. It would be a lot stronger if the seam was taped. If the keel was fitted nicely and you don't go crazy with props wedges and a hammer, you should be good. there have been a lot built without tape. The second point is not be too frugal with thickened epoxy under the batten. I have seen a couple of older boats get some rot in the keel over time. There was insufficient squeeze-out and the boats were put away with water in the bilge and those voids being at the lowest point in the boat just stayed wet. I would plane or use a round over bit in a router on the top of the keel batten, at least 1/4" radius except where the trunk touches it and at the mizzen mast step. I would use that squeezed out epoxy to lay in the biggest fillet I could in that corner at the keel batten/ bottom junction so that it could be made smooth. The sealer coats of epoxy resin that you will coat the boat with will give you an excellent protective coating. Not to mention that it will look great, be easy to clean and hopefully have a long happy life.

Steve, It sounds like a great challenge. The big unknown quantity is the weather, at that time of the year it can be excellent or horrendous. Your boat is at least 10% faster than mine which will increase your cushion. I like the idea of trailing the boat south to give you more time but it would be nice to save unrigging, loading the boat and then reverse it when you are all ready to sail off. The fact that you have a get out jail card with your friend to come and get you if time runs out, I think that I would just go for it. I presume that the friend is going to drive down and bring you home. I can recommend Amos as having the best pit stop on the coast. The 6 hp motor will be nice. I hope that you have some solar power. I would also want to have an autopilot.

Paul , Thanks for the feedback. It does not matter how many times we test something, there is nothing like a real life situation with Murphy watching for a chance to get us. I do not need to know how or why you capsized. Most of mine have been my screwups.

There should have been several layers of glass sandwiching the bushings. I don't see why you can't just add them now and sail on.

Yes everyone is correct. You want the out side of the bottom transition to be smooth. It may seem obvious but pay attention, making sure that you pair the bottom panels to make sure that you do not end up with two left or right sides. You would be surprised by how often that happens. It was the very important lesson that this first time 15 yr old boat builder made with 2 left side centerboard trunk sides. I became obsessed with pairing parts ever since. That measurement is different for every model. We do not usually use it on CNC cut boats because the panels are accurate and fit together without any slack. We use tapered finger joints to join our panels rather than puzzle joints like our competitors because it is a stronger joint. You do need to approach the glue-up differently. After buttering up both sets of fingers with epoxy, you can slide the joint together but leave some slack before you clamp them down flat, then tighten up the joint by hammering against a scrap of wood protecting the panel end. If you do it in the reverse order the fingers get so tight that it is hard to get the top and bottom surfaces to be in plane. When tightening the fingers I try to tap evenly across the panel to make sure that I am applying even force across the panel and do a visual check to see that the glue line is even across the sheet.

Yes you can but you need to add a piece of wood to to tie it together. See the red piece in the 2d drawing of the mast step.

I finally got around to putting a mast float on Carlita for my recent trip. https://www.sailingforparkinsons.org/home Did it do me any good? Well I did not need it on this trip, fortunately! I sure would have looked foolish if I had really needed it because, all I needed to get one was to say cut one out for me. As it turned out, I ended up out in some pretty big weather alone. I got knocked down to 40 - 50 degrees several times and it did make me feel better knowing that it was there. To improve my odds I made sure that every time I went out I dogged every hatch and port to keep all that gear locked in place and as low as I could get it. It came out at least as light as Nicks. Mine came out a bit tail heavy and I wanted mine as close as I could get to being balanced so that it would take a tiny bit less drag to keep the float pointing exactly into the wind when heeled. I cut a piece of lead and hammered in to the shape of the nose and glued it on. It still came out slightly tail heavy but it is close enough. If I can twist Alan's arm I think that we can get the cut file perfect. Who wants to add lead to a float? I was going to paint mine yellow for fun but when we had a run of white Awlgrip paint, expedience quickly won. Could I tell the difference with the float up there? In rough conditions, I imagined that the mizzen top was dancing around a bit more but I could not feel anything.

Hi Aphers, Thanks for giving us the two year review, I really enjoyed it. All too often a boat that we have watched emerge from some plan sheet and ply on this forum, just fade away without ever hearing the rest of the story. I can think of another positive, reparability after someone crashes into your Spindrift. Anyway I hope that you will keep us in the loop. Good luck with your voyaging.