Designer

Placing the flotation at the keel is the worst place to put it. It raises the CG of any water on board and it encourages what is called "free surface effect" which is all the water rushing to the lee side when the boat heels causing the boat to heel further and possibly capsize. It makes it harder to board a partially flooded boat without re capsizing. As has been stated, the standard Spindrift layout is the best. As you have a S11N that is not possible. What Starboard did is the best that you can do, which is pretty good . Look at the pictures of a standard Spindrift on it's side, you will see that the water does not enter the boat. When righted you should only get the water that is scooped between side seating and the side which should only be a couple of gallons. In the real world that might not be the case as the dagger board is forward of the heeled CB causing the boat to trim down by the bow as you lean on the dagger board and taking a fair amount of water on board. Having capsized Spindrifts a lot I found that they are small enough that I could could put an aft twist on the board before pushing down and eliminate the problem. With the layout that Starboard has, you should be able to right the boat with a fairly dry bow section but a quarter to half full aft section which puts you into a lot better situation than you are in now. you should have a tied in bailer ( modified gallon chlorox bottle. Probably the best thing in the world for kids is having a Spindrift. I would give them plenty of practice capsizing and self rescue. It is easy to right with the boat on it's side but much more difficult if inverted. The will invert without mast head flotation making it difficult to right. It is often too shallow to completely invert, risking mast damage or at least a very mud stained sail. I never felt the need for mast flotation because I got onto the job of righting the boat. I have seen plenty of people dither taking too long and getting inverted. I see that Aphers responded while I was writing this so some of this is duplication.

I created the Spindrift transom for a short shaft motor. I measured my Suzuki 2.5 at 17 1/2" to the cav plate. Of course with a small boat it is easy to get it out of trim. It is up to the skipper to arrange the crew or cargo for proper trim.

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

Ken, Thanks for sharing the gaffs as well as the perfect sails. Now that you brought it up you have given us permission to dump on you. It definitely was not your crews fault. She was attentive and trying to be as good and helpful as she could be. She was familiar with a larger boat, not realizing how these light dinghy hulls have no lateral plane with the board up and slip sideways and go out of trim when you move forward. Next time she will ease the board up more slowly. It is impossible for the skipper to foresee every thing that can go wrong, especially as you are just learning the boat. While it might be argued that it was not really your fault. The fact remains that as owner skipper, the buck stops with you. On the positive side there appears to be no damage so there was no foul. You will not forget this for a long while and keep some board down for as long as you need in the future. The reason that we do the rope leading edge is to be able to leave some board down longer than we would normally dare because we can scrape on the bottom without hurting it. On your boat with a handle on the board is is very easy to judge how much board is down. If I am driving I prefer to control the board myself as I can judge how much leeway I am making versus how far I have yet to go and how deep I judge the depth to be. If I see the handle move I know exactly how deep it is and raise the board some more. If I am sailing in and discover that I am coming in too hot. I leave the board down and use it as a landing brake. Murphy is always in attendance ready to catch us when we screw up. To help prevent a line around the prop or jamming the centerboard I use the dinghy braid that you have on your sheets because it floats. You might have noticed it on Carlita and the OB20 when you visited.

Chick is right. The CB was in place just for a test fit. Installing the board later is easy but it it is better with two people. I would hate to find out after the job was finished that the CB would not fit or there was something wrong with the pennant. Also you need to glass the inside trunk lower edge to the bottom, which cannot be done with the board in place. To install the CB I lower the pennant through the trunk and tie the stopper knot in the board. I like to be inside the boat and have my assistant raise the board while I take up the slack in the pennant. We know that there is only about 3/8" clearance in front of the board and the leading edge of the CB is about level with the bottom when raised. The key is the permanent marker X that you can see in the photo. My assistant raises the board flush with the bottom and as far forward as he can. I am looking through the pin hole with a light for my X. I can then direct slight movements watching the X until I can see the hole. I am ready with an awl or #1 phillips screwdriver to poke into the hole. I can then wriggle the screwdriver to properly align the holes. I have the pin ready, I holler to my helper to not move the board and quickly withdraw screwdriver and replace with the CB pin.

You are doing good work Don. Having done this mod to Carlita and observing the Chiefs mk3 trunk extension, I am enjoying following your turn. Here is a pic of Carlita's trunk extension with the outboard trunk side installed and testing the centerboard fit . I chose this pic to help answer Steve's question about glassing inside the trunk extension and to show the downhaul that I added following Steve's catastrophic capsize. It is important to glass the inside of the trunk. It is easy to glass the inside of the trunk halves on the bench. After the board was removed following taking the picture I glassed the vertical seam inside the trunk and glassed the bottom of the trunk to the boats bottom. The inboard trunk half is more fiddly. To glass tape the inside butt joint I wet out a length 3" glass tape and compressed the glass between two flat surfaces and plastic release to make the glass as thin as possible and smooth as I did not have a lot of room. After cure I sanded the faying side for a good key and glued it to the trunk half butt edge with 1 1/2" left out for bonding to the old forward trunk joint. Before gluing in the final side I rigged up a backing board and wedges while I could still see inside. After reading this I cannot remember if I glued the tape to the original part of the trunk or the new part first. Remember a taped butt joint is stronger than the ply. If the tape is on one side only it is strong when loaded on one side and worthless when loaded on the other side. It worked well and you will have to look hard to see that the modification was not original. Was it all worth the effort? For me there is no question, I did the mod before my Delmarva circumnavigation and blessed it many times. Carlita is definitely more weatherly under a wider range of sail combinations. The line in the picture that goes thru the lower cheek block is the standard uphaul and the line thru the upper block and going forward to the newly drilled termination hole is the downhaul. Does it work? I do not know because I have not come near to capsizing her let alone turtling. I have been working on a gold fish mast float. We intend to do a capsize test in the spring.

Driving in a drywall or a self tapping screw with the modern cordless drill or driver is giving us all bad habits. Beside the obvious job of holding two parts together, the smooth shank of the wood screw allows you to draw the two parts together. The self tapping screw will thread its way into the work piece and thread its way into the main part leaving no way to draw them together without stripping one of the threads. If I am doing something quick and dirty like on the house and I can't be bothered getting the drill and drilling a clearance hole in the work piece, I will start the screw in the work piece and then hold it away from the house and run the screw all the way to the head and keep driving until I strip out the thread. I then put the work piece in place and drive it home. It can draw the work piece tight because there is no thread left. The other important job of the wood screw is to carry sheer loads. In carvel planking the screw gauge is unusually large. Nevens' rules for wooden yacht construction calls for 2" #14 screws for 1" planking. The reason for this is for the sheer loads. because the wood is relatively soft we need lots of bearing area to prevent the hull from wracking under load. While that might not be of much interest the modern boat builder we can learn from it. The Goejeon brothers came up with a clever way to spread the sheer loads in the wood for a self tapping screw when mounting hardware, yes it involves epoxy. If you are using a 1"# 8 screw,(I am ignoring the the thickness of the hardware in this example) drill a 3/8" hole 3/4" deep, fill hole with epoxy and hand drive the screw just snug. This increases the sheer carrying capacity and waterproofs the wood in one go. When using this method I wait as long as I can after filling the holes with epoxy before driving the screws because the epoxy sinks as it soaks into the wood the screw will displace some epoxy. Of course this can't used on vertical surfaces.

Don, I think that you are way overthinking it. When I did my first EC, I was busy getting the my CS17 ready and the anchor was an afterthought. I scratched around and the lightest anchor I had was a 4# Danforth copy. As I was not planning on anchoring I dispensed with chain to save weight. I used 5/16" for the rode. I used that rig on all of my EC's and rode out a couple of wicked thunder squalls and never dragged. I think that the key was giving it lots of scope which is easy because we can anchor in very shallow water and using thin nylon. In the gusts it would stretch like a rubber band and absorb the shock load. Danforth used to say that you could go down one anchor size if you used thinner line. I got conservative and used an 8# Danforth and 3/8" nylon rode on Carlita. While visiting Gordie on Drummond Island he insisted on giving me his 11# Bruce because the Danforth fitted the bowsprit about as well as your Danforth fits your anchor sprit. I had never been a fan of the Bruce but when we tried it on Carlita, it fit like a glove. I gave him my danforth. I have had good success with both anchors and I am still not using chain. I know, if you live in New England you have to have a Herreshoff anchor. They are basically a fisherman with a bit more fluke area. The pull tests that I have seen show they drag much sooner than good modern anchors. As the only rocks that we have in our area have been carried here and there is no kelp and not much weed, I cannot think of any reason that I would want one.

There is a reason why the halyard is led aft. The boat has single line reefing, if rigged properly. It is very convenient to be able to reef the boat from the helm in seconds. Don is correct, the left side in that picture is the leading edge. The reason that the top of the board is angled is to not foul the boom vang when the board is raised. While I prefer a centerboard, I put daggerboards in small boats because they take up less room. I have sailed daggerboards in shallow water a lot and the tips of my boards can prove it. While you have to pay a bit more attention with a daggerboard, I do not think that it is a big PITA. In dodgy water I sail with the board half up unless I am racing. I once won the around Carrot Island race in my Spindrift 10 doing that. There was a foul tide and light air. I was able to short tack in close behind a sand bank while the larger deeper boats struggled against the tide out in deeper water. Yes I made a bit more leeway but it was acceptable. You need to learn to get coordinated with that tiller extension. Unless you can hike out on the rail and move your weight forward, you will always be under performing.

Yes you can modify the stern without hurting the boat structurally as long as you tie the critical parts into the boat properly. The aft bulkhead can be cut down to seat top height. You can cut out the middle of the lower part of the bulkhead but no more than Gira Gira did. The side stringers should go almost to the transom but you may have to add to them to support the new aft cockpit seat. You will need a support cleat across the transom to connect the seat to the transom. Because the aft seat area is too large for 6mmply you will have to add some support. This will depend on the hatch that you choose. I will stop here because the weather is looking really good for the long weekend and I have to get my boat ready. If you decide to go through with the project I will b happy to continue.

That is a pretty picture, the boat and the big smile. Congratulations!!! Wheezer reminds me of granddaughter Marissa when she was that age. After sailing the Texas 200 in 09 while on the beach she instructed me to design a boat and name it after her, it became our center console power boat "Marissa". When it came time to paint the boat, I asked her what color should it be, she immediately said "pink". I said "no but I will meet you at red". I used up the end of that can of paint on Carlita. Unfortunately they grow up too quickly. Dr. Marissa has just started in practice and seeing patients. I do like the pink Spindrift. The only thing that I can see missing on your boat is the loop of light line (clew loop) that goes around the boom and thru the clew. It's purpose is keep the boom from drooping when you pull on the main sheet. The outhaul's job is control the draft of the lower portion of the sail. Without the clew loop it just flattens the lower part of the main. It will be more apparent in stronger winds. It is good that you are a good swimmer but I hope that you go thru some capsize drills so that you can self rescue when it happens. Good luck with your new boat .

That is bad luck. The good news is that you built it and it is made out of wood, you can fix each problem piece by piece until it is as good as new. The Catspaw that we have kept on our dock for the last 20 years was on the stern of a power boat at the leeward end of a marina when an new owner of a 36' sloop got embayed in strong winds and crashed into the dinghy. The owner was well reimbursed by the insurance company, he left her with me. Her condition was similar to yours. No one knows that it has been crashed. I just cut out the damaged ply parts and spliced new parts back in. That vertical break in the side looks easy to repair with a butt block. I would use a 4" wide piece of 6mm ply. The reason for such a wide piece is force the hull back to it's original fair shape and to give plenty of gluing surface. Butt blocks do not have to look ugly if clean up the edges nicely. You would need to a pair of clamping blocks on each side of the repair to force the hull fair while the glue dried. If you do not have a deep reach clamp you can screw right through everything to clamp it in place. The gunwale is a bit trickier. It is impossible to get glue to completely fill the crack along the gunwale to hull joint. I solve that by running a handsaw down that crack so that I can glue in a sliver of wood that is well epoxied. If there is damage to the wood in the gunwales, you will have to cut out the bad bits and scarf in new wood. Just use an 8:1 taper on your scarfs. You can also do taped joints, just use the same tape as you used on your chine joints. You must tape both sides of a repaired joints. Tape won't force the patch into a fair shape but you can use clamping boards to force the taped joint fair while the epoxy dries. Don't forget the plastic release film. I would not sweat perfection, you need honest strong. This is just the beginning of her chequered history. Good luck with the repair.

Yes, you interpreted correctly. The caveat is, I have not had the chance to verify the fuel burn yet. Those low speed numbers bothered me too. Evinrude claimed that with 2 strokes firing twice as often generate more torque at lower rpm than 4 strokes. I took those numbers from https://www.boat-fuel-economy.com/inboard-vs-outboard-fuel-consumption They show the Etech 50 burning .5g at 2000 rpm, Yamaha 50 .9g and Honda 50 .7g. and of course the performance was the best that could I tune in flat water but it gives some idea. The problem is interpreting apples with apples, we have to convert RPM to HP. The outboard makers do not release their torque/fuel burn curves like the diesel makers do. How much HP is each motor generating a 2000 rpm? I found a way to stretch the OK24 to 28 feet and keep the same properties and fairness without having to do a complete redesign, except for the volume. The stem and most of the frames stayed the same. LOA 30'5 with bracket, LWL 26' 2". Because the beam and height has not changed and displacement has not increased much,the scantlings do not change. There will be one new frame added and some readjustment of at least 1 frame. To run 6 knots gives a speed length ratio of 1.17 which does not take much effort. Here are a couple of screen shots of the stretched hull. I hope dust off our performance prediction program next week to see if we can get some realistic numbers. We have some real life numbers from a few OK 24's to help to dial it in.

Dave, One of the advantages of building your own boat is that you understand how the boat was made and you are not afraid to get in and solve these little glitches rather than calling the dealer and waiting for him to get to it. If it was me I would keep the hole that you drilled. I would drill another hole through the trailing edge perpendicular or angled slightly to your hole so that the pennant goes down through the new hole and tie a stopper knot that is buried in your hole so that the pennant stays on the centerline of the board. It looks to me like your double line could get jammed between the trunk and the board. I would make a groove from the new hole to the top of the board to make sure that the pennant stays on center. This moves the pennant further from the pivot pin reducing the load on the pennant slightly. Looking at the plans, you should have enough height for a bimini. How are you connecting the halyard to the headboard? You may be able to raise the sail by reducing the distance between the halyard block and the headboard by tying a buntline hitch. I am using it on my boat, is a very reliable hitch and takes up the least space because it tightens down on the headboard.

This is slightly off topic. Core Sound 17 Hull #1 was built out of aluminum and the last time I saw it was on the beach with the Panga's at Puerto Vallarta on the Mexican west coast. The builder resides there and is one of those guys who usually out-fishes everyone around him. He reaches out and back under sail and usually comes back in after burning no fuel with more fish than the big gas guzzlers. Here is the fuel burn curve that I made for my OB20 with an Etech 50 showing the hump. I trimmed the boat out as best as I could at each speed and took the lowest GPS reading in flat water. I took the fuel/RPM burn from Etech's web site and have not had a chance to verify it yet. You can see that I do not get any better mileage at 9 knots than 18 knots. For a large 20 footer, she is fairly economical due a small engine and accepting a comfortable planing speed as my cruising speed weather permitting. She does have trim tabs which I like but she jumps out of the hole quickly without them.