Designer

I am sorry, I should have read the question more carefully. I recall that Jason got everything but the consol. He said that after seeing our consol design that he should have gotten that as well because our consol was close to what he had in mind.

The Ocracoke 256.

Ken, Thanks for clarifying the issue, I wish that I had been clever enough to have come up with that line. I suspect that Jay is too much of a gentleman to have corrected Don. I will try to remember to use it also.

Howard, If you look at the plan sheet marked Stem, there is very clearly a stem cap.

Hi Norm. So glad that you and Peter can make it back this year. Please let me know if you will be attending the meals - Friday night dinner Dutch Treat at the restaurant and Sat. luncheon by B&B. I have to let the restaurant and the caterer for Saturday know numbers by tomorrow. You can email me at admincarla@gmail.com or call me at 252 745-4793 or 252-670-4960 (mobile: so you have better chance of catching me anytime). Carla

Steve, I have not touched the centerboard since it was shaped. I used it to mate to the trunk and then put it aside as I have been busy with the hull.

Here is PeterP's new P28R sailing to the dock.

The first boats have arrived. Here is Jay and Carol's CS20 mk3 after their long drive from Mississipi. The new sail track will be on the masts tomorrow and then a test sail.

Edward, We will be happy to meet Bruce and give him any assistance and guidance for prepping your boat for the challenge.Has he informed Carla for the head count?

Tim, The plans for the OK 256 are finished and available. We finished them last Friday and several have already gone out as well as the first kit. She comes with a built in bracket and it is designed for single and twin motor mount and comes in two layouts, one has a small cuddy cabin forward with two berths and a head, the other is the standard layout with casting platform forward, there is room for a head in the console. Alan has taken over the web site and will be making a new Ok 256 page soon. He is out in the middle of Pamlico Sound racing in the Black Beards Challenge at this moment.

REMINDER: The B&B Messabout for 2015 is very near. It is the weekend of October 23-25. We have heard from many of you and we expect a good crowd. Because we have to have head count for food, we need to have a final tally in the next few days (by 10/19) for the Dutch-Treat Friday night dinner at Little Italy and the Saturday Luncheon put on by B&B. Please email or call Carla with your information: Name, attendance at Friday and or Saturday meals. admincarla@gmail.com or 252-745-4793; 252-670-4960 If you have mentioned it to Graham or Alan, I (Carla) may not have gotten the information, so please be sure to confirm your plans with me. Carla

Joe, Here is the wind program that I am using. You can zoom into anywhere in the world and open up the time bar and slide it forward to see where the predicted wind direction and strength.https://www.windyty.com/?2015-10-14-15,35.564,-76.327,13

Joe, I stand corrected. We must have had a miscommunication, He is solo.

Fred, I have been making nice progress on Carlita. My main thrust of late has been the cockpit. The ice box is almost done, the port side cockpit seat is glued down, the outboard well is done and I have been working on the cockpit coaming. The reason that my work is a bit asymmetric is that I want to work through the first half of the cockpit to be able to add my findings to the build manual and make any adjustments to the plan as I find them. I will get to the cabin hatches after the cockpit. The holes in the hanging knees are just handy tie holes. I can hang things from them or maybe tie off lee cloths if I need to. I will post some pictures as soon as I can find the time.

Bill told me that he has a crew. Never the less Bill is one of the toughest competitors that I have competed against. Alan called me this afternoon from the marina checkpoint. He said that the wind was quite strong against them going south and and felt that it would be hazardous trying the tack through the bridge. They were going to wait for the wind to ease. I see that they have left and marina and are tacking south. As best as I can measure, Alan has opened a 3 1/2 mile lead over Bill. He will need a lead as the Seapearl will have an advantage rowing through the 20 mile canal to the Pungo river.

They are through.

They are very close to the bridge right now. Here is the link to the Water tribe tracker. Alan's watertribe name is SOS. http://www.watertribe.com/Events/ChallengeGMapper.aspx

We had dinner last night with the Blackbeards group and the big concern for Alan and Paul is getting under the highway 101 bridge where it crosses the Harlow Canal. We still have incredibly high water and the wind has turned north east which will bring in more water. They could be approaching the bridge about now so it could get interesting. I am going to look at their Spot Track to see if they are going to get through.

I remember that day very well. I had to do a small job elsewhere and Tom was working on the boat at the house alone. I arrived home expecting to find Tom at the shop, all I could find was an empty shop with a trail of blood leading away from the table saw. A quick quick phone call found a chastened Tom at the other end with the sad tale. I believe that was when I formulated the rule "never under any circumstances will you reach across the blade". Reaching across the blade to help pull the tail end away from the blade only tightens the kerf on the back of the blade which is spinning towards you. The net result is that your fingers are pulled into the blade at lightning speed, the results are not pretty. Instead of reaching over the blade, use a push stick, lift the board out of the blade and flip it over and finish the cut, or have someone pull out the tail end for me.

We have good news. The aluminum extruders promised that the sail track would be shipped on October 9. We just got a call today that it would be shipped tomorrow. For everyone waiting for it and especially those wanting to sail their new boats at the Messabout, we expect it to be delivered by the middle of next week.

Paul, My own Catspaw that I cruised with for many years was built with 4mm okume ply. You have to add a pair of bottom stringers per side to make up for the loss of stiffness. It was about 20 years old when I loaned it to a lady livaboard. She lost it in a hurricane. A secondary bond is never as good as a primary bond. That said, it is impossible to build a boat without secondary bonds. It is all in the prep, yes you have to sand the cured epoxy and remove any paint where you need to bond. There is no reason why you could not add nesting bulkheads later.

I have come to very much dislike any permanent connection of wood to aluminum but treated wood is an absolute NO. I have recently been using plastic as much as I can. Home construction manuals always caution about using treated lumber against metal siding, flashing or galvanized posts etc. suggesting to at least isolate with tarred felt or similar. I used to use wood plugs and sleeves with aluminum tubes because it was cheap, easy to make and everyone has wood and epoxy. Even well treated with epoxy, it seems to have issues. Plastic does not hold moisture, swell or shrink enough to cause issues as long as it is caulked between the plastic and the aluminum. The main reason for the caulk is just keep moisture from between the two. Almost any plastic will do depending on what the job is. For end caps I have been using Starboard because it I have it and it is reasonably priced. Unfortunately the thickest that I can get is 1". If I want to sleeve a tube to reinforce it at a tabernacle, I use the next size smaller aluminum tube and and build up the diameter of the sleeve with epoxy and glass until it is a sliding fit. It can then be epoxied in place. We have increased the wall thickness of the CS20 mast lower section to 1/8" because it is impossible to get the original wall thickness any more. While the new section is heavier, it is stronger and there is no need to sleeve the mizzen mast on the CS20. While I hate to see this problem occur, it is heartening to see that even with the worst possible combination of materials it still lasted 10 years. If you look at the wood plug in the picture at the upper left side, you can see the dents in the wood where the oxidation kept expanding. It had nowhere else to go but into the wood because it is softer than the aluminum. Eventually after the aluminum gets weak enough to where the wood is stronger, then cracks will start to show on the outside of the tube. This mast must have been close to that point.

Patrick, It is indeed the same boat. Unfortunately the plans did not make it home with me. Alan may be able to put up a couple of views.

Here is how I like to join the carlin's. I start with the lower green carlin. The red one is bent into place, overlapping the green one, mark with pencil and cut off to line. The upper green comes through and is trimmed to fit into the lower red one. The upper red one comes down and is marked and trimmed to fit into the upper red carlin. After you are satisfied with the positioning and fit you can glue it all together. This gives you a multi scarf with lots of gluing surface. It also has the advantage the butt joint of the plywood coaming is not on the same line as the carlin joints. I still put a ply butt block between the upper and lower carlins to back up the butt joint on the ply coaming. The drawing is not from the OK 20 but from a new design called the OK 256. It has a steeper angle at the break of the sheer. It is however the same method, you will have longer scarfs on the carlins.

He Fishman, You should not bend the carlin's in to a S bend. You are right that it needs to compliment the break of the sheer. If you can wait until tomorrow night I will try to make a drawing of the joint.