Designer

The stringer looks like fir to me. The problem with fir is that it is very stiff which is a great virtue unless you want to bend it. You would be better off with pine.

lenm, You are right the keel is level. If the jig line is level and you set up the stations and bulkheads relative to the jig line, the keel will be automatically be level. The bulkheads are set up plumb. You will notice on the full size patterns that jig line is shown so that your stations and bulkheads will be set up at the correct height. As a further check you will see that the DWL which you will mark on the stations and bulkheads is 3'6" above the jig. Set up correctly, the keel/stem will drop into the slots and will be automatically level.

THe Bay River Skiff was meant to be simple, cheap and quick to rig. If you start looking at the Core Sound rigging you will see a lot of extra stuff, like halyards, sail tracks, lines led aft to the helmsman etc.. While all of this stuff can be good, it comes at a cost. one of the things that I enjoyed most about my BRS was that I could be rigged and sailing quicker than I could explain it. Consequently I sailed it a lot. I would start off rigging it as basic as I could. If you felt like adding line or two or another block after you get to know it better to make it more convenient, add it.

The cockpit sole is a structural member and needs to be well glued down in place and sealed from water ingress. I use drywall screws to hold the ply down tight but remove them before the epoxy cures. You can make caulked down hatches over the tanks.

Steve, That was quite an adventure, thanks for sharing. The crack in the transom should not have happened. I have attached a picture of the plan showing the transom detail. The torque from the propellor thrust is trying to twist the transom. Because the mounting screws are clamped to the transom stiffener, it is trying to open the joint to the filler piece. The joint between the transom stiffener and the filler is a butt joint, it cannot carry the loads imparted from an outboard. There should be an outboard pad glued over that joint to carry the tensile loads imparted by the outboard. I highlighted the butt joint in red, the outboard in blue

David, You are correct, the 1/8" is a spacer. When the hatch is closed, the hatch front is flush with the seat front. As they are the same material (1/4" ply), the back side of the hatch front would bind with the coaming if it was hard against the inside of the seat front. There will be epoxy and paint to further aid in binding, not to mention minor building imperfections. Leave a 1/8" gap and all will be well.

Dale, You have the battenless sails. The roach adds another 20 square feet or nearly 2 square meters for our metric speakers. On Carlita I am going to fit her with higher roach yet, I can 159 square feet on her.

One of the great things about this forum is that if I screw up and make a typo someone will find it and let me know. The beam is a typo. It should be 5' 10 1/2" not including gunwales. Thanks Dale.

Hi Greek builder, We did not have enough water to be able to put the ballasted centerboard board down. I left the sails down to cancel out the loss of the board. It should be about the same. After I finish my CS17 mk3 I intend to check it out in deep water to prove it. You have some great sailing waters. I spent over a year in the Agean and Ionian.

Lennie, Those decks are coated with epoxy and then varnished. There is no stain or any colorant. It is the same wood as you have.

I want to disagree with Doug a little bit. The tanks can't completely fill by themselves because the cockpit has to be above the water enough to self drain. Consequently you have to fill the last couple of inches with a bailer. For the sailing shots the tanks were not full. This allows the water to run down hill as the boat heels lessening the righting moment. The boat was still more stiff than the mk1. Doug did fill the tank for the capsize test. The gusts were a good deal more than 15. You can see that Alan in the CS15 taking the video was sailing two-up and had reefed both sails. The boat felt very stable, I believe that we could have pushed her a lot further. If you look at the rudder angle, you will see that even at a large angle of heel that the tiller was only a couple degrees to weather unless I was bearing away. I thought that the boat was very well balanced and well mannered and had a good turn of speed. Any prudent sailor would have reefed in these conditions. After cleaning up some rigging issues I think that Doug has a heck of boat, I really appreciate him bringing the boat for me to test.

If you feel that you are missing plan or instruction sheets, give Carla a call. If she does not answer, try another time.

Len, None of us hang out at pubs. I have to work Thursday night at the boat building class. You are welcome to come to the if you would like.

Good advise Oyster. The weather is looking great. Sorry you can't make it.

Do not kerf the inwales. It will be too soft where you need the stiffness to fair the sheer line. It is better not to glue the forward bulkhead before the inwale is installed. It is not that hard the bend them around especially if you do not use fir, watch Alan's video again.

Doug, Just bring your boat. Docpal is already here.

Russel, Yes you can use the sanding dust. The bag on the belt sander is a good source. You need to run it through a sieve first. There is nothing worse than trying to run a nice fillet and there is piece of grit or a thread from the belt dragging along under the tool messing it up.

Yes the Messabout will definitely be October 24-26. We had debated that week or the following week, I remembered the following week, so If anyone remembers me telling them the following week, then disregard that and go with 24 - 26. I am taking suggestions for ways to make your visit as worthwhile as possible. We will have a lot of expertise on hand, if there is any subject relating to building, painting, rigging, sailing or anything else, feel free to take advantage of it. We will put on some workshops if we get enough interest.

I am back - sort of. First of all Thank You all a million-fold for all of the prayers and good wishes. I know that they helped. I am now back home and working in the office for a few hours a day. I am still incredibly weak and very frustrated with my limitations - both physical and those imposed by the good doctors. I can now walk unassisted on level ground, but am still struggling with steps at the end of the day. I have started Physical Therapy, so hope to get stronger day by day. The med folks say 6-8 weeks at least....I am aiming for 6 weeks at most. Meanwhile everything takes 5 times longer than before. I'm still dealing with a little C5 palsy, which makes writing, typing and turning pages difficult. I drop things a lot, It is very unnerving. I beg everyone's indulgence with my slowness...it will get better day by day. Several of you have mentioned the Mess About.... but Graham has not kept a list. I will start a new string so I can get a head count. We have some new things to offer this year. I will try to get that started by tomorrow. again to one and all THANK YOU! Carla

There is no reason why you cannot fly a spinnaker on an S12 if you are up for it.

I never posted a video, Alan is still coaching me, maybe when he gets back from the race next week. I posted a picture of the boat under aail reefed. You can search the Spindrift strings.

Before very one gets on the, " you can't reef or lower the sail from the boat with a sleeve luff" thing. I cracked that a long time ago. I timed it on a video and it took 15 seconds to reef from the helm. I have posted a picture of a S12 sailing with reef on this forum somewhere.

I have sailed Spindrifts and Amandas a lot since they were designed and I can't understand the angst over the dagger board. I have sailed them along the rocky shores on Maine and the shallow waters of Pamlico Sound and it's creeks and points in between. They will sail upwind decently with the board mostly up. If you rig the board as designed with the shock cord, it is easy to raise and lower and it will stay where you leave it. The boom clears the board when it is up. You only need some board down when going up wind. I have short tacked along the shore staying out of most of the current with only half of the board down and won races without running aground. Of course I have run aground hard but it takes only a moment to raise the board and sail on. The trunk and board is tough enough for the odd screw up but as Alex has said, after you run aground a few times, you get it and learn to raise the board when the bottom depth is doubtful. Why don't we just put in a center board? It would need to swing back into the cockpit and be in the way. It takes more work to build and it will be heavier. While the last items may not concern a lot of builders, these are small boats.

I just do not use one part paint on epoxy. I understand the various reasons for doing so. As has been mentioned, uncured amines on the epoxy surface will prevent one part paints from curing properly. Here is what you should. After proper prep, paint a small section of the boat that will be easy to remove if there is an issue, a square foot is plenty. Paint a square foot on a nice clean surface that has no epoxy. This is your control. If both cure at the same rate, then you should be okay. If the control has cured and your painted epoxy is still soft, then you get to clean off a small area instead of big miserable job. Do not be fooled, the paint surface may have skinned over but under the skin is still soft. As has been said, priming first is best for a good finish. If you use a one part primer, do the test, it may save you a lot of work.

Alan and Paul in Dawn Patrol were first in to checkpoint 1 in the early hours of the morning after a hard day going up Pamlico Sound. They were followed a few hours later by the I 550. They decided to rest until the morning before moving on.