Scott Dunsworth

Been thinking, That's usually pretty dangerous for me ! But anyway of trying to build a super light weight spindrift 11 as a dink for my 28 that could be hung on a davit. I know davits are ugly and it's pushing it to install one on a small 28. But I'm getting old and clumsy. We will have a walk out transom anyway and it just seems it would be so much easier to just step off the swim platform right into the dink. What I'm contemplating is building the spindrift 11 with 3/16ths okoume. I would do the 10 but I built a 10 for my brother and he said he would do the 11 if had it to do over again. I'm not a big fan of okoume but it is light, only 8.8 pounds per sheet. I would skip glassing the hull but she would get banged around to much to do that. Probably some 4 oz plain weave glass inside and out, 10 oz tape for the joints, which would add about 8 pounds over a just epoxied hull. I would probably make a few thin laminated stringers to stiffen the bottom just a bit, or order some of those carbon fiber strips instead. No sail rig, so no centerboard trunk, board, rudder and bare minimum hardware. The new Jessy would be a better choice being designed for motoring, if it wasn't 12 feet long. The 11 will still hang over the beam by 7 inches on each side. Would probably add just enough foam ( foam is heaver than air ) in the tanks to float her if she did come apart or was holed. Very thin laminated rub rails, laminated because you can get the same strength with less wood and weight. Then add a thin rubber bumper to the rails. One area I'm concerned about using the 3/16's is the seat tops. I could laminate some small seat stiffeners or use a few 1/8 inch okoume scraps I have for a few extra bulkheads in the seat tanks. I need to be careful here or I could end up with the same weight as using 1/4 inch for the seat tops. The design of the regular spindrift I believe would be still plenty stiff using the 3/16ths, with the seat tanks running the length of the hull. So minus the 2 hp outboard my goal is to come in around 60 pounds or less for a fully glassed hull. I want the davit for solar panels also, there just really isn't a better place to put them. Hopefully with the weight of the davit, 200 watts of panels and my light spindrift, minus the outboard mounted to the dink I can come in at about 140 pounds or less hanging from the stern. Having the davit I probably wouldn't tow her much but if I did the wind may blow her over being that lightweight and just laying on top of the water drawing only about 1/2 inch of water unloaded. I might tow her if I was just moving from one cove to another on flat water. Anyone got any other ideas on how to cut the weight anymore? Scott

The Belhaven is a heaver boat than the ones being discussed on this thread, but I always wished I would have designed a bow roller set up while building her from the beginning. I like them being built in from the get-go instead of looking like and add on. It was always hard on my back to retrieve the anchor and boats length of chain trying to hold it all out far enough not to bang the hull up. On my new 28 it will be built in and self storing. Haven't decided on a windlass as of yet, they are heavy and expensive. But I will frame and wire the boat up to accept one, so if needed it won't be a major undertaking to install one. Scott

Howard I had two 5/8 x 5/8's battens made from some real straight grained popular that was the best I ever had. They bent easy and would make nice fair lines. I made them from 1x1's and ran them through my thickness planner till I got to the thickness desired. I have a good sources for wood locally and they where 14 feet in length, but eventually started to get small bends and twists in them after two or three years. I'll make me another set along with some shorter ones, sand and epoxy coat them to keep them stabilized. The very straight grain popular would take some amazing bends some times, but it has to be real straight grained. Howard I would like to come and see your boat after you've been at it for awhile. I have stopped and seen Peter's 28 twice and am always amazed at his craftsmanship, he would show me a flaw and even after he would point it out I still couldn't see it. There are several builds I would love to see in progress, you and Brent's 26's, Kyles Belhaven and a few of the power boats. One of my favorite power boats would be the Outerbanks 24. Scott

From the pictures it looks like your doing a good job keeping things accurate and true. I always hated beveling those doggone stems! I love to do scarfs now, that used to be my biggest dread. If I could just come to love sanding I would have it made. Your making good progress also. Looking very good keep it up. Scott

Sam Devlin's book is a real good introduction to most boats we build on the forum. I think it's a must for the first time builder. I wish Graham had time to write a stitch and glue book, from all his experience. It would be a great resource to sell with his first time building customers. Also with him also working with woodenboat school, I'm sure it could be sold in their book store also. Not a complete building book, just epoxy stitch and glue basics, with keel build up, small lead shoe keel pours, plywood choices, chemical bonds, secondary bonds, butterfly techniques, etc. I have talked to Graham on my trips to NC for hours on end sometimes and his knowledge and experience is always amazing to me. So Graham write us a book and I want the first copy, autographed of course. My son and grand kids may want to build a boat one day and I would love them to have your thoughts and experiences with small sound building techniques at their fingertips, long after we are gone. Scott

Send them another email, if there's something missing they will make it right.

Dave I'm sure on plywood the epoxy cant get past the first glue line of the ply. But on my 28 I thought the cypress would never stop sucking the stuff up. But that is the nature of cypress very porous. But for sure the longer the stuff stays thin before starting to kick the more the wood would have to absorb. We may not be talking that much more, but the deeper it gets the more wood fibers it bonds.

Yes to part of your question about finishing from bow to stern. But that doesn't mean that you cant do one side completely with the overlapping of the bow and center line of the keel. Then do the other side the next day within 8 or ten hours if your using slow hardener, which I always use for wetting out. The exception to this would be if the temperature is in the 80's or higher. The slow hardener gives me two major benefits, first more working time with the big job at hand of wetting out the glass and chasing dry spots, you will have some dry spots because the epoxy is soaking deeper into the wood. Then second benefit that a lot of folks don't consider, it gives the epoxy more time to soak deeper into the wood before starting to kick off. You don't have to worry about out gassing to much on simple joints, but larger areas that's a big time difference. When I glassed my Candice 28 I started late in the afternoon as the sun was setting, put a fan to pull the cooler air from outside. By the time we were finished glassing I had not seen very many out gassing bubbles and only two small air entrapment's the size of a dime. The building had dropped in temperature from the 80's to the low 60's when we finished. Out gassing is serious, if left untended it can make a path for the wood to pull water into your hull and trap it between the epoxy encapsulation. Its not rocket science, just follow a few simple rules and all will go well. Some epoxies have a very strong Oder and some do not. I have tried many brands and keep coming back to Raka 127 resin and their hardeners. I have never had any blush that I could feel using Raka. But I always assume that there must be some and wash it down anyway. I have had some epoxy that after it cured it had so much blush it was as if I took a pound of bacon and rubbed the whole hull down. You are going to get many opinions on epoxy brands and techniques. I have used around 75 gallons of epoxy on the boats I've built. I'm just telling you what has worked for me.

Still working on this story and havent looked up the pictures yet, give me a few more weeks.

I also thought Devlin's stitch and glue book was great for me when I started using epoxy. I also learned the hard way about a bad batch of epoxy on the rudder of my first boat. Since then after the hardener was added I've done as mentioned above, pitched it out if I lost count. 2 to 1 helps keep things simpler, but also just stay focused when measuring out the batch, don't talk to anyone or pay attention to anyone around you, just get it in the cup. A lot of 2 to 1 epoxies have an about a 10 to 20% error factor and will still harden, but they are not at their best then. On larger batches such as wetting out the glass, forget the pumps and use good measuring cups in the quart or half gallon sizes.

I had an older 4.5 hp on the transom, and then there's those big lockers that I always had overloaded.

Finally I have got four days to work on my boat. So we will be doing some fairing of glass overlaps and install some more keel lamination's. Also going to start drilling keel bolts. I was looking inside the hull the other night and it just looks so huge inside. It doesn't look like I could ever fill all that space with equipment and furniture! A 28 is a very big cruising boat for me but about 8 feet short of the average now days. We did some measurements the other night also and it looks like instead of a normal v berth, we can get a full size mattress in along one side of the hull and still have standing headroom off to the side. The aft end of the forward cabin is 8 feet wide. It would be nice to have a regular mattress up there like some of the larger boats. We would have to sacrifice about 6" of main cabin to do it and make some wedge shaped lockers, but may be worth it. We also can build in some drawers under the bed. Kyle that is doing a wonderful job of building a Belhaven is flying all the way from NV to help me sand and what ever is needed in June. Very unusual that someone likes to sand that much!

I used all Meranti, if doing it again I would use Meranti for the hull bottom, cabin top, centerboard trunk, cockpit seat tops, cockpit sole and cockpit combing. Okoume for hull sides, bulkheads, cabin sides and interior parts. This would give me a toughness where needed and lighter weight where the extra hardness isn't really needed. I had 325 lbs of lead ballast and 30 lbs in the centerboard. Good luck, she is a wonderful design! I mess my Belhaven almost daily. I have about 6 sailing videos on youtube, I watched them the other night just to increase my misery. Scott

The Belhaven does have a little more headroom, but the interior of the P22 is a Lot larger. I could have lived on my Belhaven by myself short term if I was cruising, but never in a thousand years would I have ever entertained the idea for a family of four! Ray and I got in this rigging discussion a while back and personaly for me all the extra rigging for every move to be made from the cockpit is over complicating things on a small trailer rigged boat tremendously.

If you have that much purple heart sell it and finance your boat.

Originally I was having Graham design my 28 with an outboard well. My plan was to have a 25 or 30 in there to run all the river systems to get to the Gulf and for all other reasons you have. One big one was the ability to remove the outboard completely for maintenance or major breakdown issues, which would be rare with the reliability of modern outboards. The only real down side for me was the lack of a real alternator. If we will be living on this boat for 4 to 6 months a year I needed a real charging system. Then Graham found me this Beta 20 with a 60 amp alternator and only 160 hours on the diesel. So we promptly switched over to the Beta from the outboard. Another plus to the Beta is economic. The very helpful folks at Beta told me the 20 should push my 28 at hull speed with a fuel consumption of a half a gallon an hour. That works out to around 14 mpg. As for standing headroom it is a make or break deal for my wife and I. We neither have good backs and to live on a small craft that long without standing headroom would doom my dreams of winters in Florida. The 28 Graham is designing for me has 6'1" headroom. Her beam is just 2 inches short of 10 feet and she has a slightly higher free-board. With the wider beam this allows for the headroom down the center line to be quite wide. The draft is planned at 4 feet which is pretty good for a keel boat, the keel is 108 inch's long at the hull and about 90 inch's at the foot. So I wont be able to get to a lot of places but if careful we will be able to get just about anywhere we want to go. If I remember correctly she has an displacement of 8900 lbs. She also carries quite a bit more sail than most 28's. When I asked him to design this 28 I asked for safety and comfort first, then performance second. But anything Graham designs won't be a dog I'm sure. Other than the transom my sail plan of the boat looks very similar to the P26 and a lot like the Peters P28, my cabin comes all the way back to the mizzen tabernacle. I'll email Graham and see if he will post my sail plan on my 28 thread. I have it on paper but don't know how to get it to the forum. Most of all the differences comes down to personal preferences and intended uses. One thing we both have going for us is a designer that can make it happen in a nice looking, safe package.

I don't think I need anything for my 20, everything came with her all the way down to the prop. An hour is an exaggeration, it usually is about 30 minutes of various rpms with about half that time at just above idle. It always amazes me how easy the system bleeds and she starts up, then how smooth she runs even at idle. The first time I ran it I noticed she ran just a whee bit on the warm side, so took the heat exchanger apart and 1/3 of the copper tubes were plugged up. I cleaned those up and that brought her back in line on temp. Very simple system to clean and maintain. So once shes in service Ill keep that as part of routine maintenance. I think I'll install two fresh water strainers on separate sea-cocks, where I can switch from one to the other on the fly in case one sucks up a plastic chunk, seaweed or something. I know thats another hole in the bottom but worth the risk.

Peter if you still have your shaft log drilling jig and bit, I would like to borrow it when my time comes. Going to start my little Beta next weekend and let her run for an hour, its now been 7 months since I started her. I just feel better running her a few times a year. She wasn't new like yours, she had 160 hours on her. I hook her up to my tractor fuel system which has a filter and water separator. Scott

Brent and Howard I really like this design, I would have built one myself if it wasn't for two parts of the design. I wanted a fairly shallow draft fixed keel and standing headroom from one end of the cabin to the other. But other than that it probably would have met my needs. Its one of Grahams prettiest sail designs, also very practical. So keep up the good work both of you. I have always thought if Graham would design a Belhaven in a 26 it would be a good design. It would have standing head room. Also with twin belge keels fairly shallow draft. I know Graham isnt to crazy about twin keels but there are a lot of up sides to them also. The Princess is a nice salty looking boat and the Belhaven has a more modern look. I was very surprised to find out at the mess about that the Belhaven actualy has more head room then the P22. So I'm sure our designer could get standing headroom in a B26. Looking forward to up dates on both of your builds. Scott

Yes your right there are plenty of things I could be doing. But time is my problem at the moment. I have be building a house for a customer ( friend ) for three months now and have about six weeks left. Slow process without a crew to help, I subbed out the electrical, plumbing and this week the drywall. So that should help get me back to the boat barn sooner. Thankfully the owner wants to do most of the inside.

Thanks Peter, I needed that.

Peter it has been over three months since we had an up date. I don't want to bug you, but I think about your build at least weekly. Would love to see some updates!! Scott

I prefer Meranti, not because of the lower price. It is so much harder and resists dings much better, you don't have to be as careful sanding, the okoume will if your not very careful sand high and low places. When your sanding screw holes you have to be extra careful not to tilt the sander on edge or you will end up with a lot of divots with Okoume. If meranti was more expensive it would still be my choice. I built a spindrift 10n with it and it is stiff for the bow section but I did not have and issues with a little preparation. If your concerned about weight, you could use Meranti for the bottom sections and Okoume for the top sides. That's a happy medium of weight, cost and durability. Every sheet of ply I have bought has come from noahs, doing boat number six now.

Charlie I really have no need for a metric tape, If Graham sends me any plan updates in metric I'll simply send them back with a note that says English Please. I will just be one of those dinosaurs that will never change over or support changing over.

Dave I personally hope they stay way ahead of us on the metric thing and we stay to hardheaded to ever change.