Dave R1

I'm building a new rudder box for Julie K and I'm looking for some opinions. I redesigned the upper part of it to avoid the open area between the cheeks that is exposed to the outside. That area is next to impossible to get into to clean and paint. Now of course there's a larger enpty space inside. I have two thoughts about that space. One is to cut out most of the cheeks in that area so that it can easily dry out. This would also slightly reduce the weight aft which wouldn't hurt. My other thought is to glue up the center pieces and one cheek with an epoxy fillet around the inside. Then mix up some good thick epoxy and "mortar" around the inside edges of the centerpieces and then snug down the other cheek and hope for a seal all the way around. Any thoughts? Thanks.

Yeah chad, I know about the spelling. I have to stop and look up words usually to make sure I'm getting them close. Sorry, I knew it was Michael. Sure, I'll work out the offsets table for you once you get it to that point. I'll make a scaling page for you as well so you can get offsets for a scaled model at whatever scale you want.

Chad, does Bruce know you're referring to him as a belly button architect? Sorry. I couldn't help myself. :wink: I've been following this over there. It's looking very nice. I hope you can get started building pretty soon.

If you've got SketchUp on your computer now, take a look at this. I did it mostly for the fun of it but it illustrates a simple trick you could use for things like doors or other moving parts. Maybe a centerboard in a boat? Open the file in SU and then, under View, choose Tourguide and then Play Slideshow.

They're all perspective views. You can select the angle of view or a 35mm camera lens equivalent as desired. FWIW Barry, if or when you're ready to work on learning SU, I've already done a bunch of tutorials and I can point you to them when you want them.

Actually Barry SU can do isometric or perspective views as well as 2D views. I don't care for the isometric views for a lolt of things but they do come in handy once in awhile.

Did someone call my name? SketchUp is definitely an easy application to learn and you can add as much detail as you need. You can also add in dimensions and labels if you want. It isn't a real CAD application although SketchUp Pro 5 will export CAD files if desired. Here are a couple of examples of what I've done in SU. The first two are low res screen grabs. If you have any questions feel free to ask. BTW, Barry's done some pretty amazing drawings in Paint.

Denis, I'm sorry for your loss. Your family and his are in my thoughts.

FWIW, last winter I made a new gaff for my Weekender using the birdsmouth method. It was probably more work than needed for a small spar like that but it was a good experience and the stick served perfectly over the summer. I used some clear pine trim from Menard's. It was about 3/4" thick and maybe 3" wide. Cost more than buying something larger but I only needed a few pieces and there was almost no waste. I planed the stock to the desired thickness and ripped to width. I used a regular V-groove bit in the table-mounted router and that worked just fine. I made plugs for the ends and epoxied everything up using zip ties to clamp the staves together. Sorry no photos of the process but here's one of the finished gaff. It's in the middle. the old one which may have been burnt in Kydocfrog's fireplace by now is on the left. And for fun here is a closer shot of the jaws. The only metal used on the gaff are a couple of pieces of brass rod driven through the jaws and spar and peened over.

I don't remember exactly on the Skipjack and maybe a Skipjack builder will chime in. I think though that fore and aft play allows for a bit of adjustment in mast rake which can be set up with shrouds. If I remember correctly, the mast comes up through what little deck there is and the location of the hole is also part of the determining factor.

Jeff, for what it is worth, I ran marine grade 6 ga wire from the battery in the forepeak on my Weekender to the lazarette where it terminates in a waterproof twist lock connector that I mounted on the lazarette bulkhead. I have a 47lb thrust motor which is certainly beefy enough for my boat.

Noel, that line attached the throat of the sail to the gaff throat. It's not the way I do it but I've seen it that way before. Might be in the plans for the Weekender. If I remember correctly the clew of the sail as shown in the plans shows a similar thing.

Found this a few minutes ago. A few details think it might be a Weekender. Thought of you. If not, it's a great photo anyway.

Thanks for sharing. I remember watching the progress shots as Barrett build those Navigators. That boat is on my list of ones I'd like to build. Looks like you got a pretty nice deal there, Jake.

Wow Mike! She looks great. Excellent work, sir. Thank you for sharing.

Steve, could you get your hands on some yellow poplar (tulip poplar)? It's easy to work, easy to get in large, clear pieces and not too expensive. If it is painted it'll last longer than 5 years but that's ok too. Or you ought to be able to get your hands on some cottonwood. That probably won't last longer than 5 years in a boat that you'd leave out in the rain. I think it can be a bit stringy but isn't all that hard to work. What did you use on that little boat you brought to the messabout in June?

Joe, sorry. I've been kind of busy at work with anesthesia machines and teaching. Now I have a moment to comment. The only problem I see with Dove (and Tidbit for that matter) is that they are too far away from me. Dove is another lovely boat and I envy you getting to sail her. I do appreciate that you share the imagesand stories with us. Tell you what. I'm going to have Bill put you down as a "for sure" for the Minnesota Messabout next June. We'll leave it up to you as to which boat you bring-- Dove, Tidbit or both.

Looks like you had a great day for a sail. Thanks for posting the pictures.

Yeah, it's pretty slippery. I'm not sure any paint I could get would stick to it.

I just thought I'd share some pictures I took of Julie K under her new mooring cover. I made it out of a silver tarp, some tarp patching tape, and a few snaps and grommets. I made some small hooks out of Delrin and used some thin shock cord from the fabric store to hold it in place. I haven't used it as such but it could probably double as a boom tent for overnighting. In the last photo you can see some of the hooks under the rub rail. I wish I could have gotten color coordinated plastic but I couldn't.

Wayne, I've got an application that will do it directly but the alignment with the image seems better doing as I did for this image. I'll look into the one you mentioned. By the way, Bill posted some photos of our small B.U.S. gathering here: Boats of Unusual Sail

Andrew, I have GPS Utility, too as well as a couple of others. I used one of them to collect the data from the GPS and then saved it as a GPX file. Then I went to GPS Visualizer and uploaded the file which returned a KML file to open in Google Earth. It seems to do a better job than which ever one of the apps I have at making a good KML file.

Saturday we got together on Lake Pepin for a sail. Bill Paxton arranged the gathering he called B.U.S. This was a smaller gathering than the Minnesota Messabout back in June but we had a good time. The morning dawned with heavy overcast and north winds of around 10 kts. As the day progressed, it got windier. I don't know what the max was in our area but Nancy's calibrated hat blows off at 20 kts and it left her head at least once. By about 14:00 the winds started to abate a little and it was time to put the boats in the water. The waves were still pretty good sized and still coming in on the ramp. Mississippi Bob and I took Julie K out tried to keep up with the bunch. My GPS recorded a max speed of 7.5 kts and we were the slow boat so I know Bill's Surprise and Craig's Skipjack, Black Bark must have seen higher speeds than that. Julie K experienced a first that day. She hit and came down off a couple of big waves that drove her bowsprit under. I fully expected something to break but was relieved nothing did. I had about a cup of water in the forepeak but nothing else. (I have to work on sealing a few opening, I guess.) I found some interesting freeware that will take tracklog data from a GPS and make an overlay for Google Earth. FWIW, here's the tracklog from Saturday. The legs aren't very straight because the wind was starting to switch around and between gusts and waves if was next to impossible to maintain any sort of course. The first leg is to the northeast and the funny little loop just north of the dock (001) is where we rounded up to drop sails.

Hmmmm....... I'm thinking he should come to our messabout next year. Of course so should Adla, and Jake and Brit and everyone else. Lake Pepin is pretty much centrally located and it's big enough to hold all the Weekenders and Vacationers and Pocket Cruisers along with all those CS boats and any other home built boats you can think of. We could take over all of Hok-Si-La's campsites.