Dave R1

I just sent you a PM

Noel, have you got any red audio tape?

Bud, I looked at the green ribbon but didn't see a nice green. The original set was red so I ended up sticking with it. :roll:

I thought I'd share an idea I had today. It's probably not original but I'll share it anyway. For the last few years I've had shroud telltales like the one in the picture below. A few weeks ago while out sailing, one of them went swimming and I didn't miss it until too late. I thought about getting new ones but since there's no one locally who carries them, I'd have to order them. West Marine sells them for $7.49 a pair plus shipping and sales tax. :shock: (The first set was a gift so I didn't buy them) Today I went to the local fabric store and bought a yard of red ribbon for 78 cents including tax. I scrounged through my collection of bent nails and pieces of string to short to save and found a nylon washer that would fit around the shroud. I glued a bit of the ribbon to the washer, cut a slit in the washer so it will slip over the shroud et voil

Must be your computer Barry. I don't see the same thing. Maybe your computer has developed an allergy toward numbers?

Mike, glad to see you back on the board. Will you be updating the site anytime soon? What's the skinny on the "super skipjack"? If you want to add a few Weekender pictures I guess there are some from recent launches. I could send you some of mine with her new tanbark sails if you want.

I was going to suggest the same ones, Adla. Ken, you need to consider that with the stub tiller through the transom, you won't be able to lift the rudder box on and off the hardware. You'll have to unscrew at least one pintle or gudgeon to remove the rudder box from the boat. With that in mind you might want to install the top pintle upside down so as to trap the box and keep it in place. As you know I've been thinking on this and I am considering doing that. Or I might use only gudgeons and use stainless bolts as the pins. Actually I'd probably use stainless rod sized to fit the gudgeons and thread only the ends for stainless lock nuts. By doing it that way, if I want to remove the box, I can simple remove the pins and disconnect the steering cable which currently only requires the removal of a nut.

Ken, my stringers were epoxied/screwed in place and I ran a bead of 5200 along them after the sides were installed. I've never had a drop of water through one of those seams. I'm not sure the 5200 was even needed. I just did it because they said to. If you want to add glass tape along the seams you'll need to make a fillet of epoxy because the cloth won't like the sharp bend. If you were to build up those areas into a fillet with epoxy after the sides are on, glassing would be a nice touch. I don't think you'd have to do it though. I would be inclined to do it between the cabin bulkhead and the bottom in the cockpit and maybe on the cabin side. On the cockpit side because it would look nice and on the cabin side because there's this hard to get at area down there. Making most of that fillet before the sides go on would make life easier. You won't see the seams under the seats so I don't think I'd bother. By the way, one thing I did that I don't seem to have pictures of is to line the cockpit sides with 1" insulating foam. Over that I put a panel of 1/4" luaun plywood sanded and varnished. This provides a tiny bit of flotation but it mostly just adds a bit of looks. I added some stringers on the inside of the hull sides into which screws are driven to hold the plywood.

Good golly! I missed this one. Frank, perhaps you could add Julie K Weekender to mine? Thanks.

Good. I'm glad that made sense. I think you're on the right track. I've never missed that hatch on the bottom of the laz bulkhead and wouldn't bother with it. I'm at home now if you want to chat. Dave

Ken, I think it makes sense. If I remember correctly, I located the aft face of the bulkhead so it was flush with the corner at station 10 +7" and didn't worry about the exact distance from station 16. When I made the deck I made a straight cut along that station 10 +7" line instead of the arc. I extended the arc of the cockpit edge up, past the 7" line and used the intersection as the corner. Does that make sense? I'm sitting here with the plans in front of me and I found the page for the deck offsets that I used to square the cabin front and make the cut I just talked about.

We returned last night from a 4 day stay on Lake Vermilion in northern Minnesota. We had a wonderful time and even got to do a little sailing. We stayed at a neat resort called Muskego Point which is only accessible by water. The lake is huge! Almost 41,000 acres with 313 miles of shoreline. We didn't come anywhere near close to seeing it all. As far as the sailing goes, it was pretty nice but there are a lot of fishing boats along with the water skiers and tubers so the water gets pretty choppy. There's also the float planes, barges and houseboats to make things interesting. Not many photos to share but here's what I've got. Kari took the ones of the boat and for the first one she didn't wait for me to pull the dock bumper in. :roll: Ian had a pretty good time playing with his buddies Luke and Grace. He was pretty tired by the time the beach party got going. Still, he did his best to be the life of the party.

I've been away for awhile and I'm curious to know what you found with your steering. Did you get the problem solved?

I've got a 47 lb thrust trolling motor. It's got plenty of oomph to push the boat into some pretty strong headwind. It's quiet and not smelly at all.

I added the gills to my weekender between rudder box and stern post. I noticed a difference in performance on the next sail. I used that rubber garge door seal that is about two inches wide because that was the easiest thing to get my hands on. I put a piece on each side of the rudder box extending forward and another on the stern post extending aft to overlap the other pieces.

Ah, steeering rope on one side is too loose. That sounds like a likely culprit with an easy fix. I didn't think of that because I didn't run into that problem with the steering and with the sprockets and chain, there's no chance for slippage. Well I hope that solves the problem and you're back on the water soon.

Hmmm... a puzzle for sure. Assuming the rudder swings equally port and starboard and the fact that this hasn't been an issue before I would be looking at weight distribution, too. You might look a little closer at the rudder to make sure all is right there. One thing I've found helpful when tacking is to backwind the jib before sheeting in on the lee side. If there's any doubt about making the tack, this should help. Weight differential from side to side might be something to consider but it really shouldn't cause you and problems. If changing that has an impact I would be looking for something else as the cause. The weight differential by uitself shouldn't be a problem. One thing I would try is having your daughter sit in the companionway. You'll have her weight on board but it will be on the centerline. Is it possible you're dragging something on the port side? Barnacles? A dock bumper? Stowaway hanging on the port rail? You might want to give another solo try and see if your tacking goes back to the way it was before. Probably none of this helps but I wish you luck.

This morning I took a friend sailing on Lake Pepin. He's feeling withdrawls from sailing since he sold his 28' Catalina last fall. After an excellent breakfast in Lake City we put the boat in the water at about 9:30. There was harly anything that could be called a breeze but the boat moved along just fine. He did most of the sailing so I got to just sit back and relax most of the time. Lake Pepin is big enough you can maintain a given point of sail for awhile without doing anything. After we got out a little way--almost to the Wisconsin side of the lake--the wind came up some and we had a great ride with the lee rail frequently in the water. Those new Duckworks sails perform so nicely and that tanbark color is nice to look at. We had to quit sailing at about 1:00 due to other committments so the day ended too soon. Excpet for a few annoying jet skeets and fishing boats, the day was very enjoyable. One big thing I noticed was that there were more big cabin cruisers on the hard with for sale signs on them than there were out on the lake. For a change there were very few of those boats whose owners seem to only be able to plow water with them. That made for a nicer ride for us. Sorry, no pictures. Neither of us had a camera available. I just wanted to post this as encouragement for Ken and all you others who are still building. You time is coming soon.

Ken, will do. I'll look for your mailing but just so you know, I'll be out of town from the 4th through the end of the week. If it shows up tomorrow, I'll see if I can get Kari to drop it off.

That valet thing sounds kind of neat. What do they use? A travelift? Did I get the right spot?

FWIW, I just got finished making 16 hooks for my mooring cover. It took less time to make them than to drive to the nearest place that would have commercially made hooks. They are made from Delrin and to a different design than the ones I drew for the original post. My bride is out of town for the weekend and took the camera so pictures of them will have to wait until later. If anyone is interested in making their own I can post the new drawings and describe the fabrication process.

Good story Tim. I also just finished reading of the dismasting. Glad no one got hurt. I'm envious of your new location and your proximity to the lake. I'm taking a stab at the location of the ramp but if I'm right, it looks like a nice one. Two fairly wide ramps with a dock down the middle and a large parking area.

Hmmm.... A servo motor and some optical recognition software, a palm pilot. Yeah. I think I could come up with a great Rube Goldberg-esque auto pilot. Hmmm.... Hey John, any chance I could get satellite access to an XT3 to do the nav calculations?

Jeff, thanks for that great idea. Hmmm...Thinking....Thinking....I might have to start drinking some bottled water. PAR, I think you've hit it. Thank you. Problem is, I need them on the boat by the end of the day Saturday. There isn't anywhere locally to get them so it looks like I'll be making whatever I use myself. Thanks for the suggestions all. Dave

Thanks guys. Andrew, that's kind of the idea and looks like a cool website I need to peruse. Those hooks are still too big, though. The cover I'm working on is more like a boom tent intended to cover the mainsail and cockpit when the boat is on a mooring or tied up at a dock overnight. I've got some shock cord that is about 1/8" in diameter from which I'll make loops to hook over the hooks I'm now working on. I've got a new idea for how to make them and I was able to pick up some scraps of 5/8" thick Delrin to make them from. They have to be pretty tiny because I only have a half inch wide surface on which to mount them. The other problem I have is I need them installed on the boat before the 4th of July because we're planning to take the boat with us on a short vacation to northern MN. I'll report on what I end up with in case anyone is interested. Thanks again. Dave