nzlance

Ok styling aside ......which is a matter of personal taste. What exactly is wrong with the design? Its pretty obvious the boat has vertical sides so the interior layout would actually work as drawn. One of these boats are being built at the moment and on the blog it looked just like the plan indicates. What gets me is the designer has spent many hours designing this thing from the ground up and it aint exactly the first yatch he has penned.......... surely he wouldnt expect the public to pay Aus $300.00 for a set of plans then thousands of dollars on materials not to mention the time taken to build the thing only to have a boat that handles and performs like a complete pig. Im simply fasinated by the design and interested to see what people who know about yatchs and the hull characteristics think about it.

I dunno Gordy. It certainly has its good points. Alot of space for a twenty five foot boat , simple construction, twin keels are cheap and easy to build. The styling looks pretty edgy, I quite like it. plumb bow, windows , swimstep at back of cockpit. I thought the whole thing is really well thought out. You may be right about the flat bottom though...... in saying that you look at the hull of most racing yatchs now days they are practically a high tec wedge with mast and sails. Having a chine as the boat heels would this not act as the "v" and help slice through the waves? I know most sail boats are round bilge... and my knowledge of hull design is pretty limited but I cant help liking this boat. cheers. Lance.

Hey thanks Hokey. I started out with all corners razor sharp until I sliced my knuckle open sanding the things, so I thought I had better play it safe and put a slight radius on all edges just for saftey sake. Like if you were to bang your knee or shin on that edge while climbing aboard after a swim or dive etc , things could get messy. As far as cabin design goes, it definatly wont be a center consol. They dont tend to make great family boats with our weather. So Im going for tha caroliner express look which is basically a long slightly cambered deck from the bow to just past the half way point of the hull. Most seem to have the curved winscreen and side wings made from ply aswell. All this is probaly not the most practical design but the bow of the boat is quite high and with a step down created between the forward bunks reasonable headroom can be acheived. A few of the main reasons for building like this are; Shelter, a cabin, even if its low provides enough room for two full length bunks and a porta-pottie cut into the front section which has erned massive brownie points with Seanne (the better half) Dry storage........ pretty self explainitry. Gives a large flat deck up front which can be used to fish off as long as access there is properly built. Saftey......... the one thing that really puts me off center consols is the thought of getting caught out when the weather turns nasty (we have all been there) and taking a bloody big wave over the bow. At least with a cabin structure it will deflect alot of water. But the main reason is above all else is to try and enhance the lines of the hull by keeping cabin and windscreen as low and sleek as possible. I think Graham has done a great job of designing a beautiful boat which I dont want to destroy by tacking on a out of proportion cabin. In my eyes a long bow with raked curved winscreen tying into a low stern looks fantastic. Hopefully I can do the design justice.

Interior etc

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after flip.......

What stage you upto Tarbaby?

Well in theory Gordy will have the thing on a trailer in the comming months so this bunch will be surplus to requirements until the next one is built. Cheers dm merry xmas to you too, I will keep posting . Atleast there will be some more interesting pics rather than just a bloody hull upsidedown from every angle! The roll over frame Hokey worked better than I thought it would. I was half expecting the weight of the boat to be to much and the whole thing fall apart....(the frame not the boat) But the hull was quite lite and all went smoothly. And as far as who goes first voyage ect......... well im currently boatless, and have been blagging my way onto many of these guys boats now for the past 6 months, so it will be time to repay the favor bigtime when this thing is finished.

Er.... you might need to take a closer look at some of the pics.

Yes well the promise of free beer had friends decending on my house like rats to a rotting carcass. This bunch know how to knock it back aswell, all are either plumbers or builders.Their footware is a bit of a give-away!

All done. If you are woundering which one of this motley crew is the actual boat builder. Im the good looking one, third in from the left, blue t-shirt, black cap. Merry christmas.

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Big wednesday. I built a wooden frame around both ends of the boat to protect it, got some friends around and rolled it over. It worked a treat. The hull had to be rotated 180 degrees so the bow faced out of the car port, entire process took less than 10 mins...... many hands make lite work. Im lucky to have such good mates.

Front.

Here is a couple of pics of last boat...I rolled on 9 coats thinking I had it sorted and looking good only for alot of fixings to show through several months later. They were not easy to spot..... when the sun was low in the late afternoon revealed alot....should probaly stick with white this time.

Finally managed to get a finish coat on the hull, probaly picked the worse day of the year to do it too. Driving rain, wind etc. Im on a bit of a deadline aswell, like I said earlier you have a maximum recoat time with this paint, which when you have a day job doesnt leave much time to squeeze in wet and dry sanding and re-coating. I masked at the chine lines as will paint the rest of the hull at later date right way up. Although its alot easier to do it now I could almost garentee that the hull will get bumped ,knocked, scratched or epoxy drips on it before the build is complete. So just finish coating the underside as is quite tricky to do once flipped. Have not made up mind on final colour yet, tempted to go black on the sides.....I love dark hulls. Yes Im very awear of the problems arising from dark colours, print through etc. My last boat was painted a gunmetal grey gloss and in the right light it showed every fixing! So will probaly just play it safe and stick with snow white. At least it helps mask any slight imperfections in the fairing. I applied 9 coats on last boat in an attempt to sort out "issues" then gave up , only to have every fixing exposed in low sunlight a few months down the track once the boat was removed from cosy garage and put in the sea. It is quite amazing what you can pick up with a coat of gloss paint, even after 2 months of sanding and fairing I can now pick out minor depressions - mainly under the shear band about a 1/3 boat lenght from the bow, that were impossible to spot before. They only show up when the light is on at a certain angle. Hard to even feel by hand. Funnily enough the bottom of the boat- the part where no one ever sees came out fantastic.

Hey thanks David, you are not the only one wanting to see this thing sunny side up- trust me! Put on another coat during the week, this time I added around 300mls of the finish high gloss. It was a fatal mistake to roll on a coat of paint in the early summer evening as every bug, moth ,midget- you name it turned up to enjoy the spectical. Just as well the hull will recieve another complete sanding with 280 before the final coats go on.... during the day this time.

Hey no problem bfeller. She is starting to look like a boat now thankfully. Im pretty over sanding and long boarding. Its been 2 months of it! Was able to get on a coat of undercoat yesterday, was gonna do another one today but went fishing instead. The product I used was International perfection undercoat. This stuff is designed to go on with roller or brush. It goes on and flattens out beautifuly. An amazing product. It has quite a nice sheen to it which helps spot any areas that need attention. Thankfully all is looking really good, will just block sand the hull down with some 400 wet and dry and roll on another coat during the week to build up a good base for the final coats. The perfection undercoat needs to be re-coated within a few days as it hardens dramatically over time making it difficult for the finish coats to adhere to. All in all a great product, really easy to apply with a small foam roller (went through 4 of them though) and has a great finish which is easy to sand back if necessary.

Trim tab pockets are now complete. Hopefully will get a couple of coats of primer on this comming weekend. Fairing process has been quite a long ol grind but hull is looking real good. I rolled on a coat of Altex high build surfacer. Over 5 litres went on and im pretty sure about 4.8 litres ended up as dust on the shed floor and neighbours car. But it has done its job. Once dry it easily sanded back to a beautiful smooth suface. A few spots needed a couple of re-coats for build up. But with the long board and a few hours of hard graft all is complete. The race is on to get the hull flipped before christmas as everyone that will be getting roped in to help roll this thing over will be away on holiday.

The plans for the boat are fairly straight forward. Frames... both permernant and tempory are cut from full sized plans. No lofting etc. Very easy. The stringers and planking was simple enough.... a bit tricky around the chine area real care has to be taken to keep things held in place accuratly but nothing over the top. Glassing... experience is real handy here.... so is a friend or two. Get as much info as possible. Its a messy job that if not done properly will be hard to fix. As for the fairing process. Its a matter of how fussy you wanna get. There is no shortcuts at this stage if you want a top notch job. It is alot of hours long boarding, filling etc...... Make no mistake, building a boat, any boat takes alot of time and hard work. This would be a pretty full on build for a first timer. I guess its the old saying "you will get out of it what you put into it" There is absolutly no reason why you couldnt build this boat. Decent tools are recomended, but an understanding of how to use them properly is more important. Some building experience would deffinatly go along way aswell. She is a pretty big hull.... just dont bite off more than you can chew first time round. But if you back yourself and have the will to see it through then go for it. Good luck mate.

Getting 130 bhp out of a 1986 115 is pretty impressive indeed. At the end of the day im not expecting massive performance figures. The boat is still 20 ft long and the engine is only a 115. Most production 6m boats here are powered with a 150-200. Most have min 20 degree v sucks alot of horsepower. One thing the Ocracoke doesnt have. It will be interesting to see how the hull copes with New Zealand conditions with a 13 degree deadrise. Does make the hull cheap to power though. Here are some pics of trim tab pockets. You can make out the rebate that was made around the outline of the pocket to take the glass fibre. From here its just a case of sanding down the sufaces and rounding the fillets. Will probaly leave the corners/edges reasonably sharp to reduce drag.

Ha ha cheers mate. After reading Hokeys fuel stats I was reaching for the calculator as well. Trawling through loads of sites that have anything to do with yamaha 115 salt water engines, the general fuel consumption seems to be around 1km per litre for average boat at reasonable speed (4500 rpm) Drop the hammer though and prepared to be horrified apparently. I can live with that. Around here you dont have to steam far to get to the fish. I have also measured the gap between the floor girders and worked out that the fuel tank should hold around 150 ltrs. @ $206.00 per litre=$309.00 to fill up.....Yes it would be way cheaper to go to supermarket and buy some fish... but nowhere as much fun. As for mast and sail.....capsizing miles out to sea because of freak wind gusts isnt an issue with power boats!