Tom Lathrop

Brent, Great trip and thanks for the photos. However, you don't get the prize for the first B&B design to sail in Lake Superior. In 1996 Liz and I sailed our Bay River Skiff "Loon" in Whitefish Bay. We were near the end of a trailer sailing loop through Maine, Quebec and Ontario. I had intended to get to the Apostles but our schedule called for us to leave the lake in time to get to the EAA convention in Oshkosh so we missed it. I am still envious though. Good on ya.

Listen to Graham. You cannot expect to have a wide piece of flatsawn wood not move (or at least try to) with environmental changes. There needs to be a gap there to hide this movement. Same is true of every piece of solid wood furniture in your house.

Tim, In addition to the capacity number, the Coast Guard rates a commercial passenger boat on the number of people on the highest deck, all of them on one side. The boat had no chance. Actually they were probably lucky that the upper deck was so overloaded since the boat capsized as soon as it left the dock. Otherwise it would have gotten further out before something disturbed the balance. Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement. Should be a lot of good judgement around there right now. :idea:

The book is "Survive the Savage Sea" by Dougal Roberson(sp?) I have (or had) it around here somewhere but this is from memory. This happened over 30 years ago and I met the guy soon thereafter when he gave a talk to our local sailing club in Greensboro, NC. Interesting story of survival. Lots of instances where people died from exposure in much less difficult circumstances. The best such survival story for me is by Steve Callahan. My all time favorite for survival and is really worth reading as literature as well. Don't remember the title right now. Oh yeah, the title is "Adrift". Remember the guy who cut his arm off recently in order to get himself from under a boulder. "Adrift" is like that in that he just would not give up.

Scott, I have done this on decks but would not consider it for a cockpit sole. I love cherry wood and have used it for interior cabin soles where the strips were set tight with a slight roundover on the edges. Filling a gap where the ajacent edges are rounded over will make getting a sharply defined white line difficult if not impossible. The edges should be straight and sharp. Varnish on a cockpit sole is not a good idea. Slick and hard to maintain. this is usually the wettest area on a boat. Any breach of the coating on cherry that gets wet will quickly turn black. People have used cockpit grates for many years for good reasons.

Dale, Rob, I put the sealing strips on the underside of the cover and never had leaks. The main thing is to make the edge of the channels level so all sides seal equally. This was done by using a router mounted on a long board to trim the channel edges after all was installed. Another way to seal such hatches that we used in the past was to lay on a thick bead of silicone and let it partially set up. Then let the hatch down but don't dog it down fully. When the hatch is dogged down later after the sisicone is cured, a complete seal occurs. Biggest problem in doing this is to get the silicone bead in just the right place on the underside of the hatch. This can be done by first putting a few dots of silicone near the corners on the channel edge and closing the hatch to mark the correct location. By the way, that is a beautiful job, Rob.

This was just abut the baddest northeaster we've seen in a long time. Water got within 7 or 8 inches of my shop floor. I did take "Scamp" into the shop for cleaning for the boatshow yesteday. "liz" is tucked away in the boathouse. Cars were move to higher ground as the water got onto the tires. That must have been a good gust to flip the boat like that. Glad that no serious damage was done. See you in Beaufort. We plan on stopping at Cherry Point NAS for the airshow on the way back Sunday.

If you wrap the tape with the same tension all around and note where you start and end, it will be concentric enough. It will need some sanding anyway and this will need to be done uniformly. All of the many masts I have seen made came out ok. Using your good router bits on fiberglass can make them useless for woodworking. Before you can worry about getting the mast vertical, you need to establish that the boat is level transversely and longitudinally. Then just use a spirit carpenter's level on the lower mast section to establish the location of the step.

It is used on "bass boats" for temporary holding the boat in place until the fishermen want to zoom off to a new and hotter fishing spot. A better heeled fisherman would have an electric winch to do the job by pushing a button. I remember crewing on a Lightning that had similar devices to store halyards and other lines not in use at the time.

Hey guys, You are making me feel a bit silly. Since arthritis got into my fingers, my timing is off a"teh". I,ve been in teh habit of reviewing my posts to make corrections so as not to look too much like a gramerr schul drop out. Are you trying to show that now it is acceptable to spell any way we choose or any way it happens to come out ? :roll:

Brent, You have run head on into a fundamental rule of wood. IF the tangential and radial shrinkage of your wood round were equal AND if the whole thing had equal moisture density, this crack would not have happened. That is never the case and so such cracks are inevitable. The subject is too involved to give a pat answer and you will need to read some to learn more. The very best book on this subject is "Understanding Wood" by Hoadley. A marvelous book to have if you plan on getting at the basics of wood and wood machining.. Now, what can you do in a more simple sense? One thing is to turn the bowl out of green wood to an overly thick version of the final and let it dry. Put it in a plastic bag with a few holes to slow down the drying and let it dry completely. Then remount it and finish turning. Some will crack, but at least you have not put in all the work. This is called twice turning. You can also use materials like PEG polyethylene glycol or just anti-freeze to soak the green piece (after the first turning) which will stabilize it. What you cannot do is fool Mother Nature. Good luck.

Hey, I think the green, brown, yellow & white is kinda nice. You can slide in amongst the ducks on the sound too.

Two things, If you wrap the tube with glass tape, you could easily have used a fair amount of tension and this would cause the glass tube to be very tight on the base tube. WD40 is not a very good lubricant for this kind of job. A heavier grease would be much better. Pre molding FG tabs that can be gripped with clamps on the end of the FG tube is a help also. Another, and better, way to make FG tubes if you can find a PVC tube of the proper diameter is to use that. Slit the PVC lengthwise and wrap with plastic as usual. After the resin sets, drill a hole in both protruding ends and stick a metal rod through each . Now twist the ends of the PVC tubing which will cause a slight collapse in diameter and break the grip on the FG. One person should continue twisting and pulling while the other grips the FG tube. This has never failed to release any FG tube I have known.

Just talked to Carla. Graham & Fred got to the channel entrance to Flamingo in the storm well ahead of the Norseboat. Lacking any local knowedge and with waves alternately covering pipe channel markers in the winding channel, they elected to anchor and wait it out. The Guys on the Norseboat had a GPS chartplotter so they could tell just where they were in the long winding channel without having to refer to a paper chart that was likely wet and blowing around in the dark. On reaching the entrance, both sails were double reefed and the boat was still making over 6 knots. Not exactly the way you would like to enter a strange and poorly marked channel in the dark. Knowing these two, I'd say it must have been foolhardy to carry on in these circumstances and risk loosing the boat and/or their future. I'm sure we will get the whole story when they get back home. This was a real survival kind of race and the winners deserve their victory celebration for being able to carry on to the finish without stopping. Congratulations to Graham and Fred for their fine sailing and showing the potential of the Core Sound 17.

I don't think that this business of flotation in a small capsizeable boat has been overdone at all. However, there are cases where having a lot of flotation has caused problems. Let me explain. I started out sailing in the Windmill class and raced extensively as well as teaching sailing and running races for almost 40 years. Anyone who races small boats actively will have experience with capsizes. If they don't, they are sailing too conservatively and definitely not winning very often. My first Windmill, like all the rest at that time, had no flotation at all other than the wood itself. It was possible for experienced sailors to right the boat and bail it out but it was not easy. After adding large air tanks the full length of each side, the boat could then be righted with no more water than could then be sailed out through the automatic bailers. This takes some skill to do effectively also. Now, the problem with flotation is that capsizes usually occur when there is a lot of wind. If the sailors loose contact with the boat, it can easily blow away faster than they can swim. The high degree of flotation needed to make recovery rapid enough to continue racing also makes the boat float high enough to make a good sail. We all quickly learned to hold on to a sheet or something so that we stayed with the boat. As an aside to the current uproar about requiring wearing lifejackets at all times, I did not always wear mine when racing. However, I never capsized when I was not wearing one. The answer is obviously to use common sense, observe the conditions and have a lifejacket on when it is either windy or cold. The practice of forcing all learning sailors to learn to right a capsized boat has been part of all classes that I have been involved with. No one should venture out in a boat that capsizes readily unless they have gone through the righting and recovery experience in a similar boat. I've no experience with a Weekender so can't say whether it capsizes easily and, if so, how easy it is to recover. I do know that a lightweight crew on a large boat can make recovery more of a problem. Also boats without any added flotation will be more stable either on the side or upside down as will boats with added flotation low in the boat (double bottoms). As much as practical, added flotation should be placed high and as near the sides as possible. A little long but I get windy at times too. :roll:

They should be in Flamingo any minute now and possibly get to Key Largo by midnight if there is wind in the right direstion. An all-round great boat sailed by two guys who know how to do this kind of thing. Norseboat Shnorseboat!

Ray, It seems that I am in complete agreement with you and my boats are build in the same manner. That is, with adequate "positive" buoyancy from the boat itself and added waterproof foam for ultimate safety and air chambers for quick recovery. I would do this whether the CG requires it or not.

A small boat should have enough positive flotation to keep the crew afloat (not including life jackets) in the event of a capsize. In a small wood boat, usually some waterproof foam might be required to add to the natural buoyancy of the wood achieve this level of safety. The CG does have a number of pounds of positive buoyancy required in store bought boats to effect this level of flotation but I don't remember it. The Cg requirement is in addition to any sealed air tanks. I would NEVER fill flotation tanks with foam. First, this foam is not waterproof and will soak up any water that happens to get inside the tank. Second, that water can cause rot and cannot be gotten out short of demolishing the tank. Third, the water taken up can add a lot of weight. Fourth, Since the tank should be made waterproof anyway, why would you want to fill it with foam. Fifth, with access ports, a flotation tank can be used as storage space for things you don't want to get wet. Finally, installing expanding foam in a tank is tricky business since it can easily deform the tank if not actually blow it apart. When I need to add solid flotation, I glue in some blocks of the 2" thick waterproof blue styrofoam available at local building suppliers. Space should be provided for ventilation around the foam unless it is sealed to the inside surface. All tanks should be provided with drain ports at the lowest point in case some water does find its way in. Access ports should be left open when the boat is in dry storage. Some fiberglass racing sailboat builders used to fill spaces with expanding foam but after those boats became uncompetive because of weight gain, they stopped doing that. Some have needed to pour solvent into the spaces to melt the foam but some residue always remains along with some of the added weight.

Definitely only one layer for the smaller dinghys, inside and out.

Just checked the Watertribe site and see that Gaham & Fred are in at the 1st check point at 7:54pm in 12hrs 54minutes after 67 miles. They are the only boat reported in so far at 9:30. That is, unless I'm reading it wrong. Why am I not surprised?

Glen, Twist is always a concern with all S&G boat projects and it must be prevented at all points thoughout the building until all structural parts have been bonded. X-member battens from about the forward bulkhead to the transom can help control the shape and the boat should be supported in in transverse forms that help to hold it in allignment. I'm sure the plans say to put in all port and starboard symetrical components in pairs to avoid warping the hull also. This is especially true of rubrails.

The practice of undercutting the balsa in a deck to either clear out rotted wood or provide a strong base for fittings or stanchions is a good one. I don't follow Don Casey's fear of damaging the surrounding wood with a bent nail. I've used bent nails in drills to do this successfully many times. If the hole is completely filled with epoxy, any damage will be sealed anyway. However, there is one more thing that needs to be done in order to prevent future leaks. The usual practice of drilling a hole through the epoxy and then bolting the fitting on with a sealer underneath will usually leak at a later date. The problem is that tightening the bolts or screws squeezes the sealer into a very thin film and any future movement can break this film and allow leakage. One soultion I use is to countersink the hole so that a doughnut of sealant is formed about the fastener. The elasticity of this thicker seal will provide much greater resistance to leakage. This same technique of drilling a hole through an oversized epoxy plug is good to use any time an exposed hole is needed in plywood. This is especially true for drain holes and outboard mounting holes which are the cause of much rot in transoms.

Tim, This discourse represents what is worst about correspondence in cyberspace. :oops: The only assumption I made was in thinking that you wanted some critical analysis of your ideas. That is what I intended to offer based on experience in the building of and sailing of the CS17 plus many years of close association with the designer and some minor contrubutions to the design of the CS17. This assumption was obviously in error and so I humbly ask your indulgence for my remarks which clearly scratched your tender psyche :roll: I can only take credit or responsibility for what I say and not for others interpretation. Time spent in drafting the first reply and now this one would have been better spent in my shop, where I now go.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Graham cringing behind his drafting table. To be honest, your questions make a designer cringe. Add the weight of a suitable mast and gaff plus a deckhouse to the CS17 and what have you done to the stability, among other things :?: Something different for sure. The thought that a gaff rig will be easier to rig and handle or faster than the cat ketch is wrong. Just ask anyone here who has tried both. Of course you can do what you want to any boat but it is wise to assume the designer knew what he was doing. Not always true, of course but feedback from the people on this forum should lend support for this particular designer. I really don't mean to beat you up because no one should ever be afraid to ask questions. I did mean to get your attention so that you could look at your proposals more critically. The Belhaven does sound like a good choice for your intended purpose. If you don't want that big a boat, adding a collapsable doger to the CS17, as designed, would work. If you require a fixed cuddy, you might consider one with fixed side sections and a walk through center like some of Michalak's boats or the Skiff America. These have a sliding canvas center section to allow access to the bow. I'd consider even this much modification pretty drastic. In the end, the choice of a boat by an individual is often (mostly) guided by emotions that even they don't understand or are even aware of. What is thought perfect for you now may be completely out of favor next year. May be best to just pick one that you like and go sailing without seeking to make it "perfect", whatever that is. Peace and good luck

Frank, You have your priorities in proper order. We wish you, Jan and the family all the best. Tom