JeffM

Good sailing and beautiful photos. Does that boat even actually touch the water? I'd always been under the impression that a sailboat's "flying" was mainly metaphorical!

Garry, I'd like to try your idea--having committed enough errors of my own. A couple of questions: how do your lifting pieces hinge to the roof rack? My ramp bolts on, and that slows the procedure a bit. Oh, and what is the cleat for? Your excellent pictures make everything else clear to me.

I used to coat screws with a very expensive mold release wax I bought from RAKA (not knowing what else to use). I'd smear it on, then carefully and painstakingly rub it off so I'd have clearly defined threads for a good, tight fit into the epoxy plug. But it gradually dawned on me that wax is wax--just something epoxy won't adhere to. Now I light a candle, dip the screw into the hot wax, and then hold the screw above the flame for a second to thin and distribute the wax into the threads. Done! Lots faster and a good clean fit.

I've been wrestling, myself, with the car-top issue (and the boat in question) for a few weeks now. My 11' long 4.5' beam Michalak Piccup Pram was to be my little launch-anywhere boat, but it came in at over a hundred pounds, and I need to be able to single-hand the whole process. I started out with just a couple of transverse 2X4s atop the rack on my Toyota minivan. Trying to get the beast up there endangered me, the boat and the car, and it scared me into making a sort of loading ramp by running a 2X4 by 8' rail from the ground to one end of each transverse piece. Now I tip the boat against these rails, get underneath the cockpit, and lift the boat up the rails from the inside. Still a lot of work and I continue to dent the car sometimes, but I don't always feel as if I'm teetering on the edge of disaster. I'm thinking some sort of tackle might be helpful, both the get the boat up there and to provide a way to hold the boat in place part way up when I want a rest. Technique still needs work.

To be fair, the Little Cruiser, like others of Matt's boats, is bullet-proof and very heavy for its size. It is also so rigged to be sailed entirely from inside that the Bolducs don't even carry foul weather gear on their months long cruises.

Thanks, Ken. I've been checking news outlets several times a day hoping for good news. I've disovered others around here who also know crew members--small state. It's hard.

A lot of builders here use expanding foam. I wonder if you wouldn't get more buoyancy from it since it would exclude water more effectively than round pool noodles. (Can't completely fill a space with round objects.) The drawback is that you can't remove foam for inspection, etc., but since it would be well above the water line, maybe that wouldn't be as much an issue.

The Providence Journal's print article mentions 30' seas on Monday hampering search efforts. I wonder what that's like on a boat that size. My prayers also are with the crew and families.

I think the ProJo site is members only, Ken. Maybe you could summarize the facts?

Thanks, I agree: we ought to have a story collection! Mike, I have my eye on the Massachusetts islands, as a matter of fact. Before long I hope at least to weekend in the "Southeast Corner" (the coast between Narragansett Bay and Buzzards Bay), and I'm thinking of cruising farther afield as well. And Mike, the little 27lb thrust motor is borrowed and rather tired, getting me at best 3kt. But it came in very handy the first night when I hadn't the time or patience to sail to a nearby anchorage, and then getting me out of a tough spot coming in to the ramp on our return.

I don't follow. Is there anything to choose between the sheets in the first place? I haven't sailed sloops much, but I thought the jib sheet was all one piece of line with a couple of half hitches (or something) securing the middle to the clue.

Thanks, all! There is nothing quite like congratulations from the best community of boat builders anywhere.

A few more. (Different paper camera I had to wait before developing.) All taken Sunday morning in Fogland Harbor.

Thank you! The boat is actually pretty ugly up close, and only bright until I get around to painting it. (I'm a mediocre craftsman at best, and the boat won't bear close examination with a tape measure.)

A few more.

Weather was so nice while I worked on the oars last Sunday that I determined to launch that day! Began getting makeshift carrier on car top at 4pm, had the hull on and tied by 4:30. Whole rig was set, equipment in car and me changed by 5:20. I and the two younger boys arrived at the little park by the Berkeley Bridge across the Taunton River at 5:50. In water in 20min, and rigged and ready by about 6:30pm. A few drops of red wine and the words,

I vote for sealed chambers, too, since they double as storage space--good to have in a little boat. Having said that, hatches can be forgotten or leak and air spaces can be breached. I have a little of both on my Core Sound. I did the math on one type of pool noodle a year ago: find the volume of the noodle by finding the area of one end (pi r2) and multiply by length. Do it all in feet and you'll end up with an answer in cubic feet. Salt water supports some 65lb per cubic foot. If I recall, the pool noodle I was doing the math on would support about 9lb. I was tying it to the masthead to prepare for a trip in blue water, and figured it would keep me from going belly up in a capsize. (Fortunately never needed to find out.)

What--no picture? How am I supposed to know what a sailor looks like so I can look that way, too? :wink:

A few more photos.

Very late departure Friday night for me and two of my boys: getting a boat out of storage, rigged for sailing, and then loaded for a weekend cruise is a lengthy business! Left the ramp at midnight and motored the few hundred yards to an anchorage in Battleship Cove. Anchored between the battleship Massachusetts and a raucous waterfront bar that kept us awake into the wee hours. (One a.m. bedtime is a clue that Mom is out of town for the weekend.) Aron (12) and Stephen (6) slept in the bunk on the port side of the cb, while I had the narrower starboard side to myself. My tarp roof helped keep us warm, but I still got cold feet in nighttime temperatures that dropped nearly into the 30s. A late night led to late rising, and a late departure after oatmeal, warm cinnamon rolls and coffee. We steered Beatrice Ann southward under the Braga Bridge and out across Mount Hope Bay. Sakonnet Harbor, at the mouth of Narragansett Bay, beckoned; it is a nice little town and a gateway to the

Will do, Steve.

Looks much better now. And with a little creative plexiglass work, you could have a glass-bottomed boat! When I built, I somehow mis-measured the sides at the transom station, leaving a huge gap between sides and bottom. It was a real Frankenstein job to close it up, but under all that glass and epoxy, no one but me (and now you all) knows its there.

Congratulations to you, and happy building! Don't forget to read plans like your favorite novel: closely and many times. Also remember: measure thrice, check lines twice, and cut once!

As the real estate agents say, "Floatation, floatation, floatation!" (or something like that). Last year I got myself grounded--on a lee shore--in a rising wind--on a falling tide--at the highest point of the tide. When I discovered the anchor was dragging, I thought I could rig to sail before it was too late. (Nope.) A fun 12 hour delay. But at least my boat was above water and dry. If you don't have a balanced set of sealed compartments fairly high up to float you more-or-less level and upright, try foam, or empty 2 or 3 liter bottles, or whatever.

Pretty! Hard to believe the owner is getting rid of her just to get 4 more feet of boat.