Andrew_Butchart

I have the stock splash coaming installed on my boat and it doesn't interfere. To position my oar locks, I sat in the companionway (the "normal" rowing seat) and found where the oars would naturally rest. It was several inches aft of the coamings.

You'll also notice though that I was trying to row my Weekender backwards in high winds :?

I had a heck of a time with the taffrail and ended up skipping it. I have a hatch in the transom to access the steering mechanism so there wasn't much room for it anyway. Being a bit of a "brute force" sort of person, after my first experiments with bending were a failure, I figured out that to cut the piece out of a single stick of lumber (like I did for my transom stringers and coaming) that I would need a 6X6. Not having one handy, I skipped the step and it looks fine. If you do decide to do the complex bend that would be required for the taffrail keep in mind that it's HEAT not moisture that helps the wood to bend. I've seen people use heat guns to head up the inner side of a bend successfully.

You know - that reminds me of my own launch

Yep - that's what I'm doing. My DNS provider - easydns.ca does that for not very much money and my ISP already gives me 5 free addresses that I haven't been using. floatingbear.ca will continue to live as an email address - just not as a site.

After recovering from yet another server failure (It's 7 years old and cheap) I've decided to finally shut down my web site - http://www.floatingbear.ca It's been a fun run, blogging about building and sailing, but I'm not doing too much building these days and as we all know - finding time to sail is always at a premium. Thanks everyone who has visited. The site will probably stay up for another week or so - if the server keeps running while I transition my email to another service.

Stapling is a damned good idea for initially putting on the sides. I found that to do it right you needed to be a five armed-monkey with 8 foot long arms - Obviously I didn't do it right even after enlisting the assistance of a second monkey After the staples are in place, yes - by all means go back and strengthen the fastening with ring nails or screws. I've actually been moving away from screws and have been using galvanized nails :shock: where I can. In fact the toe-rails on my Weekender are nailed in place with galvanized spiral finishing nails. Under a coat of paint they'll last longer than I will. Just my heretical 2 cents.

Scott: You should read the Terry Pratchett book "Nation". The ship's cook has a casket all prepared for himself and after a typhoon is found happily sitting in it fishing after the ship went down.

Monkey But Powder - who knew! Where's the little red monkey when you need him? One of these years I've got to get down there for this.

I set my Weekender up for rowing after hearing a number of postive stories about it. It turns out that it only rows OK in no or light winds. I was out on my one and only launch last August in 20+ knot winds with steering failure. The boat wouldn't row worth a damn into the wind - I couldn't even point it into the wind. My 8' oars were handy for pushing me out of the patch of weeds that I grounded into but I had problems keeping the oar locks in their holder. I ended up losing one on the highway on the way home. With that said, I'm keeping the oars and have done some re-engineering to keep the oar-locks with the boat as in low or no wind situations I can see them still being useful.

It's amazing the difference a few miles will make. Here's a comparison of work conditions vs home.

I'm going to be branded a heathen for suggesting this, but at least here in Canada where I live, polyester resin is "much" less expensive than epoxy. I used that for my Weekender. Yes - I will agree that epoxies are much more adhesive and provide a superior coating but there are lots of polyester/fiberglass boats out there too.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/7735242.stm#id7730000/7735400/7735439 Here's something else for brave souls with paid up insurance and good medical care ....

http://www.coastalwindsports.com/NABX08.html Man - I wish I had that much flat ground around here.

Aren't most trimaran's stable upside down too If you "were" wanting to put the equivalent of water wings on the vessel, you'd be better off doing what they do to some canoes and apply floatation as strips over the gunwales - sort of "anti-ballast".

For my Weekender's maiden launch I was out in 20+ knots of wind and attempted to row under bare poles. The boat would "not" row to windward at all, I couln't point the bow into the wind at all. I was on an inland lake (almost a large pond to some people) and there was little chop to cause additional problems. The jib was dowsed but still attached which might have been a factor as well as the fact that I was having problems with my rudder not wanting to go down. With that said, once sailing there were a few times I was over-powered even with a reefed main. Any time I had real problems, we just let go of the sheets and the boat popped up and behaved itself. I even put my 250lbs up on the foredeck to haul the jib down and the boat stayed a lot more steady than you would think an unbalasted boat of that size would have.

Konrad - I'm surprised that you don't just put a scoop on the front, call it an experimental dredging machine and have the government pay your company to store it in their shed as part of the infrastructure / green technology stimulus ...... Knowing you, you would be able to create some inventive video of it in action :grin:

Year's ago I tried to persuade my wife to let me "wire" the house for air tools. My justification that it could also be used for my son's small aquarium didn't seem to have enough weight though .... 8-)

I've found that a wood rasp makes short work of cleaning up lumps and bumps.

On my boats I have what I call a 30 foot finish - it looks good from 30 feet way. Saves me a lot of time with the sandpaper and paintbrush. I also chose colours that would help conceal the bad carpentry and resin and paint drips and sags. - ;D

WD-40 also dissolves most adhesives. It will also dissolve permanent marker. A lot cheaper and readily available.

I don't know if it works on wood, but to dry electical parts, people will often soak them with methanol (available at farm supply stores). This changes the evaporation point and draws the water out as it evaporates. Just have good ventilation - it will be safer than Acetone at least. I had a hole in the bottom of my pirogue where the dolly punched through due to a heavy snow load. I just used my jigsaw and cut out the damage in an odd shape. I then held replacement plywood on the other side, transferred the shape and had a patch. To secure it, I attached it to a larger piece, slathered everything with PL Premium (expands as it drys) and screwed up through the bottom into the patch piece. From the bottom, it's nice and smooth, or will be when I get around to finishing it. On the inside of the boat I have an odd piece of plywood on the bottom with no obvious purpose, but it shouldn't leak ....

Woo Hoo! Congrats Konrad. Keep going and you'll soon have your own baseball team. Time to go see the vet though I think ....

After about 4 years and countless questions, SV Floating Bear floated. It even sailed a bit, but that's a long story - fortunately documented on the "other" board http://byyb.org/forum/index.php?topic=2371.0

If you're looking for performance you'll get it more with a daggerboard than a centreboard. As Charlie says - you can tune your daggerboard for your conditions but when a centreboard pivots it moves the centre of lateral resistance aft. If you look at any racing board boat you'll see that all of them have daggerboards. Reinforce the slot more than you think necessary, and carry a spare board. I've seen a lot of boats going cheap with the daggerboard case ripped half out of them.