kydocfrog

Ah, here I have gone and gotten myself in hot water; but what can you expect of a guy who buys a half finished Weekender... Wait till I can post a picture of the forward hatch I have to live up to... Roland; I really like the Cletic weave sort of format on your wheel ... so cool and unexpected. And I'd really like to see the caned seats too. What a unique idea.

If you are at the point of considering building a wheel or upgrading, check out www.shipswheels.com Nicely done, sturdy, brass hub with keyway. (No vested interest on my part. I believe the wheel on Charlie Girl II may have come from here, and it is quite nice. KyDocFrog

Probably on Duckworks and on Jim Michalak's pages. It is scheduled for Friday evening, Saturday and break up on Sunday at Lake Monroe, south of Indianapolis. I have a sheet at home with campground info etc. Will dig it out.

It is, of course, despite certain political tendencys to ignore it, called global warming. Global warming doesn't simply mean it gets gently and politely warmer. It means that there is more energy in the great heat engine of the atmosphere, and that means more storms and more extreme swings of temperature. More hurricanes, more snow storms, more steep gradient variability. End of mini-rant. KyDocFrog

Any Weekenders going to the Lake Monroe (Indiana) Messabout later this month?Charlie Girl II obviously won't be ready... ... but I'm going to try to come up for Saturday anyway. Need to get my feet wet.

Sam Rabl's book, Boat Building in Your Own Backyard, a real classic, includes a picture of one of his small tabloid cruisers -- the design escapes me -- flying small square tops'l referred to as a "Captain's Handkerchief." Way cool. The Swiftsure design noted in a post above does include a reference to the bowsprit being "housed." That normally means that the extension (proably a better nautical term for that), shown on the illustration, slides back in some sort of brace and irons arrangement. That would be an interesting variation to lengthen the WE bowsprit for cutter rig to allow for choice of rig and avoid a permanent change to overall length for trailer, etc. That's an interesting variation of a fairly deep forefoot running to a deeper keel in the aft end... KyDocFrog

Tim Thanks much for info. I have followed some of the earlier ballast discussions. I'm planning on battery in the forepeak. Small sand or shot bags sound like a very good solution also given the shape. Placement of water storage also under consideration. Ballast forward for trim could be even more important with a kicker on the stern. I want to get some more foam up there too, maybe on underside of foredeck or in a pair of fitted wedge shaped filets between the foredeck and the upper run of the hull. Will be looking for several places to slip in some extra flotation. I'm thinking that since I have to turn her over and glass pretty early in this project, I may trim the forefoot some. Turning her should be a hoot. But if I don't do it soon, I'll run out of weather. I found your earlier photo showing the forefoot area on your boat. Neat, especially the copper (?) strip. Nicely detailed. BTW, Charlie Girl II came with a really sharp kranse iron. The bimin/picnic awning for the power configuration is definitely in the thinking.

It is a pintle and gudgeon arrangement, stainless, which I didn't realize was different till I started reading the plan book. I'll send a shot. Also, there is what appears to a quite different tensioning arrangement involving a turnbuckle accessible through the lazarette access under the wheel.I'll try to get a shot of that for comment also after I get the cradle braced so I can climb into the cockpit. There really is some nice detailing on the boat which I have to live up to. Tim D. I'm actually quite interested in the forefoot mod you made. I suspect, as you said in a post, it is a bit of a bear. (I've been lurking ever since the possibility of this boat surfaced...) At least I don't have finish and glass to worry about yet. How much did you actually take off; do you think removing it necessitated the centerboard, and have you done a skeg extension on the aft end of the keel yet? DavidA KyDocFrog

Well. After too many years of not owning a boat, I started out over the last year to assemble tools, plans, and even some clear space in the garage to build a boat. I had decided to join the dark side and switch to power, because central Kentuck is more about steep, small lakes and rivers than sailing water, and it seemed a simpler place to start anyway. That made sense at the time. No complex rigging, sitting headroom in a small cuddy, a place for a little camp stove to brew up a cup, big cockpit, and nice simple flat shapes even I could master...done deal. Now, months and months and a lot of sketch models and plans from Jim Michalak, I have been overtaken by a completely unexpected development. I bought a partially finished Weekender. It came home Friday. She was called to my attention on the classified forum by a friend. I went, I saw, she conquered. I have to credit the original builder's superb workmanship with convincing me that she needed to be finished. She carries the working name Charlie Girl II. Charlie Girl I was a Cape Dory HandyCat that I have aluded to in an earlier post about lazy jacks. I suspect that I will have some questions. I'm curious about the original knifeblade keel design and ballast. I have some thoughts to kick around on alternate rigs. I've brained my wife with a gaff before, and still shiver at the memory of large pieces of "flying fir trees" during accidental jibes all standing on the Chesapeake Bay. And I need multiple use out of her. She is going to need to be both a beach cruiser under sail and a picnic launch on the river; kind of like Pocket Cruiser is positioned on steveproj. But, here she is. BTW, I still don't have enough clear space in the garage. [attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

Thanks!!!

Oh. Attachments...

Displaying my technological fumblefingeredness, how to you attach an image onto these messages?

Thanks, Roland. Now that I'm getting it narrowed down, I'll just try and interlibrary loan from UK or UofL or else wander in and dig it out myself. (Those are, for the uninitiated, places of great renown in Old Kentuck; which I can say in good faith even though I'm a UT RockyTop grad.) One of them should have it in film in back peroidicals. Roland; hate to be bothersome, but if you have a copy, do you have the page numbers? DavidA. KyDocFrog

According to the steveproj web site, the first Weekender plans appeared as a featured design in 1981 in Popular Science Magazine. I guess that's not too many to look through, but if I know which issue(s) I can probably do a search and interlibrary loan. I kind of want to go back and look at those as I crank up here...but more about the specific project in a later post.

Anybody know off the top of your head what issue(s) of Popular Science the original design ran in?

Russ, to my memory it was a single line from the masthead with one Y branch before the boom. I don't remember it as having a major effect on sail shape since they are rather slack, and since they were fixed, it wasn't another line to control except when rigging up. It's been a while though -- like maybe 20 years... old, I'm feeling old... (The complexity of rigging that particular boat, particularly getting the stick in and out of her, was what drove me to pay for a bouy on Lake Champlain.)

I once owned a gaff rigged cat (New England, not Hobietype) that had both topping lift and lazy jacks. Russ Martin's two images are right on. The topping lift typically is tied off at the outboard end of the main boom. Mine just ran through a hole and was knotted off on the lower side of the boom. It keeps the boom out of the water while you are trying to recover the halyard that managed to get away from you and end up in the block at the top of the mast... The lazy jacks are harder to see in the second image, but they are the lines that proceed down from the masthead and they "Y" off into multiple points along the boom. They show faintly on the sail forward of the topping lift. They do that to capture the collapsed sail all along the boom. Only one anchor point won't help the problem of the sail billowing out when you have to drop it rapidly or are just trying not to get tangled up in it after you have shot the dock undersail. They also help, but not much, if you are reduced to having to actually scandalize the main.