Charlie Jones

Trailer Sailor is being moved to new ownership- Boatowners.com will now own the place. The board is down due to problems which have occurred during the transfer. TSBB is a highly complex BB, largely specially written by Todd Johnson over the years. It ain't an easy thing to move and "uhohs" do occur. How do you think those of us who live there feel???? We're all having withdrawal symptoms. We do have a back up board the regulars use during outages, so it's not a TOTAL blackout. Board should be back up soon- it's been up and down for 24 hours now.

I sail a John's Sharpie from CLC- 18 foot cat ketch. She was originally built using booms, and we sailed her that way for a few times. Then I built sprits and redid the boat using the sprit booms. I'll not be changing back!! I now have a couple of extra booms, really nicely finished and I think quite useless for this type boat The sprit booms make the boat way much simpler to rig, since now every thing is identical. Plus the sheet loads dropped enough that we were able to do away with one part on each sheet setup. Here's a shot of the sharpie sitting on the beach with a reef tied into each sail, and the new sprits set up. The sails are set on tracks. [attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

The dinghy is a B and B Minipaw. I built that one because it's the largest dink that will fit on the foredeck of our sloop. I bring most any project in the house as I need to. So does she. She's an artist and uses gourds in her work, so sometimes we have them running out our ears when a new shipment comes in. We both live here, so we pretty much do what we need in the house. Just a matter of clearing away afterwards

But it's been way too hot and windy here. The varnish wasn't flowing to suit her- SOOOOOO- she brought it into the living room and varnished 'em there. She got the painting done last week. Gotta love a gorgeous lady who's as big a boat nut as you are!! [attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

Dave and Tim- I have some pictures and would be happy to discuss what I did and how I did it. Be a little patient though, cause I'm going to this Messabout in three days and then two weeks later we're taking our sloop to P'cola for a Trailersailor gathering. I (and my wife) am trying to get two boats ready to roll. It may be a couple of weeks before I can get to the writing, but I won't forget. OK?

LOL- Thank you Russ. I built all those boats for Harmony. I am currently building a Princess 22 for a customer, and I traded for the Sharpie, so it belongs to me now. I am a Coast Guard registered builder, with a registered MIC code that I use on boats I build. (for the HIN numbers) The Weekender was originally built as Tom's personal boat, and has quite a few "enhancements" All mahogany trim, inside and out, mods to the companionway and other places. All spars are birdsmouth with a wooden tabernacle and the sails were custom made in Las Vegas from Tanbark sailcloth, which is double regular sail cloth in cost. All rigging and fittings are top grade stainless. The boat also comes with a trailer customized to fit the boat. It was originally priced at that level, but is now on the market for a good bit less. He would like to move it so I can build him another boat. The Weekender turned out to be just a bit small for Tom, since he's a pretty large dude He'll like a bit more room. (seems that kid of his just KEEPS growing too ) Tom and I talked with Mike before doing the boat - he knew that a custom builder was building it. They have no problems with that, since we showing it as a custom built Stevenson's Weekender, and had no real intentions of building a second one. If we had done a second, the plans would have been repurchased for the second boat. The remainder of the boats were CLC designs and every thing was cleared with John Harris on those also. Ya gotta play by the rules if you are gonna keep designers happy, and we DID want the designers to be happy with us. I'm on the phone often with Graham Burns on the Princess.

The John's Sharpie is a pretty straight forward build. Nothing out of the ordinary at all. Have no experience building a CS, but the Princess is a little more complex than the Sharpie(of course-it's larger) You should have no trouble doing a Sharpie. Do spring for good plywood- it's worth it. Remember though, the Sharpie is a performance boat. It carries a good bit of sail for it's weight and beam and my wife and I sail it as a team, each handling a sheet. If the winds are in the 15 knot range we HAVE to reef. Together we weigh around 275. If the winds get close to 20, we just don't sail the boat unless we have other crew. We have switched to using sprit booms instead of the designed booms on ours. We like them a lot better. On a Lapstitch kit, you save a great deal of time and effort. I think they are worth the money. On a kit for a regular S & G boat you still save some, if for no other reason than you don't have to round up fittings. I would do it from the plans if you have good ply and materials for the masts readily available.

Pretty good post Frank. Maple will hold a screw very well, but the rest is accurate. Long rifle gunshocks were often made of Maple. Brent- Ash should work quite well. I have a 16 foot cedar strip Chestnut Prospector that is trimmed totally in Ash, finished clear. It's 11 years old, lives under the house and is doing great. My own 21 foot sloop is trimmed on the interior with all Ash, finished clear. I love the light color. Remember, oars have been made from Ash for years. Ash oars may be a bit heavy for recreational rowing but Ash has done yoman's duty there for years. Also, when battens were made of wood (back when I first began sailing) Ash was used almost exclusively.

The keelson and stringers are all installed, and the after part of the hull is beveled, up to the temporary frame. Today I start installing hull bottom to the stern. Spent yesterday releveling all the bulkheads and doing fillets on each bulkhead . I stopped the fillets short of the chine area so they won't interfere with the filleting and taping later. I also made them a bit smaller than they will ultimately be. I did this filletting now so the hull would be somewhat stronger when I roll it over. I'm holding the boat up with temporary legs screwed to each frame. The floor of my shop is a bit rough in spots and the entire structure had a tendency to move around, thus finding it's level of "unlevel" I filleted the temp legs to the floor- THAT stopped THAT Working on another photo essay of installing the stringers- hope to do it tonight or tomorrow. [attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

On May 17th on North Padre Island just out from Corpus Christi Texas, will be a small boat messabout. Laura and I plan to attend with our CLC Sharpie and probably our B and B Minipaw. If you are close enough, try to get by to see us. Here's a link to info- http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/r/messabout/index.htm

On May 17th on North Padre Island just out from Corpus Christi Texas, will be a small boat messabout. Laura and I plan to attend with our CLC Sharpie and probably our B and B Minipaw. If you are close enough, try to get by. Here's a link to info- http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/r/messabout/index.htm

Joel- the stem and stem knee is very clear piece of yellow pine. I looked through the stacks till I found what I wanted. The keelson is D grade, select Fir. All other cleating and stringering will also be fir. Trim wood most likely will be mahogany, although on my own boats I like Ash rather than Mahogany.

I wouldn't mind at all Frank. I told Graham today that he could grab them also. He already had done so

BS1088 Okume

Here's the completed stem, ready to be offered up to the boat. It isn't completely smoothed since the plans indicate it will need some trimming to make it fit. [attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

After the complete side is smoothed with the chisels, then I finish with the planes- first the block plane, then a smoothing plane. [attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

Then I used a wider chisel to pare off the rough parts left from the previous step, again being careful to not splinter off the bottom edge. [attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

Then I used a narrow chisel to dub off the excess wood between the cuts, being careful to not split off the bottom edge. By the way- if you locate the trash can just right, all the chips fall right in [attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

Next, cut down to just shy of the layout line. I used a pull saw, but another type works too. [attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

since the taper changes the bevel on the stem (of a Princess 22 at least) you cannot cut the bevel easily using a band saw. You COULD make a saw table where you could vary the bevel as you were cutting, but that's not really practical for just one piece. Here's another way to cut that winding bevel. I'm posting a series of pictures showing how I did it. This is only one way, but the oveer all time was about 2 hours doing it like this. Here's the stem with one side finished, ready to finish the other. The bevel has been cut, using a band saw , to the angle of the small end. You can just see the line at the large end showing the bevel angle at the large end. [attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

couple of pictures. First one is Travis Votaw, who I'm building the boat for. Second one is from the bow. [attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

The lighter gaff would be a good thing, but I'd keep the older heavier boom. On a gaffer the weight of the boom goes a long way to aiding sail shape, since there is no real vanging. The boom weight works as a vang after a fashion. Good luck with your mast - I hope it isn't TOO light and thin

Very nice job Jake. My compliments.

Traditionally a gaffer carried her colors at the peak of the aftermost sail or on a stern staff. On a Weekender, that peak would be just under the gaff end. Most folks today however seem to use a backstay, or the topping lift if no backstay. But to be truely traditional, you should have a flag halyard at the peak of the gaff, OR a staff at the stern of the vessel. By the way, tradition also states that the ensign should be the same number of inches on the fly as the boat length is in feet. So on a Weekender, you could appropriately use a flag from 16 to 21 inches on the fly. On my 21 foot sloop I fly an ensign that is 20 inches.

This is the way I would do it, especially considering the thickness of the rails. I would use oval headed screws though. By the way, lining up the slots isn't A/R- it's a mark of a quality boat builder. I wouldn't dream of letting one of my boats go out with slots unaligned. Takes about a half sec a screw to do the alignment and looks MUCH better. If I'm driving slotted screws, I use a brace with a screwdriver bit- gives me lots of power.