Jknight611

Years ago I built a nesting 2 Paws. We lived in “the city “ then and had a very nice older lady that lived across the street. She took great interest in the little boat build and would toddle over daily to supervise the project. When I got to the part where I was to saw the boat in half, she got really upset and actually called my wife at work to tell her I was sawing “the little bateau “ up. Nice to have neighbors that care.

Glad to hear about the Beta 38, we will be picking ours up next month. The plan to put as much solar on top as possible, and have as much the domestic loads done by the solar system as possible. It seems the solar panel technology is still accelerating so 1KW plus is entirely feasible. We have space allocated for 3 Epoch 460 ah (or similar ) batteries. The solar system on Kalos, our sailboat has exceeded all expectations. In the almost 3 years we have only plugged into shore power once last winter (our version of winter..35 degrees) to run a small electric heater when we were not in our home marina.

Almost finished with the “fill a fair, fill a fair, fill a fair, fill a fair….etc.

Well, with it being spring in the south, the wasps are homesteading all over the place. I have been doing some clean up and auxiliary filetting inside the boat. Know how crowded it gets under the boat with a bunch of angry wasps…..

Hi Joe, hope your project is going well, yea, with the cabinets already installed ( wanted the structure of the cabinetry to help spread the load) and the boarding platform on the rear kinda hard to figure a reasonable way to turn it over. We had 4 guys and 1 lady, took about 30 minutes start to finish to flip it over. Been sailing a few days but plan on starting glassing the bottom soon. Got a killer deal on 7 “kits” of Coppercoat so want to complete the bottom before going back upright. The bow is so tall, angled and slick so I am fabricating scaffolding to complete the forward 4-5 feet of the bow area.

With a lot of help from our friends the Looper is upside down! The inside is all glassed and all the cabinetry and soles has been in but removed for the flop. The outside is glassed almost to the waterline and as you can see the filling of the glass has started. Amazing how accurate the parts fit together, there are/were a bunch of parts but been reasonably easy to assemble. Poor epoxy pump!

Yea, probably time for a recap of Kalos. We have continued to add minor updates/upgrades to the rigging with the intent to make rigging easier. We can now rig from arriving at the boat ramp to motoring away in 1 hour 15 minutes. Not much longer than our Core Sound 20.3. Board up probably draws less than 30 inches, about 60 inches board down. The antifouling is Coppercoat, the boat normally lives in a marina. The boat sails beautifully, we have had her in 35 kts winds several times with no concerns at all. Initially we had range anxiety with the electric pod drive, but that has all but evaporated. The electric drive is just a small part of the sailing experience on Kalos, we actually don’t think much about it, it maneuvers much more positively than any boat I have ever sailed. Full torque at low speed and instant reverse stops the boat pronto. If we were to build it again, electric pod drive, no question. We have 200 amp/hr Battle Borne for the house batteries, 240 watts solar for the house, the Torqeedo 24-3500 battery and it totally adequate. 350 watts panel to charge the Torqeedo battery, with a interconnect buss if we decide to put all 3 panels to charge the motor battery (never had the need other than testing). We have shore power but have never bothered to plug in. We have about 60 gallons of fresh water, we have a solar water heater, refrigerator and freezer. Longest I have stayed aboard is about 2 weeks and been as comfortable as any other boat we lived aboard. Long winded answer, but it is a cool boat! We have invited and given talks at several local sailing clubs about both the electric system and the cat ketch rig. Coupla days ago we tacked down a river with a local hot J24 sailor and he really enjoyed short tacking in the channel.

Maine is a fantastic sailing destination, we had our Core Sound there 4 or 5 years ago. We had minor problems on where to leave the truck an trailer. Great sailing, beautiful shoreline. The beauty of trailerable boats! The scenery never gets old!

Hi Steve, just checking in! We built a similar cover for our Core Sound 20.3, it was/is a good thing! We could have sold seating under it during the Texas 200. Sure is nice an anchor and it seems to help sailing at anchor a bit. Just got home from a week or so on the Flinders and it will be getting a riding sail. It likes to sail around like the Core Sound does at anchor.

The Madisonville Wood Boat Show is the weekend of October 18-20. If you can’t make the the B&B Messabout and happen to be near the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain (New Orleans) area it is a good show. We have been invited to display Kalos, our Mathew Flinders 246, so stop by! We will be “side tied” south of the bridge. We hate to miss the B&B Messabout but with the Looper project, we best stay closer to home this time.

I have NASA brand depth sounders on my Flinders, centerboard on my Core Sound, and plan to use NASA brand on my (way unfinished) Looper 30. The display is large, seems to work well, not ridiculously expensive. On my Flinders it just “shoots “ through the hull so no hole, just bond a piece of PVC pile to the hull, plop the transducer in and fill it with baby oil, then glue the top on.

When I started flying in the Gulf ‘O Mexico, the compass, chart and windshield was the primary and only source of navigation. When LORAN came about and we had to type each set of “numbers “ into the box we thought our navigation days we were over! NOT! Get a good compass, good charts and learn how to use them, they will never fail you. The stuff with wire hooked to them…..

We just got home from “The Skunkworks “ of boat design……. Sure is a LOT of parts. Some little, some not! Our entire game room is covered with 18 inches of boat! So far each and every part has fit perfectly, hope to keep that trend going! Plan is, one more trip to pick up engine and deckhouse. I have been messing about with boats for nearly 60 years, my first with a “power boat”, both Carol an I are excited!

Me too!

Beautiful boat in a gorgeous location. We darn sure don’t vistas like that around here! But we are mobile!