Robert Cox

Hey guys, I hate to burst you bubble, so to speak. But, there is no reason to re-invent the motor mount. This is a mount offered by West marine. $124 USD for a mount that handles up to 10 horse outboard motor. $134 USD for a 20 horse. Here's the link to the page: http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10001&langId=-1&catalogId=10001&productId=72753 Bob

She looks fantastic!!! It also looks like your first mate was very happy with the results. Congratulations. Have fun. Bob

Brian, I had origanally thought of putting a triangle shaped hunk of blue foam in the forpeak in front of the bits, but run into problems finding the blue foam here in South Florida. What I intend to do is use a 12" mooring bouy that Dad happend to have stored away. I'll put it into place and inflate once I have it in position. The other possibility is to use a floatation bag sold for racing dingy's. I also stuffed 4 pool noodles behind each seat back in the cockpit and plan to mount more to the lazzarette floor and in the forepeak area. Bob

Tom, here is an alternative to using epoxy to make that fillet at the keel/bottom joint. Use wood and bondo. We made a 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" coaping with a 2 5/16" radius to put in the joint. This is not a structural piece so we made it from a pine 2" x 6" x 10'. We ripped the 2 x 6 into 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" strips and then cut these diagnally into two triangular pieces. We then ran the widest side over the table saw at an angle to cut the radius. We glued and screwed this to the keel and bottom. It looked like this: We then used a 1 1/2" block with the radius cut the same size as the Compact Disk to lay in the Bondo. Doing it this way the thickest layup of Bondo was only 1/8" thick. The results looked like this: I then cut a foam pool noodle into 9" lengths and rapped it with 100 grit sandpaper to finish fairing the Bondo. We overlapped the keel and bottom pieces of fiberglass so that this has two layers of glass to protect it. I figure the total cost of making this fillet was about $18. $6 for the 2 x 6 and $12 for the gallon of Bondo. I used a full gallon of Bondo over the coaping. I can only guess how much epoxy you'll use to creat this fillet completly from epoxy. Of course I'm building the Vacationer, so yours won't be as long. Oh, we used a 5" radius to creat the fillet at the stem/hull side joint. Bob

Hi Charles, Southern yellow pine will work. I used Douglas fir for mine. I'm not sure what Knut used. There is no place structurally on the boat that you'll want to use white pine. Home Depot down here has the douglas fir but only in 14' lengths. Did you check all the independant lumber yards? That's usually your best bet for finding good lumber in lengths you will need. It will also be of better quality than at the box stores. I couldn't find 1x material in 20' lengths called for in the plans so I used 16' and scarfed the keel. I bought all my lumber from Shell's Ace Hardware and Lumber here in Miami. All my screws came from Bosun' Supplies here: http://bosunsupplies.com A good supplier of Weldwood Plastic Resin Glue is Wicks Aircraft supply: http://www.wicksaircraft.com The glue is on page 12 of their internet product catalog. Fourth item down on the left. You can also get the glue at Ace Hardware. If they don't have it in stock they will order it for you. Personally I liked the stuff from Wicks better, plus it's cheaper even with the shipping if you by it in a 5 lb. can. Just my personal prefrence. Good luck on your search for lumber. The process of finding materials, supplies and hardware is like a scavenger hunt on the internet. Bob

High C those prices where for the 3/8" eye nut. I was just stating that I had used a 1/2" on the Vacationer. Dad paid $16 for an 18" wood auger bit at HD to drill the holes in the stem. I used 1/2" solid stainless rod and cut the threads on each end for the nuts. Bob

HighC, here's what you need. You can pick one up at West Marine for $19.99 or From Bosun Supplies for $7.64. Here's the Website for Bosuns if you would want to order one. I ordered all my stainless fastners from them and the eye nut is what I used on my boat. 1/2 inch or course. http://bosunsupplies.com This is the page with the eye nut: http://www.bosunsupplies.com/products2.cfm?product=S0321 Bob

Chuck there is a Vacationer (Saralee) owned by Craig Gleason in Fort Walten Beach and a Weekender being built in the same area. As an added bonus, our resident sail maker Paul J. just moved into that area as well. Here's a link to Craig's website: http://members.cox.net/bb343/index.htm Here's Paul's website: http://ultasail.com Contact Craig and he'll have the name of the person building the Weekender. I'm sure he'll be willing to go for a sail some time as well. And, your always welcome if you make it down to the Miami area. Bob

Ok, Dad's got the atlas with him in Indiana and not being from Florida origanally I have no idea where Crestveiw is. If your close, your always welcome to come by or call for advice. Knut built the Weekender so he would be the logical first choice, but of course I'm always glad to show off my Vacationer. Speaking of showing off, I love this shot. Bob

The SoBig virus works in such a way that it picks up your e-mail address from the address book of an infected computer. Not yours. It then uses your address to to spread it's self among other computers. The fix? You've already solved it by having an up to date anti-virus program. A firewall is highly recommended. This is a virus that has infected someone elses computer so the problem really isn't on your end. The other possablity is that you have been hit by a trojan horse virus that comes from and e-mail sent to you and it sends your usser/screen name and browser password to the origanator who then uses them to send out spam. I've had this happen to me. The fix? Change your password often. The virus doesn't disrupt or hurt your computer, just steals your info. Bob

Uh, that's not me he's talking about. Wonder who that could be? Bob

One thing I learned long ago. If it's not going to be finished bright, mark it. Something as simple as "This side up or This side out" works real well. I've still got pencil and magic marker tracks in the cabin that have yet to get painted over. I usually go so far as to mark it as going on the port or starboard side. I use a lot of PA, PB, SA and SB to mark my pieces. Bob

I really hadn't thought about it before now, but, if you can make the thumbnails as big or small as you want then you could make them big enough for us young-uns to see without clicking to the larger view. While, the older-uns can click to see the larger view. Just might be the answer we're looking for. I have nothing against trying anything differant. If you want to try the thumbnails for a while, then I say lets do it. As you say, you can always change it back. :wink: Don't matter to me. I don't have problems posting pictures as it is. 8) By the way, the above picture is 504 by 336 at 72 dpi. Bob

I used Douglas Fir stringers and had to be careful not to sink the screws clean through the plywood. I usually found that when I started stripping screws I needed to change to a new bit. The old one was getting worn. Bob

The only draw back I see to the links and thumbnail choices is that you could still end up with pictures that don't fit the screen of your browser. On the plus side they both would allow people to post pictures without having to learn how to use picture editting software. With the way the forum is set up now it does end up encouraging people to learn to reduce the size of a picture so that it will display and we can see the whole picture in our browser window. You loose the overall effect of a beuatiful boat when you can only see half of it at a time. Bob

Andrew, it is therapy. Just think of all the other things you would be worrying about if you weren't worried about the boat. The best thing is as you make your mistakes you'll learn from them (you hope) and slowly you'll learn more and make fewer mistakes. Eventually you'll have one of those days when everything goes right and you quickly forget about those days that didn't go so right. You'll sleep good that night too. Every thing will just seem right with the world. The intriging thing to me is how I've learned to fix or cover those mistakes that I made early on. As you have come to realize, it just makes it more your boat. I just look at is as being "customized". Bob

Welcome BJ. From a fellow Floridian building a Vacationer. Here's the pic of Bob Taylors Vacationer: And here's a pic of mine so far: Hope these inspire you. Bob

Russell, thank you for your responce. I think there is one problem with most of this discusion. Although these boats look traditional they are built anything but in a traditional way. The Vacationer with a 21 ft. LOD has only two internal bulkheads and NO frames. If it where built traditionally it would have a frame at least every 24" and in many cases closer than that. When you have internal framing the boat will be stiffer, heavier and capable of handling a greater displacement. I must be honest and confess to having considered scaling up the Vacationer, but had already considerd the need to add internal framing to do it. My biggest consern would be the need to add a ballasted keel. You need more than a plywood floor to hang a ballast keel from. I quickly discontinued my fantacy after seeing the Bahama Mama. It already had the framing, ballasted keel, was built of plywood and best of all; Looks like a Vacationer. Why redesign the wheel when someone has already improved upon it. The point is, why try modifying a design to fit a particular criteria when there is already a design that meets that criteria. Especially when modifying a design may make it unsafe. I don't beleive Oyster meant that your opinions where off topic, but that the type of construction your fomiliur with is more common over at the Wooden boat forum. I still beleive that we would better serve Tom by telling him the possable flaws with modifying but be supportive in what ever he desides. Which if you look at most of the replies here, this is exactly what we've done. Tom, I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the size and capability of the Vacationer. I've had two Weekender builders come and look at my Vacationer and the first words out of their mouths upon seeing it: "Wow, it's so big." I think you'll find the Vac. capable of handling your family at this time. As the kids get older it may get a little tighter but we all know that as kids get older they find other interests. They always do. So, after all of this, try the stock Vacationer first. It's an easy build and will get you on the water rather quickly. If after sailing the Vacationer you feel you need something bigger then look at building something to suit. At least while you build that one you'll have something to sail. Bob

Hi Tom, welcome to our madness. I fretted about finding a trailer for our Vacationer. Actually worried about finding one that would fit the Vacationer. I started looking for used trailers the day I started building. 6 months later I found one that would work. It was in rough shape but could be fixed up. I wanted a dual axle for the long road trips and it needed to fit a boat that was 28 ft. long. It was for a 20 ft. power boat. I bought the trailer for $150 and after replacing every bolt and nut, putting a longer tounge on it, replacing the leaf springs and a good coat of paint I had a total of $750 in it. Pretty cheap for a trailer with dual axles and 25 ft. long. If you want to go the cheap route and your willing to put a little work into it, start looking now or when you start building. By the time you need one you will probably find one that will work (with some modification) very inexpencively. If you don't want to work on a used trailer, fallow Barry's advice. There are good trailers out there that can be had for very little. Bob

Russel, that's at least twice I've read a post by you that has slighted these boats or the people that build them. Is there a constructive reason your here or are you here to raise some hackels. Now maybe, just maybe, I'm reading more into your posts than is actually there but I don't think so. I've yet to hear of anyone using reagular yellow glue on these boats. The larger version that Frank was talking about was the proto-type Vacationer built by the Stevensons. It was 29 ft. long on deck with an 8 ft. beam. It sailed poorly and failed structurally do to the lack of internal framing to support the plywood. And, the Stevensons use urea glue. Commonly referred to as Weldwood plastic resin here on the forum. The biggest reason you will hear people on this forum nay saying a particular change is when it involves structural changes. If you were to do a survey, you would find that most of our boats have changes that vary from the plans. These changes are usually cosmetic and we were smart enough to know that we shouldn't toy with the basic structure. We are not PA's here. We are amatures. I beleive it would be morally wrong for us to tell someone to make a change such as this when it's not our family who will be sailing on this great floating experiment. You will find many years of experiance with boats on this board and some of these people are much wiser than your average beginner. I'll not mention any names here but suffice to say that when they give their opinion I for one will listen. You are new here and have no history that we know of with these boats. If you would give us some of your back ground and experiance with boats, we may be inclined to listen to your opinions. Bob

I can understand your desire for a bigger boat, but I think your really looking at the wrong one. Scaling up the length of the Vacationer without scaling the width would likely lead to desaster. Being an unbalasted boat, you need the beam to give you stability. You may not realize it but the over all length of the Vacationer as designed is almost 28 ft. Would you really want to pull a boat much longer than that. At 112% increase you've now got a boat that's 32 ft. long. If you really want a 30 ft. boat that looks like a Vacationer and is built out of plywood take a look at the Bahama Mama from Data Boat. This is a link to the boat. http://www.databoat.com/Page_ProductDetail.asp?sid=151&pid=2951 I just checked and their website is temporarly down. The Bahama Mama looks just like a Vacationer and is already 30 ft. long on deck, and built of plywood. It is also a balasted boat. I think this would better suit your needs. On the other hand if you decide to scale up the Vacationer make sure and keep us up to date on any progress and remember, we love pictures here. Bob

Hey Barry, I was checking out your degree of heel diagram again and there is one basic flaw in it. As you've rotated each profile you've kept the waterline centered at the keel. This would not be the case in real world sailing. The boat you show in the last drawing is sinking. The only way you would get that much boat under the waterline would be to fill it with water. It's riding too low in the water Barry. It looks like it's lost part of its bouancy(sp). I think the weekender would have to go over a lot further in order to get the rail in the water. More like this: Bob

Ken, we use the 50 inch cloth. The Keel was done with one piece on each side overlapping the bottom of the keel. This piece also went over the keel fillet at the bottom. The bottom was done with one piece on each side of the keel. This piece overlapped the keel piece at the fillet. It over lapped the sides by four inches. It over lapped the transom by four inches also. The side panel was one piece on each side that over lapped the bottom by four inches and the transom by four. The transom was obviously done with one piece and over lapped the sides and bottom by four inches. The only seams in the glass was at the chines, stem, keel and transom edges. Of course we then layed another layer of glass on everything but the keel. The over laps on the second layers was only two inches to stagger the seams. The best part of this was that the chines and transom bottom now have a total of 4 layers protecting them. If I had it to do over I would have made the over laps 2 inches on the first layer and 4 inches on the second. Would have been easier to fair out. We used 6 gal. of epoxy and about 60 yards of fiberglass to cover the whole boat. Bob

Your half right Arnie. The plans show measuring up so far from the jib forward corner then 90 deg. angle down to the jib tack for cutting your jib. Using a line, measure the same and attach the line to the forestay at the same place as when measuring the sail. Run the line through the grommet for the jib tack and continue down to the deck. This point 10 -12 deg. off centerline of the boat is where you want your block. I hope that made since. :? Maybe this diagram will help. The red line is 10 deg. off centerline. This is the deck layout for my Vacationer. It should be close for the Weekender too. I plan to mount blocks to the forward chainplates for the standard and lapper jibs. This will place the blocks at 12 deg. off centerline. The arcs between the red lines are the leach locations of the standard, lapper or 100% jib and 125% genoa. Bob