AmosSwogger

Enjoyed seeing all your improvements; thanks for the pictures.

Definitely the 20". I'm using the 15", and it works pretty good, but it does cavitate unless your weight is all the way aft. I need to deepen my cutout to lower the motor so the prop could achieve a better "bite" in the water. Pete tried the 15" and shifted over to the 20" for these reasons. As far as HP is concerned, 2.5HP has been more than enough for me. It pushes the boat 4-5 knots at 1/4 throttle. I have had to motor up a narrow channel against a strong wind (with water ballast and overnight gear) and it performed well. It sips fuel.

I'm not sure how well the boat rows. I do plan to row the boat, but I do not have oars yet. I plan on building my own two-piece oars utilizing a ferule from Duckworks. I left the coamings open. I do store stuff in the forward end of the coamings.

Finally got around to naming the boat. She is "Larissa", named after my wife who helped build her. My wife's name is Lara, which is a shortened version of Larissa.

I'm stuck at work and you decide to torture me with a sailing video? Have mercy on me.😊 In all seriousness though, keep the trip reports and pics/video coming; enjoy your adventure.

Very cool Mr. Action Tiger. Always enjoy your posts.

As far as the non-skid, I only applied it on the cabin top and cockpit sole. I have found when I get up in the morning, the seat tops are slick from dew and quite slippery, but I am not going to apply non skid there as it would catch on peoples clothing. I just wipe them down in the morning with a sponge. You may want some non-skid on whatever you step on to get down into the cabin. I plan to apply some on my step. As far as supporting the sprit, this what Mr. Graham posted about a year ago : "I cannot tell a lie, I have been using lifts on Carlita. Rather than rig special topping lifts, I already have enough clutter, I have been using the mizzen staysail halyard for the mizzen lift. On the main I am using about 4' of 5/32" line with a small S-hook at the bottom attached to the forward side of the mizzen mast at the right height so that I can slip the S-hook thru an eye at the aft end of the main sprit. The main lift tends to be self centering and stays put when I tighten the main sheet. If the mizzen starts to dance around at anchor I run a line thru the spinnaker block on top of the coaming aft over to the sprit. This triangulates with the lift and mizzen sheet and the system is rock solid. If it got bad enough to bother the main sprit I could do something like I do with the mizzen."

Thanks for the update; its been fun following him on the tracker.

Well, it's not my method (I'm not sure who come up with the process), but it works well. Paul is spot on with his advice to space the cuts farther apart (and/or use a dado blade and and adjust the angle of the blade to the template); it did take me a long time to make all those tablesaw cuts. Good luck; let us know how it goes.

You can do the rough contouring on a table saw, and then clean it up with a block plane and/or spokeshave. This method works well, and it is fun and relatively easy to do, but it is very time-consuming. B&B can provide you with a (Mylar?)template. I posted a step by step guide with pictures here. I got the idea from someone else on the forum (I can't remember who to credit).

Welcome to the forum; looking forward to seeing some build pictures.

As far as sails going up and down smoothly: sanding the ridges (left by the mold I presume) on the plastic sail track slides does help. I just wrapped sandpaper around a dowel and hollowed out the back of the slide by hand. Using a small sanding drum in a drill press would be quicker. The butt joint where the sail tracks meet may be a culprit as well. I had one joint that ended up misaligned (the rivet gun picked the most crucial part of the job to fail!); I used spray adhesive to glue fine grit sandpaper to an extra sail track slide and slid that back and forth over the joint to flush the intersection.

Jay, this is exciting news. I have a long list of questions about the build, but I'll try to be patient and I'm sure they will be answered in due time. Please keep the pictures coming.

If it makes you feel better, our family has been sailing our CS 20.3; we are two adults (I'm 6') and we have a 6,9, and 11 year old. Even with five of us on board, the boat doesn't feel small. The cockpit is really big.

Great idea. The nice thing about about scraping is no need for a respirator or dust mask (I only wear them when sanding or painting; I'm sure some would advocate wearing them scraping as well, but I have never found it necessary.).