John Weigandt

That's FLOATZILLA. darned auto correct.

Saturday, in rock island Illinois, in the little backwater just next to my marina, they are holding an event called flotilla. Big canoe and kayak fest... Well over 1000 pre registered, and we will go for a worlds record attempt for the largest raft up of paddle craft. The mark to beat is about 1600. They got probably 900 and change last year on a 600 pre reg.. So maybe.... Hey Graham or anybody... What plan number is the birder up to now. I know the others will drool on my mahogany stained deck from their roto molded abominations, but wanted to know how rare my little rare and wonderful craft is.

Way back when I built mine (12 years ago) I used the urea resin glue for most of the basic construction. BIG MISTAKE!!! Where it has stayed dry.. the urea resin stuff has been fine, but it is by no means a waterproof glue for the long term. For the lumber, I found some nice 2x12 doug fir in long lengths at a real lumber yard, and paid them to plane it down to thickness. I bet the guy had a tear in his eye, but it yielded better stock than I could find anywhere else. The keel has held up well, but only I suspect because gravity dries it, and it's protected from the elements. A couple of years ago, I discovered water intrusion from the bowsprit bolt followed down the glue lines/ laminations, slowly leaching out the urea resin, and eventually soaking and rotting the stem. I had to tear the stem apart and replace the wood, epoxying it back in. This was water from rain and the elements... Water from above is by far your worst enemy. I had similar issues back on the lower rudder bolt where I did the cross drill/bolt thing as per the plans. DONT DO IT I had water intrusion/ rot problems there too.. Fixed with cutting in new wood/ epoxy/ filler. Any bolt your are putting into the wood, simply slightly underdrill, and screw the bolt into the wood with a liberal buttering of epoxy. It will make it's own threads, seal, and can still be unscrewed if need be. I did not encapsulate my keel with glass.. recipe for disaster... you will ding it, water will intrude, it won't dry, it will rot. I did glass the hull with epoxy.. and it has held up well. After learning about the versitility of epoxy and fillers, I would NEVER use the urea resin glue again. Get the free epoxy book online from system three Very entertaining and educational. They are pushing all their "pre mixed" stuff nowadays, but you can get their catalog and still get the basic resin / fillers etc. John Laminate that keel with epoxy.

I put my battery in a battery box, in the seatbox in the companionway. Central ballast is nice. I put a lake style mushroom anchor and regular anchor in the front hatch area for weight. You really don't want a battery up forward for a couple of other reasons. You gonna shake rattle and roll it there, but more importantly is Ohm's law. When you put that much distance between the battery and the trolling motor you are gonna have a lot of resistive loss even with very large guage wire. I also made sure that my trolling motor circuit was protected by one of those automatic circuit breakers you can buy at the auto parts store. (little brass looking box that fits on the battery terminal.. rated to 40 or 50 amps, but will cut out in a short or overload, but more importantly ... re set itself if you resolve the problem.)

I've used conduit for 24 years on mine. 2 inch or so diameter for the mast and I think 1 inch stuff for the boom and upper yard. I sailed it at first with a sail of about 40 sq ft to learn with, and now have a larger 60 sq foot sail made of rip stop nylon.. Have had to re cut and shape the nylon a couple of times over the years. http://www.riverbendvet.com/newweb/images/beauty.jpg John

The keel and stem were made from Douglas Fir that had been planed down for me by the local lumber company. I picked the best 2x12's that i could find and the guy planed them down to 3/4 for me (I'm sure with a tear in his eye). We just didn't have any quality 1x stock in town at all.. even 11 years ago. I'm sure that just about any wood short of Teak would have rotted by now given the same circumstances/ construction. My keel was also laminated with the Weldwood glue... I hadn't obtained my epoxy trial kit at the time... Weldwood will let water intrusion slowly leech it away, penetrate, and migrate to other laminations. I looked carefully as I stripped away the rot, and examined the old lamination interfaces. I would never build with weldwood again.. given it's lack of flexibility, and leaching charachteristics. If I had it all to do over, I'd use epoxy everywhere on this boat. I did use epoxy and glass over the outside of the hull. The keel seems to be fine when I probe it.. I was just the victim of unseen rot that went on for years in the core of the stem before I finally pressure washed and it revealed itself. I also had a similar problem with the original rudder eyebolt down on the back of the keel.. I did the "bore a hole and use a nut to hold it" thing long before I built more boats and knew better. The hole was a source of water intrusion, chronic moisture etc... So quite a few years back, I chiseled out, cut in some scrap and epoxied in place with an epoxy / wood flour mix. New rudder bolt went in with a straight bolt and epoxy as suggested by Charlie Jones. Broke the rudder box at BEER a few years back too from lack of inspection/ poor construction/ and rot. I am much more cognisant of water intrusion than I used to be, but you learn from your mistakes, and hopefully folks will learn from mine. I think the original decision to NOT encase the keel in glass is probably why the boat is still alive at 11 years old now. it may get wet, but it can drain and dry. I also have my original Mini cup... Now 25 years old... Polyester resin, bondo, construction adhesive.... closed chambers... Had some deck rot repair, but still a sound boat. Most recent boat, the summer breeze is polyurethane construction adhesive construction, along with some rubber concrete sealant for internal waterproofing (again water from above is the enemy... rain...not the lake will kill the boat) John

Don't drill the big painter hole in the stem.. it will expose end grain and even if painted , will admit water. I had to replace the whole stem on mine last year. water in the hole, and water from the top between the laminations seeped in and rotted out the whole affair. I would highly reccomend putting a strip of glass/ epoxy over the very top of the stem (where the bowsprit will rest) Another place where water seeped in was the long bold holding the sprit in place. Seal that puppy up with some sort of googe. It took 10 years, but the stem turned to mush. John

Lets see if I'm following Ray's logic... If you put a motor on a Core Sound, You'll KILL G-D.... I just don't think that one should risk it. John

Have you ever played the dictionary game?? Open the dictionary anywhere... on the 2 pages visible, almost every time there will be a word referring to something nautical, or to water... Water is life John

When you lose 100 people out of the first thousand or so, that makes the WHO and other health authorities perk their ears up a bit more. Yes the media is overblowing the story so far, but it is also quite possible with this one that the sky IS falling. It will be interesting to see what the death rates are in the more developed world, where we may go to the doctor sooner, have respiratory therapies, antibiotics appropriate for secondary pneumonia, IV fluids for hydration etc.... John

But we should all know that Shakespeare is best appreciated in the original Klingon. John

You will note that the most vocal Woodenboat critics have never seen one in person much less sailed one. But then again.. at Kentucky lake, we sailed with a core sound.... and performance wise he blew our doors off.. Different strokes for different folks. John

I have a Weekender launched in '98. Been all over the place in little to lots of wind. I have "pushed the envelope" and sailed with water coming up to the splash combing. Never took her over. My take on it is that a beginner could indeed take one over. Anyone who has sailed a sunfish or other unballasted small sailboat should be able to keep her on her feet. If I recall over the years, the issue for getting back up isn't so much not being able to right the boat, but rather the ability to get her bailed out and "self rescue" I have floatation behind the seat backs, and probably need more up front to make the swamped boat float well enough for a bailing out.. I can see if you didn't have floatation behind the seat backs, it would be quite difficult to make her float high enough after a swamping to bail back out, especially with wheel steering with the little transom hole cut out. You probably need to make the fore hatch have the ability to positively dog down both from the inside and the outside to keep a low floating bow from re swamping. Re boarding a weekender with no swim ladder (unswamped) is no treat either (read near impossible) Years ago, I could self rescue an aluminum canoe and re board.. they made us do it in the pool for lifesaving class. But I'm not gonna get that done today either. John

Ok.. what is the purpose of the glove... it's to keep the nasty stuff from having prolonged contact with your skin. Mainly the Hardener in epoxy terms. I use latex gloves, because they are cheap, and disposable. You can get thin nitrile disposable gloves that are also relatively cheap. Latex will be fine if you treat them as immediately disposable.. ie.. put on a fresh pair almost with every batch mix. You don't wear them more than a few minutes at a time. I work clean.. well as clean as I can, When I get some on a latex glove. I strip it off before I would even think about getting soak through.. off it goes and on goes a fresh clean one. If you get resin or hardener on a re usable glove, I defy you to get that glove back on you again without getting some on your fingers, whereupon you drag it inside the glove with you.. where it incubates against your sweaty skin. You leave the glove on longer, prolonging the exposure, because it's such a pain to get in and out of the gloves. I don surgical gloves every day at work. I know how to get in and out of them clean. I also keep some of the system 3 SBS cleaner on hand in the garage for the occasional skin exposure.. I clean it up right now. 10 years working with epoxy off and on. and I'm allergic to everything else in the universe, but not epoxy so far. Don't re use gloves if you can at all help it. John

I had the opportunity to paddle Jim's original toto a few years back at the messabout at Lake Monroe. Relatively effortless paddling. But I ended up making a birder (2 actually) and I like it better, both aesthetically and paddling.. John