Kennneee

My Outer Banks 26, Rosie is done. Her tender, a modified Spindrift 9 is also complete. A couple of months back my wife Luanne AKA Lula asked what my next project was going to be. For the first time in many years I didn’t have an answer. She suggested I build another boat! I believe she lives in fear of a Ken without a project. With 12 kayaks and surfskis hanging in my shed it is hard to justify building another one. Since a good bit of my boating life has been around sailboats the gears started turning. I had admired the Lawpwing 16 for a long time. We live most of the year on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia. I have a good shop and lots of tools. In the Winter months we try to go somewhere warm and that is usually San Diego. San Diego would be a great place for a sweet daysailer like a Lapwing. Hmmmm. I now have a plan and a project. In San Diego I have use of a double car garage and almost no tools. With the idea of having a project for the winter and going south I wasn’t sure if doing a build from scratch would be an exercise in frustration without my tools and machines. Long story short, Graham and Allen are putting a kit together for a Lapwing. Before building my Spindrift Rosebud, I had never built from a CNC cut package. After having that experience, I am sold on the concept. I have cut enough plywood in my life and don’t feel short changed when the CNC parts fit together so beautifully. I believe this will be the first Lapwing built with all of the strakes pre-cut. Having the kit will make building this winter possible without having a lot of my tools. Since it will probably take more time to build than I will have when in San Diego this winter, I hope to have the hull far enough along to be able to buy a trailer down there and haul it back to Salt Spring for the final touches. Since the kit will be shipped down south I decided to get going on some of the parts that I can build in BC with the luxury of a well equipped shop. I have been saving some spar grade Sitka Spruce for 25 years or so. When I dug the boards out in hopes that I could use them for this project I was disappointed to find that I had enough for only one of the two masts. I have a local source for Alaskan Yellow Cedar. I was tempted to make one mast out of the Spruce and the other out of AYC but I decided it would look tacky. I picked up enough boards last week to build 2 masts and started butchering them up to make the masts. So, AYC all the way. None of the AYC boards were long enough for the 18’+ and17’ masts so after milling them down to the rough dimensions for the birdsmouth staves I have been scarfing strakes together. Today I finished the glue ups and later in the week I plan to start cutting the birdsmouths and tapers. Any tips or ideas always welcome. Ken

This is helpful. Thanks Dave.

Dave- Some questions comes to mind regarding construction of the masts. This is my first go at building a birds mouth spar. Looks pretty straight forward with a few bits that need clarification. Not sure if blocking is necessary where the mast meets the deck. Certainly blocking the head and butt of the masts makes sense but does it need the extra strength at the partners? Did you cut a mortise into the head of the mast for a sheave for the halyards or? Looking at the drawing for the mast construction, the taper for the main mast is obvious but I am not clear on the mizzen. It shows 6’ of full diameter for the mainmast then a taper to the head. Since the mizzen is shorter, I am inclined to use the same rate of taper which would mean the taper would start with less than the 6’ of full diameter of the main. I hope that makes sense. My guess is that it isn’t critical but would love any input. Thanks in advance. Might be time to start a thread on this project. Ken

Thanks Dave. I am sure I will have more questions as I get further in.

Dave- I am about to start a Lapwing build. Reading this thread it is obvious you have thought through the details of how you wanted your Lapwing to be outfitted, etc. Now that you have sailed her for years, do you have any advice on dos and don’ts. Is there anything you would do differently? Are you happy with your reefing system? I going to build wooden masts and haven’t decided on track or sleeves for the sails. How long does it take you to get her ready to sail? Any input appreciated. Ken

Well, it has taken over a year but I can now call “ROSEBUD” complete. Finally got around to putting her name on the hull. We have been using her for 2 seasons and she has proven to be a great dinghy. Rows well, motors well with the EPropulsion electric outboard and is stable and dry. What does a guy do when he finishes his boat? Guess it is time to start another one soon. LAPWING will have to be next.

What an impressive man! Great inspiration to continue to create.

Jay- That is a gorgeous boat! Nice work!! Ken

Don- I watched the video, skipping ahead in places. I used Alexseal on Rosie with very good results without the magic additive. They seem to be on the cutting edge with this stuff. How geeky can we be? Watching videos of paint drying?? Ken

Jay- Gorgeous work!!! Ken

Makes me want to build one. So many boats, so little time!

Hi Guys- Been out on Rosie for the last few days and away from wifi. Jay, I agree. Time on aboard helps to figure out all of the refinements that make our boats just a bit better. The best place to stowe things, ergonomics, etc. Lots of fun. The down side to all of the improvements is the added weight. A pound here and there have made a small negative difference in fuel consumption. The price for creature comfort. Don thanks for the complement of the engine cover. I like how it cleans up the look of the aft end of the boat. The table has turned out to be a nice addition. Reacher, noise reduction has not been as good as I hoped. Only slight improvement. I might try some kind of insulation and hope that helps. Thankfully, even if the sound is not reduced a great deal I am glad to have the cover. More sound reduction will be a bonus. Ken

Hi Guys- Rosie received some upgrades this year. I removed our 66 AH AGM battery and added a 100AH Lithium. It actually give us almost 3x the usable capacity and around 1/2 the weight. I also built a “tower” to mount a 150watt solar panel. It is also a good place for our life ring to hang and to mount a spool of line for stern tying while at anchor (not my favorite way to anchor but very common in these waters). I also added an engine cover that double as a cockpit table. Tilts up nicely when the engine is raised. I don’t think the “tower” is an aesthetic plus but it was the best I could come up with to have the solar panel out of the way and unshaded. With a dinghy and 2 stand up paddle boards on the PH roof there isn’t much real estate left for much else. There are a few other things I have done to her such as changing the angle of the head door to give a bit more room on the throne. The scary part is she is pretty done. Now I am doing maintenance like redoing varnish. Not nearly as much fun as building! We spent our first night out for the season last night and had a great time. So glad to have her back in the water. Love this boat!

Congrats! An amazing future will be his!

Tim- You will be in good hands with Graham and Alan. Ken

Tim-Graham tweaked the Spindrift design slightly for me to optimize it for rowing. I don’t plan to sail it so it was simplified a bit. We started calling it the “Kendrift” to differentiate from the standard design. It is not a nesting dinghy and there is no hint of oil canning or any other weakness. I stand in it all of the time. There is plenty of structural members such as seats that add stiffness. She came out around 66 pounds before I added oar locks and fendering, etc. She rows beautifully. Recently bought a EPropulsion electric outboard for her. Here is a link with more info:

My Spindrift 9 was built with 4mm Okume at Grahams suggestion. I wanted it to be light weight. I think it will be plenty strong but take a bit more care in handling it.

Lenny- I have been following this build for a long time. Your craftsmanship is really impressive and the final product is a beauty! Congratulations and enjoy the fruits of your labor! Cheers, Ken

Hi All- I need a cover for my Spindrift 9. It lives on on the pilot house of my OB26 and needs t be covered so it stays dry. Finding someone local to make it for me is a problem. Since there are so many of these boats out there I wonder if anybody has had a cover made and can make a recommendation for a source? Thanks! Ken

I finally had a chance to try out my EPropulsion Spirit1.0 plus today. Luanne and I spent about 2 hours tooling around in Rosebud (modified Spindrift 9). What a wonderfully odd sensation. Sailing, rowing or paddling give you a quiet way to move through the water. All of these means of propulsion require some effort, which I love. Stealthily moving through the water while doing nothing but looking around is not something I have done much until now. The motor works beautifully and is almost dead silent. The only sound you hear is the water against the hull. The LCD screen gives you a few bits of information. For me, the most helpful let’s you know your remaining battery time at any given speed. I forgot to bring my GPS to see how fast we were going. The range is quite impressive, however. Guessing that I was moving a normal rowing speed the range was almost 7 hours! Of course it drops considerably if your twist the throttle. So far, so good. Ken

Lenm- Stunning! You must be proud. Ken

Egbert- Building a new shop is daunting but fun. Hope you get to enjoy the project when it stops raining. The Hydrocoat that I applied 2 years ago is working well. It wasn’t the fault of the Hydrocoat that it didn’t adhere to the trim tabs. I have ordered some of the Barnacle Barrier and hope that does the job. I will overcoat it with Hydrocoat. Have you tried the Hydrocoat Eco? Maybe someone reading this has and can comment. Thinking of using that next time I paint the bottom. My venting problem was not unique. When I filled the tank the vent would spew fuel before I had a chance to stop the flow. If the tank was filled very high and the weather warmed, fuel would seep out of the vent. Not a lot but enough to make a mess. I added the Attwood parts shown in the link below. One of my concerns was that my vent did not have a high loop and there was a chance water could enter the vent and contaminate the fuel. The Vent P-Trap took care of that. The other part is a fuel line surge protector. I believe it has a floating ball that closes off the vent when a surge of fuel causes it to float and block the exit. The 2 parts described seem to work as designed. Sometimes a very small quantity of fuel will come out of the vent when filling but a fraction of of what happened before. I still have to watch for a surge out of the filler but if I am careful it isn’t a problem. One problem they didn’t solve is a slow weep of fuel out of a warming full tank. If it is a slow weep the floating ball doesn’t close. I solved that problem with the vent cover I fabricated. It covers the vent and still allows air flow. I hang a plastic container off of the piece of hose attached to it when I fill up and when leaving the boat with a full tank on a hot day. Works great. One of the links below is a long thread on the Glacier Boats forum for a beautifully built Great Alaskan 28. The builder is very knowledgeable and particular. A lot of things discussed including his venting problems. You will have to read a bit to find the parts about venting interspersed with other topics. Hope that helps. Let us know how these things work if you decide to use them. Pics of the shop would be great as well. It it is anything like your BJ, it will be impressive. Ken https://www.glacierboats.net/forum/index.php?topic=509.150 https://www.fisheriessupply.com/sitesearch.aspx?keyword=Attwood%20fuel%20vent&sitesearch=true

Egbert- A lot of your ideas have been helpful to me during my build. Your engine cover in one of them. Thanks! Did you move to another area? I installed trim tabs on Rosie and they have been more valuable then I expected. When I installed them I put a coat of epoxy and then some bottom paint (hydrocoat) on them. The paint didn’t adhere well and I had some growth on the tabs when we hauled her out. I am going to try some of Pettit’s Barnacle Barrier this year. Perhaps it will help with your barnacle issue. Ken

For some reason the comments in this thread brought up a lot of introspection. If your not in the mood for my rambling on this subject please ignore and accept my apologies. But here goes. When I was a young guy I had the mindset that if I couldn’t build it or fix it I shouldn’t own it. I became a shop teacher and tried to instill this mindset in my students. I spent years doing extended motorcycle travel. Early on I had to be on a vintage bike that I restored. Windshield not allowed, just goggles and an open faced helmet. No money but lots of time. Working here and there for gas money and food. Got soaked to the bone, froze my buns off and had some of the best times of my life. Being broke but who cared? Decided I wanted to go sailboat cruising. No money, lots of time. Built a steel hull in a pasture with mostly borrowed tools. Old refrigerators for tool boxes and an electric fence around me to keep the owners horses out. Built or fabricated anything I could. Scrimped for what I couldn’t. I remember buying a 65lb 3 piece Hereshoff storm anchor from a man who never got it wet and his cruising dream turned into a fancy house and a new Mercedes. I felt sorry for him. I got it wet and wished I didn’t have to ( another long story). Spent 7 years on Cats Cradle having left for a 3 year cruise with very little money. Dive for my food, live on the cheap. Wouldn’t have it any other way. Time and no money. Started racing kayaks and surfskis. Had to build my own boats and paddles for most of my races. Got laughed at lining up for more than one race in the early days with my home built boats and Greenland paddles. That was until I managed to get out in front. Everything I did had to be the bare minimum and have the soul that only a lovingly built object could have. All or nothing. A couple of articles that might be interesting if you have time to kill. https://www.surfskiracing.org/2016/02/ken-katz/ https://www.surfskiracing.org/2014/06/2014-ski-sea-alien-within-ken-katz/ I won’t get started on Rosie my OB26. Originally the idea of a skiff came from my wife Luanne. Her idea was to buy one. Well, you know the rest of the story. Wouldn’t trade her for the world (Luanne or Rosie). I love to do physical things. I built a Spindrift 9 (AKA Kendrift) that is optimized for rowing. An inflatable made a lot of sense for the tender on Rosie but they are an abomination to row and I couldn’t build one. This summer aboard Rosie we rowed a lot. There were times, however, when we wanted to go further afield and rowing the distance or against the strong currents up here would be more than we were in the mood for. Or maybe just not feeling like it. The idea of taking a silent ride without always working hard started to have appeal. Imagine a sunset ride with a beer in my hand, ahhh! How far I have fallen from the the youthful kid with a pure heart. Now, enough money to buy a few things I couldn’t afford way back when but a lot less time left in this life. So off I go with an electric outboard. Maybe feeling a bit sheepish that I have given in to the easy way but I can live with that. I will still be rowing Rosebud, paddling the 2 SUPS that will be onboard (surfski’s just don’t fit) and maybe laying back with a cold one silently enjoying my dotage:) By the way, went to pick up my electric outboard today and only one of the two boxes arrived at the depot, darn. I have the motor and no battery ####! (In order for me to get a box from the US I have to drive a few minutes to the ferry terminal, wait for 45 minutes for the ferry to arrive if I want to get on an overcrowded boat, 35 minute ferry ride, drive 15 minutes to the airport, go to the shipping depot, walk across the airport to the customs office, pay taxes, walk back, repeat in the opposite direction. In other words a PITA and half of a day to get a box that would easily arrive at my doorstep if I lived on the mainland. I guess I never seem to take the easy path. I will try again in the next week and report back on the Spirit 1.0 Plus on my Spindrift.

I decided to get an electric outboard for my Spindrift 9. Did a bunch of research and ordered an EPropulsion Spirit 1.0 plus a few months ago. They are in high demand and things were delayed due to covid. The good news is I am going to pick it up tomorrow and expect to try it out later this week. Love the idea of a silent motor. It is light weight and easy to cary since the battery can be carried separately. The battery floats if you have one of those “wish I could unring that bell” moments. One of the reasons I enjoy rowing this dinghy so much is that it is quiet and I don’t feel like I am disturbing the peace in an anchorage. I am adding a solar panel to Rosie so I will be able to charge the outboard with the sun. How cool is that? The downside is it ain’t cheap. https://www.epropulsion.com/ https://www.mby.com/gear/epropulsion-spirit-1-0-plus-electric-outboard-torqeedo-alternative-111547