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Konrad

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Everything posted by Konrad

  1. There was no wind. But I knew that going into it, so I couldn't complain. And it was reasonably pleasant temps in the low 80's. Looking for enemy ships through the telescope. We also made a pirate map of the lake in the living room before we left for the lake. My 4 yr old took some photos. I convinced the boys that cleaning the boat was "fun" and they actually were debating about who got to use the sponge the longest. (Now that's good crew.) At the dock.
  2. I'm sure price is influenced a lot by the quality of the build and the fit & finish. That varies widely, so probably so too the prices.
  3. So a woman driver backed a big weiner into... I better just stop right there, this is a family show. ;D
  4. I first launched my Vacationer nine years ago, and that was a mistake. Why? Because from that point forward, all I wanted to do was sail the thing, not work on it (and complete it). It's taken me nine years to get the motivation, but as of last night I declared the interior cabin to be ready for primer. With a new house, a 5 week old baby, a 4 yr old boy and a 6 yr old boy, I Have No Idea How That's Possible. But it is. I've forgotten how much I love sanding in confined areas with high temps. You know: Sweat in the eyes, breathing whatever-it-is-you're-sanding, all balled up inside a cabin holding a screaming belt sander or r.o. sander. It's so awesome... I'll post pics when there are some worth sharing.
  5. Konrad

    Delurking

    I'll let you know the next time I have a spot available..! By the way... I called up Mike at my former place of employment, and I think I have him talked into getting his Vacationer out of storage and on the water as well. So in 3 weeks or so, we've tentatively scheduled a time to get on the water with both boats, which would be great. I'll keep you posted. And another thing: We moved, so we're now down by Roca, not in the Denton area any longer.
  6. Things I would do again, and wholly reccommend (they're kind of no-brainers, but hey, talk is cheap..) 1. I used good quality Harken hardware. Works great. 2. I used good quality yacht braid everywhere. Never knots up. 3. I used expensive boat paint. Very happy with that. 4. I use an expensive Mercury 2.2 hp outboard. Yeah, I paid $750.00 for it nine years ago, but it's as reliable as a hammer, and manuevers my pirate ship with authority. 5. I made a jolly roger. You just can't have a Vacationer or Weekender and not have one of those. ;D
  7. After reading Pat's post, I agree: Install centering guides for the keel. There's no debate in my mind about keel vs. hull support: The keel should bear the majority of the load of the boat. Not the hull at the side bunks. (I remember seeing a Weekender years ago on a trailer with no center support of any kind, only bunks. The deflection in the hull sheathing wasn't pretty.)
  8. Mark, To find the center of gravity on my Vacationer, I used a 2" diamaeter piece of metal conduit under the keel, and rolled the boat back and forth balanced on it until I found the center. With a Weekender, this should be pretty easy to do because it's lighter. On my Vacationer, the center was roughly 4-5" ahead of the main cabin bulkhead. The Weekender is probably similar. Konrad
  9. Really nice. I like the pram shape. Never sailed/rowed/motored one, but it's appealing. It's probably long-since been glued up (since you posted it in May) but those overlap joints at the transom will glue up just fine with epoxy and a thickening agent like wood flour (the dust in your belt sander bag). Or you can purchase "real" thickeners from any of the epoxy manufacturers. Practically all of them sell a variety of dusty stuff to throw into your mixing container. Just be carefull of the silica. You don't want to be breathin' that stuff.
  10. I've built two Stevenson boats (the Vacationer and the Wing Dinghy), and also a one sheet skiff. But this post mostly revolves around my experience building and sailing the Vacationer. I haven't takend the boat out on two weekends back-to-back for about 7 years until this month (mostly because of kids). And that gives rise to some reflection back over the last nine years of having the boat. Here are a few things I'd do differntly, in no particular order: 1. I'd have used smaller diameter lines for the sheets. Mine run through the blocks too slow, or not at all in light winds. 3/8" would be a God's plenty, I used 1/2" I think. But at the time of the build 10 years ago, I was totally into competitive beach cat racing, where everything is close-hauled and loads are very high. I didn't realize these boats were such low-load rigs. (But low loads is good). 2. I'd have devoted more time to making a useable reef in the main sail. I do have one, but it was mostly an afterthought, and I don't really trust it in higher winds. I will correct this with my next set of sails this winter, because I really handicapped the flexibility of my boat by not having a useable reef point. (I doubt Peter intended the Vacationer to be a single-hander, but that's a fair bit of what I've found myself doing with it lately. You can hardly call a 6 and 4 yr old "ballast".) 3. I would have made the spars a little smaller, by about 15%. I feel that my boom is too heavy and flattens the sail shape too much in light winds. Perhaps the same with the mast. Mostly just to reduce a little bit of the weight aloft. These aren't meant to be criticisms of the boat or the design. I think the boats are great. Even today, after nine years, people still come up and want to know about it, and compliment it. The point of the post is to maybe tap some of that collective knowledge pool here online and see what you guys would do differently. Mostly just to spark a good thread. So if you had a re-do, what would you do? Let's hear it.
  11. Now that's funny, I don't care WHO you are.
  12. It's unlikely your old tv is ever gonna die. Unlike new tv's. This is my SECOND big screen tv in 4 1/2 years. You know the saying: They don't make them like they used to. It's true. I have an old 15 year old Sony in the basement, and it'll probably never die. You'd get laughed out of the store if you asked someone if today's flat screens will last you 15 years.
  13. Actually, no. It's Wagon Train down by Hickman. (It's about 5 miles from my house) It's a terrible lake for sailing, but it's what the day presented, so I took it. Branched Oak is next weekend w/the boys, weather permitting. They've never been on the boat, so it should be an adventure with a 4 and 6 yr old. But yeah, we do have water in the Salt Valley Watershed this year (for a change).
  14. ... and singlehanded it. Almost no wind, but dang was it nice to get it out on the water. There were occasional moments where there was enough wind to heel over and move quite well. During the lulls, I took the photos.
  15. Frank, I spent the big bucks and got a Samsung "Netflix Compatible" blue ray player. I'm not a huge consumer-electronics guy, but I do like my Samsung TV and blue ray player. It was pricey at $350.00 (from a local Best Buy). But still only the same as half a year of cable TV. And it plays what I want it to play (unlike cable tv). http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-BD-P3600-1080p-Blu-ray-Player/dp/B001TK3D4K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1247138503&sr=8-1 I didn't have a simple means of plugging it into a DSL connection in my house, and that required a phone call to Samsung's customer support to get it to find my wireless router. But they got me up and running the same night I opened the box, so I won't complain. If a ham-fisted hack like me can get it going, anyone can.
  16. We just recently moved, and we chose to cut the umbillical cord to pay/cable tv. We're on rabbit ears network now. And that's the best $50.00 per month which I savor most of all. We do Netflix instead, and that's turned out to be pretty sweet with the new instant-view-over-the-internet feature.
  17. Get the guy in the ground, and let's move on.... Jeeze. : I've said it before, I'll say it again: The media is dumb.
  18. Konrad

    Summer

    I like that one a lot. Nice.
  19. So anyway, I put the tarp back ON the boat at about 6:30 a.m. yesterday morning when I saw that line of storms. It spit about an 1/8 of an inch of rain over the course of the day - Until last night... Our old neighborhood where we just moved away from does a commercial fireworks display. Each of the 50-some-odd houses in the acreage community throw in $75.00 and they hire a commercial display. It's not too bad for just a neighborhood thing. So we went over there for the neighborhood picnic and fireworks, etc., and an hour before dark it starts to rain. And rain.. And RAIN..! And I'm talking a good midwest knock-you-on-your-a$$ thunderstorm, friends and neighbors. And that commercial fireworks disply went off anyway. Try to visualize that: Lightening bolts dropping from the sky every 10 seconds or so, pouring rain, booming thunder, it's dark - and there's huge fireworks going off overhead for 10 minutes or so. So it was booming fireworks, booming thunder, flashing bolts of lightening, and hundreds of pounds of flashpowder and phosphorous going off overhead all at the same time. It's not the wierdest thing I've seen in my life, but I think it makes the top ten.
  20. 33 days with nary a drop of rain. I finally pull my Vacationer out and un-tarp it, stand the mast in the driveway, and start doing some cleaning, maintenance, etc. And not 12 hours later, you should see the line of rain that's only one county away, headed right here. (I can't decide if this annoys me or not. Because we really do need the rain. But it's just uncanny.)
  21. Back to the paint part of his question.. I used Interlux Brightsides on the Vacationer 9 yrs ago, and it's been a champ. WAY more expensive than box store paint, though.
  22. Charlie, You got any tricks for him on how to get thickened epoxy up in there, in an upright boat? I use plastic syringes that you can get from pharmacies for thin epoxy sometimes on other things, but not sure if that would work on thickened epoxy in an inverted situation. K
  23. Damn you kids and your Pacman video games... > ;D ;D
  24. You wanna see something entertaining? Do a Google image search for "no hippies". It's funny.
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