Capt Bones

What an elegant and shipshaped vessel Chessie is. Great job!

There is also a current that runs through that creek if memory serves correctly. There is something magical about the starkness of Tangiers.Here is a write-up from our visit several years ago. It is an excerpt from the book about our cruising days. He don’t walk his age, Milton don’t. His gait is deceptively balanced as he moves, not fast nor slow, but with a silent hidden strength, steady down the wharf. An unassuming presence, made so by the quiet grace of a life at sea, the confidence bred on the backbone of a bay boat, tempered with fifty years of respect for the moods of weather on the Chesapeake water. Milton hails the boat, giving precise directions, twice, to bring our trawler along the edge of the wharf, his marina and namesake. He snatches a poorly tossed line out of the air with quick, flexible, but massive simian like hands—hard wired to forearms like Popeye. He secures both ends of our fifty foot boat with an economy of movement little effort and no apparent speed as to suggest there is two of him. There is only one of Milton Parks. He is mid seventies now and some of the other watermen ferrying bait back across the channel, the gut, to their boats bait Milton with teasing, now that he is off the water. They call him leveled since he’s been retired from the bay for a year and developed a slight pot belly. They call him leveled ‘cause the bubble of his body, his chest, has settled to the middle, like the bubble in a mason’s level settles in the middle. He is not all that pot-bellied, so the words don’t hurt much. Mr. Parks has always been a friend to all who wished it so in the marshland called Tangier Island, as his family has for almost 200 years. Mr. Parks was arguably the best crabber and dragger around, to the point that the younger fellows begged him to quit fishing as he reached into his sixties, then sullenly suggested it was time for him to move over and let the younger men of the island have their chance. You watch his eyes when he tells that story, he goes off somewhere. Mr. Parks stopped when he was ready and still able to work his 500 pot license; he wanted to go out on top. It wasn’t soon enough for some. But even now they still greet him with respect. He doesn’t get up at 2 or 3 in the morning now, to crank up the Detroit Diesel in his 45’ bay boat to work his pots until 3 in the afternoon, and then come home to repair or replace his gear and bait up for the next day. He fished most every day, unless it was not safe to work in a wind troubled bay. Now he lazes around until six am and works and talks in equal parts, maintaining his marina, helping watermen, orienting visitors to his transient dock, or answering the endless needs of his wooden crab boat until the other six o’clock comes round. Mr. Parks, like most of the watermen of Tangier, was born and raised on the Island. His gentle voice carries the patois, what some linguists call Elizabethan English, with Celtic overtones, peculiar to only this island. To me the voice speaks of Newfoundland and reminds me of the book, The Shipping News. The Crocket family, along with the Parks, Dise, Pruitts, & Thomas families, and maybe a couple of other families, pretty much established the community of Tangier those many generations ago and continue to set the tone today with an almost protective gentile blue collar attitude. They are protective of their ways, their lifestyle, their very existence, but courteous to the rest of the world, outsiders all to be sure. But Mr. Parks and the others are willing to share their knowledge, their hard existence with whoever may have a question. He in return asks what is it that tourists see in his island, his family of friends? He thinks one day he may go to Crisfield and take the ferry back to the island and stand behind the tourists to determine why people come to the island for the day or weekend to stay at one of the few bed & breakfast Inns. He doesn’t understand the interest. Mr. Parks and his colleagues have a lot of knowledge about the “beautiful swimmers”, the Chesapeake Blue Crab. The quiet Tangier watermen provide tons of crab to the mainland, and the soft shell blue crab is a world market for them, even while many of the fishermen are turning to driving tows at busy ports on the mainland for the better pay and benefits that crabbing does not give. Therefore it is no surprise that Hilda Crockett’s Chesapeake House makes the best crab cakes in the Chesapeake and the clam fritters are awfully good. Served in a fifty’s style setting that is not motif, but left over from the age; you won’t care once the food starts arriving, in mixed-matched bowls, platters and baskets, very soon after you sit down. Oh now, don’t get excited, it isn’t the wrong order from another table she is trying to serve you. It’s yours. There is no menu, you get what Mama cooks this day and I can promise you won’t be much disappointed and you will be belly busting full or “run aground” as an islander said, with this wonderful home cooked meal served family style. You will need a walk after this meal. Why not enjoy exploring the colorful neighborhoods. By the time you reached the restaurant you have figured out that the roads are Island size. The smaller roads no more then trails while the main roads are wide enough for two small carts. Golf carts these days and maybe a scooter or two, but mostly they are for walking and connecting the ridges. The ridges are sand spits. Called ridges with droll humor, I suspect, as the ridges are usually dry, although not always. There was the “September Gust” a few decades ago. A couple of recent hurricanes had caused some serious flooding and damage, but the islanders seem to take it in stride, maybe putting better foundations into the salt marsh of an island with stoic acceptance. There are about 250 households along the three main ridges connected by a handful of small bridges leading to neighborhoods with names like Sheep’s Head, Black Dye, Main Ridge & Meat Soup. Don’t be surprised to see boardwalks on a few of the homes at the end of a ridge where the tides claim the yard periodically. It is, after all, salt marsh, this island, and only suffers the sharing of itself with a handful of families that have handed down the land through the centuries Tangier Island will continue to shift and change even as its people hold a steady course through life. Together the island and its people have formed a steady-state; it’s people holding on tenaciously to the ever shifting sands of this barrier island that while starkly beautiful and full of nature’s creatures remains nothing more than the afterbirth of the Susquehanna River in a previous rage. The river silently sleeping at the head of Chesapeake Bay for centuries—quiet now after forming the barrier islands, but always restless. Tangier offers a peek into our colonial roots, into hardship and perseverance and stands as a reminder of what American stock came from. You won’t read it off of signs, but in the eyes of the people. You won’t hear it in nature lectures, but by strolling the bridges over the marsh, you won’t glean it from reading documents, but from registering the confidence, the adept skill and quiet strength of the waterman working his boat. Discovering places for oneself, like Tangier, is the magical essence of cruising.

Nicely done. Your entire build is most impressive and I vacuumed up several of your ideas. Thank you for sharing. Bones

A Personal Note to the Designer: Dear Sir, At 0914 hrs this morning I received a very polite email from your young cohort Alan. He wrote the following: "on a side note, Graham had one critique or concern on one of your pictures (a minor thing), he noticed that you had cutout the transom beam where the boomkin will be installed and has concern that that will weaken the boomkins connection to the boat...." He then graciously told me what had to be done to re-instate the strength to its origin condition. The email suggested I may have made a mistake. Au contraire my good man, au contraire. What you so quickly pointed out as a total and complete screw-up by so talented a boat builder as I, is in fact, an ingenious engineering adaptation to your plans, as you can see in the first picture. Allow me to be the first to point out your plans have not allowed nor made provisions for individual creative outside the boomkin post assembly thinking. Hence, where you had two holes in the transom beam, I forged two slots so that my boomkin will actually fit in the receiver slots unlike with your two closed holes. In the second picture you can see how well my option works. ??? Wait. What! you put the pieces through the slot and then assemble? That's not fair! That is simply cheating. Lets continue this conversation after the pictures. I suppose next your gonna tell me my seat hatches aren't flush. and the seat edges are not rounded over. You are a pretty darn picky pair you two are. I am learning my lessons. When we get to the EC starting beach, I am going to wait for Alan and Graham to get their boats off the trailer and set them in the sand, then, I am going to off-load my boat at the far end of the beach and put a cover over it. Jesting aside, this was one of several brain farts that have bubbled up during this build that have or will cause me to re-build or modify. I feel pretty good about this one as the suggested fix is what my intentions have been since needing to adapt this element. I could share more errors and other mistakes but see no need to detail the total extent of my stupidity in a public forum. I have taken this situation from the privacy of my email folder to this forum because others should know it is ok to screw up, to make silly errors and to simply make mistakes. I am certainly not embarrassed by my mistakes for more then a couple of minutes and I appreciate when others point out things I could improve. So thank you Alan and Graham for your constant assistance and vigilance. As an aside. Graham, you are no longer allowed to look at my pictures. Go design something, construct another spinnaker reefing system. (laughing out loud). You guys are fun to work with, thanks again. ugh. Now back to the boat barn for me. The rest of you go buy my book at Amazon, search by author Wayne Flatt. Bones

Um, Action Tiger. I may have overstated a bit. Being from Arizona via SW Florida and now living in Tennessee, temps in the 50's and 60's are still practically winter to me. Our trees are only thinking about color change. But my epoxy containers are much harder to pump and I notice paint, epoxy and other stuff is very much slower drying, so I'm with Game of Thrones--winter is coming. Today I dogged it a bit and only glued in all the forward hatch items and fitted and glued in the cover over the front portion of the ballast tank in the cabin--finally. Bones

Thanks to both of you. I always enjoy your comments. More sanding today ànd finishing coats on garage, sliding hatch and foreward hatch lid and frame. With the trailer drawings from Alan I have determined the needs of my trailer mods right down to the last inch. Sails and rigging now ordered from B&B. This next couple of weeks will be explosive in finishing sections of the build if I get off my ass and stop planning and start doing. Fall in Tennessee is often about three days long.with little transition tween summer and winter. Fall started today. I really need to get to paint quickly. Bones

Alan, Thank you for the trailer/boat comments and drawing. It is exactly what I needed. Is the trailer back of the axle that short that it leaves so much of the boat behind the trailer unsupported? My trailer will allow about the same amount of boat overhang and I was planning on adding more trailer aft. If your trailer drawing aft is to scale, I obviously do not need to add anything aft. Bones

Dave, A good question that is probably better then my answer. On other boats I have broken a raised tiller or had tillers come up with the use of swiveling hiking sticks creating the necessity of differing forces needed to steer the boat similar to having the hiking stick directly in line with the tiller where pushing the tiller one way or the other requires moving the extension off center line to create an angle of leverage. An un-pinned tiller always seems to get caught in this position, (for me), at the most inopportune moments such as hiking out at full extention on a Laser Further, I have had single pinned tillers wear loose and become sloppy which only seems to manifest in heavy weather. A locking pin with wing nut as you described allows easy removal to allow swiveling if needed. My swivel pin will be secured with nylon nut. Being a lazy cuss who rather be sailing then dismantling a boat for transport, my rudder system, including tiller will remain on the boat for transport and storaged along with the masts and all nav aids. YMMV, But this mildly superstitous behavior has served me well in the past. I hope this explanation answers your question. Bones

Pics

Randy thank you for your insight. I have no idea of how long it takes epoxy to fully cure and come to think of it, I probably do not even know what fully cured means. I have read it takes anywhere from a week to a month for quote "fully cured". Fortunately I do not need to wait that long to sand. In my air conditioned and exhaust fan equipped boat barn in Tennessee, epoxy is dry enough to sand with 80 grit in 12 to 36 hours depending on humidity and temperature. I weight all these factors and take advantage of hot dry days vs humid not so hot days balancing those elements with the exhaust fan and the AC. During sufficently dry hot days the AC is off and the exhaust fan on and in hot humid conditions the AC alone may be the best choice. My criteria for dry enough to sand is the texture of the epoxy removed by sanding. If a dry dust I am happy, if it leaves small clots on the paper or worse throwing off little gummy balls I wait. In prepping for paint I leave a full week for curing as opposed to dry enough to sand. Tuesday was another sanding and small chore day with some relief shopping for a variety of fastners. Wednesday was busy with some third coats of epoxy on the cockpit and cabin roof alone with gluing in place the last parts of the sliding hatch and wash board retainers and test varnishing the washboard. Pics to follow. Bones

Sunday was a cleanup day. Cleanup of loose ends, not the shop. The shop needs it, but where the fun in that when there are an assortment of partially finished mini projects not worthy of pictures such as final milling of the cypress sprits, melding the upper two portions of the mizzen, varnish on the tiller after drilling a bit larger holes, one to allow it to swivel up and the other to pin it down. Several other items done, but not really sexy discussion items. Speaking of discussion, Bumpkin was on the build site and he always brings ideas and comments which typically force us to pouring over plans, but only after pouring the first beer. First concern was where to mount the pump to fill and empty the ballast tank and how to run the hoses. After flogging that horse for an hour we decided, we had not enough experience with the use of the tank so we said to heck with it. Until we develop some experience of need we will stow pump and hoses and yank it out and suck or fill through the 8" por with a hose overboard. Being enlightened, we change to light locations, how to power and where to place lights. We both voted against mast mount and will go for hull mount LED wired to main battery and solar panel. We also spent 1.5 hours going thro fittings sorting, matching, imagining and spilling beer on the plans. While seemingly a causal Sunday, brainstorming with Bumpkin is always labor and/or time saving session. Monday was a simple day. We turned the boat right side up and spent the day sanding then epoxied what just got sanded. Big whoop. Fortunately with the Keebler like weather, uncommonly good, the barn bay A/C, the exhaust fan and two blowers the epoxy dried over night so we could sand about a gazillon sq. ft. of hull on a 17 foot boat. Moisture from the hurricane in the Gulf will now start moving in, but when it drys out in bout a week, I probably should paint the boat or as much as I can before the much cooler weather gets in the way. No response on the center of gravity question yet so maybe I should ask what part of the 17 mk 3 do you locate over the axle and how much tongue weight does that give you?

I may be late to the party but no less excited about your launch and especially the boat details and the absolutely drop dead beauty of your boat. 7 or 17 no matter how you measure it. Getting up on a plane in a small boat gets the blood flowing and can give you tunnel vision with excitement. To be precise getting up on a plane in a laser gave me the same feeling as going 175 mph on a motorcycle. While unexperienced in the CS, I suspect the thrill is universal across boats, especially if its one you built. No matter your speed, your boating experiences and pride of ownership will never get old in my opinion. Good job! Bones

Nick, thank you for sharing the hatch. As you may know that first big moment, the opening can be inspiring, thrilling and a bit intimidating. Good job! Look fwd to following of your birds fledgling moments. And thanks for pictures Bones

Todays pics: bow on. Side view with Sheena the Warrior Princess in thr foreground. Quarter view with Miss Lynn In the Background. The tape is off and the sharp clean lines are impressive. Bones

What I Learned Today Paint is not gender neutral. It is decidedly female with its own set of vulgar and wonderfully delicious behaviors. I understand now why others cannot tell a person how to paint. The paint has chosen you and its use is by her rules, her dictates, her whims and if she screws you it aint a good thing. When painting you must adapt your efforts to her infinite moods which can alter from minute to minute during the course of application. To be attuned to paint requires intense concentration and a sensitivity of touch not unlike foreplay with a human. I am humbled by my tutage from paint today and I am grateful to her for allowing me a modicum of knowledge this morning. I take a small amount of pride and a large amount of satisfaction that she has allowed me to finally finish the bottom of the hull successfully--and, after my previous dismal efforts, it looks durn good to me. If the weather holds I will be able to turn the boat right side up and get back to forward hatches, tabernacles, masts and perhaps a few dozen other things. Todays pictures to follow. Bones

You built and launched your beauriful boat, yet it gives me immense pride and joy. Odd that. In reflection, I can only imagine your feelings as it slipped into the water at launch. I can almost feel your fullness of life beating to windward, tiller in hand, the vessel with a bone in its teeth, as it blends with the elements and you begin to feel, but only begin to feel, one with the boat. Soon enough, the oneness will evolve. Enjoy the adventure, savor the merging of boat and man. Bones

Chick, your Old Codger looks fantastic on the water, as if it has always been a part of it. Dispite the jokes he does look rugged, almost brutish, in a cute manly way. He is a nautically handsome devil. Gosh. Good job sir, good job. Bones

Photos: yes, the 4x4 wood on the trailer will be removed. This afternoon the stones turned to diamonds. I give all the credit to my right foot and the opportunity to vent right here. Bones

Some days are diamonds some days are stone. Today was a stone day. No matter how hard I squeezed the stone it would not change to a diamond. So it was decided to turn it to a positive pondering day. I kicked the trailer tires. I kicked a mast tube which then fell over a conked me on the head. I kicked at a paint can but missed so I jumped up and down on it. Some days I ponder with a foot. It made me feel better so I went to my plans desk, (a piece of plywood braced to a wall where I can sit and ponder and review plans) while pondering the drawings, I absentmindedly stuck my elbow in a sticky pot of virgin epoxy. I didn't kick it, but I did mentally booted myself in the butt and focused on how to salvage a shitty morning at the Core Sound Build Site of the Tennessee River Consortium--my barn. With forward progress in mind I decided to turn my destructive bent into a benefit. I torn into my boat trailer stripping it down to essentials. Once there I renewed the kicking trend and managed to kick the axle forward under the frame to where I think it should be located keeping in mind that the masts hangover both ends of the boat and how that might impact my tow vehicle. I stopped there and took pictures and pondered up another question the answer to which would be helpful in the re-build of this long tongue tilt trailer. Where is the Center of Gravity of the CS 17 MK 3? Perhaps more specifically where is the CG plus 10-15% for tongue weight. kicking the axle around bled off quite a bit of my angst which has been downgraded to whining, cause all that kicking ripped the toe out of my boot. Risking more distress, but hoping for a tranquil paint experience, I mixed a pot of paint with a new percent of conditioner and adopted a different paint delivery method to my rudder blade. Hot dang, I got it all right and the first coat went on perfectly. I think the paint submitted after jumping up and down on the can earlier. You can even see a bit of the pin hole, the down haul and the undrilled marks of the uphaul and the travel pin location. So now that I have found the masters secret to paint, (unhuh), I can go back to the hull in the morning and finish the bottom--after I kick the can a bit. Finally being back on the track of success, I dry fitted glass tape to the mizzen upper mast tube and dry tested it. It held in proper position and is now ready to be jammed and pounded into the middle mast tube, once the receptor tube is prepped, and the glass wetted out as needed. That will happen when I get up the nerve to commit. Naturally there is always a sanding to be performed everyday, but who wants to hear the droning, droning droning of sanding. The real question is the CG of the CS 17 mk 3. All comments welcomed. pictures to come. Can I pour a gin and tonic now? Capt Bones

Ok then. Thank you Chick for the explanation and of course to Alan for having another rabbit in the hat. Randy, good to know. I have no compelling reason to paint the mast. Though I am open to possible reasons to do so other then it looks nice in the short term.

Yesterdays work pics not including trailer demolition. Keel rub rail from front and back view installed and painted. Still struggling with paint but it will come. The rudder system assembled and ready to take apart for finish application and then hardware install. Partial glassing of tabernacles. Playing with mast parts trying to figure out how the thin, small sloppy fitting top is to be held straight while gluing or if the fiberglass filler rings will hold it correctly in position. Can't assemble main mast until we use the tabernacle section to confirm tabernacle is in correct position on the bulkhead. Comments?

Randy, thank you for your comment and sharing. I had intended to use a primer also. I asked George Kirby and he asked back, what epoxy system I used. When I told him I did not know but got it from B&B he said. "Put the paint on the boat.", meaning without primer. I have, it works, I'm happy. As an aside. Even without experience I marveled at the apparent quality of the paint in the first few strokes. It was even more obvious the quality of the finish product was solely in the hands of the operator.

Capt Kyle, my EC co-capt, drove the fifty miles to check out the progress and too help on the boat. I enjoy it when he can be here as he and I get a lot of noodling done that always saves me time and effort on various fronts. I think I sorted out the photo issue. These pics are of the bottom with one coat of paint. Unfortunately in my hurry to learn paint, I forgot to put on the keel rubrail which we had prepped and ready in another barn bay. So we sanded down the paint to fiberglass laid the prepped wood rail and put the metal skid rail on the wood and used a few holes in the metal to guide us where to fasten down the wood to hull without having to fill holes in wood after the glue and fillets dried. We also got the rudder blade installed into the rudder head temporarily and determined the tiller should have the capability to swing up on a pivot bolt and probably also be pinned down as well. We also built our tiller spacer blocks. Decided, being lazy and not wanting to take off rudder, there should be a hole aft on the blade for a line to hold the blade up during trailer transport. It was decided the tabernacles should be fiberglassed completely so that project was started. In addition the mast tubes were laid out and the detail sheet stared at for about an hour trying to figure out why I had left over tube parts. Sigh. They are the bow sprits--duh. We also evaluated my current trailer and determined it was useable for this boat with some easy mods and added rollers. If these pics work today I will take pics in the morning of todays efforts and then pics tomorrow after day is done and be back on track for posting pics concurrently with posts.

Oh, Chick, you always have some nice thing, encouraging thing to say. Thank you.

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