Wommasehn

my motor is "only" the Spirit 1.0 without the "plus". Thats the 1000Wh battery. Besides in calms, I use it to get in and out of harbour/marina/port/dock - (what are the differences?) and I also see it as a safety-feature as it should get me out of danger if I can't make that by wind power. I've had such situations. That is one reason why I would'nt like to get it out of some compartment before using it, the other reason is the weight and the 3rd the difficulty of finding such a compartment on board of Muckla. So it is the bracket on the transom. The cable to the battery is no major problem so far. There is a hole in an inspection port in the cockpit-wall, through which the plug fits and to further close it off, I carved a groove in an champagne-cork. The cable fits in the groove and the cork fits in the hole. The champange disappeared somewhere.....

Thanks for reminding me. yes, its ready. All the edges cut and / or rounded over, some eposy-sculpturing at the new upper-forward end of the CB-trunk and the hanging knees and lots of sandig, varnishing, painting. Meanwhile, I could try it out on a 5 days-cruise on Lake Constance (together with the new electric OB). Was it worth all the work ? - its hard to say - but shurely, it is an improvement in usable space and in looks. I liked to wake up in the mornings under the freshly painted/varnished cabin roof and with a few centimetres more of space. I wonder if anyone can spot the differences between the before- and the after- pics.

The battery is the original (see pic from a sellers website ). 1000Wh, 46 V. The cable is a fancy thing with 8 pins and some electronic communication going on. As I know nothing about that, I rather bought the original. The solar panel seems only to charge it in full sunlight . You were asking about my boat. She is a Diabolo, a 6m centerboarder. I wrote an extensive description in my post „Reading sailing characteristics....“ (just in case you like to know more about her). The Epropulsions sound is a soft kind of humming, like a comforting „don’t worry, I’m here“

a tiller clutch????

Ok, its been a while now... At least I had a chance to try out the Epropulsion. As expected, it is quiet and powerful and good to maneuver. In other words, I am happy with it. As I didnt like the idea of having the weight of the battery so far aft and so high up I bought a 2 metre (fairly expensive) extension cable and stowed the battery under the side deck. This left the battery-holding-bracket bare and funny looking. I fashioned a wooden cap which also serves as a handle. I also had to make some modifications to fit it to the geometry of my particular boat. I have to tilt it up/down plus swing the bracket up/down. Charging is done by shore power, or by solar panel or from the 12V-battery, so there are several options. If there is neither sunshine nor a socket at the jetty, I can stow the battery in my rucksack and carry it to some socket. It weighs about 10 kgs. The solar panel works only in bright sunshine. I measure speed by the GPs in my mobile phone, which is a bit fickle, so I got differing readings on max speed. It seems to be around 5 kts, which is clearly sufficient for me. Strange is that the 1000W Epropulsion is declared as equivalent to a 3 HP petrol-OB, but the max speed is significantly less as that of the 2,3 HP Honda, which pushed her to over 6 kts. I rarely drove it full throttle, because it was so loud. My normal travelling speed with the Honda was around 4,5 kts. At that speed, the Epropulsion gives me a range of around 90 minutes or so. Of course, going slower extends the range dramatically. I nowhere found an note about the prop's pitch. Can anybody tell me, how I might measure it from the prop - just for curiosity.

When I introduced myself here, I said that I was planning to build a Coresound 20#3. Meanwhile, I have ditched - or at least postponed this plan and decided to rather improve my existing boat, a Diabolo named Muckla. Even taking on some tasks, that previously seemed too much work for me, would mean only a small fraction of the time and energy and money that a new build would take. As there were no major damages to fix, I thougti, I might tackle on some improvements. One of the few things, I don't like about Muckla, is the very small cabin with lots of corners and edges where I use to bump my head, shoulders, knees, ankles and so on. I found several of these corners and edges that could be taken away or at least softened. The side deck protrudes inside the cabin to form a handy window-sill with a coaming. Under this sill , there is the carling, which here does'nt have to be that hefty, but is heftily in the way. My first major task was to saw and plane away about an inch of this beam. An inch seemes a little gain - but it means a significant percentage of usable space. And there are the hanging knees that form a part of the mast-supporting frame. I dared to make these a bit narrower. On the first picture, you see the original status on the left and the narrowed version of knee and carling on the right. Down in the middle you see the forward end of the CB-trunk. I found out, that the most disturbing part of it is unnecessary too and I made the top-forward end shorter, narrower and rounder.(2nd /3rd / 4th pic). Another inch gained on each side and 2 forward. Unfortunately, after opening the CB-trunk, I found the serious damage, that I had missed before: the CB-uphaul somehow had caused a split in the CB includig a bulge on the CBs side. As taking out the CB is a really nasty task - and putting it back in es even worse , I decidet to repair it in situ. After cleaning out the debris inside the crack, I filled it first with neat, then with thickened epoxy and put a double piece of glass-tape over it, then sanded away the lateral bulge with angle grinder and sanding disk and epoxied over. Hope, that will do. (last pictures) I could'nt find out yet, how to insert photos inside the text, so I put them all at the end.

I may be a bit late for a contribution here but I had the same problem a few years ago. It turned out hat the shackles, which attach the sail to the slide, slid inside the slides eye to windward, thus gaining some leverage, which caused the break. As I had problems back then to buy replacement slides, I made one - to have at least the most important one - from aluminium. Later, I fashioned thin bolts going across the shackles that prevent the shackle from slidig too far. No breakage since then.

Meanwhile I have bought an Epropulsion spirit 1.0. I couldn’t try it out yet but it seems to have similar performance data to the Torqueedo 1003c except for the noise and it is considerably cheaper than the Torq. 1103c. See how it behaves. The battery can be connected by an extension so that its weight can be put in a less disturbing place

Hi Chick, I'm so glad, that youre posting again some build. Really looking forward for the next steps and the finished boat. I missed your reports lately..... Go ahead! Tobias

There was talk about heavier ballasted CBs. My Diabolo("Muckla") has such a thing and I have experience with it. Originally it had 50 kgs of lead in the lower half, some time ago, I put in another lump of 10 kgs in so the whole thing weighs 75 kgs on land: 60 kgs of lead + 15of plywood and glassfibre. It is raised and lowered by a simple trailer-winch, that sits under the bridge-deck which is also the cockpit locker. It takes one hand and about 15 secs to get it completely up or down. So no great chore. Furthermore it has a downhaul (which I sometimes forget to uncleat.....), that prevents the CB from falling into the trunk, should she ever go turtle. The boat has some internal ballast too, about another 60 kgs, including ground tackle, battery and toolbox. Recently I have done a heeling test. I hauled her over to about 90 deg. It was really hard to get her on her to something like 60 deg., the rest was easier. When the mast was horizontal, I tied a bucket full of water to the top. It just held the mast down. The bucket contained 12 liters of water, so I guess, the righting force at the mast top was about 10 kgs. I had hoisted the furled Code0 to simulate the weight of the mainsail in addition to the furled jib. This made the test as realistic as it can be single handed. I assume, that, should she ever go close to 90 deg, I would lay on- or straddle the side and thus be somewhere close to the pivoting point. All in all, I am very happy with the ballasted CB - unless I have to take it out - or even worse: install it back again.

Thanks for sharing, Chick, nice writing - and nice pics as usual. I have bought an inflatable kayak meanwhile (sorry - I know, this is a boatbuilding forum - but anyway) in which I was paddling on a small river in northern Germany in our vacation. A cormorant swam before me and dived as I approached. Unfortunately he dived in the same direction as I was paddling. And so he was annoyed to see me even closer when he came to the surface again. This happened 3 or 4 times until he finally surfaced behind me and felt safe.

Thank you Frank for sharing this wonderful story - tear in my eye too Tobias

the same from me: Thank You, Paul for the story, that gives a lot to think about. This was propably one of the things no one expected to happen. So many stories start with "who would have thought....." Did the masts fill with water ? did you have any kind of flotation inside them? on my previous boat , a dinghy, I noticed a great difference between a mast with big holes and my later mast with only small ones. The latter slowed the turtling process down. Take care, all of you! Tobias

Done! Done is better than perfect as someone said on this forum. Muckla & I agree. The paint- and bedding-jobs may not be exeptionally pretty but its strong, its watertight and looks ok from a distance. 20 ft should be ok for a 20-footer, right? Unfortunately there is more to do than this repair - but we are getting closer to finally starting the sailing season. And that is good enough.

wow - thanks Chick. Great reading and wonderful pictures. Will there be a volume of your building-reports and another one of your cruising and philosophing stories?

Yes, I am one of those who can't open it. (the other reader)

Muckla is ill. Its fore-deck-rot. First thing I noticed was a crack in the paint. Strangely straigtht and strangely perpendicular to the center line. I removed the paint and found a glue-line where the front-piece had been joined to the main part of the fore deck - with no scarph, no butt-block and no glass cloth - but now rotten plywood around. Obviously this joint had losened and moisture got in. After some initial swearing, I thought of Chick's nice essay on "How good is good enough" and thought well - this is defenitely not good enough - what a sloppy workmanship! Then I remembered, that the boat including this joint is 25 years old and you might expect some age-related issues. Is 25 yrs good enough? - how bad do you have to make it that it might be called really bad? Meanwhile I raked, chiseled and sanded away the softish wood and 2 gaps opened, to port I found more rot and cleaned it out too. I considered a new piece of fore deck but then it seemed that a local repair would be easier. First I applied some wood preservative. As the underside of this part is not accessible I wondered how to make a stronger joint. I cut 2 plywood patches to fit under the gaps, drilled a hole in each one, fastened a string and inserted them under the deck. By pulling on the string, I turned them right side up and I could apply the pressure to glue them under the deck (Photo 2: dry-fit on port, inserting on starboard). The remaining cavity I closed by glass + epoxy. A missing small piece in the middle-carling (or is it deck-stringer?), I have filled with a dowel, wrapped in glass + epoxy. As I have a shortage of fillers, I used partly sanding-dust and partly wheat-flour (high- density-filler on the lower and more important parts). Seemes to work ok. There's something more: the forestay-fitting is reliably bolted to the carlings, just where the center- and the intermediate carlings meet (the light wood in the photo). But how is the center-carling attached to the stem ?? - I can't see it, I can't feel (or hear or smell) it - it's just not clear. So I decided to make some aditional fastening by drilling an oversized hole through the base-plate of the pullpit, through the deck, through the carling and into the stem. Then I cut a 8 mm threaded rod, filed some notches into it's lower part and epoxied it in. This will be very strong, I think. Having had a week off, I could work on the boat a few days in a row. Tomorrow I'm back to "real work" and the next boat-job will be sanding. What a great fun.......

Hi Charlie, welcome back - back being really well, I hope. I have read most of your posts and wondered why there were no new ones as I really liked them and learned a lot. Good luck Tobias

its winter-time again and the one or other maybe in need for something to watch. Has every- some- or anyone followed Leo's videos about his rebuild of Tally-ho? https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sampson+boat+co And has every- some- or anyone followed Jess and Chris through their voyage through the north west passage on Teleport ? http://yachtteleport.com/ (not sure if those links work - but you'll find it anyway. enjoy! Tobias

Thanks gyus for your replies! @ Meester: Speed of course is not my only criterion - but its important to me - and it is one of those which I can't judge by myself. @ Oyster: the ramp acually is'nt so good. It is in Friedrichshafen, Lake Constance. This is by far the largest body of water around here. It is very beautiful with scenic landscapes around, pretty towns and villages everywhere and lots of historic sites, litteraly starting from stone age. All this of course makes it a magnet for tourists, so at times it's quite crowded. If you really want a link:here it is: https://www.bodenseekreis.de/.? As for wooden power-boats: there are a few boatyards around .Here is a link to one of them: https://www.martin-yachten.de/yachtbau/motoryachten.html You asked for it.... Who said, he was a photo-addict?

Nice story, nice writing. Thanks Old Codger, thanks Chick!

Seems I get a second chance for my topic - this time even with pictures. Sometimes I dream about building and sailing a Core Sound 20#3. I love the looks of her, I love the idea of water ballast, I love having a mizzen and this size of cabin and more. But then : I love my existing boat too - and I wonder how the CS would sail in comparison to her. And I wonder how some people can read performance from the lines or pictures or data. So here are the basic informations about my boat: Her name is Muckla and she is a Diabolo, designed by Jüs Segger. A word about Jüs: he was trained as a boat-builder and became later an engeneer and yacht-designer, drawing and selling plans, mainly for plywood hard-chine-boats, aimed for the amateur-builder...... (anyone heared of a similar career??). The Diabolo is 20 ft long, has about 190 sqft of working sail area + lapper and/or spinnaker and/or code 0. She has a ballasted centerboard. The lead in the cb is 60 kgs + about 30 kgs of internal ballast + the heavy equipment in the bilge. This gives her a decent end-stability though I doubt if she would be self-righting if necessary. I rather not try. Initial stability is rather low so you can fine-trim her by moving your body. According to the previous owner she weighs about 600 kgs fully equpped. In about 4 bft on a beam-reach she starts semi-planing with speeds of around 7 kts (hull-speed is just under 6), in a f 5-6 she gets to full-planing. I have read up to 10 kts on the gps so far. So for her size she is quite fast and also well-mannered. Only when reaching in very gusty conditions, she gets a bit catty. So, all you knowledgable folks: if there was a race between a CS20#3 and a Diabolo - which one would be in front under which conditions - and: how do you know?? I hope, the data + pics give enough information. Looking forward very much to your thoughts & feelings, Tobias

I too enjoyed the video very much! Makes me feel like building my own boat even more - and at the same time it a bit scary: will I really be able to do all that? As for epoxy-cleaning: acetone is toxic and stinks, vinegar is non-toxic and stinks too. Will citric acid work?

Frank, this is a good opportunity to say thank you for all the work that keeps this forum going !

Hi Hirilonde, you got me - well almost: I did check out the B&B-designs and came to the conclusion that the CS 20/3 is my dream-boat . If & when I ‘ll actually build her is yet another question.