PadrePoint

An approach to tents and dinghy cruising.

Thanks for the photos, Richard. It’s fun to see some of the things that go into the CS17m3 build… and a LOT more fun for me not to be doing it.

Steve, I likely asked you before… what works well for the poles? I might cannibalize an old tent for the poles but maybe there are some better options.

Ah, Don, THAT’s where you got that photo you showed me tonight at your patio table. (We enjoyed the conversation.) The B&B mast float kit I made for Norma T… I named it Bruce after my deceased brother… a nice addition to the boat I named after my mom.

Wow… a lot more needed to be employed than when I asked a neighbor family on their evening walk to help me flip my two builds (Core Sound 15 and 15 foot ski boat.) Simple grunting and some muscling did it just fine… a reason I enjoy the small boat approach. That is quite a project you are doing… it looks great.

I used a round rasp on my drill to grind out enough material out of both bolt holes on either side of the aluminum tube to clear the bolt when swinging the bottom of the mast into place. I also positioned and firmed up the bolt placement in the tabernacle, bolt head and washer in the cabin and a nut in a recessed hole to make the bolt rigid (I also set it with a very slight angle upward, as I recall, since the bottom section of the mast swings into position with an arc movement.) When I bought my boat I think the builder used a system of raising the mast, sliding the bolt through the holes in the mast from the anchor well and through the hole in the tabernacle so that the bolt entered the cabin area. That required somehow holding the raised mast upright and climbing into the cabin to attach the nut from inside (I found that the bolt could unfortunately turn when firming up the nut.) I prefer to have the bolt protruding forward, raising the mast such that the bolt (firmly anchored to the tabernacle structure) goes through the holes in the mast as it reaches the raised position, letting me then screw on the nut from the anchor well (the nut is in a good sized knob which makes tightening easy)… which is the process I think I see in the photo above. To make it work I had to increase the vertical size of the holes with my drill rasp. My boat is in storage now so I can’t get to it for photos. My method works well for me… I stand on the trailer tongue (and on the spare tire I have mounted to the tongue) that gets me high enough to use my weight to press down firmly on the bottom of the mast to raise it, while also pulling on the snotter line to help pull the mast up. The bolt slides right into the holes in the mast and, while holding the mast up by the snotter lines with one hand, I attach the nut. I do the same mast raising process on the CS15 (which is easier to raise up than the heavier my CS17.) I demo what I do at minute 4 of the first video on this webpage: https://bandbyachtdesigns.com/cs15

Interesting. It looks like the centerboard trunk goes through the bottom of the boat and is to be trimmed to the bottom ply.

Wow!!! Glad to hear this. Great effort, Andy. (I’m traveling with my wife on a 50th anniversary trip in September.)

Some More Exploring of Lake Possibilities I was in the mood to take a drive today. The sky was clear, the sun was bright, late February temperatures were in the low 60’s… not typical in Wisconsin. I decided to take a look at another lake of the Wisconsin River: Castle Rock Lake, just south of Petenwell, (Petenwell is the second largest lake in Wisconsin.) I especially wanted to check out some boat launches. That provided my excuse for taking an afternoon drive. Castle Rock Lake is roughly 11 miles long and over 4 miles wide… 26 square miles and about 60% the size of the larger Petenwell. It looks like it could be a bit busy in summer, but with its size there is plenty of room for sailing and camping. I will try to sail on Castle Rock Lake as early as I can… sometime in May (I’ll be traveling nearly all of June.) I look forward to experiencing it; it looks beautiful. I enjoyed my drive today. I went on a number of roads I’d never been on before, drove through a state park I didn’t know about, and saw some of the lake I’d not seen before. I noticed on Google Maps a parking area for a trail called Big Hill Trail. It’s located on the most northern end of the lake, just south of the highway bridge between the Petenwell and Castle Rock lakes. I decided to stop and check it out. This region of Wisconsin is at the south edge of the Laurentide Ice Sheet whose meltwaters dramatically shaped the land some 10,000 years ago. The area has a number of “castle” shaped rock formations left by the enormous erosion of the glacial meltwaters. The Big Hill is one of those formations. I had the wrong shoes for hiking, especially on a sandy slope so I only hiked up to the bottom of the rock formation. I did not know it was there, even though I have driven by it many times when I worked west of this area. Here are a couple photos I took on the trail (the rock hill peeks out of the trees in the center of the photo.) I shall explore the trail more another day. Near the north end of Castle Rock Lake is a boat landing so I stopped to check it out. The water level is drawn down several feet on the Wisconsin River flowages and lakes during the first three months of the year to prepare for the springtime snowmelt, which will not be very dramatic this year. One can see the sand “islands” with stumps on the other side of this narrow part of the lake. The pile of buoys will be placed to mark the river channel. At another boat launch the “beach” illustrates the water drawdown. That is all the photos I took today. I’m not sure which Castle Rock Lake boat launches provide parking for overnight sail-camping. I think further roadtrip exploring of the lake is needed… and it’s a reason for a nice motorcycle ride this spring. I saw a few motorcycles today with temps in the sixties, but I’ll wait a while.

Planning Some Sailing Adventures for 2024 I made a resolution in January 2024 to sail on the lakes that are part of the Wisconsin River during the upcoming season. I hope to overnight on a lot of these little ventures. Looking at Google Maps has helped me figure out what lakes there are along the river; most are formed by hydroelectric dams. Most look like they will be interesting to experience, some… maybe not. I think this will be a fun challenge for this coming sailing season. I’ve sailed a lot in the past couple years on Lake DuBay near Mosinee and on the Stevens Point flowage near my home. I’ve ventured only once onto Lake Petenwell. I likely will not develop a schedule, but more likely will be more spontaneous, with an eye on weather forecasts. I’ll announce the intended sailing ventures on Facebook posts if people have an interest in joining in. When returning this week from a day of skiing in the U.P, I had a couple hours to kill so I ventured a bit into the Northwoods to check out some targets. My first stop was a boat launch on the Rainbow Reservoir. I’d never seen the lake… it looks inviting… when it melts. I think I can park overnight at the boat launch… no signs were seen restricting that. Ice fishermen are just left of the island in the above photo… here’s a closeup: My next lake to check out was Tomahawk Lake. It isn’t part of the Wisconsin River but is just two miles west of the river. I suspect the water of the lake eventually ends up in the Wisconsin River. I think it’s worth exploring. There is a good boat launch in the tiny town of Lake Tomahawk. I realized that Tomahawk Lake is part of a good sized chain of lakes, including Minaqua Lake. There is a “Throughfare” channel between the lakes with a bridge. I could lower the masts… or use my ski boat instead to explore this popular chain of lakes. My next stop was to look again at a lake (or flowage) that has a lot boat campsites. I drove by this boat launch last fall. This lake/flowage is west of the Wisconsin River but eventually flows into it via the Willow River: Again, it provides a very nice boat launch and large parking area, with no signs prohibiting overnight parking. So that’s my research so far.

Or sometimes buy from the boat’s builder.

Looking good, Don. A lot is accomplished.

Avocet is locked away for another 2 1/2 months. One of these knots on the second reef started loosening and I’ll need to fix it… by learning how Don made them. They seem effective and I’m sure my fiddling around loosened them a bit. Instead of bunching up the reef lines to secure them to the sprits I added some hardware that that works for me for a quick deployment and storage. I can’t get to them for photos until it comes out of storage.

I just realized that a lengthy and clear thread from Alan was not linked to in this thread regarding a centerboard modification to the older Mark 3 boats: Steve built a beautiful CS20m3 and decided to modify his centerboard trunk. He covers his work starting around page 43 in his massive boat thread:

Nice looking project, Don. And I love how you call forth the kid assistance. As they say, measure once; cut twice; still too short. Oh, and I don’t need to cut the legs down on the little dining table for my daughter’s Boston Terrier. (Helps with choking issues.)

Progress is being made. It looks larger than I thought. My pathetic project of the day… My daughter wants a little table for her little Boston Terrier (she chokes on her food sometimes.) What we do for pets, right? I know it isn’t a boat project… but it DOES float. Actually, I also began making a boarding platform for my ski boat.

Andy, you get snow where you are? Ditto on the 2.3 Honda. Might be one of the most efficient outboards. I’ve liked using this can for both my Honda 2.3 and 5 outboards; both have small internal tanks. I found this gas can easy to use. With this push-button nozzle on a smaller gas can (2 1/2 gallons) I’m able to refill the motor even when the boat is bouncing around in waves. I’ve been less than fully successful (missing the the filler neck opening, overfilling) with my fuel bottles and have better results it’s these.

Lazarette: CS17.3 Avocet has a non-sealing hatch door… CS15 Norma T has only an opening. Store stuff that can get wet. From what I can tell an opening on the forward side would be above water if the boat is on its side in a capsize.

Glad to see the building partner. Without a rigid building form, how would one get this completely accurate?

You might enjoy being able to use another sail on your boat… or perhaps, make available both a jib and staysail??? It could turn a boring low-wind day into some interesting activity, trying to keep everything in order while singlehandedly sailing… and kids or guests that might be with you could be given some responsibility in managing extra sails. Thinking about your wondering prompted in me more stuff to ponder. And, yes, Don, I think adding a (removable?) bowsprit might be a fun addition for you. I needed to get some idea of what “code zero” means. With quick on-line research, I now have at least a rudimentary notion of what it is. I played around with my 3 freebie sails late last season… seeing how they might be used as a staysail. I had some success with my staysail experiments and thought it added some power. I will keep playing with the extra sails next season. While I packed up the extra sails for winter it occurred to me that the staysail situation might be improved if I ran a rope down the hem in the luff of the sail I’m using as a staysail, maybe a 3/8th or half inch line. That might stiffen the luff and help keep it from collapsing as the boat gets closer to the wind. The first thing I saw in my bit of code zero research above kinda supports my idea… maybe… I also tried using the small sail as a jib on my CS17.3. My idea was to use the anchor bow sprit (yours, Don ) as a point to secure the tack, raising the jib with an extra halyard. In my first try, I got the jib to fill with air, but right away I experienced the issue of bringing the jib to the other side in a tacking maneuver… the sail would get hopelessly stuck on the main sprit that extends well beyond the main mast. While thinking about this, after reading your post about the bow “potato cannon” , an idea occurred to me. What if the “loose” jib sheet goes FORWARD of (and around) the jib luff? Might it then be able to curl the jib forward and around the luff past the main sprit to the other side when tacking? This would also pull the other “loose” jib sheet in a similar manner for the next tack. This wouldn’t be the normal way to run jib sheets, and the inactive jib sheet would go around the luff and down the back side of the jib sail… but, that approach might keep the jib from getting stuck by the main sprit. Hmmm… something to remember and try next year. My primary boat project this winter is to create a transom boarding platform (for the ski boat in my garage) on which I can mount a boarding ladder.

Popped on on my Facebook Memory today… a good memory. An edit: This is a similar “2 years ago” photo that just popped up on my phone… while we are getting things ready for the family Thanksgiving dinner… another reason for me to be thankful: a skilled builder made this great CS17.3 available to me and my family. (In this photo my son and I figured out how to get the sails up for the first time… just before we put things away again and moved Avocet up the street for six months of winter storage.)

This looks like great craftsmanship.

It’s my way of dealing with some guilt that I bought Avocet away from you guys. I realize my posts can be wordy and a little inane. I shall try to not hijack your thread. I do look forward to seeing anything you post about your project. Perhaps when finished we can get our two “birds” together for some “water-flying”.

I gave Eloise about 3/4 of a mason jar of white paint, a stirring stick, an open can of red (both Interlux Brightsides… which has worked well for me, always on top of Interlux primer for epoxy), and a spoon, being careful do not let the spoon touch the white paint… she just dumped it in and stirred with the stirring stick. She added and stirred until she got the shade she wanted. Rather subjective. Then she made the second batch. If doing this for a larger boat, I would suggest more care with creating a mix in case several coats or batches are needed. Perhaps first make a small amount of a desired mix, carefully tracking the amount added to the carefully measured base amount that establishes a suitable ratio and shade. Eloise did a couple coats and I think she made enough of each shade for the full job (one for the inside; one for the outside.) My sense is that a little red went a long way with the white in making pink. It’s harder to lighten red; the red acted like a coloring pigment. We experimented with very small amounts first. Looking at the bottom photo one can see the kind of ratio she used in one of her pinks. This is page five of her build blog where she starts painting:

Another Pink B&B Build This is the Spindrift 10 I helped my neighbor build when she was in 9th grade. Pink is her favorite color, so her boat is… of course… pink. We couldn’t find pink boat paint so we used my red and white Interlux Brightsides from my own boat builds, mixing them to make two shades: the inside pink is “whiter” than the more “robust” pink for the hull’s outside. She hoped to obtain a pink sail, but Alan was quite accommodating by getting pink numbers and insignia onto the sail, a first for the B&B shop. This is The Weezer with her dad this past summer: And Richard, my wife is getting to be more and more comfortable with Avocet as I gain more sailing experience. She is quite fond of my CS15 Norma T that I built from a full kit in 2020 and will even take the controls sometimes. Perhaps more comfort and increased participation will occur next season (in both boats.) This is a little video my phone produced in August when Don Silsbe and his wife were guests at our home. Don and I did not have much wind available but it was fun to have both boats sailing together. BTW, I was playing around with a jib sail someone gave me… attempting to rig it as a staysail. It seemed to provide a small boost.