Mike Pennington

Oh what the heck one more pic to prove the dang thing works. I saw a pic of a cool cutter Weekended a few months back. Does anyone own up to it, or know of anyone else who has rigged the self furler? :roll:

I have forgotten Too! 16 or 18 inchs, I think. I have lots of head room in the cockpit, it worked real well last year. The sprit is about a foot longer, I'll measure tomorrow, before I start on the clubfoot. Yeah, Cutter, I like the sound of that! I have been dreaming about it for awhile now, but it just hit me. CUTTER! WOW! I be tickled! Two good friends, wooden boat fanatics and curagous sailers, I might add, are going to test sail the Wolf next wensday on Big Lake, Alaska. I am going to have to install some fair leads some where, the lines are multipling like rabbits.

Here is a pic of the sail rolled out almost all the way. The sail is 16 feet at the outer forstay, the total length of the forestay is 20 feet. I messed up on cutting the foot of the sail, I should have cut it after it was in place on the boat. The Furler does work well, though I am spoiled, I have used the real thing and the manual on is not the same. But with a little practice and crew to help out it should be fun. I am going to use the club foot for the inner jib, I should have it mounted tomorrow as well.

A little Tinkering, a lot of saying;"HUH?" and I think I got the self furler thinky whooped. :roll: Tomorrow I am going to move the inner forestay back about a 8 to 12 inches. Depending on the club foot and the room between the sail and mast. This should give my outer jib sheat line more clearance. I am probably going to make another attempt at making a bigger sail with the clew a little lower and foot of the sail about two feet lower. I will see how this one works next week, I might like the foot of the sail up high so I can see ahead. :idea:

I think this is a bit more than 128% After I rig the sail from the new forstay I'll trim to fit. I have been looking over the plans for the manual self furler, I'll try fabricating one tomorrow morning. If this works well, I'll try Dacron. One things for sure, my blue tarp sail's not no Paul J. I have some blue or red duct tape to do the edges, hopefully it hols together to test it out this May 7th.

Boohoo! I couldn't get into the site to check out your progress, John. I'll try again when I get home. The Bar-Ox paint goes on very smooth and lays out flat on its own. Drys pretty fast, too. Besides being environmentally friendly. It can really soak into the wood, and true the lighter color's don't hide the grain to well on my interior either. I have not yet applied an outer paint, and here it is my third season coming up. :oops: I recently purchased some paint from home depot and painted my drift boat DARK BLUE. I was very impressed with this paint it bonded well over the bar-ox primer, so I will be using more on my Vacationer here very soon. Yes it is true oops! is no longer safety orange! No more pumpkin boat. Only two good things about a bright orange boat, every body see's you coming, and the big jet boats slow way down because they think I am a Fish and Game Officer.

I have been storing my anchor in the cockpit, too. Simply because of the easy ability to deploy the dang thing while single handing the Vacationer. My other reason of coarse is I don't like a smelly cabin and I like to keep the forepeak dry and clean for those tons of other goodies. I have read on previous post that some builders have built a separate box beneath the forward hatch, sealed to keep from leaking below. I believe they used a plastic wash tub to contain most of the mess.

Craig, I'll see what I can come up with Craig. The weather has been great this past week, 62 degrees to day. I hope to make my trial jib monday or tuesday to have for my May sail on Big Lake. I am taking out some old friends I use to charter sail with. I hope to barrow a GPS from another friend to get numbers. I have left the stay for my Paul J jib, and mounted a new stay forward on my extended sprit. I really should make that self furler, for safety's sake, there is know way I could reach out far enough to secure the new foresail. Well maybe if I made some kind of a causeway out to the end of the sprit or get around to making those trail boards.

Dang Ray, Thats the first pic I have seen of the interior of your boat, very nice.

Show us a pic when you get time, Ed, Please.

Roger Fletcher, of Rivers Touch, featured in the Wooden Boat mag, awhile back, is a real traditionalist. He would probably keel over with a stroke if he saw how I modified his drift boat plans. But the modified stern was beefed up to take the 35hp Evenrude. A little trip down the Chena R. to the Tannana R. and then down to the Yukon R. is what this boat was designed for. But she can come back up river with the motor no roads to trailer back.

Welcome Jim, Sorry, I am late giving you a welcoming Howdy, I am having computer Whoas, and can only post at work for now. About time I meet another driftboat builder, again welcome! This is my third boat I built, while under construction, she is a 18' Rogue River Dory, plans from Fletcher at Rivers Touch. I have been thinking of building some smaller ones :roll: but I already have to many oars in the water and only two arms to row with.

I have two flags I fly off the end of the gaff, this one and a smaller one when the winds light or when I am running down a scurvy jet ski, less drag. I fly the big one out front of the house from the gaff, just for the fly boys langing at the base.

What is a solar vent, ED? :?: Oh boy, am I in for it now?

Craig, Good news, I had no worry your ballast modification would not work. I can't wait to find some other weigt besides my tool box :roll: I raised my mast last summer, and the head room was very welcome, a big difference. Today I hope to get some measurements for my larger jib, I am going to make a tarp one before trying to sew a dacron one from Jo's generous offer of material. I'll also have to haul out that copy of the web site that had the plans for a homemade self furler. I am glad to here your on the water, I hope to be on a big puddle soon myself. Well I got to go tend to my sick son, I think he picked up a good dose of Samonilla gardnerella, food poisoning. I'll be back on the forum later.

My rudder box is barely in the water on the Vacationer. And when I put that battery up forward and other trim ballast it may not be in the water at all. :roll: Last summer on Lake Paxson, a high mountain lake I sail, I was watching the turbulence coming off the rudder in fairly calm water. These boats really move in calm water going down wind by the way(FYI) if you don't have your own to play with, yet. Near evening the mosquitos were getting thick, and the DEET came out. But I needn't have worried my boat is the ultimate mosquito killer :evilbat: And that is about the size of them too. The mosquitos for some reason, I don't pretend to be the Bio Guy, so I can't explain this, but anyway the dang things kept zooming in following the trail of turbulence, like I was the stern of an aircraft carrier. A floating landing field they were flying short of because they would land in the water and get bogged down. It was almost like watch flys attracted to a light bulb they were so attracted to that one spot on the water off the rudder box. Then the small fish would come up and nail them for dinner. This year I am going to try fishing more :wink:

Yep! I live on the other side of the river from Fort Richardson, but I am in line with the major aproach and runway. I 'll give you a picture as soon as I figure out why I can't hook up any of my peripherals. Printer, camera and scanner, I have not been able to connect since my problem with the power source. I am not sure whats going on yet. I thought there use to be a USB Icon in my control panel, but can't remember for sure, not one there now though. I checked the USB drivers in System an the box says their working. I'll have to call the computer guys tomorrow to see if somethings turned off some where. The install hard ware wizard can't locate any of my stuff. :oops: I hate being half bottomed! :wink:

I got ambitious today and pulled the tarps off the Wolf. I was a bit worried, wondering how our Alaskan weather had treated my Vacationer. The past winter I kept her in my barn, 300 miles south of here, but due to vandels raiding from the city, I kept my baby closer to my current residence. :2gunfire: The boat did okay, no ice damage that I can find, maybe some touch up paint though. Raised the mast, and I'm flying the flag again, the boys from the base give me a little wag as they fly in to land. I have been feeling a little left out while you southern builders have been having all the fun. But now I'm OKAY! :roll:

Okay, I am back, traumatized, frazzled and ready to go back to working with wood. :roll: I don't know, the owner of Two Geeks, Randy, told me that yes when my power source went bad it could have done all kinds of damage, being I was using the computer when it happened. No explanation why, they did replace free of charge and yes my friends I do have a surge protector. Who knows, S--- Happens! :2gunfire: I have been known to shoot alarm clocks, still to chicken and cheep to shoot this comp though! I haven't checked to see if I can get e-mail yet. But I did have all my Word Perfect files backed up, and I am not crying about that!!! Could have been worse. Thanks for all the help, suggestions and Humor, the most important for stress relief when the lakes are still froze. :wink: Well I'll be back later, I still may have lost my digital photo files, I got to go find out.

Okay, Yep I think I got all that! I will copy before I go home, so I will have a hint when I actually start to figure the computer out. Two Geeks computers of Fairbanks assembled my computer 2 years ago, their warranty is for three years parts and labor, but tech support is not warrantied. Yes, the power supply, should not effect the resister, thats why I am suspicious. I will try some of the things you all have out lined for me this morning after work. One suggestion was to see if they changed the drive priorities on me, under the system boot up. Dang I know I am using the wrong words here. Kind of like the thingie on the watcha macallit, you know what I mean? Thanks Guys, I'll be in touch soon hopefully, three days off with out internet will be a drag, so I better figure this one out soon.

Oh Yeah! I was excused once for being a Hostile Jurior. I call them the way I see them, and not to many get away either. :roll:

Nice Link Mike! I need a set of Nine footers for the Vacationer, my Eight footers are not big enough. Hopefully, I can try making my own some fine day. The least expensive 9' oars where $130 a piece, and thats cheep after looking around the internet. Mike

Some day, I would like one of them thingies too. Just to plot my speed, no other real need or purpose. Though like all gadgets, once I become familiar with them, I seem to find all kinds of things to use them for. Nice informative post.

Derek, Nice Pic, I see the join, but I still don't understand how or what tool you used to do the job. More pics Please! The join of the cable is what has kept me from using beads previously. Mike

I burned up the power supply last friday in my home computer. Comp under warranty, so I lucked out there. But they wanted to charge me $120 to reprogram the dang thing, well I made a back up start up disc back when I purchased my last anti virus program. Norton. So I thought I could handle rebooting the system. No such luck! I am using Windows 98, and when I turn the comp on it tells me I am having a Windows registry error. I can start up in Safe Mode, but my E and D drives are not turned on, so that I can not reprogram Windows. Of coarse windows is on a disc, so with out the disc drives enabled I am stuck. I don't know if any of this makes sense to any of you fine people, but if it sounds familiar from any personal experience please sound off. These comp Geeks I bought my computer from, have got me twice now on reprograming my computer, and I am some what suspicious if I have been set up. I don't mean to slander these guys, but they sold me a three year parts and labor warranty. Their part goes bad, but I got to pay to have my system rebooted due to their bad part. I am not sure if this business practice is par every where, so I am wondering if The Cabby is taking me the long way home?