Steve W

Nice write-up Pete. Sorry about the weather.

Thrillsbe, looking great. I may retrofit the Suzy J with the new joining hardware. Looks pretty slick. A t trick for the next person.....They sell craft foam at michaels that is about the same as the kerf on a handsaw. It supports the bulkhead gap but can be cut like butter when doing the magician's trick.

Jay, the short time I had it on was proof it was a good addition. Dumb mistake! But the new one will be better.

Well, after fooling around and all your encouragement (just joking....but the silence was helpful), I decided to build a new tabernacle and get it positioned right. I figure if Randy can go from a sloop to a Cat-Ketch this should be easy. Sucks because it's a week setback to launch, which now mean probably June.

So I leaned in shop class the difference between a good engineer and a great engineer is how you recover from a mistake, because I was told in school we would make mistakes. Bottom line is I glued my mizzen tabernacle improperly. Alan sent me plans and a drawing. I got everything right in construction, but when I glued in the mast step, somehow I had the mizzen tabernacle tipped parallel to the front tabernacle (it's perfectly wrong), without taking into consideration the radius-ed block that supports the base of the main mast. So my masts aren't perfectly parallel. Last night I contemplated my options. The unfortunate part is the tabernacle is perfectly glued into the step and I think it would be difficult to remove and I've ruled that out. I think my best repair is to move the pivot hole back about 5/8" which is how much it is off. To do this I'll have to either fill and re-drill (simple), but this thins the support aft of the bolt It's built up on the inside with a lot of glass, but the outside only has a couple of layers. Choices include making an aluminum gusset to strengthen this area (easy) or scabbing on a bit of fir and re glassing, re-drilling, etc (harder but would possibly look better). I think both would be just as strong. Any thoughts? Steve

Both Amos and I used the same swim ladder in our 20.3s. Pics below.I did see that Doug Cameron used the ladder you are showing, but I have a rope ladder on my sea pearl and it is not easy to use even for kids. The downside to the reverse transoms is a wedge needs to be made. Amos made a nice one out of wood and my son 3d printed mine.

Great Post. Love that you are keeping a log. I didn't. The hours added up. I'd get the motor you want and figure it out before commitment. There isn't much room for error there.

That looks awesome. I really like those rounded fronts. I think I'm going to steal this for Skeena.

Pete, many of our friends have expressed "You have cats?" Same deal. Very skittish. If all goes well you will see her twice in October. Once at the MASCF and once at the Messabout.

I've made major progress since the last post and I'm close to launch. Pluss "Jazz Hands" officially has a new name. It's a bit of story, but I'm not making you read this......so here goes. 14 years ago I relented and got my daughter two cats. We went to a neighbors barn, overrun by feral cats and found two females that looked to be about 7 or 8 weeks old and brought them home. Very entertaining these two were. Bootsy was the dominate one, a great hunter and general tough cat. Skeena was supposed to be "Christina" but my youngest couldn't say it and would call her "Skeena" and it stuck. She was skittish, one day loving and the next day giving you that look like she had never seen us before. She sometimes would disappear for many days and I'd fear a hawk or fox had got her, and then she would show up, covered in burrs and ticks. We would hold her and pluck them off her and she would then stay for a month or so and then pull the same stunt again. She was always thin and smallish. In the winter she would wait at the door, and head out and then come back after ten minutes and then give us that look like "Why did you let me out in the first place?" I'd play my guitar and she would head butt me relentlessly. Did I mention as cat's go, she was beautiful. She tolerated our dogs even though you could tell she didn't have much respect for the tricks they did just to get a treat. After she was about 10, she started to transition into more of a house cat. Helen had developed allergies for her but she still let Skeena stay in her room each night. Skeena would be lay on her head and they would sleep. When Helen went off to college three years ago, she would still stay in her room, coming out during the day to grace us with her presence. I'd never been a cat person, but she just grew on me. A couple of weeks ago when Helen was home on break, she told me Skeena seemed thin, but I didn't think much of it, because she had always been scrawny. But the day after Helen went back to school, I picked her up and she was clearly very thin under that beautiful fur. Suzanne and I took her to the vet and they gave an ultrasound and she had many tumors and you could see that she was in trouble. Steroids were prescribed to give her some weight gain, but that was all they could do. This past Thursday when i got up she couldn't get up on the couch when I played guitar without me lifting her, but when I did she went through her usual routine, head butting me until I just layed on the couch and let her lay on my chest and play. After I went to work Suzanne said she layed in a sunbeam on the rug, walked by the dogs and actually acknowledged them. She went outside and stayed out for 20 minutes and then came in and retired to Helen's room. That night when we checked in on her she had passed. She just crawled into a cozy spot and looked like she passed without distress. I didn't realize how much she meant to me (yes I cried). We decided not to call Helen as she had two finals the next day at school. We decided to go visit Helen in person that night and tell her. I googled "Skeena" and besides being a river in Canada, the Urban dictionary had this to say: skeena back-up; "i've got your back." when you're a gangster and some jerk is going to jump you, you ask your closest gangster friends for some skeena and then they jump in to assist with the butt kicking. I laughed as read this as she was really Helen's sidekick. And I thought that sound like what you want in a boat. Something that has your back. We've bought a new camper and I can see the Core Sound won't have my wife aboard much ( I love her, but she doesn't have the water gene) so changing the name didn't seem like a big deal. And being the boat is grey like Skeena it all made sense. Here when I am really close to launch a Cat-Ketch, the name just shows up. I made a card for Helen with the urban dictionary definition and a picture of the Core sound line drawing and the word Skeena displayed with the same cat paw as I have on Wildcat, my Sea Pearl. Suzanne and I had a big dinner with Helen. There were tears and stories and a bottle of wine (Strange when your little child is 21). When we got to the realization that we were all just lucky to have her for 14 years, I gave her the card. She was so excited about the legacy of Skeena living on. So there you have it. And here is Skeena today: The spirit of Skeena lives on. Windows are in. The hatch will be on tomorrow. Masts and Spirits are done. There is work for sure, but I can see launch is closing in. I'm taking this Friday off and I'll have three full days to focus this weekend!

When I did mine, I just wet the edge of the bulkhead with epoxy and then filleted them after. And there were times I didn't even do this. You are going to glass tape these joints essentially sealing them good from the elements. BTW, looking good!

What Amos said.

When I was at the Messabout, the trailer I liked best was Michael's. It was the lowest to the ground and the simplicity of the wide bunk boards supporting the swing keel made sense. You can see the dent where his board was resting on the left bunk board. I don't see why the keel would be stronger than the vertical bulkheads directly above these bunk boards, although I wouldn't hesitate to rest it on the keel. I thought because it was so narrow in support it would be "tippy" but it wasn't. Being that I am mostly in fresh water, I find dipping the trailer to not be a problem, whereas I can see if I was in salt water how the keel roller would make sense. Is there anything I'm not seeing?

Fiberglass J channel is for sissies. Just joking. I just looked at the updated plans to see what you were speaking about. Nice change. On my deathbed I'm going to want to get back the "inverted wet ribbon toss" (Is that right Jay?) of the old way.

The problem is that you put the mark in as your way-point. If you have an instrument with apparent wind, eyeball in a waypoint a few miles upwind of your mark. This assumes your mark is directly upwind. Adjust as necessary. This is difficult on our small boats with a crew of one. Some chart-plotters make this easier than others. On my hand held Garmin, I just have a lot of way-points entered to pick from. Once you figure a good tacking angle, and get used to the adjustments needed for wave size, the dependency on it goes down. Dave is correct in that the VMG function on your GPS isn't too sophisticated, but it can be very useful. I crewed on a 40' boat with a skipper that was always pinching. It was maddening. It was the VMG function on his chart-plotter that gave a few of us the data to show him fast......

Technically you are correct. Unfortunately, on modern (at least on two my Garmin) GPS if you pick a waypoint and then select VMG it gives you the speed to the mark with no regard to wind direction. Ironically, most of my testing has been to an upwind mark when beating, but it's also useful downwind.

VMG. Velocity made good. How fast you are getting towards your desired destination. Say you are doing 6 knots tacking upwind towards a destination. Your VMG would be far less. The higher you point the better it would be, but if you point so high your boat slows, your VMG suffers. In this case I believe downwind they couldn't go directly at the destination and gybing was costing them time.

Thanks! These things are really a nice setup in the boat. They sell just the brackets and I made the step. I wanted to be able to fold up the step for seating room below. I recessed the steps to fit two yeti Cups. Brackets are here: https://www.amazon.com/Garelick-EEz-Polished-Aluminum-Brackets/dp/B00JDAVLRO/ref=pd_sbs_468_2/145-5802875-8410231?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B079TKMPTR&pd_rd_r=09c64848-411c-11e9-8f93-33fde218e404&pd_rd_w=wiUkr&pd_rd_wg=FwrnK&pf_rd_p=588939de-d3f8-42f1-a3d8-d556eae5797d&pf_rd_r=CH1QBWQ3BPJHWA6WY4BB&refRID=CH1QBWQ3BPJHWA6WY4BB&th=1 Click on the folding bracket tab. Currently $39.20. Really sturdy.

I am completing my 20 and I really like Jay's setup. I'm kind of a luddite though so I am reluctant to put a bunch of permanent stuff in the boat. FWIW Jay is a helicopter mechanic and his boat is awesome. I plan on filling with a bucket after gravity does it's thing. As for emptying, I have what we refer to as a "pump stick". It's a 12V bilge pump on the end of a stick with a 12V cigarette lighter plug to get power from my battery. I plan on putting it into the half empty tank (that gravity thing again) and pumping the rest on a light wind day. I'm anxious to see what performance looks like full vs. empty. My water Balanced Sea Pearl is hardly affected either way. I'm likely to fill and just leave it until it's on the trailer.

Great to stop and smell the roses. Glad you are OK.

Masts almost ready for sail track. And cushions made! I have a friend who does upholstery and he put these cushions together for me. I made a filler that needs a cleat aft to hold the center cushion forward. On the forward end of the cushions is a velcro piece that holds the cushions together, hopefully preventing them from climbing the walls. They are 2" foam, and sure beat my thermarest on the floor of my Sea Pearl. That centerpiece makes a nice cushion leaning against the forward bulkhead. I decided to split the long cushions into two pieces. This should make handling them easier, and also give me 2 cushions that can be used as seat backs. To hold the aft part I made the major part of the cushions go under the deck a few inches. This should hold the aft part just fine. Here is the cushion in seat back position: You will notice that I didn't put shelves along the aft bulkheads yet. I wanted to get the cushions made first. It turns out I'm glad I waited. Putting two inch foam props me up a bit. But having this cushion gets me to a higher part of the cabin giving my 6' height just enough headroom. Graham told me the newer 20's have a higher cabin top which is good. But I'll want to be aft and so my bulkhead shelving won't go full width. Congrats to Alan and Paul. I'd like to see how they fair in there CS20.3's NExt year I have a work commitment in March, but my goal is to enter the 2021 EC God willing and the creek don't rise!

State Champ, Boys Combined Nordic Champ, Fastest leg of State Champ Relay Team, and his HS won the boys team title. Now I can get back to boats......

FWIW, I decided it would be easier to paint with the rails off. So they will be removable. I like the suggestion of screwing them from the underside and I think after looking that shouldn't be super hard. And I think drill and fill and using smaller (#6) screws shouldn't be too hard. Thank you for the suggestions. PS. At Gore Mountain in the lower Adirondacks to watch my son Teddy compete in the NYS Nordic Ski Championship. Crazy conditions.

Masts are coming along between the some time outs for life. I have a question though. I'm about to cut the teak cabin toe rail. Did you all drill and fill the screws or just drill pilots in the wood and caulk it all down and plug the holes?

This sounds promising Pete. I'm looking forward to your pictures. A simple to rig boat that launches fast gets used more.