Spindrift 10N #1621 Build Log

[Don Silsbe]

Two coats of topcoat should do the trick.  Save the rest for touchup.  Oh.  And be sure to allow the paint to harden a week before using or messing with the boat.

 

She looks lovely!

[Bryan Rolfe]

Finally got the paint on the hull. It has taken 4 coats (albeit I'm thinning the paint 5%) so far, and I might do one more coat. Each coat was a little less than 200g + 100g A:B, so 300g  of paint. That's about 2.5 coats per can, if you can pour out the perfect amount of paint. I used left overs from each session on other boat projects (making some LiFePO4 boxes for the big boat). 

I think if I had used a primer it would have only taken 2-3 coats. The primer would have also revealed the defects without having to "waste" a coat of the paint. Instead, I painted directly on the glassed hull, and the first coat revealed quite a few pinholes that I went back around the boat and filled with the green fairing compound. Again, if I had a white fairing compound, I think fewer coats would have been need to full cover. 

 

We tried rolling and tipping, but the tipping honestly looked worse than just rolling the paint, maybe we need a different brush, or maybe the consistency of the paint wasn't right.

 

Here are some of the pin holes I later filled. Notably these are caused by poor application of peel ply.

 

First coat of paint barely covers, but starts to make the boat look alive.

 

After filling the holes, and adding 3 more coats, things are looking really good:

 

 

I'm not sure if I should just paint the gunwales, or epoxy seal them first like the rest of the wood on the boat. I'm pretty sure the paint will provide a good seal, but I would also hate to have rotting gunwales in a few years because I didn't take the time to epoxy coat them first. I guess we'll see. 

 

I'll use the left over paint, and another can I have coming, on the thwart, daggerboard and rudder. 

[Chris V]

@Bryan Rolfe how's the build coming? Hopefully you are off and sailing! Give us an update (bonus points for pics and videos!) and let us know how it's going.

[Bryan Rolfe]

This build has not been abandonned! However, we hauled out or big boat, our Westsail 32, for the first time, and in the process discovered some things that needed some serious attention. Our 1-week haul out plan turned into nearly 6 weeks. We replaced all our seacocks and thruhulls as well as added one for a water maker, removed over two decades of built up bottom paint down to the gelcoat, repair 80+ 1/2" deep blisters on the starboard side of the keel, re-fitted some rigging tangs, repainted our green stripe, re-did the name, and some other misc. items. I moved my home office onto the boat, and spent almost every waking our working on the boat, so no dinghy progress was made in that time. 

 

Right before she went back in the water:


However, now that that epic chore is over, I've been working on the dinghy again. This week I've added final coats of paint onto the boat, which includes getting the gunwales painted.

 

I've also been working on fairing and painting the rudder and dagger board (not shown). For the tiller, I decided to make an accent piece out of walnut and ash, rather than using the pine. It's not done, but I think I'm more or less satisfied.

 

I also was able to get the boom built. I didn't have any suitable 2x4s of clear fir, so I used two 1x4s glued together with their grains opposed. I figured this will probably result in a more dimensionally stable piece of timber anyway. Because the plans call for tapering in two axes, I did one with a jigsaw (the side) and cleaned it up with a hand plane, and the other axis I did just with a lot of planing. But because it's a pretty soft wood, this only took 30-45 min.

 

 

 

 

Oh! I almost forgot, I also sewed up the sail!

 

 

Next up:

• Get some epoxy coats coats on the boom
• Glue the rudder assembly up
• Paint the boom, rudder, and daggerboard
• Add grommets to the sail
• Varnish the seat and tiller
• Add the gudgeons
• Add the rigging hardware
•  

[Don Silsbe]

Bryan— Allow me to make a suggestion regarding the installation of your gudgeons.  I’ve created undue friction in mine because of misalignment.  The way to prevent this is in the order in which you install them.  I suggest:

1. Attach both pintles to the rudder.

2. Attach the top gudgeon to the transom.

3. Insert the rudder onto the top gudgeon.

4. Put the bottom gudgeon on the pintle to determine where to drill the gudgeon attachment holes.

5. Remove the rudder and attach the bottom gudgeon.

[Bryan Rolfe]

Coming in on the home stretch! 

 

Got most of the hardware installed. I still need to epoxy coat some of the holes for the fasteners and add the reefing block (but otherwise the boom is complete. For the cleats for the control lines, I ended up adding a piece of ply to provide more backing material for the screws. Haven't decided if I'll paint or just varnish this. 

The thwart is in the process of being varnished (not shown below), this is the only other piece of visible wood, besides the tiller, on the boat. 

I haven't mounted the rudder yet or glued the tiller in place, as I'm waiting on a longer pintle to arrive for the bottom of the two -- I didn't realize that the bottom one should be longer to make installing the rudder easier, and hence have 2 short-pin pintles. 

 

I also need to find a set of oars that I like. But otherwise I think we'll be splashing in a few weeks!

 

 

[Steve W]

She looks great. Thanks for kindling memories from my 11N!

[Don Silsbe]

She’s looking very fine!  A friend of mine bought his oars from these guys.  They look real nice.

https://www.fancyoars-paddles.com/mobilepage.php?pagenumber=1
 

Hamilton Marine has some that are more reasonably priced, but I haven’t seen those in person.

[Peter Colenbrander]

Great work, Bryan!

I am at a similar stage with my Spindrift 10N here in New Zealand. All I have left to do is paint the hull sections and bond hardware and I will be ready to launch.

I used added fenders to my gunwales as shown. Got them from a local chandlery

[AmosSwogger]

Nice work Bryan.

[Bryan Rolfe]

It's finally done! Looking back at this thread and all my photos, momentum really declined in the spring of this year through the summer. Work was really busy and big boat projects occupied a lot of my time. There were 2 months we had the big boat hauled out in the summer where 0 work was done on the dinghy. I also think all the little items (boom, rudder, mast, sailing hardware, sealing all the holes, etc) took longer than the big items, like assembling/glassing/painting the hull.

In any case we launched it for the first time yesterday here in Monterey, just at a nearby beach. Overall it went really well. The oars we used are only temporary, and much too cumbersome and heavy. I also don't love the bronze oar locks and might swap them out for something else. 

Sailing wise, even with both of us in the boat in light winds, I was really impressed. Really couldn't have asked for better conditions. 

 

One thing I noted is that it's very difficult to row the boat with the sail down, because the boom is in the way. It's much easier if the boom is lifted even a foot or so -- maybe it makes sense to carry a tiny little a-frame to prop the boom at the aft end of the boat up when needing to row? Hopefully we don't need to row very often while sailing... 

I also think I want to cushion the end of the boom somehow, as it contains lots of hard sharp objects that can easily do damage to the boat our our heads, but mostly the boat, like when it drops. 

 

Oh, I forgot to mention, I also added a brass strip to the keel line.

Final check of everything

 

Checking the lacing method we planned on using. The sail I built from a kit from sailrite, and used grommets in place of a sleeve so we can lace the sail on. This is nice as it lets us lower the sail and remove it whenever we need to.

 

Loaded onto the car, luckily we're only a mile from the beach and the speed limit is 30mph.

 

Got a lot of questions about why our boat was in two pieces.

 

Just prior to first launching

 

 

She floats! More stable than I expected, and only minor leaks at the bolts joining the two halves. Might need to think of some better rubber washers, or just tighten them down a bit more.

She sails!!!

 

[Andy B]

Congratulations!  Great job!

[Bryan Rolfe]

Also wanted to share a summary of tips/lessons learned that might help anyone else that stumbles on this thread working on their own build:

 

Fiberglassing:

• If you decide to fiberglass the outside of the hull, make sure you use plain-weave fabric and not woven fabric. This may seem like a no-brainer, but when trying to source glass online, you can get easily misled. Woven would result in a much too heavy lamination.
• For fiberglass tape, be aware that one side has what's called selvage edge, basically a sewn edge that keeps the tape form unravelling. This also creates a little ridge on your tape when wetted out that needs to be sanded down later. Normally that's ok, but for the sections that require multiple layers of tape, like the nesting bulkheads, it's inconvenient to have to wait for it to fully cure, sand, clean, and apply your next layer of tape. However, if you don't do this, the ridge easily traps air for the next glass layer, and that's bad. What I decided to do (eventually) is carefully trim off the selvage edge on these shorter sections, and that worked great. 
• Peel-ply: peel-ply is great, but it has to be used correctly, and I think there are differences in the quality that may make life more difficult. Specifically, if it ships folded, iron it flat before using or the creases will transfer to your boat. When wetting out, it's probably easier if the temperature is warmer and the resin less viscous. With one of my peel-ply materials, it was very difficult to properly wet out, and I ended up with tiny pinholes because the peel-ply soaked up resin from the glass. 

Build:

• When "going 3D" in the build process, the instructions provide some guidance on how to prevent cracking at the bow, but either I didn't follow these correctly, or was unlucky. I found that wetting out the forward section of the panels at the bow with hot water made this process much easier.
• Fitting the bulkhead was a little challenging, but I found a combination of a ratchet strap around the hull pieces and bulkhead, as well as temporary screws near the "V" in each floor piece made this a little easier.
• The plans don't call for it, but I added wooden "shelves" for the aft seats on all sides to help support the top of the seat -- I think the plans only call for these strips of wood along the hull sides. Probably not necessary.
• Consider coating your panels with epoxy before assembly, especially the smaller pieces. It's easier and you can probably do a better job while everything is still flat (e.g. you can use a roller). 
• Cutting the boat in half: Just be careful here, as your blade might wander and before you realize it, you're cutting into one of your bulkheads. I also think this would have bene easier with the boat upside down, or a longer saw. Otherwise only the tip of the saw blade is being used to cut the boat in half and your stroke length is very short.
• Getting the nesting bulkheads to 
• The boom took more time than expected -- the actual construction was not hard, I used two pieces of pine laminated together with opposing grain, and then used a jigsaw to roughly cut the shape and refined it with planes. However, getting all the hardware attached took time because the holes need to be drilled fairly precisely in many places so the fitting on the opposite side fits (e.g. the gooseneck). This is theoretically straightforward on a drill press, except the finished boom is tapered at both ends on 3 faces, so you have to wedge it level to your drill press' table. I think if I were doing it again, I might consider drilling some of these holes as pilot holes prior to doing the shaping, when everything was still square. 
• Many fasteners need to be cut to length for things to be nice. This includes all the rudder gudgeon fasteners, the rudder, and most of the ones through the boom. Not hard with a hack saw and a vice, maybe easier with a grinder, but just another thing that will take a little time. 
• The 3-part aluminum boom  was a another nice easy build and a good way to use your left over glass tape. One piece of advice, don't rivet in your gooseneck if you're planning to nest your boom sections -- I wasn't thinking straight when I did this and will have to drill these out and secure it differently. I think one option is to glass it in place. 

Painting/Finishing:

• Invariably you will need a fairing compound unless you're really skilled with your epoxy work. The total boat stuff works great, cures fast, and is easy to sand -- but it's also green. In some ways this is nice because it shows easily, but it also means when you go to paint, it may take more coats to get it to stop showing through the paint. 
• If you do use a fairing compound that has a contrasting color, it's probably easier to re-prime the boat (if you did any fairing after priming), as that will cover much better than the finish paint. 
• If using Epifanes 2-part poly, I honestly found rolling to be sufficient, and didn't have good luck tipping this paint. Your experience may vary. 
• I would try to have other small parts ready to paint when painting the hull, so you have something to use your left overs for. 

If I think of some more I'll come back and edit this post.

[Don Silsbe]

Brian-- I agree with you about rolling and not tipping.  If the paint is properly thinned, tipping only leaves brush marks.

 

Regarding glass tape, yeah.  Both edges are nasty.  They require a lot of sanding or using fairing compound to make the edges disappear.  I'm using Russell Brown's method more and more.  He cuts out his own "tapes" from a sheet of fiberglass, making sure to cut parallel to the weave.  He then removes a few rows of 'glass thread, leaving a shaggy, tapered edge.  The result is that this softer edge sands away easier.  When used with Peel Ply, it totally disappears.  It's a hassle, cutting out all those strips, but the payoff is less sanding later.  

[Lille Ø]

That's looking really good! Any photos on how it fits on the deck of the W32?

[Bryan Rolfe]

Not yet, we haven't gotten it out to the boat yet since it's about 30 min down the highway and we can't transport it at those speeds on the roof. I think we'll borrow a friends truck though and try to get it over there sometime soon -- that or we'll sail our boat down here onto a slip or mooring. 

I'm also thinking of installing the optional fittings for the center aft seat, as I do think that will be handy for when we're rowing. 

[Bryan Rolfe]

Got some collapseable aluminum oars, that just happen to fit nciely between the nesting bulkhead and fwd bulkhead. Made up a few pieces of wood so that the oars can be secured here nicely out of the way when not in use and epoxied them in place. Need to put some paint on them, but I think they'll work nicely. 

 

[Don Silsbe]

Let me share a tip with you.  When I nest the dinghy halves, i always put old towels in the corners, between the halves.  There is a lot of scuffing and abrasion between the two.  Granted, mine travels in the back of a pickup truck, so there’s a lot of vibration*.  But if you start to see paint wear on the corners, break out the towels!

 

* I use my nesting pram when we go on trips in our travel trailer.  It gets me on the water while camping.

[Bryan Rolfe]

Oh absolutely. When we stow it ontop of the car for transport, I use a furniture blanket between the two halves and some pieces of high density foam. 

Not sure what we'll use yet when it's stowed long-term on deck, but probably something similar. 

[Paul356]

That oar solution is very slick.