Hey Graham- The Mini planes real well!!

[Charlie Jones]

Here she is following Tehani down Matagorda Bay

The boat has got over 1600 miles under her little keel now, through some pretty rough crap and never gave us a BIT of problem.

[capt jake]

OK, now I HAVE to get started on mine! I have the plans and materials, just dedicating some time is the hard part now. ;)

Looks great!

[John Turpin]

Charlie,

How is your painter attached to the bow? Do you have a bow eye there? Bow eyes at each corner? Run a line through a hole? Inquiring minds want to know. Thanks.

[Charlie Jones]

John- it's a 5/16 inch stainless boat bow eye- the U-bolt kind. It's bolted through with the stainless backing strap across the legs of the U, inside and outside.

The painter is a 1/2 line spliced around a large plastic thimble. The thimble had to be put on before the eye was bolted up by the way. It's in the center of the bow transon and fairly low. I'll try to get a picture later today.

[Greg Luckett]

Charlie's Mini is a nicely built boat. I may build one too and try to do the work as well as Charlie does.

[Steve Day]

Charlie,

When I took Day's Dream up the Mobile River to hide out from Dennis in the hurricane hole on Briar Creek last week. We had a 5 mile dinghy ride from the anchorage to the ramp where we met the truck. That is a long row in a dinghy!

As we were getting ready to board the dinghy, a young gentleman and his girlfriend offered us a ride in his boat (what I might define as a cracker boat). His boat had a 75 HP Mercury on it and we had an opportunity to travel at higher than normal dinghy speeds. We didn't run flat out, but we were running well over 20 knots. The dinghy sat back there in the wake as solid as a rock, definitely on the plane. What a great testiment to the hull shape!

When we evacuated to Birmingham for the hurricane, we found a 2.5 Mercury and bought it. The ride back out to the boat was a good bit better than rowing, but not as good as the ride with the 75.

When I was alone in the dinghy, I tried to get up on the plane, but my 230 pounds is just a little too much for the 2.5. I can get really close, but not quite all the way up on the plane. I'm sure it would work if a 130 pound person was running the boat.

These are really GREAT boats!

Steve

[Designer]

That is good to hear Charlie, I am glad that you are enjoying your Mini.

It seems that you had a good cruise this summer.

It looke like Emily will pass south of you but you will probably get some wind and rain.

[Charlie Jones]

Yep- we had a pretty good trip all things considered. Had mucho motor troubles, which finally got solved with the purchase of an 8 HP Yamaha 4 stroke, which we couldn't afford but couldn't afford NOT to get.

Laura has been writing a series of posts on the TSBB about the trip. Here's the links so far if you'd like to read them.

Tehani's Waterway Cruise, "First Day Jitters" http://bbs.trailersailor.com/forums/tsarchives13/index.cgi?read=429577,Tehani's,Waterway

Tehani's Waterway Cruise, "Deaf, Dumb and Blind" http://bbs.trailersailor.com/forums/tsarchives13/index.cgi?read=430353,Tehani's,Waterway

Tehani's Waterway Cruise, "Making Miles & The Search for Fuel" - Part 1 http://bbs.trailersailor.com/forums/tsarchives13/index.cgi?read=433975,Tehani's,Waterway

Tehani's Waterway Cruise, "Making Miles & The Search for Fuel" - Part 2

http://bbs.trailersailor.com/forums/tsarchives13/index.cgi?read=434780,Tehani's,Waterway

Tehani's Waterway Cruise, "Making Miles & The Search for Fuel" - Part 3

http://bbs.trailersailor.com/forums/trailersailor/index.cgi/read/435920

Don't wait TOO long or that last one will move into the archives also. Then you'd have to add the /tsarchives??/ into the URL

We're getting some rain bands from Emily but thankfully this one looks like pretty much a miss for us. I'd like to wish that EVERY one got missed the rest of the year. Unfortunately that most likely isn't gonna happen. Sure is turning into an active year.

[Greg Luckett]

Thanks Charlie and Laura. I needed the links.

[Greg Luckett]

WOW :shock: 8)

Laura writes well! What a gal!

You should put this into a book and get it published.

Please keep writing more. What a great story.

[edt]

Charlie,

Laura has talent. Those posts are very well done and give a real sense of what is happening. You might think of putting them onto a webpage somewhere?

Please pass this thanks on to Laura,

Ed Tomlinson

[Howard]

Enjoy reading about the trip. I imagine some might read that and think how awful the trip was, and I read it thinking how much fun it would have been.

Your troubles with the engine remind me why I built my sculling oar.

Relating back to something I learned while prepping to do some cave exploring with the Boy Scouts. We had redundant backups for light. Flashlight, second flashlight with spare batteries and when those failed, candles and matches. Three sources of light.

My existing boat has the sails and engine, but also the sculling oar as the ultimate backup. I can get about 1 knot of speed with the oar, and could easily push her a couple of miles on flat calm water. For those who have never tried it, a sculling oar will push a pretty big boat.

[John Turpin]

If you read any of Lyn and Larry Pardey's Serrafyn books, you'll see how they used a sculling oar very effectively (and sometimes urgently) to move around their very heavy, engine-less 24 footer.

[capt jake]

Thanks for the motivation Charlie!! I have the pieces nearly lofted (about 1 1/2 hours) and I am getting ready to cut out the pieces!

This is after digging out the materials and plans that I had carefully 'placed' in a location that they were easily located. :roll:

[Charlie Jones]

lol- Yeah John- I'm planning to build a sculling oar for Tehani also. But 15 miles down a ditch with tugs running both ways is NOT the place to be sculling a boat

Also- if you read articles by and about the Pardey's, you'll find they get towed into and out of ports with some frequency. Not that I blame them. If someone offered I'd accept a friendly tow too, rather than sculll in or out.

Under normal circumstances Laura and I just don't run the engine much. We'd MUCH rather do things under sail. In fact, for around here we could mostly do with our 2.2 HP for the motoring we do and a scull should be very nice. But it's too much trouble to pull the big one and put it back the way it sits in the boat.

[capt jake]

As long as I have your ear; a few questions for you or Graham.

1 - On the center frame there is a gussett; should there be a gussett on the back side also or does the seat gusset do double duty in this area? Hope that makes sense. Basically one center gussett and a seat gussett on the other side?

2 - After attching teh center frame and the transom(s) temporarily, I am assuming that they are to be taken apart and epoxied back in place? Correct?

I am sure I will have more questions as I go along.

I have all of the pieces cut out. Made a center frame out of scrap before I realized that it is a permanant item. My fault.

[Charlie Jones]

Graham made some small mods to the Mini plans after I built my boat so your plans and mine may be slightly different.

I don't have a gusset on the center frame- I do have vertical doublers on the outside upright parts of the center though, on the after side of the frame.Then the under seat support that runs fore and aft is filleted to that. Looks like a big capital "T" lying on edge.

I wired the whole thing together, with a temporary spreader in place of the center frame, then filleted and glassed both transoms, the keel and both chines all at once. THEN I installed the center frame.

DO plan on adding some foam under the seats- the boat will not float a person when it's flooded as it is.

[Greg Luckett]

I built a Bateau PK78 and a Bolger Nymph, which are similar in size and construction methods. I modified both plans to enclose the seating after filling the voids with the blue construction foam cut into blocks and then anchored in place with liquid foam. The boats are hard to sink now. This was an important consideration due to the very cold waters up here in Michigan and hypothermia. A person can only tread water as long as they are warm enough. It is much better to sit in a flooded boat or tie on to the bottom of an overturned boat. If it takes too long to get rescued at least they can find the body quickly. :wink:

[capt jake]

Thanks Charlie, I so hope that Graham chimes in on my questions. I like to do things right the first time if at all possible. ;)

[capt jake]

Charlie wrote:

DO plan on adding some foam under the seats- the boat will not float a person when it's flooded as it is.

Any words of wisdom here? As I do not have the sets in place (yet) now would be the time to make this modification. Maybe a small 'box' made underneath both seats? Epoxy encapsulated and filled with foam?