Spindrift 12 - It's very slow but it's progress.

[Ambler]

Can't believe it's so long since I posted at the start of building, - 2004! - when I had so much grief with plywood breakage:

http://www.messing-about.com/forums/index.php?topic=2041.msg16456#msg16456

Meantime after a bit of surgery and a lot of lethargy, some progress has been made so I thought I should report (see photo which I hope to attach.) I'm seriously butchering Graham's design; sacrilege I know but I'm not so much interested in final performance as just having fun. I did away with the curved "fillets" on the seating and rearranged the plywood layout to get the boat out of 5 sheets instead of 7 (budget is a major issue.) Then I decided to try using a pivoting bilge board instead of the dagger, to have more room in the boat. Also cut hatches in the seat tops to get access for storage, and I'm making what I hope will be watertight covers for them.

I'll be using an existing sail from a long-deceased dinghy. It's about the right size but has a bolt-rope, not a sleeve. I'm not so keen on the idea of the sleeve anyway; I want to be able to reef and I don't know how you could, with a sleeve? I'm thinking of using mast hoops or lacing. Then I'd like to do away with the vang; wondering if I could use a sprit to take the place of both boom & vang.

My desire to do away with the vang arises from experience with my previous dinghy, which had a shroud-supported mast. If I had to leave the sail untended for some reason, in any sort of a breeze, the boat would fall off the wind until the boom fetched up on the shroud, then suddenly we'd be sailing again out of control, heading up with a sickening swoop until the sail would luff head-to-wind; whereupon the cycle would be repeated for as many times as it took me to get back in command of the situation. Not the kind of experience I enjoy, by myself in a small boat. I imagine the vang would create the same kind of incident when it fetches up on the forward bulkhead.

I have sailing experience only with the conventional cat rig - boom but no vang - on that old (non-preformance) dinghy. Don't know beans about using other rigs, except what I've read here & there. Others' experience would be welcomed.

Before starting I helped my son build a Catspaw dinghy, as tender for his power boat, and that worked out very well, but he hasn't yet rigged it for sailing. He challenged me to a 2-boat sailing regatta for the summer solstice 2008 but neither of us was ready so the new date is solstice 2009. OK here goes to see if I can successfully attach my photo.

[brucee]

Hey Alexander,

Thanks for sharing your latest photo.  Your spindrift looks good floating on the sawhorses.  I'm sure it'll look even better floating in some wetter stuff!

It doesn't look like you have too much left to do before a launch is viable.  Keep the progress and blog photos coming.  I know I am overdue for posting some pics.

cheers,

Bruce 

[Greg Luckett]

Alexander,

I feel the same as you.  Some progress, no matter how little, every now and then is a good thing.  I am glad to see you plugging along.

[Ambler]

Thanks for the kind words, Brucee & Greg.

Since my last post, I've done quite a lot of work without making much progress. The main problem is that I've been striving for a level of perfection on the interior which I'm just not capable of achieving. So after hours of sanding, re-coating where I'm through the epoxy and back to bare wood, etc, etc, I'm deciding that it won't ever be good enough and it's time to stop trying. I've applied the last patches of re-coat and when they have been giving a light sanding That's the LAST sanding I will do. All existing lumps, dags, gouges & scratches will become part of the finished boat; evidence of my loving handwork.

"It's only a boat!"

Now I've been disappointed to see no feedback to my description of the "luff & swoop" behaviour of my previous boat. No point repeating it here but I think I'll post it as a new thread and hope for some response from more experienced sailors than I.

Cheers, Ambler