what does the CS 17 Kit not include?

[sscoville]

I am new to the forum and considering building a CS 17.  I just finished a Sam Devlin rowing skiff.  I was considering ordering the CS 17 kit to save some time.  My question is, what materials needed to finish the boat are not included in the kit?  From what I can tell on the B&B webpage, epoxy and sails are not included.  I'm assuming this means fiberglass either and obviously no trailer.  Is there any additional wood to purchase after purchasing the kit?  If the answer to the preceeding question is "no," then if one buys the kit, then is all that is left to do is put the pieces together with epoxy and fiberglass, then fair, paint, etc?  I know from building my skiff that that is still a lot of work.  Any help would be appreciated. 

[Hirilonde]

You can e-mail or phone Graham Byrnes yourself and ask him.  He is very approachable and I am sure will answer your questions.  The kits have been developing over the past year, so for the latest and most accurate info I would contact Graham in person.

[Designer]

The basic kit consists of every plywood part cut out and drilled for wiring for the boat. The cockpit hatches and aft bulkhead hatch are cut as well as the rudder cheeks and blade.

The bulkhead and side stringer positions are marked. The scarfs are all cut and the bottom and side connection forward are dovetailed. The only exception is the coaming, there is plywood supplied for you to cut it to your as-built boat. The only solid wood part supplied is the deck beam at the aft end of the foredeck.

The solid wood can usually be obtained locally.

We can supply the epoxy and glass tape. The rigging and sails can be purchased after the hull has progressed. Spars are round aluminum tubing and can be purchased on line.

[Hirilonde]

Or, you can ask here and he will answer you. 

[Apteryx]

I'm new to this game but I think the kit is really nice.  Good clear drawings in the plans, and the accuracy of the parts is spot-on.

[sscoville]

A neighbor of mine built the CS 17 about a year ago.  I've been looking over his plans and at his boat.  The interior framing, centerboard, and masts steps appear to be most of the work.  The plans are bit difficult for me to look at - a whole lot of info on small pages - maybe that's one of the reasons it looks daunting. 

Has anyone finished a kit boat completely?  I think I saw somewhere that the some of the stringer locations are marked on the pre-cut plywood panels.  How much is left to measure, mark, measure, cut?  I'm just trying to get an idea of how much work and time I'll have to put into a kit.  Any help is appreciated.  What a cool boat!

[Oyster]

A neighbor of mine built the CS 17 about a year ago.  I've been looking over his plans and at his boat.  The interior framing, centerboard, and masts steps appear to be most of the work.  The plans are bit difficult for me to look at - a whole lot of info on small pages - maybe that's one of the reasons it looks daunting. 

Has anyone finished a kit boat completely?  I think I saw somewhere that the some of the stringer locations are marked on the pre-cut plywood panels.  How much is left to measure, mark, measure, cut?  I'm just trying to get an idea of how much work and time I'll have to put into a kit.  Any help is appreciated.  What a cool boat!

Well the task of building any boat becomes easier as you dig into the project, especially if a person is a hands on type of guy. Keep in mind that he has just aquired the CNC machine a little over a year ago and is a type of guy thats evolving with his increasing services. Kits are more of a time saver but still needs the consumer to concentrate and understand 3=d Construction since boats are about shapes thats created and trued up by the eye.

Depending on your location, a visit to his well organized shop will enlighten you to the way he does things, actually improving his kits by ACTUALLY testing his results of his cuts with full size jigs and boat setups. This also includes miles on the water too which cannot be measured in dollars and time savings for any build of stuff that really works and not just some drawn shapes sold to a profile luster.

The beauty is in the details which includes the lines and placements of stringers and the likes already doing some of the hardwork for the consumer. Keep in mind, even his wife can also answer many of the questions that you have and if thats not good enough you can get plenty here since this forum has a lot of proven hulls in the water that have already walked in your shoes. When all else fails, there are folks that can even build you a roughed in hull and which allows you to trick the boat out and finish work too. This is an all in one forum here, targetted but slower than one that you maybe use to but targeted in a good way of a lot of usable and workable stuff.

[SUKIE]

I'm in the process of building a CS17 kit which I started last March ('08). Getting the main parts of the hull together went quickly and easily, but then summer came and I couldn't bear to be inside building. Then fall came and I had to take 3 months off for brian surgery, and since then I've been going hard on the build. I have a little boat building experience (plywood and strip built kayaks), but my woodworking skills are minimal. Thank God for epoxy which is so good at filling all those nasty, unsightly gaps in joints I have to make (the ones not provided with the kit). I think the hardest parts for me were cutting the compound angles of the centerboard trunk, and some of the deck framing (also angles). The plans do look complicated, but I've spent many an evening with the plans, a glass of wine, and a warm fire, mulling over the next steps. Right now the boat (Little Lady) is upside down awaiting the bottom and topsides paint, then I'll flip it over, figure the mast step placements, install the deck, and paint it all. Oh yeah, I also have to figure out how to build that top section of the mast with the birdsmouth method. So you see, it's all a challenge for me, but each time I complete one hard step I'm inspired to attack the next. I just can't wait to feel the hull plane the first time! Oh, one more thing: I'm a woman!

[Hirilonde]

Oh, one more thing: I'm a woman!

Your avatar kind of gave that away 

I think this phases people here very little.  Your progress posts show you are most capable.  About the only thing that comes to my mind is that I am glad women are finally discovering just how much fun us men have been having for years. 

[Apteryx]

Sukie, I'm starting to think the birds-mouth stuff isn't that hard, at least from an experiment last night.

The long sorry tale probably doesn't bear repeating, but I had this idea of crossbreeding a bitt and a clam cleat.  The idea was to create a cleat that could be set or released one-handed, and that wouldn't chafe the line even if always cleated at the same point.  A clam isn't too secure, a cam will chafe the line, a horn cleat takes manual dexterity, and I had this crazy idea.

A practice run on birds-mouth stuff sounded in order anyway.  Here's the six inch long birds-mouth I ended up with.

Purists don't use dado blades, I am a wuss.  I set a dado blad to the thickness of the individual staves.  Since each side angles 60 degrees to its neighbor and 90-60 is 30, I set my dado to a 30 degree angle.

Then I made successively deeper cuts until the blade just sputtered through the top surface of the wood, giving me a notch matching the thickness of the staves.

The cleat idea was a limited success.  I think if I used this sort of idea on my boat I might use it for a set-and-forget line like a halyard, and I wouldn't use a vee notch to grab the line.  A dowel for anti-spill so the line could cleat on a surface-mount cam cleat on top of the thing strikes me as having promise - the cam would bear very little load and wouldn't chew up the line.

Oh, well, at least I got to experiment with birds-mouth, and I have a nice pencil holder out of the deal.  ;D

[PAR]

This is a cleat I designed for a old gaffer in need of a reefing cleat. Often you just don't have the leverage to dog down a line when the sail if flogging, so this one offers more or less frictional resistance, depending on your needs.

[attachment=1]

[Apteryx]

That's pretty cool - a cheek block and a cleat all in one.

[Martin Williams]

I finished my CS17 last October with ZERO Sailing or Boatbuilding experience. I do have some wood working skills, but that doesn't translate to working with Epoxy. That comes with time and practice.

The entire project took me 2 1/2 years. That includes moving once, having a three month old when i started  and having another baby right before i finished. Working full time, and re-tiling 2 bathrooms, putting in a flagstone patio, remolding a house on the coast, and making 28 new cabinet doors for the kitchen.

Without the kit it is straightforward and very very do-able.

I WOULD HAVE LOVED TO HAVE THE KIT! I would highly recomend it. It will save you a great amount of trouble and lessen your desire to drink heavily.

All that said I have sailed my wonderful boat as much as I can, and i have  enjoyed very few things more. By building it I can fix just about everything and ask Graham or any of these fine people anything. Chances are one of us has had the same problem.

Buy the kit, buy everything else from graham, and worry less about doing it right. If I could do it anyone can!

The Best advice is to get everything from graham it will save you a huge amount of time and money!

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