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Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival


Guest John Burritt

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Guest John Burritt

Just returned from my first trip to the Mid-Atlantic Small Boat Festival at the Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, MD. Saw lots of nice boats - over 150 entries - however, no B & B designs.>:(

I have built a Spindrift 10 and an 18' runabout designed by Graham, and am familiar with most of his designs. They all compare favorably with the newly constructed boats I saw at the Festival. I regret not taking my boat(s) and plan to remedy this next year. Hopefully other builders of B & B boats will put this in their plans also.

jbncb@coastalnet.com

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Guest Frank Hagan

I just ordered the Spindrift 10 plans today. How hard was the building process? And how long did it take?

I suspect it will be easier than my Weekender (a 16' sloop built using ply and stringers rather than stitch and glue).

fshagan@ev1.net

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Guest bill Heil

John: I didn't have my ducks in a row or I would have gone to that show. next year I should have my Core Sound 17 finished and will take it. Remember me next year and we will make a Eastern North Carolina delegation. Bill

schwmh@cconnect.net

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Guest John Burritt

The building process is very straight forward. Having built a boat previously (I hadn't)will be a great advantage for you even if it wasn't stitch and glue. If you want additional background on this building method, you might want to read Sam Devlin's book "Devlin's Boat Building." Sam also has a good video showing the basics. He does some things differently from Graham, and I'm sure they'd argue about what's best.

I've been involved with the boatbuilding class at our Community College, which Graham teaches, for at least the past five years. The biggest problem people have seems to be not getting the various parts cut to the proper shapes in the beginning. The dimensions on the plans are fine. All of us have had our problems always getting things measured right.

The other big clue is that neatness counts. Its much easier to clean up the excess epoxy while its still wet than it is to scrape and sand it off later. We all seem to have to learn this the hard way.

Graham's article on time and cost is on point. Time is greatly dependent on where you are on the learning curve. Try to walk yourself thru the building process mentally before you start and things will go more quickly. Also, as noted, time you don't have to spend on unnecessary sanding and scraping is time you can spend moving forward.

Hope this helps.

jbncb@coastalnet.com

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Guest John Burritt

Sounds good. It was heartening to see stitch and glue construction accepted as just another way to build a boat. Lots of nice examples there. Just about every method of building a wooden boat was represented. Good mix.

By the way I snuck by and looked at your boat the other day. Its looking really nice.

jbncb@coastalnet.com

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Guest Frank Hagan, Weekender, O

The building process is very straight forward. Having built a boat previously (I hadn't)will be a great advantage for you even if it wasn't stitch and glue. If you want additional background on this building method, you might want to read Sam Devlin's book "Devlin's Boat Building." Sam also has a good video showing the basics. He does some things differently from Graham, and I'm sure they'd argue about what's best.

I have Sam's book ... I like his designs (the Surf Scoter is one of my favorites). He also has a great chapter on modeling a traditional boat for conversion to stitch and glue.

The other big clue is that neatness counts. Its much easier to clean up the excess epoxy while its still wet than it is to scrape and sand it off later. We all seem to have to learn this the hard way.

That is one lesson from my first boat. Also your advice about thinking it through is right on. There's a tendency to start rushing the steps after you get over that "first cut fever", when you don't want to even start. Of course, when you spend over a year building a boat, you get to the point where you just want it to end ... and then you launch and you miss the building part. (There has to be a 12 step program out there for us!)

fshagan@ev1.net

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