New amas 3

Basic forms are now cut out:

They're heavier than I thought they'd be; this isn't Styrofoam® after all. So I'm planning to cut out most of the insides.

The plan now is to fasten the boards together with drywall screws, shape the outside, then take all apart, cut out the insides and glue together. I want to shape the outside first, especially at the bow, because then I'll know how far I can go with the hollowing-out process. I'll be cutting out sections of each board and leaving enough material on the outside for strength. Planning to not treat the inside at all, to save weight.

New amas 2

Turns out I was wrong on the depth of the original amas: they're 7" deep.

The foam material that John has is 2½" thick. I'm planning to stack four up for each ama, to make them 10" deep to start.

Here's where it's at right now:

The foam came in 8' x 42+" sheets. Cutting the edges off, I was able to get boards 10⅛" wide, four from each sheet. The sheets had a tough layer of something like vinyl cloth stuck to both sides that was work to peel off!

The surface of the foam is bumpy and has some air pockets (free, though!), so I'll sand before gluing. John says polyester resin works with it. First, I'll cut all to the template shape...

New amas

I'm thinking of making the new amas 7'6" long. The present ones are 6'. Rough shape under consideration:

 Solid foam with glass skin. The chine corners would be rounded off. My guess is that there would be about three times the buoyancy in this shape than in the double-ended vee hulls I made, based on the same 10" width and 8" (I think) depth. 

Oh, looking back at it, I see that these are 10" deep, so the final ones could be different. Then again, from the photos of the boat sailing, it looked like the amas could be a bit deeper; 9" or 10".

Portage Inlet explore

I put in from the gravel beach at the Victoria Canoe and Kayak Club. It's just in from the Tillicum Bridge, where the Gorge Rapids happen:

(Slack tide this day—this was a reconnoitre à pied, looking for a ramp in the park across the water from the VCKC.)

Some rowers taking advantage of the slack:

It gets quite ripping through there with the tide.

Here's my little trip—just paddling, no amas or sailing rig:

The pin is at the VCKC. The channel to the Admirals Road Bridge (Maple Pt above) is shallow and has lots of eel grass in it. Not a great place for sailing, as the foils would keep catching weeds.

But, under the bridge and around the corner to the North, it gets deeper and less weedy. The view reminds me of the Muskoka area of Ontario:

I went up Colquitz Creek as far as I could:

Discovered a little footbridge farther up:

Past the footbridge it started to get gnarly:

 

After checking out the creek I paddled over to where the chart says there's a ramp, but it had been deconstructed, I guess.

That was my little trip in September. I didn't go under the Tillicum Bridge.

Here's an old video that shows some of the upper harbour areas, starting at that bridge:

And here's a more modern one showing a bit of turbulence under the Tillicum Bridge: