The Anti-tri Majority

After sailing the kayak as a trimaran a number of times I've decided to just use it as the kayak it was meant to be, and I'm good with that. It sailed well, but I couldn't paddle it properly because the aft aka was in the way. It was also a hassle to put together and take apart and transport. I'm actually enjoying paddling it as a kayak since I've figured a better seat back. And I like that it's so seaworthy compared to the skin-on-frame boat, which I'm letting go of.

I still want a sailboat that I can keep at the Cadboro Bay compound, not to car-top. So I decided to research different designs. I want something not so large that I can't build it in John's loft, and not so heavy that I can't handle maneuvering it on a cart. I landed on Jim Michalak's "Mixer2", which he describes as a good rowboat and sailboat. It's supposed to be fairly light at around 100 lbs, and should be relatively easy to build. I like that his boats are low-tech, therefore more accessible to home builders.

I may be able to use the rudder I made for the kayak. This boat is 12' 6" long and 4' wide. Note that the pivoting board is on the outside, making for an unobstructed cockpit area.

The boat has quite a bit of waterproof storage space, and the large, open cockpit area is good for someone who dreams of sleeping aboard while camp-cruising. However, I can't sit flat on anything; I need a little drop for my feet. So I'm planning to build low, closed-in benches along the sides. That will make it more difficult to sleep on the floor, so I'm planning to have floorboards that lift up and sit on a lip on the inner edges of the benches, which will make a flat surface the whole width of the boat! We'll see how that pans out. And if I ever do go camp-cruising in it. . .

I thought I'd build with exterior grade fir ply (¼"), but the lumber yard person persuaded me not to, so I bought some marine mahogany ply, a great expense! But worth it, as it's very good to work with.

In the photo above, I'm tracing one side piece to make a duplicate; the bottom (or part of it) is drawn out on the sheet below that.

Instead of expensive epoxy, I'm using Titebond III to join wood parts. On the underside of the joints you see above are 4" wide "butt straps" that make the planks double thickness at the joint. The flat ends of the plywood are butted against each other, rather than being scarfed, or bevel-cut. Butt straps are not as elegant as a scarf joint, but they're far simpler to do.

I'm planning to call this boat Golightly 2.

New dolly

Here's another look at the old mast step. I had sawed the tongue off the bottom of the mast so I paired it with the angle bars I had ripped out, to show how it would have been on the boat:

The wood core goes up the mast about 9" from the heel of the mast, and the cleats for the halyard and the downhaul are screwed into it. I cut just at the end of the hollow fibreglass mast, so the fibreglass doesn't show here.

Trying to align the holes from outside and above, with no room for a head to get down beside it, was a major drag. The mast would be waving around as I was trying blindly to get the bolt to go through three holes.

New Dolly

To keep Golightly in the CBSA compound I needed wheels that would go across sand and not get stuck, and a platform wide enough that I could mount the amas on the akas and not have the whole thing tip over, which happened once at Cattle Point with the strap-on wheels I've been using. The boat would be living outside on this dolly.

I bought two pieces of 1" x 4" cedar to make the dolly with. One was rough and cheap, and that one I used for the cradle frame part, and other pieces. The other was a long smooth board of quality cedar that had a long curve in it, which I thought would match some of the curve of the bottom of the boat, which it does. I used that one for the tongue.

The tongue & gusset part and the cradle with the wheels on it are two separate units that are screwed together so they can come apart if necessary for easier transport. I got the wheels from John, and he made some hard plastic bushings to replace the metal ones that the wheels came with, which would seize up with rust in no time from the salt water. The axle is a piece of the same aluminum tubing as the akas are made of. The axle is fibreglassed to the underside of the cross-board and I put a foam core in the ends so the seawater won't get inside and corrode the aluminum.

As you can see, I discovered that I could store the amas upside-down on separate mini-akas, since I need to minimize space taken up in the compound.

Above is the way I imagined storing the boat in the compound, with mast in and rudder and board attached. This is all stuff I have to bring down to the water and assemble when I go sailing now, so having it all together in the compound is hopefully going to mean I get out sailing more often.

The aluminum tube handle visible in the above and next photos slides up and down inside a fibreglass tube that's attached to the forward end of the tongue. The tube is pinned in position: up for pushing or pulling the boat around; or down to keep the bow up somewhat if the boat happened to be bow-heavy in the yard. As it is, it's stern-heavy, so it rests on the aluminum shoe on the end of the skeg.

The handle works great because the wheels are so short that the forward end of the dolly needs to be kept low, especially in low spots of ground where the skeg gets caught on the rise if the bow is not low down. I can stay upright while pushing or pulling the cart in its optimum trim.

Here's a view from behind, showing how the sail and akas would be stored, more or less. In wet weather I'll put my car tarp over the cockpit. I'll have to make an opening in the tarp with a collar for the mast, though.

I loosened the new rudder line and it flows great now. I had a bit of trouble steering last time, as the rudder line was so tight it was grabbing instead of slipping. I had to replace the rudder line because I couldn't find the first one I made. It had some nice stainless snap-hooks on it, which I've replaced with some tiny little S-shaped snap-hooks that I found at MEC. There's so little tension on that line that the fasteners don't need to be heavy.

The red lines are a continuous line that loops around the forward end of the cockpit through a tube. Steering is done by pulling on the line on one side or the other. The black line is the rudder down-haul line, which goes to a quick-release jam cleat, which lets go with enough pressure, so if the rudder blade hits bottom the down-haul line will be released. The white line leading from the top of the rudder is the up-haul line, which goes to a jam cleat and is what's keeping the blade up off the pavement in this photo. 

All of the lines and the halyard are more things that I won't need to be fiddling with each time I go out, once the boat is on the dolly in the compound.

New mast step

The original mast step I made for Golightly was a pair of aluminum angle bars that were drilled for a bolt that was to go through a tongue at the bottom of the mast:

The big idea was to be able to cant the mast forward or aft to get the balance right. The big problem with it (aside from what just happened) was getting the bolt through those holes where visibility is extremely limited.

This is why it came apart:

The bottom piece should look like the top piece, with wood from the bottom plank stuck to the whole length of it—but the epoxy obviously didn't stick to more than half of it. I forgot to sand the epoxy into the metal. That bottom piece is the piece that came off with a crack. The top piece I chiseled off.

It's just as well that it came apart, because it was way too much hassle getting the mast set up, and I didn't see a reason to cant the mast, since the balance seems to be just fine. Maybe it would be an issue with a larger triangular sail?

Anyway, I made a sleeve and stuck it to a piece of fibreglass, which I then epoxied to the bottom of the boat:

The dirt on the right is mud from Oak Bay at low tide. Smelly stuff! It's washed off now. The sleeve is too large (John's fault), so I put a bump around the bottom of the mast to make it a snug fit.

She needs paint!

Broke mast step

I took Golightly out for a sail on Tuesday last. The wind was a steady 15 knots, about, with nice gusts on flat water at Oak Bay. When it's from the West, it's offshore there.

The boat sailed really fast across the bay and then I tacked to sail back, and in the next nice gust, the mast step broke with a loud crack—I'll post photos of the pieces when I have them; in the excitement of it all, I've neglected to do any photo documentation. Right now I'm building a new mast step, so Golightly is on top of the car, going back and forth to the shop getting fixed, and Bobber Ann is relaxing in my living room:

On the work bench in the right foreground are some of the things I take sailing or paddling. The black plastic jar is the potty, which sits on top of the duct tape that I take with me in Bobber Ann. On the back right is sun screen. In front of those things is a sailor's knife in a sheath, which I haven't taken with me since Firefly. The small black fanny pack in front of that holds the nuts, bolts and tools to make Golightly into a trimaran. In front of that is a waterproof camera case.

The painting (not mine, but from a photo I took) is a view towards Cortes and Read Islands from Rebecca Spit on Quadra Island. It's an autumn evening around sundown, and the last boat of the day to Cortes is an invisible part of the story.

Post-script: I'm really enjoying the quality of the photos I'm getting with my 10.5" iPad Pro. And the vibrancy of the colours on the screen makes some of the photos look three-dimensional.

Buoyancy tanks installed

My neighbour Vladi gave me some industrial strength hook-and-loop webbing that has the hooks on one side, the loops on the other, and something like nylon webbing in-between. It's super strong, light, white, and requires no fasteners!

The photo shows the Point Ellice (Bay Street) Bridge over the upper harbour.

The horizontal part of the webbing is all one piece that tucks behind the frames; the vertical part is one piece whose ends are captured between the two layers of the overlapping ends of the top piece. Being pulled forward, the buoyancy tank is held in by the inwales, so the webbing is mainly to keep it there. The tank makes a good foot brace.

Below, the new Johnson Street Bridge! This bridge is an excellent design that is a pleasure to use, as a vehicle driver, cyclist or pedestrian; they really did it right.

The very top part on the left is the bascule support tower of the old bridge on the other side of the new bridge. The old bridge is being dismantled this weekend. Most of it is already on the deck of the Dynamic Beast crane barge.

Buoyancy tanks

The first buoyancy tank built was used as a mold that I waxed and applied Partall to, and built the second tank around: two sides and end, in a thin layer of fibreglass. After I coaxed the original tank out of the new shell, I closed in the top with a piece of the same urethane foam that I built Golightly out of, and glassed it to the sides.

Now there are two buoyancy tanks. After I took this photo, I used some hook and loop webbing to tie them in. Neatly. I didn't want to attach them permanently, but wanted to be able to take them out if I wanted to.

John thinks I'm fussy because I prefer things neat rather than carved out of chunks of styrofoam or something. I agree wholeheartedly: I am fussy! 😀

Bobber Ann named

First, she was painted with two coats of Pettit Easypoxy semi-gloss white.

I really enjoyed the translucent quality of the clear-finished cloth, but cringed every time I saw the boat baking in the sun in a parking lot on top of the car.

Aesthetics are always top of mind, but practicality comes just ahead. After all, it wouldn't do to have a pretty boat that fell apart due to sun damage.

Lettering positioned.

Overlay coming off.

"Fredly" font has a break between the 'e' and the 'r' that I closed using Illustrator.

She's "Bobber Ann" because she's so corky. And because I enjoy the song. (Yes, I know it's technically "Barbara Ann", but I spelled it the way the Beach Boys sing it.)

Above the name you can see the racing stripe that I painted over because it wasn't coming off well.

I thought it would be easy to find racing stripe tape, but it's not. The skinny one is dark blue, and an official racing stripe.

I wanted a green stripe about ⅜" wide. The green one is ¾" PVC tape such as electricians use. Both are on temporarily (I hope!).

Yes, I could do it the old-fashioned way and paint a stripe on, but I'm too lazy. I don't like either of these solutions, so I'm considering not having a stripe at all now. I can always put one on some other time down the road.

Buoyancy tanks are done and painted. Putting it all together tomorrow. Stay tuned.