Annie Hill wrote:

Sounds like the Albatross will soon be ready to go Wandering.  You're making splendid progress in spite of Boat US's best efforts.  The Lexan stanchions were a pretty astonishing concept and I can see why Mr Surveyor hesitated.  What would he have done had you left them off altogether, I wonder.  It must be reassuring to know that the rest passed muster.  Fortunately, the existence of cat boats in your country, would at least prepare him for the absence of chainplates, wire, etc.

Best of luck with your continuing efforts.  I hope you're going to find time to write all about both the building and your first sails for the magazine and those members who don't get on line :-)

Wandering. Yes, well, not soon enough, my dear, not soon enough. But "very soon now," he said, cheerfully.

The stanchions didn't get completely welded until... Friday, after which I polished them and began installing. It was a very busy week for my pet welder. I was hoping he'd get to my "job" night after night after he'd finished his "day job", but like me, he too was tuckered out again and again. Frustration. So near the finish, and yet still so far from the finishline.

Fortunately, after 3,649,041 measurements taken while building this boat, the holes in the new stanchions fit the existing brackets on the toerail. Finished up that Saturday after moving the mast out of my basement.

The surveyor never saw the mast, but he did see the sail bundle on deck. He didn't say much but he knew I sewed the sail too. (Every seam is triple-stitched broadseams.)

The mast move went like clockwork; smooth as silk; a pleasure to watch competent people working together. Aside from issuing the occasional instruction, (once a foreman, always a foreman,) I never manhandled the stick at all.

I began calling team at 6:00AM to roust the late sleepers. The only one whom I didn't call was Jeffrey, the "transport". Naturally, he didn't show until 9:30. By then Mongo, Melvin and Jarret had the mast out and up on the sidewalk. Jeffrey brought a 20' aluminum I-beam to spread out the weight on the truck rack, and with the addition of Jeffrey and Young Andrew, they heaved the mast up and onto the rack. It wasn't quite like "sneaking through the city with a 38' load on top of a 20' truck at the crack of dawn", but we had a lead car and a chase car (moi), and the several cops we passed didn't think to make an issue of it.

The unloading went even smoother. The overhead crane picked the mast off the rack and landed on a wheeled dolly and rolled under the boat. Yippie Kay Yea! All the parts, boat, mast and sail are in the same place. I had the best crew one could hope for; they got paid in Heinekens.

Meanwhile, the transport issue is slowly developing to my satisfaction. So far, I have a fallback price of $1K. I have a bid that's 25% lower than that from what appears to be a reputable boat hauler. The auction (uShip) ends tonight, and I've been told the action doesn't really start until the last moments of the auction, sort of like Ebay. We'll see hwat happens.

Thanks, Annie, and everyone else who have so graciously welcomed me back. I'm looking forward to writing about something that doesn't involve boring people with my travails or the minutiae of some bit of arcana I've invented. Sea trials should be readable.

TTFN,

MD!

Sounds like the Albatross will soon be ready to go Wandering.  You're making splendid progress in spite of Boat US's best efforts.  The Lexan stanchions were a pretty astonishing concept and I can see why Mr Surveyor hesitated.  What would he have done had you left them off altogether, I wonder.  It must be reassuring to know that the rest passed muster.  Fortunately, the existence of cat boats in your country, would at least prepare him for the absence of chainplates, wire, etc.

Best of luck with your continuing efforts.  I hope you're going to find time to write all about both the building and your first sails for the magazine and those members who don't get on line :-)

Regarding the ingress of water, I am constantly surprised at the ability of water to find a way in.

Hi Annie,

So far so surprises. I lofted the frames onto a white-painted sheet of masonite. The transoms I lofted right onto the plywood. I'll loft the planks directly too. No need in my mind to loft the planks onto a painted template... unless I go into production.

The box beam WILL be watertight. I garawntee. Kant strips on the insides and fillets on the outside. A friend has a trucking company that has the Philly customs inspection franchise. This causes him to have access to piles of mahogany from the unpacking and repacking of shipping containers. Woohoo! Mahogany gunnel trim! (Actually, mahogany everything.)

Yeah, the "innie" lifelines are the actually practical ones. The deck slopes so much, it's worth the extra effort. And there shouldn't be much to do forward aside from anchoring. Sadly, there is virtually no place on deck to lounge without risking rolling right off the boat. LOL.

A Tern for the better... lofted all three frames and both transoms last night. 2.5hrs. including painting the frames template. A great start.

I'd love to drop everything and just go full bore on finishing this pronto, but, today is Sewing the Chaos Glyph to the Sail Day. (I have access to the entire dining room to spread the sail out.)

TTYL,
MD!

Michael Bragg wrote:If you are looking for a very light dingy you might try the skin on frame nesting dingy from Wooden Widget.  http://www.woodenwidget.com/stasha2.htm  

Michael

Gorgeous piece of boatbuildingsmanship.  Good thing about having a lazy eye is having the lazy hands to go along with it. Way too much work. It'd be the ideal winter project.

Channeling Professor Farnsworth, "Good news, everyone." Work on Tern*, my version of John Welsford's "Scraps" is already under construction. (What a beautiful set of plans and building guide; 8 sheets of drawings and a 12 page building guide. It would be a welcome addition to any compulsive dinghy builder's plan collection.)
* Tern, Puffin, Albatross - A theme is developing here.

At 5'-4.5", (ver. X.y), it's 85% of Scraps LOA without sacrificing any of the beam or draft/freeboard.

Brief description for the unfamiliar: Scraps is (almost) all 6mm Luan plywood. Scraps has a longitudinal seat 11"/280mm wide running the length of the boat. This 6mm thick seat is reenforced with some light batten material at the edges, cross pieces at the frames and a 6mm "riser" panel providing the actual support at each of the 3 frames.

In the building guide, John suggests adding some foam blocks under the seat for flotation. Over the course of several emails with John, I suggested adding sides to the seat and making the risers solid panels as opposed to cut-out like in the drawings. This would produce a box beam and, voila!, permanently sealed flotation. John then suggested adding an inspection hatch to one of the flotation compartments for bits of kit. Brilliant! It should be a just about even trade-off; the length weight removed will be made up by the seat sides. No biggie.
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On the Big Boat Front: MD!'s Little Shoppe of Rigging Horrors is just about out of business*.
All the mast rigging is complete with the exception of a ghoster halyard.

The batten parrels and sheetlets are 1/8" Dyneema. 150' went just far enough. Wish I'd gotten 250' or 300'.  This Dyneema is as slick as cat whiskers. I'm in <3

Along with the typical lifelines seen ubiquitously, I've built a second set that runs directly from the pushpit to the pulpit attached with snap shackles so it's removable. (Though honestly, the sheer is so low and the deck so steep at the edge, the "inside line" might just stay put until I get more comfortable... or forever) It won't replace the jacklines due to be placed at deck level.
* MD! raked in a cool $50 making up a 1/4" Dyneema, 20' bridle with 6" eyes, (we call then "chockers" in Ironworkerspeak,) for one of the guys at the shop to be used as a tow rope for his quad.

Off to the sawdust mines...
Later all,
MD!