The first day of this holiday weekend John and I got underway at 7:15 after I water taxied Lene and the felines in their carrier to Johns car and we raised and secured the dink. And we docked at 8 pm. But we were not actually underway the whole time. We detoured into Annapolis after passing about eighty boat flying spinnakers, racing the other way, headed from Annapolis to St. Michaels. We stopped in Back Bay to fill the fuel tanks, which took an estimated 90 minutes of in and out and waiting on line for the fuel dock with only about 15 of those minutes for the actual fueling.Our second stop of the day was when we run into the mud trying to enter the harbor on the south side of the C and D Canal,...
This will be my first keel up boat build.Well,unless you count the single person knock together boats I have built.I have rebuilt and restored a number of boats by myself and with friends.I even held a job doing interiors and upholstery in boats.The one main factor is the cost of building the hull and cabin.I will layout the cost to build the 27 foot trailerable Spira International boats.I am using the bill of materials(BOM) off of the study plans that are available on the Spira International website.Its good to be able to get an idea of what costs are involved before building.Most other designers require you to purchase a study plan to get an idea of whats involved to build their design.You...
Hull panel offsets for the Mistral can be found here.In the ongoing coverage of John Zs Classic Moth build, last week I stopped over at his shop to gauge his progress and have a beer. The Classic Moth modified Mistral design is now upside down awaiting gunwhales and a layer of 4 oz. glass over the bottom. This photo, though perhaps a tad distorted, shows how deeply Veed the Mistral design sections are around the midships.Transom view with a pretty swirly pattern from the okoume plywood.John, with the about-to-be-opened bottle of stout peeking up above the keel-line of his Moth.A man and his workbench. John graciously took down a Marblehead RC sailboat he built many years ago so I could take...
My brothers and I have slowed our building of the Optimist down to a crawl. However, my brother Darren has taken the lead and wants the first boat to launch on July 4th.He has purchased sail, tiller and extension, blades (rudder, centerboard), gudgeons from APS - Annapolis Performance Sailing.To protect the chine he has laid down a 2 inch strip of fiberglass cloth in simple-clear polyester resin. It should provide a bit of resistance to any "hard blows" on rocks that make up the shore of our part of Lake Ontario.Polyester resin is quick to harden and very easy to sand. It costs about half the price of shipping epoxy to us. Its just a short drive to the auto parts to pick up a qua...
Another day of motoring in the ditch with no wind. Passing Johns Island, near Vero, to port, we were impressed by the wealth invested in real estate there recently, lets say within the last decade, in large single family homes. The John Island stretch of the ICW was nice and deep, about 16 - 18 feet, compared with 10 - 14 feet most of the rest of the days passage. possibly the influence of money.Dragon and Vero are very similar geographically. Both are on the eastern, barrier island side of the ICW, just north of a high, 65 foot bridge linking that island to the mainland. In both cases you continue south until you are almost at the bridge and then hook a sharp left around a green buoy into a...
Avid readers of this blog (are there any?) knew that this post was coming. It is based almost entirely on information contained in the 91 posts that described our activities during the period October 7, 2014 to May 26, 2015, compiled for statistical purposes.We devoted about 1.5 months transiting from City Island, NY to the northern border of FL and the same amount for the return trip, with the remaining 4.5 months in Florida, almost two thirds of the 7.5 months total.We made 85 passages. These took 89 days because a few were multi-day passages. This means 141 lay days. So on 61% of the days we just stayed where we were. The longest stay in one place was in Ft. Lauderdale, 17 days between five...
"In the name of uncomfortable fun!"R2AK, the Race to Alaska, a 750 mile jumbo version of the Everglades Challenge, started the 2nd and final leg yesterday. The first leg, raced last Thursday, was a 40 mile sprint from Port Townshend, Washington to Victoria. The rules are simple; no engines, no outside assistance.Unlike the Everglades Challenge, the R2AK racetrack is open water, very cold and some of the entries are sensible, full out cruising craft. I expect once the dust has settled, the racier catamarans and trimarans will fill the top spots. I dont envy those hardy kayakers in their kayak-trimaran hybrids who will spend the entire race ensconced in their dry suits.For those who like to get...
Yes, a long day -- underway at 6:15 and put anchor down at 3:45 -- 9.5 hours of motoring in the ICW. Today and yesterday we traveled on sections of the ICW that Ive never traversed before, having been outside at these latitudes on past trips. And I noticed how almost exclusively, and less so than in the spring of 2012, the ICW is in fact a one way street - southbound only - and seems devoid of commercial traffic. It is a road dedicated to snowbirds migrating south.Our depth sounder is perhaps our most valuable piece of navigation equipment in the ditch and we watch it like hawks. When it starts to go from lets say 14 feet of water to 13.9. 13.8, etc, it means one of two things: either we have...
Mad Man Yellow Boat 2 X Turnigy Heli motors > 700 Watts 1850 Grams of thrust measured at 78 AmpsTurnigy Heli series outrunner motors are an excellent upgrade for your helicopter. Built with high quality components, tight windings and genuine NMB ball bearings, these motors provide excellent performance and efficiency at a price that cant be beat! Specs:Operating Voltage: 7.4~14.8V (2~4S lipoly)RPM: 3800kvMax Current: 35AMax Power: 365WIdle Current: 3.5AResistance: 0.018ohmsShaft: 3.175mm3mm flex shafts 3 blade impellers cutdown props 45mm pi...
The Optimist Inception:In 1947, the Clearwater Florida version of the “Soapbox Derby” called the "Orange Crate Derby" was sponsored by the Clearwater Optimist Club. There had been talk of creating a waterborne version of the Soapbox Derby racer. An Optimist Club member named Major Clifford McKay promoted the idea, and it finally made some headway with other members. He was in contact with boat builder Clark Mills about the idea and proposed a small sailboat that could be made for under $50.Don Krippendorf, in 1952,sails SharkeyFrom the USODA Manual:Mills started sketching and soon ran into a basic limitation. "Plywood was the problem. It comes in eight foot sheets. I could special order it ten...
We actually sailed, genoa only, on a jibing course that took us first to the entrance to the Dinner Key Channel and then to the red buoy just south of the first high bridge, after which it was motoring again. A delay for about fifteen minutes just before the last bridge was caused by a huge cruise liner turning in her own length just north of that bridge in a turning basin; no way I want to get too close to her.At Belle Island, we anchored even further out, far from anyone, still ten feet of water and 100 feet of snubbed chain. Our guests thought it best to stay in a hotel on their last night in Miami Beach so I took them and their luggage (appropriately very light) ashore to the Collins Canal...
0
komentar
