Team Recovery's i550

Baby gets a new suit of cloths!

2012-01-01T18:53:00.000-05:00

Last day of 2011:

First Day of 2012:

She still needs a second coat. That will happen tomorrow, the 2nd. if the weather cooperates. We have had extremely warm and mild weather to date, but this week promises to remind us of what Winter is supposed to be. We may have to wait a week for another weather window to do that second coat.

Saturday I also had to hook up the new air line dryer, which works like a charm. Instantly went from spraying as much water as paint to perfection. We also rearranged the shop and now have a larger area dedicated to the boat. The front "office" has been converted into the wood shop and the center area opened up for the boat. We now have about 500 SF for the boat area.

But, back to painting. We had decided to use Rustoleum's Marine Coatings. It is a one part marine paint that is formulated for roller/ brush on as well as spray. You may have noticed that we used grey primer all along and then the first picture it is white. That is because Rustoleum's Marine Primer for fiberglass and wood is white and I wanted to insure compatibility between the old primers and putties and the paint. Why chose this paint? The specs seemed about as good as any one part marine paint and I did not want to use a two part paint. Not in the dirty shop and also, we have striven to use the more readily available and affordable material throughout and so this fit right in. 3 quarts of Topside Black and 2 quarts of primer with thinners, tack cloths and strainers all were a bit under $ 90.00. All from the local Lowes or Home Depot.

We elected to spray ours and I used a HVLP gun. The instructions said conventional gun and while that should mean HVLP today, I have my doubts. The sheet says to thin between 10 and 15% and the primer went one just fine at 15%. Lots of orange peel when first sprayed and the primer settled right down within the hour or so. The topcoat was a bit different and would not spray well at 15%. I ended up at about 30% and it seemed to spray well but stayed a bit thick. The hull had the same orange peel as the primer and, like I hoped, it settled down in about 2 or 3 hours. Time will tell how well this paint holds up, but as it is a race boat, I suspect that the little paint scraps and chips will be many anyway.

This is also the first time we have seen the hull shiney. If I had been wanting perfection, I would have painted it before this and sanded it all off . As it is, I am very happy with the few imperfections that we have. Most if not all would not even be seen in white and few even in other dark colors. Black is, well, black, and shows the world every little thing.

Frankenstein's bulb and keel got joined together in the last couple of weeks. A touch more fairing and it can be painted and will be ready to install. This week we also have to finish up the new trailer bunks and get them installed so we can do the flip and get the deck painted.

We are currently hoping for a March launch. Let's see, we also need to find one of those spinning electric wheels and electric lightening balls to bring Frankenstein to life then as well.

Happy New Year to all.

Happy Holidays

2011-12-19T08:12:00.000-05:00

I was trying not to post until the hull was painted and flipped. After all, the pictures I have that were taken a month apart all look the same. Yep, just have been applying putty, sanding, priming and repeat for the last few months. Add to that the fact they we suddenly got busy on all work fronts and so only a few hours a week were available for the i550. We finally got the thing were we want it and the shop has developed a severe issue with water in the lines. Always had one, but it got a lot worse this Winter. Sort of like spraying a little bit of paint with the water. So, a new air dryer system is on it's way. It will allow us to spray water free paint and help with the new plasma cutter I want for Christmas!

Meanwhile, we have been working on the other parts like the rudders, foredeck covers, and the keel. Our keel is going to come in a bit light at 170 pounds. As the hull is coming is a bit heavier than planned and we know the boat is remarkably stable even without a keel (thanks to Shazza!) I do not think it will be an issue.

As soon as I get the dryer installed, I will be posting pictures of Frankenstien all black. Might happen yet this week, but then it is that holiday time of year.

Until later, happy holidays to all.

The gang at Team Recovery

Glassed

2011-08-20T15:55:00.000-04:00

It has been a long time coming, but we actually put glass on the hull Friday morning, August 19th. Of course, that means we still have lots of fairing to do. Today, I put a additional layer on the bow and we still have to add a second layer on the transom.

I still have to finish those rudder cassette boxes and get them installed, but Dan thinks he will have the hull ready for primer the middle of next week. A couple coats of primer and then the moment of truth. Frank gets her new glossy finish. We get to see just how good of a fairing job we did. Black will show everything.

Manic Fairing Disorder

2011-07-31T15:22:00.000-04:00

We have somewhere around 100 hours in on the hull to this point. I actually got over it and wanted to put the glass on but Dan, one of the guys who has done plugs and molds before, said no way. I think he's right. It is going to be black afterall. And yes, I think it is a disease!

This shot is after a good guide coat and the next is the same afternoon with more putty applied.

Did I mention I think we are a bit sick?

I do have to say that each time it gets puttied and then sanded, it looks better and better.

In fact, I keep using our gage to check symmetry and that, which was pretty good to start with, is also getting better and better.

However, we have already gone through two tubs of fairing compound and have a bit more to do. Dan does think it will be ready for the glass the end of next week.

Of course, that only means we start with the faring putty all over again!

The cassette boxes are in primer. One more round of fairing on them as well and then onto paint.

After which, we will make the sleeves they fit into for the hull. THe boxes themselves will serve as the molds.

I have already posted and will be adding to a pretty good detailed write up on making the rudders and the cassette boxes over at NA class Team Recovery Blog

That takes you to Chapter Four with Five being worked on and done soon.

And then there are the rudders themselves:

One had already been sanded and the first coat of "fairing" epoxy applied. Now the second rudder has been sanded, the shape matched as close as possible to the first one and it has the first coat of "fairing" epoxy on it.

When you sand these things, they grow a bit of hair. (I did lay on a sacrificial 6 oz layer of glass so I wouldn't sand into the epoxy.) Each coat of epoxy (I intend to leave the rudders natural at this point) smooths them as well as fills in the tiny little voids present here and there. It looks like three coats will do the trick. Then of course, a couple coats of clear urethane to finish them off.

Did you notice that everything we are doing at this point involves faring? And we are doing it in Florida in July without the help of air conditioning. In fact, by 2:00 in the afternoon, it is between 97 and 101 in the shop with 90 odd percent humidity.

Manic Fairing Disorder - the only cure is to finish.

Calling Dr. Frankinstein

2011-06-07T20:06:00.000-04:00

Me and this bulb plug are having a bit of an issue with each other. I am two for two in destroying it while making a mold of the thing. This time it came out of the concrete mold in four pieces! Good thing that like Dr. Frankinstein, I can but the thing back together again .

I also did a quick weigh in. The hull as is faired but not glassed externally came in at 455 pounds. I am projecting a final; class weight of 790 to 820.

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More work has been done to the rudder casettes withe all the parts for the second rudder having been made. Here's a shpt of how the cassette internals fit together.

Next, I'll epoxy everything in place and then skin the cassette with ply and glass. When faired, it will make the mold for the cassette trunk in the hull itself.

Rudders

2011-05-07T13:58:00.002-04:00

While Chris is doing a "vara" style rudder arrangement, I went a bit "old school" and am doing a rectangular drop in cassette for my two rudders. This requires some custom machining.

Here's the aluminum stock in the lathe and turned to the proper size and being bored out.

Next we see one of the finished bushings and put together with the rulon flanged bearing and the shaft. The PVC that connects the two bushings is to create a sealed water chamber - the rest of the rectangular cassette housing will remain dry. I hope. the shaft is a aluminum .75" OD by .125" wall tubing with a .500" carbon fiber rod epoxied inside. This should be strong enough and still allow a slight bit of flex at the higher loads.

I had mentioned that the foam cores were going to be cut up. I sliced the cores into sections, laid up 4 layers of 5.6 ox carbon into a flat sheet and traced each section onto the carbon. Once those traced foil sections were cut out, I sanded the foam down so that with the carbon sections in place, the length was back to the 24". To keep everything together while the epoxy set, I made a quick jig using the wing beds that come with the cores. I used a piece of tyvek waxed up to insure nothing stuck to the wing beds as I need them for the lay-up as well.

Once everything fit together again, I mixed up epoxy and cabosil and buttered up all the parts, put them in place and clamped the jig together. In my case, as they are inboard rudders, the shafts had to be part of this assembly. The aluminum tube was roughed up for the 12" of engagement and I added a bit of extra clearance around the shaft in each of the top carbon fiber sections. The hole in the foam at the end of the shaft bore was also filed with epoxy.

The final product. OK, not so final as it still needs to be carefully cleaned up and the exterior laid up with multiple layers of carbon and glass.

I have to also share what I did to the nicely faired bulb plug. I had decided to make a mold of it so waxed it up. Except that I decided to use the release liquid and so did not put on more than a couple of coats of wax. Then, with extra resin in hand, decided to start laying it up. You might have noticed I did not say I had applied that release compound. The result of pulling off the mold was this:

Not to fear, whatever is hurt can be fixed. Today it looks like this again! And the mold for the actual bulb will be made next week.

I scream for Ice Cream ...

2011-04-27T19:05:00.000-04:00

OK, so not really, at least not recently, but we do have to make 9 large ice cream cones - double scoop no less - for a couple of chocolate makers that also serve home made ice cream. This one is the size and engineering mock up. The "hand made waffle cones" will be laid up on the flat plastic, let to set up till stiff but flexible and then wrapped just like a real one. The ice cream scoop is actually one of the large Easter eggs - the green way to make displays - re-use Easter for Summer - eggs do go into ice cream, right?

We are slowly making fairing progress on the i550. Poor Dan spent another 4 hours on that dreaded long board today alone.

The bow is really "there". The small imperfections still present will hopefully somewhat go away with the glass and then the glass will need that little bit of fairing anyway.

The foam cores for the rudders came in. That are a lot smaller than what you would normally see for an i550 rudder core because they are inboard twin rudders. Flying Foam gets a nod for the high quality of the parts they provide. I did pay the extra to get the precision cut 3/4" dia. shaft hole placed while he was cutting the cores. It requires a rectangular hole at the end and a thin cut line down the length of the shaft, but as there will be carbon and epoxy over the entire things, those do not hurt anything. Besides, I am going to cut the cores into sections soon anyway.

The other thing those flat table "molds" will be used for is making some nice carbon fiber sheet material to cut into the foil sections. Those sections will be glued in between the cut up core so that the entire rudder is bonded to the shaft and the both outer skins. It makes the foam nothing but a material that helps produce the shape but not really needed for structure, though they will add a bit of stiffness.

2011-04-05T20:22:00.000-04:00

Egged again. I feel for those hens, laying (up) eggs is hard work and not as easy as one might imagine!

These are four that are almost ready for paint and in the back=ground, two more are being "laid".

Yes, we are running a bit late on theses. Only four in primer and eight more to go! Had a engineering snafu and had to figure out a new way to put Humpty Dumpty together. That took a few days and a couple of errors, but now that we have a system that works, the rest should go a bit smoother.

The bow and forward sections are just about there.

That bit of twisting we had on the bow is still giving us grief. The twist is gone but it is showing it's ugly head with the various other issues it caused.

The next picture shows the gauge we made to help make sure the port side matches the starboard side.

So the boat is pretty symmetrical about the real center line.

The keel is put into place here and is being used as a reference to insure the hull is symmetrical and that the keel and rudders are where they belong.

The gage works by using the dowels to contact the surface. Switching the gage around checks that both halves are the same. A little putty and the lots of sanding that goes with it takes care of any issues.

The gage is shown sitting at station 53.5 and is about where our twisted bow began.

Everything aft of 53.5 seems to be OK while everything forward has been found to be off just a bit. Just enough to cause us some trouble.

We did a lot of sole searching over whether to go forward with the reflex idea. We finally decided that as the boat will still pass the current rule set (North American) with it and the fact that Chris Beckwith, the designer said he thought it was a good idea, we went ahead with it.

This first picture is what the water will see of it. Not much really.

This picture shows just how much it does "reflex" or kick back up.

The idea is t fool the water into thinking that the boat is a bit longer than it is. We decided that the true waterline is about 14 to 16 inches forward of the transom and so the reflex starts there. It adds about .5" to the hull and topsides, not changing the measurement of the beam at the transom and adding about .5" to the free boards. The chine dimension does not change more than a .5" overall.

So, the boat still passes the rules, except it will not pass the extended line part of the original rule measurement method to measure the beam. But then, most boats built will not.

One thing to remember is that if this reflex works and works well, it can be easily added to any boat.

Of course, if it makes the thing slower, it can also be easily removed!

Egged?

2011-03-20T20:30:00.000-04:00

OK, so one of the reasons we haven't been getting a whole lot done on the i550 is things like eggs. Those odd looking greenish blue (the gelcoat was blue...) things are the molds for making oversized easter eggs for a couple of local candy stores. One set for Sweet Pete's, the existing customer, and one set with bases for the new customer, a franchised Peterbrook's store. Next, we get to make them both oversized ice cream cones! For those new here, we previously got to make very large candy canes and then a few large candy hearts as well as the main sign for Sweet Pete's.

If you are in the area of Jacksonville, they both are worth checking out. Both have a websites as well.

The other thing that seems to get in the way of the i550 is the increased business in the welding shop. The pile of steel is the material for the next three A/C cages due next week.

And of course, no other welder at the moment and so I get elected to do it. At least we have a great little jig made that makes it all go faster. Good thing too as there will be three more to be done before the end of the week.

Finally, the i550. I had hoped to have the thing sailing in time for the Mug race, but with that less then two months away, I have my doubts. (Do ya think?) A couple of guys are going to start back in on it next week and hopefully the new rudder cores will arrive as well.

I should have started working on the bearing mounts for the rudders, but that just seems like one of those jobs that needs to be started early in the AM and get it done in one sitting. Or I might be putting it off. Not sure which.

We had issues with the bow when we stitched the boat up and fixed most of them a while ago. However, once we flipped the boat, the chine area at the bow was still a bit off. Today I spend some time tweaking the chine. We ended up with a bit of unfairness on the starboard chine and so used our foam and epoxy technique to add material and long boarded everything fair again. A little epoxy putty and it is ready for sanding
and fairing again. And again.

We are strongly considering a name change. Due to a few comments that were made on the i550.org site referring to some of the boats that have not been built exactly like the early boats, meaning no cabins, in board rudders, etc., as Frankenboats, we are thinking that the name Frank iStein may just be appropriate. The boat sort of looks the part at the moment, all wood and epoxy sort of haphazardly put together.

Still will be a black boat though, after all, the best two Frankenstein movies (the Original and Young Frankenstein) were filmed in black and white.

Cassette time!

2011-02-17T21:12:00.002-05:00

It was time to be brave and cut out the bottom of the boat. A couple of posts ago, I set up a jig and drilled the rudder shaft holes through the bottom of the boat and the cockpit sole. Now, we basically formed the basis of the rudder cassette and cut it out of the boat. we did the starboard one only so far to insure it all worked.

This first picture shows the layout of the bottom of the cassette. It is about an inch bigger fore and aft than the eventual rudder will be. The width was just conveniently set to have the cassette large enough to work with.

The rectangular shape was laid out and the four 1/2" holes were drilled 1/2" in from the corners. The second picture is the same layout in the cockpit. Except that the rectangle is 1/2" larger on all sides.

The dowels line up the tops and bottom of the cassette and lock them into place. The 1/2" wood size was chosen as it is readily available and is stiff enough to hold up.

Our dowels are 36" long, so we just mixed up some 5 minute epoxy and glued them on place. A little reaming is most likely needed to get them all to line up. They need to fit tightly, however.

Once the glue sets, you can just zip off the extra length.

You can see that the four dowels converge. This is because we are really making a wedge shaped cassette. It will then self center and fit tighter.

The hardest part is that first cut. We used a cut off blade in a 4" angle grinder. It smoked a bit but was easy to control. The corners had to be finished off with the old time hand saw.

This picture just shows the machine cuts made and ready for the corners.

I cut the top first, which I think now was backwards. I had to support the cassette when I cut the bottom so it didn't fall on my face.

Once done, we now had this large rectangular hole right through the boat!

The dowel idea worked as well as I had hoped. The result is a stiff framework from which we will build the actual cassette. The plan is to install a flanged bushing in the bottom and then make an aluminum plate for the top that is larger that the cockpit section on the cassette to act as a flange. Another flanged bushing will be installed onto the aluminum plate. Then a PVC tube will be glassed in between the bushings to provide the actual sealed area for the rudder shaft.

After that, the outer cassette will be fabricated over the wood framework and glassed. It will be finished and then the work on the well in the boat will begin. This is to insure that the cassette will fit at all and fit tightly.

This technique could be used for a single centered rudder as well. Chris Beckwith's circular bearing type "vara" rudder cassette is a bit different and he should be putting that up on his blog soon.

This shot really shows how much it is wedge shaped.

I had a similar shaped cassette on my SR25 but is was not wedge shaped a somewhat awkward all metal framework. I am hoping that with careful fitting, the wedge idea really works as the alignment on the twin rudders is much more critical.

The mock-up rudder installed with the shaft. The actual rudders, it has been decided, will be carbon over foam and will be somewhat larger and longer than the one shown.

The vise grips are about the location of the clamp on aluminum arms that need to be fabricated. They will be clamp on to allow for those adjustments that will be key to getting the twin rudders to perform properly.

To be honest, sometime I wonder why we do these things to ourselves. The extra time to build these rudders may very well be equal to the time it would take to finish this boat with the standard rudders.

But they are kind of cool and this is the fun part of the i550 experience - coming up with new ideas and working out the ways to make those ideas work.

Next up is the port cassette and we should be building rudders next after that.

Reflexed, Perplexed

2011-02-02T19:31:00.001-05:00

This is the most difficult idea to do so far. No, the actual physical part of it is actually easy, it is the mind numbing, over stressing designing of it that is difficult.

The old, what if I get it wrong! So what you see here is the fourth incarnation. I have tried several ideas to pull off this Reflex Idea. Just as refresher, a couple of posts ago I posted the Glenn Henderson short version of what a reflex is and what it does. Chris Beckwith, the i550 designer also commented that he thought it was a great idea.

None of that helps with the stress of trying to get it right though.

What you see here is panels of 1/8" thick Divinycell H80 to form the basic shape of the Reflex. I wanted to be sure that anyone who wants to could add a reflex if it worked well so using panels like this seems the easiest and very easy to duplicate. Divinycell is a dense core material that is still somewhat affordable. There will be about $ 40.00 worth of foam used in this modification. I also is very hard to sand so will work well for this application.

I started from the transom and used a 12 inch stripe, followed by a 6 inch strip then 2 inches and finally 1 inch. This means I effectively added 1/2 inch to my freeboard, about a 1/2 inch to the beam at the chine. The effectual "sloop" will be from the rudder post to the transom.

The beam at the sheer is the issue. If the beam is measured as a max beam, it is fine. If the old current rules are used and the issue with the beam at the sheer at the transom is not corrected (technically, many boats may not pass the current rule due to the extended line rule 4.10 and a less than maximum dimension that is used.), then it will not pass the current rule. Or it can, depending on how you measure it. I may have to reduce the thickness of the Reflex at least on the topsides to 3/8" of an inch rather than the 1/2".

This is all based on my old SR25. The reflexis on the topsides as it is very effective upwind when the boat is heeled somewhat. The amount on the SR25 seems like it was about a 1/2 inch so that is what I tied to accomplish.

The next step will be to glue the foam in place, add fairing compound and start long boarding it into shape. When done, it will not be very noticeable at all.

Once these are glued and faired, I can cut out the hull rectangles in the hull and the cockpit that will form the new rudder cassettes. The hardest thing to figure out has been holding everything in place so that the angles stay correct and the hull bottom lines up the way it should.

I just have to keep reminding myself that we built the thing so we can fix, redo, remove any modifications we may screw up or not like in the end. Fun times ahead for sure!

the new rudders

2011-01-25T21:10:00.003-05:00

Here's a shot of the new rudder - or at least the mock-up. I ended up with the same amount of rudder below the waterline as I had with the rudders transom hung. They are still at a 15 degree angle.

I set up the jig that can be seen ready to drill the port side (if the boat was right side up) and had to drill through the hull, re-set the jig and then drill through the cockpit sole.

I set the rudders forward 18 inches from the transom. I checked this and that, moved the rudders back and forth and finally decided to go with my initial idea. I wanted the rudder pivot about where the real waterline at the stern of the boat seemed to be.

I actually got the port side drilled today and I have to admit, I was somewhat surprised that I managed to get them both right on the money.

Now, I have to decide on whether I want to go carbon for the shaft, make all new rudders, also from carbon, finalize the design of the cassette and ...

well, the list goes on and on. Of course, there is also a chance that I get an e-mail from the designer saying "what in the heck are you doing!". and have to drop back and punt!

Changes afoot!

2011-01-01T11:18:00.000-05:00

As we progress on line moving towards a new set of rules, I have been realizing that there is a movement afoot within the core i550 class group to limit what I feel is the best part of the i550 experience. The fun development tweaks we can all make to our boats. After a couple of months of work in private on the proposed version 3 rule set, what this core group has come up with basically makes many of the boats sailing and being built “Grandfathered Boats”, hull 130 most definitely among them. So, I figure that if we are going to have an orphaned boat, we may as well get the maximum fun out of it. To that end, I decided to go ahead and do some of the things I had been wanting to try but had hesitated because I knew that some within the class would not feel comfortable with them.

Chris Beckwith, the designer, has just announced that he was indeed doing inboard rudders for his new i550 build. This is something I was holding off on as while I really do not like transom hung rudders, I thought some within the class would feel it was an advantage. Why I worried about that with carbon masts and the like, I do not know.

Now, we an going to do it. I will be staying with the twin rudder set up and will not not bother to make them easily removable. The linkage will be above deck and two pins will be pulled, a bunch of screws removed and they will both come out, rectangular cassette style. This is the same basic set up used on the older SR trailerable models. The rudders will be the same as I was going to use, just modified a lot. It will be fun to do and an interesting exercise.

The other thing that I pulled from my experience with the SR25 (Ruckus with us, Putz originally) was the keel stepped mast. While in many ways, it complicated things, both for the construction, raising it and now it seems with the new rules, it allowed us to use the lighter section and still keep the stiffness we wanted.

The last thing we are going to try is based on the following from Glenn Henderson’s old SR line brochure:

"One prominent feature in the aft underbody at the rudder post is what we call a “reflex”. This is where the underbody going towards the stern in it’s normal upward direction is slightly reflected back down. Subtle but effective. In light air, water separates from the stern before traveling down this reflex reducing wetted surface drag. In higher speed to length ratios, this reflex flattens out the stern wave, making it form further aft. This artificially extends the waterline of the boat increasing waterline limit. In a good breeze an upwind SR appears to be planing (we have simply fooled the water into responding to what seems like a much longer boat.) This reflex also increases hydrodynamic lift enabling the boat to plane off wind like a powerboat."

From my time with our SR25 Ruckus, I can tell you the boat was as faster upwind, when we got it right, than most 30 footers. I will say though, that this was done prior to 1995 and so sportboats have progressed some since then.

I am by far not an expert in the field of boat design. I can not call up Glenn Henderson and ask him to locate and design this “reflex” but I do have some interesting information from the SR25 days and so, I am going to give this a try on the i550. It might help, it might make it worse. That is the fun of doing this stuff anyway. Will the idea work and how well?

I suppose some may consider this a manipulation of the rules, but as I have been consistently accused of doing it anyway by a few on the i550 forum, I may as well go ahead and try it. Besides, regardless of what anyone might wish to think, the ideas we are going to try are indeed well within the current rule set. More than likely others have done and will do even more, including a few of those trying to limit what we can do.

The work begins again next week, The topsides need about two days work and then we can start on the hull bottom. It will be interesting to try to figure out the “reflex” and getting the hull to do it. I am planning on using divinicel to add to the hull bottom plywood to accomplish it. Care will be taken to insure that things like freeboard and the tolerances involving the shape of the hull panels are held, perhaps even the tighter than the current +/- 1". Also, doing it this way means it can be removed if it makes the boat worse! That is one of the beauties of building your own boat this way; you know it, how it is put together and so you can also take it apart and change something if you need to.

I am putting this out there and will document how it goes so that, if possible and if it does what we hope, others can follow suit if they wish. This is what a development class, even a restricted one, is all about. Having fun and experimenting within the rules. And besides, Notorious may as well live up to her name!

Hollowed Hull

2010-12-14T10:36:00.000-05:00

Actually, they are not hollows but more like bulges in between the bulkheads. The forward ones are from my attempt at forcing the plywood to conform as close as possible to the as designed shape. While it seemed OK back then, once the boat is flipped and long battens applied, it is the same as pretty much everyone else's that added to the bulkheads. Actually worse, possibly contributed to the thinner plywood or perhaps the adding of cloth on one side of the plywood and changing how the plywood responds to the changes in weather. In any case, it is between 3/4 and 1 inch at the bulkhead. Besides the forward one, there is one located at 169.5 as well, but that one is only 1/4 inch. Also, one appears between 110 and 124, but that one is really at the puzzle joint and really is a hollow of about 1/4 inch.

We elected to fill these in with foam. i know that at least one boat was cut up due to issues like this and so this method can and will save a boat that has any waviness along the hull. It should also be noted that the issues are symetrical about the center line so we know the boat is not twisted or anything. These issues are only in the skin.

First we purchased low density 1 inch thick foam. Three 2 x 4 pieces are about $ 60.00 delivered. That is more than enough to do all the locations. We used long battens and located the depressions to be filled. They should appear as rough ovals and should go to very little at the chine and the shear. We cut the foam down to 1/2 inch for the shallower areas. We glued the foam onto the area using a notched trough and thickened epoxy. You may have to screw trhe foam in place to make it conform. Once set, we long boarded the foam to shape. You want to take the foam to about 1/8 inch below the final surface.

Save the foam sanding dust as it makes a good thickening agent. We then smoothed the area with the foam dust thickened epoxy putty and immediately applied the cloth. I believe one layer of 6 oz bi-axial is good enough to stiffen the foam. Once all the locations are done this way, do your fairing like normal and apply a layer of the cloth of your choice. You end up with 12 oz. of cloth ( or more) over the foam and that will be fine for normal use.

You can use fancier foam at higher costs and densities, but I do not believe there is any real reason to. The low density is entirely outside the "water tight" hull and the plywood ends up sealed so the only time the low density becomes an issue is from impacts. Which would most likely require a repair regardless of the foam being there or not.

It cost about $ 100.00 in materials in the end and about 16 hours of labor. A cheap way to "save" a hull if any of you out there end up with a problem or two.

Flipped

2010-11-07T13:47:00.001-05:00

A great big thank you goes out to the guys who came over Friday and helped get the bottom onto it's deck. Now all the hard work on that hull begins!

Rigged again!

2010-11-04T20:17:00.000-04:00

We got the rig up and proved a few ideas were sound today. The second picture is the forestay tensioner and the mast locator mock-up.

Our forestay is adjustable using a wire block (first picture) at the head of the forestay. The adjustment cable runs from a tab on the upper spreader bracket through the block then passes into the mast through a wire halyard block. The cable exits the mast above the deck and passes through the mocked up mast locator. A harken 6 to 1 block arrangements gives the final ratio at 12 to 1.

The third picture, though it is hard to see, shows the rig at light tension. Then we see the blocks tighten to tension the rig and the result with the mast. The bottom line is that we accomplished what we hoped we would for the most part. The mast goes from raked for light air to a fairly straight mast with the tip aft.

The Ultimate 24 uses this type of arrangement. That boat has a single spreader carbon rig though so our results are a bit different. Primarily, the tip of the mast on the U24 actually moves rearward as you tension the mast. With our rig, the mast tip is fixed and can not move back much. It does a bit, and the uppers, which initially tighten, get looser as you reach max tension. We also seem to have a issue with the lowers being a bit too tight or the intermediates are too loose. Hard to tell, but probably the latter. All that means is that we have a lot of experimenting to do yet.

I am thinking that running the uppers not through the lower spreaders, but directly to the deck will make it a bit easier to tune properly.

The ultimate goal is to be able to properly depower the rig for heavy air. The hope is that if the wind goers from light to moderate to heavy all in one race, then the rig can be adjusted for it with nothing but the one line. It works on the U24, as to for us? We'll see soon.

The mast locator serves several functions. It ties the tops of bulkhead 89 together and therefore replaces the cabin for that purpose. It also acts as a stop when raising the mast. We also, as shown in the pictures, have the ability to shim the mast to help set rake. That also means that it gets loaded forward pretty heavily when at max tension.

The part shown here is a temporary mock-up and the final version will be a lot more substantial as it will also be carrying the load of the jib halyard and so will be tied down to the mast step as well. The mock-up also deflected a bit at max tension, meaning we were getting enough leverage out of the set-up to pull in the sides of the hull (about a 1/8" of an inch total).

Without a cabin now, the mast locator will probably also be the location for things like the pole controls as well.

We were racing against the coming rain so ran out of time today to trial fit the sails. That will now have to wait as tomorrow, weather permitting, the hull gets finally flipped.

No cabin, no worries!

2010-10-24T11:58:00.000-04:00

I thought I would go ahead and put up a few more pictures of how we handled converting form the planned cabin to a flush deck boat.

The first picture shows the rear insert removed and the forward cover still in place. This is the way I envision the boat being sailed the majority of the time. Also, the companionway area will be cut out a lot more with a panel or hatch board added that slides in place like most other boats have.

The next picture is the forward cover removed to show the size of the opening. You can also see the foam braces installed under the unfinished front cover. I think that in light conditions, removing the forward cover would be OK and allow for weight to be forward but mostly it just provides easy access to the mast.

The bow shot just gives a view of how the covers look in place. Lastely, the 6 foot tall candy canes we are making for the local candy shop are painted white and are scheduled to be done this coming week.

Playing with carbon

2010-10-24T11:40:00.000-04:00

A bit of progress since the last entry. The cockpit has as much glass on it now as we had. I was a bit slow in getting more cloth in, but we should have it this week.

While I was waiting, I made custom carbon fiber chain plate covers. I just used the boat itself, a bit of cardboard, plastic film and release compound and molded them using two layers of 9 oz. uni carbon cloth, oriented 90 degrees from each other. The trimmed to close final size piece ended up at 1.5 ounces. The alternative to carbon that were available to me at the shop worked out to be Aluminum at 3.75 ounce and Stainless at 15 ounces each. And, frankly, this way was also a lot easier!

Running out of material may have been a mixed blessing as we ended up with a gaggle of cages to build!

Flushed

2010-10-03T17:20:00.000-04:00

So we just realized we spent over 40 man-hours getting the cockpit ready for glassing. Things are going even slower that we had thought. So, in the interest of time, we have temporarily shelved the cabin top and gone topless. We did reinforce the edges of the opening, which is about the size of the normal cabin, and we are making a foam cored cover. It is now just a one piece rough moulding in the making. The battans are being held in place with the lead that eventually will be the bulb and they are supporting the foam in the right shape and a couple of layers of cloth will hopefully lock in that shape so we can glass the under side and form the edges. Then it will also be cut at the rearward seam with the front half eventually trimmed out to fit around the mast and the rear section mated to the vertical companionway hatch "board". We will evetually make up a cross support that reconnects bulkhead 89 back together and loops behind the mast. Maybe we will actually get to glass the deck this week! Then again, we do have a lot of welding to do...too bad we must do all those other things to be able to work on the boat.

Is green going to be the new fast?

2010-09-19T13:50:00.001-04:00

OK, so the pictures never do seem to end up where I want them ...

That's OK, you learn to just accept some things ...

Besides, who knows what will happen when I post this? I certainly don't.

The green I was referring to was the green bulb plug. One more application of fairing compound and one more painting and it should be ready. This is the plug given to TFord by Knotracing and then TFord graciously forwarded it onto me. It will be available to whomever after I am done and so you might just want to get your dibs in early. The rule is, and yes, it is my rule, as it was given freely to TFord, who then freely gave it to me and even paid shipping, I will continue the trend as long as you agree to do the same. This plug could end up being used for many. many bulbs if everyone takes care if it and passes it along.

The other pictures are of what we did recently to get green so we can pay for the green. We actually only made new finales to match the old ones (the fancy turnings on top of the newels) and we installed new newel lights, all in a very nice 100 year old house.

Also over Labor day, we took strider and did a couple of short ocean races. basically from Mayport, St John's River entrance to Fernandina Beach, St Mary's River entrance and back the next day. We took third of ten and then third of 6 in the hotly contested Cruiser Class. Racing in comfort...a far cry from our Ruckus days. strider, by the way, is a 1986 S2 35C shoal draft. And proof that a balsa cored boat can be done right and not have issue one after twenty odd years. I do check it often with a meter though. The picture is a bit old now, and she has a shiner hull and new sails, still white as required in Cruising Class, but radial cut and they seemed pretty fast over labor day.

And one more picture of the deck still being faired and sanded. Another week and we should be actually onto glassing the deck.

decked out

2010-08-15T16:03:00.000-04:00

We finally went ahead and finished off the foredeck. YEsterday we put a layer of 6 oz. bi on all interior panel surfaces and went ahead and installed them today while things were still a bit flexible. We are hoping it will avoid the issue of waviness we had with the side decks. We still have the cabin top to go, but as that is another story and process, we can go ahead and glass the deck now and flip the boat. We almost decided to make this hull a flush deck boat, but in the end we felt our funky cabin would be just fine (frustrated, insecure, neurotic and emotional) ... sort of fits...

The keel trunk is done as well. We had a it of extra length in the keel strut and so the extra height was just as easy to do as not. The end result is very strong and well supported. We will also have delrin like guides at both the top and the bottom of the well that fit much tighter around the keel strut than the sleeve does.

The chain plates and stem fittings are also ready for that final install. We powdered coated them in Smoked Chrome. Just a different look and while the finish may not hold up as long as polished, we might not either!

Next week a crew is planning on sanding and prepping then glassing the entire deck. The undersides were all done in 6 oz bi, the topsides of the deck will be 6 oz. cloth. Then the flip. Finally.

Poled

2010-07-18T13:38:00.000-04:00

So we took a piece of thin wall PVC and wrapped it around the big end of the carbon stick we call a sprit. Then we wrapped carbon around it and we have the launch tube. The PVC acts like bearing material as well as adding some strength.

The tube is now in place and the sprit extends and retracts just the way it is supposed to. As it is tapered however, it does fit a bit loose when retracted so I suspect we will take on more water through our tube than most. Perhaps that is why all the other tapered pole I have seen were deck mounted? Any who, a rubber and foam "stop" of some kind should keep the water intrusion to a minimum.

We also got that keel trunk in. We had leveled the boat when we installed the mast step so we used the mast step for leveling the boat fore and aft. We then leveled across the boat at the chines. The bottom of the boat was cut out with a bit of play and the keel trunk with the keel strut sticking through was centered at the chines and leveled and plumbed. I still am worried about this for some reason, but it does seem like we covered the right bases and the keel should be where it belongs. We still have the taping and such to do and we need to finish off the cockpit area around the keel trunk.

Meanwhile, we are at a bit of a stand still with the glassing of the these items as some material we need NOW was "left with Armstrong at the Front Deck.". As I was at the shop on the date and time UPS did this and there is no Armstrong let alone a Front Deck, I am a bit perturbed. Hopefully it will get worked out, but we lost this weekend and who knows how much longer.

As these details get more and more worked out and marked off the list, sailing this boat this coming Fall is looking like a real probability. If so, we might just be the 6th or 7th US boat sailing. August will be a busy month.

Sign,sign, everywhere a sign...

2010-07-07T08:56:00.000-04:00

Here at Team Recovery, we get ourselves into a bunch of odd things. Lately, we have been helping a local artist build a sign. It is for a new candy store and is basically a huge lollipop. We made a quick temporary mold and laid up two halves. The halves are being readied for paint and to be attached to the stick, a length of PVC pipe. It will hopefully be done the end of the week.

On the i550 front, we have saved our pitifully looking sprit. It is a cedar cored, tapered tipped pole that had a bad case of the wrinkles. We made a hand operated "lathe" and sanded the wrinkles out with a belt sander. Then an additional layer of carbon to replace any that was sanded off and it finally is beginning to look like it is supposed to. As we elected to leave the cedar core in place, the sprit weights more than the all carbon purchased ones. Ours comes in at about 6 1/2 pounds.

We also had to tear into the bow and fix an issue we noticed. Somehow we managed to allow the bow to get twisted just a bit. I had been looking at it and going back and forth on whether it was OK or not, but we then leveled the boat on it's chines and got the tape and levels out. Yep, it wasn't exactly plumb so we cut it all apart and started over. The twist started between bulkhead 53.5 and 18. We cut 18 out and confirmed 53.5 was OK. The good part of this was that we got to see just how well things get bonded together, the bad was having to do it at all.

Now, the bow is plumb and we finished up the stem fitting. We will be putting the mast up again soon and confirming the adjustable forestay gear and that we can achieve the mast control we are hoping for. It will also be a good time to check the fit on the sails.

The cabin top plug is also almost ready as well.

Agent Gibbs, how did you get that boat out again?

2010-06-12T09:58:00.000-04:00

So we finally moved the boat outside and put that rig up. Of course, we had to learn a thing or two from NCIS's Agent Gibbs....how to get a boat out of somewhere without a large enough door! So, the hull measures 95.5 and the door was 96.25 - all should be OK, right? Nope. Interference fit...the boat grows when it is not perfectly straight. I was going to tilt the boat, but the owner of the building was there and grabbed a hammer and chisel and we now have that proverbial 1" clearance. Of course, the height needed for that clearance will change when the boat is moved to the trailer.....

The rig was put up by slipping the boat back into the doorway and standing the rig up from the roof. The companionway is not cut out yet and so the future method of walking the rig up was not going to work. The lengths of the shroud have now been confirmed and the placement of everything looks OK so next week we will have the shrouds swagged and put the rig back up and fit the sails.

Re-decked for comfort

2010-04-27T23:01:00.000-04:00

Lot's being done. The new side decks have been finalized and the one side installed. Now when hiked out, the Derrière has some place to sit rather than that sharp shear. And the front of the addition should direct some of the water away from the cockpit. Maybe. Still haven't gotten that keel trunk in nor did we get the rig up. I have been very nervous locating the trunk form inside the boat. No good reference points due to the fillets. So, I finally went down under and did it all from the bottom. Now that I am comfortable with the location, I plan on getting it in this week yet. The sails are on their way to us so we need to get a move on. I really wanted to get the side deck issue resolved before tackled the rig and now that it has been, we need to get the stem fitting fabricated and installed so we can get the rig up. Unfortunately, we keep going back and forth on the sprit and may just do a deck mounted pole.

The boat we repaired should leave the end of the week. We really ended up putting a totaled boat back together and ended up with a lot more time in it than we all hoped. Client is happy still and that is what matters. This boat out of the way and we should be able to get more progress on the i550.

One step forward, two steps back.

2010-04-08T19:45:00.000-04:00

As things progress, I see more and more things I want to change. Some things are a must. Like the issue with the side decks. The panels were laid with 6 oz. bi on the underside side and allowed to sit. A month or so later, they were installed. The person installing them did not notice the warpage in the wrong direction. The panels took the correct shape at the bulkheads and nicely cupped in between. What to do. First thought was foam. Build up the low areas with ligth weight (but expensive) foam and then fair and glass. Last night I had a thought, a dangerous thing at midnight anyway, and realized I didn't want my butt sitting on the hard corner when the thing is heeled. So, next week, I get to design and mock up new side decks that will conform to my butt better. Hopefully the cupping problem will be solved. At least it will be buried never to be seen.

Then, I finally had that darn cabin top plug 99% and we set it in place. We didn't like it. It is just too curvey and smooth for the shape of the boat. We liked it when we thought it was going to look like canvas over stringers. So, I put 3/8 inch wide strips of 1/4 " ply down the thing and started filling and sanding again. By the way, the new idea is that it is a "zeppelin" look.

And I will not even discuss the carbon sprit thing. Yes thing, not a pole. It is supposed to be a learning experience, it is suposed to be a learning experience, it is....

Some things have gone right. The keel strut came out very nice. I know it isn't perfect, but then I haven't meet a production keel that was either. This one is better than the one off my old SR 25 at the very least.

The chain plates are in. They have to be removed and powder coated or polished. I haven't make up my mind yet. Heck, I'm not sure SS powder coats well or not. Perhaps I should look that up. Anyway, I like the adjustable chain plates so that's what I did. A bit heavy, but strong and I think they direct the loads to the right places.

The standing rigging has all been ordered and is somewhere between New England and Florida. The stem fitting has been designed and mocked up so it can get built. The spreader brackets are modified again and ready and the rest of the mast and rig are waiting for me to get to it. I am planning on rolling the boat outside next week and stepping the mast to check everything out while there is still time and opportunity to modify and redesign as may or may not be needed. After this week (OK, the last month or so), something will need modified or changed or....

I am going to upload the pictures now. I know they will appear somewhere on this page, I just don't know where. Something else to figure out some day. Meanwhile, I'm out of here and am going sailing! OK, not until Saturday, but until Tuesday! (I'm a bit bummed...this time last year we were at Charleston. We didn't do too good racing wise, but we did end up having fun and miss not going this year)

Lots accomblished, but on the wrong boat!

2010-02-27T17:40:00.000-05:00

Progress has been slowed due to getting a paying gig. We are fixing the gray center counsole boat pictured here. We had to cut out the cockpit sole to remove the gas tank to get at two 12 inch long cracks in the center of the hull, both following the strakes. Noone involved owned the boat when it was "damaged" so all of us were really just guessing at why the cracks were there. There was no evidence of external damage and overall, the boat looked well built. As it turned out, the gas tank was the culprit. It was set on one cross piece, that allowed the tank to pivot, and was not very securely fastened to start with. SO, when full, about 300 pounds beat on the bottom of the boat and eventually stressed the hull to failure. The final damge ended up being two three foot long cracks. We are now in the process of putting things back together.

At least I did have a chance to keep working on fairing the keel strut, which is ready for final paint, and the cabin top, which is driving me crazy. I also put together the new vacuum pump system for bagging and made a cedar core for the future carbon tapered tip sprit.

We have had some issues with warpage of the deck panels we made up by laying up one side and letting them sit around a bit. we are trying a couple of ways to deal with that right now as well.

I am also "playing" with some divinycell, for both cabin top and a future project.

Ruddered

2010-01-24T16:45:00.000-05:00

The rudders are production catamaran rudders with custom heads. The heads are "old school" in that they are cedar core with alum side plates. Mounted at a 15 degree angle and aligned with the chine. They are pinned down or manually tilted up for trailering.

The tiller will be mounted inboard and the tie rods will also be inboard. All bare alum parts will get powdered coated to protect them.

And yes, the side plates are diamond plate...sometimes you just gotta use what ya got.

The keel box goes in and the deck gets permiantely put in place next week. Then the big flip finally happens.

Hey Honey, what happened to those storage containers I just bought?

2009-12-19T09:47:00.000-05:00

Hey, what can I say, they were just the right size! I think they are intended for a sandwich, but now they are the under deck "boxes" for the hexarachet blocks for the spinnaker sheets, or rather they were the mold to make those boxes. One lasts for two moldings and the others? Well, they did make nice mixing tubs. The next picture shows one of them mounted and the thin wall PVC pipe laid in place as a rope channel. All of this to put the sheets under deck so the crew doesn't end up sitting on them.

We are also zeroing in on that cockpit. The ply has all been covered with 6 oz. biaxial on the underside and is ready to be installed. We now need to get that keel done and the keel box in so the ply can be permanently installed.

The mast is also being readied and the custom designed and built rudder pintles and gundeons are being fabricated. Bob Patison of Neil Pryde has the sails in final design and I have to tell you, I am impressed at the amount of attention they have given our little project. They are worth considering for your next set of sails.

The holidays are traditionally a slow work time so we should get lots of work done on the boat over the next couple of weeks. Meanwhile, I hope all of you have a great and cheerful Holiday Season!

Plastered Cabin?

2009-12-01T20:49:00.000-05:00

Time for a quick update. Assuming the photos load the way I think they will, the first one is the keel. The first (notched) fairing coat has been sanded and the thing is surprisingly fair.

Next is the cabin coming into focus. The white is the plaster (OK, it's really 20 minute drywall mud). It's cheap, stiff, sands easily and will take a finish so it can become the plug for a mold. We also learned that if you want that "WWI airplane" look, you need to go build an airplane...didn't look so hot in reality. Smooth curves seem to be the way to go.

The last one is the new rounded corner for that cockpit side. The actual corner was molded over 4 inch PVC and is being inserted under the plywood top and sides. A core material and more glass will be added to bring the curved molding up to the thickness of the plywood.

I wish things were moving faster, but work keeps getting in the way. It normally slows down about now but a job that needs done in time for Christmas has me running. The welding shop is also busy and our welder just got jury duty.

A couple of the new guys are going to start working on the boat yet this week so perhaps the deck will get done soon.

Keel Days

2009-11-01T15:01:00.000-05:00

We began thinking that the keel would take forever. We have been pleasantly surprised that it hasn't. We started by cutting the wood into strips. The strips are cut to the required width and we started from the leading edge and worked back to the trailing edge. This means that when stacked, the front of the stack forward of the widest point would have to be sanded down the the correct shape while rearward of the widest point is filled in. It seemd to work pretty well and it was easy to do. We also inserted two aluminum bars into the layup to add stiffness to the assembly.

I also have a picture of the cabin top. As you can see, it is stretched over a framework and sort of looks like how WWI airplanes were made. We decided that it would be fun to try something a little different so that is the look we went for. If it looks cool when done, great, if not, well a little more putty and we can have the plug for a nice round shape. In either case, this will become the plug for the mold that will make a couple of cabin tops using a foam core.

As the keel has gone well, rather than flip the boat now, this week will be used to finish up the keel, make the rudder heads, tiller and other fittings, the keel trunk and begin the deck.

And, one of these days I might have to read how to post here rather than just winging it. Oh, well. I'd rather be working on a boat anyway.

I have also posted a picture of a custom A/C cage we built, just one of the other things Team Recovery does. We also will be doing all of the machining and welding on the rudder fittings and most of the chain plates and mast fittings.

Topless progress and the boat meets it's first rule check!

2009-10-15T18:14:00.000-04:00

So, as you can see, the guys and I have removed the cabin . I thought I had a picture of it, but that will have to wait until next time. We had hoped to get the mast step in, but we had to wait for a rule to be determined.

Per Tim, the rule will be that the listed "J" measurement is not a real "J", but an actual measurement from the actual bow of the bow, to the front face of the mast, which is what Chris has suggested on the forum. Not the best call, IMO, but that's OK, it is a rule I think eveyone can live with.

For boats with a deck stepped mast, it should be pretty easty to make sure you comply. For us with a "keel" stepped mast, we have to worry about how and where it is measured officially and how the rake of the mast effects the measurement. Our mast base was originally going to be located by the slot in the center or the most forward slot in the picture with the angle gages. The most rearward slot was my "OMG, with the standard rake, it could measure an inch off" slot, then the final, used slot is the calmer, "let's see were we really are" slot. Anyway, the way it works is this: The aluminum angles get welded together and holes drilled in the sides as well as the center bottom. The mast base can be adjusted fore and aft, except now the most it can go rearward is the max. allowed dimension, which is 89.5 inches. It meets spec at this location, but is pretty straight. It also pivots side to side about its center so that the mast can be raised to the side and around the keel when the boat is on the trailer. The eventual cabin top will have a cut out that centers the mast side to side and has provisions for shims to help set the mast rake, ETC.

Otherwise, you can see a picture of our "moulded over 2" PVC" stiffeners. If they work as I hope, we will use them all over as they are a little lighter than the fabricated wooden ones. As soon as the balance of the epoxy work is done, sans the keel area, we will flip the boat so we can work on the epoxying and fairing of the hull while we work on the required keel.

Problems of a different bulkhead

2009-09-20T17:50:00.000-04:00

So, as we moved from the transom forward, I expected to have the same problem at bulkhead 53.5 as other have. We didn't. I thought at first it was because we lofted ourselves and changed something somehow. Then I realized that as I had chosen 53.5 as one of the jig locations, the jig was holding the panel to the "as designed" shape and changing what was going on above the half way point and forward. It has been a somewhat frustrating deal getting the bow to at least appear correct. I even slide the boat back off of the jig and still had issues. Maybe something isn't just right with that lofting afterall!

We finally took the bulkheads out and re-checked them and they were just about right on. So, I decided to let the boat have its way. The topsides ended up with a bit of flare and the bow developed a slight, but symetrical, "hollow" just above the waterline. The picture of the bow with the little battons in place shows this "hollow". To get this far, we made a brand new #18, which is now more of a "#19". The hull is "as designed" up about half-way then flares out. The shear looks good as does the chine. The panel joint appears to bulge out, but it really does not. Took me a while to get used to that.

The "epoxy crew" shows up Monday and I still haven't finished the bow. Work, of all things, as this is supposed to be my work right now, keeps getting in the way of progress. And, a good thing, some of the guys have been getting real jobs.

I'm also going to lay up some sample panels and see just how much stiffer that interior glassing is going to make the hull panels.

I just noticed that someone had asked a question at the previous post and I missed it. Anyway, the reason for the tilted sole is that we added those wings at the transom to help support the twin rudders and wanted to insure good draniage when the boat wasn't heeled very much. If it wasn't for those wings that effectively reduced the open area of the transom, we probably would not have added the slope.

Boat like object

2009-08-29T14:23:00.000-04:00

As it won't exactly float yet, it really isn't a boat yet. But exciting progress!

We made a steel frame with three (stations 53.5, 110 and 169.5) patterns set up per the "jig" offset table. These patterns were made by tracing around the actual bulkhead and taking another ply thickness so that the hull panels would fit right in.

We were a little worried since we are using the lighter plywood (5.2 mm), but once in place, the bulkheads seem just fine. We have cut temporary stringers to help locate each bulkhead and have tacked them in place.

One issue we did have is that I made the wrong choice for the "puzzle joint" glue. I have been regluing most of them with regular epoxy. The Purbond I used is just not strong enough to do the job, particularly up in the bow area.

We will locate the cockpit sides and bottom on frame 124 and 110 and finish cutting them out. We changed things a little from the plans, somewhat like Kevin and others have done and felt the best way to insure a nice fair curve was wait until this point to locate everything.

The cabin top is also going to be different and be a separate moulding rather than the built in place ones most builders are using. Frame 89 is pretty close to the shape we want.

Once we get the bulkheads all in and the bow finished, eveything will get filleted and tabbed. As we are using the lighter ply, we will also be using a light cloth on all the interior surfaces. This will get done before the perminate stringers and such get installed.

A picture of the crew and the first epoxy job to come next! Nortorious is on it's way.

Puzzling along...

2009-08-23T12:00:00.000-04:00

So, it has been a busy few weeks. The thrift store has been moved to it's new digs and the shop space is all ours again. The metal frame for the "building jig" has been started and will be finished Monday and so we seem to be finally ready to put hull 130 together.

One thing we tried was using a "free form" puzzle joint to "scarf" the panels together. It worked pretty well. We used a glue that foams up to fill in any gaps, tyvek as a release film and clamped the joints on both sides. We can then clean up the shape of the panels afterward. The joints seem pretty strong, but perhaps not as strong as the more traditional way.

A few US builders are all but ready to hit the water but we are still falling behind our schedule. Typical, I guess. We have named hull 130 though. She will be "Notorious". More after the 1946 movie rather than anything else. Ok, some say we are somewhat notorious ourselves....

I hope to have pictures of a more boat like object next week.

2009-07-19T15:56:00.000-04:00

On Saturday, I went on into the shop and put the cutting table in place. A couple of hours later, I had the bottom and topsides all cut. Here they are with one of the bulkheads that I cut on Sunday.

If you can, I highly recommend a cutting table like we set up. In our case, we are using the saw table as a base, but you can use anything about 4 x 8 including a sheet of 3/4 plywood on a couple of saw horses. Then we took a sheet of 1/4 ply and glued a 1" and a 2" thick piece of cheap insulation foam to them.

Now, we simply lay the plywood on the table and cut away. The plywood is supported and is much easier to work with. You can even get on top of it to get up close and personal. The shop was clean before I started on Saturday, it really was.

The next picture is of the transom. We are going with twin rudders so we added the "wings" and corner drainage. This given us more support for the rudders.

The center tab is for the motor mount.

We also added some pitch to the cockpit floor. Not much, but as we closed up part of the transom, I felt we needed to improve drainage when the boat wasn't heeled very much.

We should get the rest of the bulkheads cut by mid week and then we get to give that stitching thing a try.

It is great to finally get to post actual progress on the i550.....there were times it didn't seem like we would ever get here. We also have a set of sails ordered. We went with Neil Pryde. Bob Pattison has been very helpful and is being supportive of our little project. The first set is all Dacron. Fat top main (163 SF), a 105% jib (83 SF) and a GP spinnaker ( 369 SF). As you can see, Bob is being very competitive and is working with us to get the rig and sails right. Give him a call at 203-375-2626 or EM at bp@neilprydesails.com. We went with Dacron for the first set for longevity and as developement sails.

Our rig, by the way, will be a double spreader, keel stepped Dwyer extrusion. It will be pretty close to the "as designed" Aluminum rig. We went with a lighter mast section (DM-4) as we 1) had it, 2) have used it on similar sized boats years ago and 3) as we are keel stepping it, we felt we could go lighter. If my rusty calculations are right, it will be just fine. If not....

Next post should have a picture of a boat like object!

2009-06-30T09:11:00.000-04:00

So what started as a way to sort and handle donations and to allow a few of the guys to come get a few things they needed to get started back to work and such has turned into a full fledged thrift store. Hey, it is putting one guy to work full time and paying a few bills. However, it is sort of taking over and is already in need of more space. We will be looking for a bigger place to move the thrift store in the next month or two.

Now to more important things. The custom car trailer project we got and that was filling the shop has been moved out of the shop to be finished....it was actually too big to fit through the door fully assembled. This means the space it now availible for the first i550. I say first for we now also have hull # 206. The new mast parts have arrived from Dwyer and we have made arrangements with and are working with Bob Patterson of Neil Pryde. Bob has been very helpful and is being supportive of our little program.

I personally have a project to finish up and then the stitching will begin. Hopefully, the next post will be the hull and bulkheads going together.

2009-04-30T16:01:00.000-04:00

Here's a new picture of the painted facade and the 1941 vintage band saw is finished and works like a charm. Off the the side in the band saw photo is the oven we set up to do some powder coating as well. The new i550 has been "lofted" and we will soon be setting up our cutting table and then on to stiching.

The New Shop

2009-03-04T19:47:00.000-05:00

So, we have now had the shop for about a month and are slowly getting things in place. It looks big to me. So much so that I told someone that it was huge, 3000SF. "Eyes bigger than" syndrome. It is actually only about 1800 SF. Big enough for a start.

We have separated the shop into four basic areas. First is the "office". Much bigger than we need so it is being utilized by other projects by Barbara & Grace, Inc. and as storage. And as an office. I have to be able to feel "in charge" once in a while.

Next is the wood shop. We have such things as the table saw, a shop smith, a lathe with duplicator, planer and all the other tools of the construction trade. This is basically what's left from our contracting days.

Just one small divider down is the metal shop. Here we find the small and cheap combo metal lathe and milling machine. China at it's best, but you would be surprised what can be done with it once you learn it's limitations. Also is the bead blast cabinet, the drill press and the "new" (1941) band saw - which is being rebuilt. Look for a tubing bender and such things as a brake and English wheel to be added later. I have always "played" with sports cars as well as boats.

Further on down is the welding shop. We already have a small MIG, a great Miller TIG and of course the prerequisite Oxy/ Ace tanks. We will add a plasma cutter and a better Mig soon. I hope.

We have already gotten a couple of paying gigs for the shop. Which is good. It gets the guys going and helps pay the rent. But our primary purpose is to get to building that i550. For now, the materials for it are still at the old shop, which was just 600SF by the way. We have laid out the first bulkhead and found out that it was enjoyable. Sorry Tim, no kit here. Too much fun this way!

It looks like we should be stitching by the middle of April. Meanwhile, a few of the guys are working at the shop and a couple will be out sailing on the SR25 at coming regattas. Getting their feet wet, so to speak.