I built your plans and built
the lite schooner and it was easier that I thought, but did get delayed
due the weather and sufficient motivation. It is called the "Blue
Bayou" or "Blew By You" and will be disappointed if it
doesn't. Here are some construction and sailing pictures of it. I started
in January 2001 and was ready to sail in August 2001 after 600 hours of
work. After seeing Greg Carlson's website and how he built his in a month,
I felt that 6-8 months might be reasonable for me. Unlike Greg's pictures
I don't show anyone else working on the boat, or the kind of room he had
in his shop. The boat stuck out the backdoor of my garage when I put the
bowspirit on and was to cold for the most glues to set up. I found a glue
that would set up in 35 degrees in my garage, that was all the heat it
would hold. Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate and it was still
to cold till June for the fiberglass resin to set up. I had to work on
other stuff till it got warmer. I made the sails out of tarp material
till I can afford to buy Dacron sails. I decided to design and build the
trailer from scratch since I had access to a welder and preferred welded
to bolted construction. I finally get to use my Mechanical Engineering
design for something really useful. I designed it with almost zero leftover
from the 20' lengths of steel. I did have a 4' piece of 2" x 2"
angle iron left over, but cut it in half and welded it to the tongue to
make a 6" wide 2' long stepping pad to keep from touching the 35
degree water.
I still have some work to complete such as: installing a motor, painting
the boat, making the decking and so on.
My Modifications: I read: "BUILDING THE INSTANT BOAT", but I
didn't get to the book: "BUILDING THE NEW INSTANT BOATS", so
my changes could already be in your book and I only think I had some good
ideas.
I installed an ice chest outboard of the daggerboard box, that you can
access from either cockpit. It holds 64 canned beverages.
I had some problems getting the fiberglass to layout on the transom edges,
so I finally had to fill it in, so now the transom has a flat back.
I did the stem a little differently, actually the hard way, but seemed
to work better for me. I was worried about putting the false stem on crooked,
so I used _" plywood for an actual stem and went through the hull
about 4 inches and made wedges out of 2 x 4s to get a solid grip to the
stem. Then built up and sanded a good edge and taper into the curve of
the boat. It took a weekend just for that. Then put a 2 x 4 along each
inside from the first frame to the stem and attached metal braces to a
"U" bolt that goes through the 6 or 7" block in the stem
to haul up the boat on the trailer.
You can put any of these pictures on your website if you want. I'll be
setting up a permanent webpage in a few months, and my e-mail address
should be changing then. The last picture is at Bear Lake, a prehistoric
high mountain lake with a lot of Cobalt dissolved in the water to give
it an Aquamarine color. The picture from an older digital camera does
not do it justice. This was only about 7 mph winds, and the GPS showed
only about 3.5 mph.
So far I've had a great time, the winds and the water levels could have
been better, but it has been fun.
Bill Malone
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
|
 |
||
| Here is my latest modification: a new rudder... with a couple 1/2 horse trolling motors that will move us along at 4.5 mph for about 1.5 hours. |  |
|
 |
 |
I painted the rudder to test my new color scheme. The last picture
is a mock-up to test the tolling motors. It is really great to just
flip a switch and still just use the rudder for control. I was surprised
that the thrust of the motors actually holds the rudder in the center.
I already had the trolling motors, or the cost would have been a more
for a couple trolling motors, batteries, charger and wiring connections
for half the horse power of a gas engine. .... And I wish I had taken
a picture when I did passed a G-Cat in almost no wind, hoping my batteries
would hold up till I was out of site.
I'm waiting to go sailing when the snow melts...
(January 2004.)