Oztayls-Building Shesha, a Goat Island Skiff

An eventful day’s sailing

2011-01-30T10:10:00.001+11:00

I went sailing on Grahamstown Lake near Newcastle yesterday. Conditions were challenging because the wind was was 0-15 knots, gusty and swinging through 120 degrees.

The inevitable happened. I had won the start of the race and while leading the fleet to the first mark, I was hit by a vicious gust just as I gybed at the mark. Splosh! I didn’t even get wet as I clambered over the gunwale as I went over, and was on the centreboard in a flash.

Then check out what I had scooped up!

The videos, in order are a cockpit view of sailing the GIS, “Splosh”, and what the Goat caught!

Cockpit view of sailing my GIS.

Splosh!

Too bad they weren’t any bigger!

Sailing with Michael Storer

2011-01-11T21:02:00.004+11:00

On the w/e of 8/9 January 2011, I was privileged to catch up with Michael Storer, the designer of the Goat Island Skiff. The Moth Worlds were on at Belmont Bay, Lake Macquarie, and Mick travelled up. We met at Belmont and had a great time checking out these fantastic craft and talking to a few of the Mothies.
What a fantastic day it was checking out what makes these amazing craft tick. As you all know, Mick is such a fountain of knowledge, so it was indeed a privilege to take in his comments while browsing amongst the Moths. We struck up some great conversations with some of the Mothies and got an insight into what drives them. Sailing a foiling Moth is clearly quite a learning curve. However, don't for one minute think that it's a young man's game, as we were told there are guys around 60 sailing them quite competitively.
However, we saw that sailing a Moth is a somewhat wet sport, akin to surfing in a way. Mothies go swimming an awful lot. They go swimming to launch. No retractable centre boards or rudders means they have to carry the thing into deep water. Same thing coming back in....they dump it over on its side and swim it to the shore. And this is after what is, for most skippers, a few dumpings around the racecourse. From what we saw, you are going to need to be pretty fit to sail a Moth competitively.

You can see some of Mick’s Pictures by clicking this photo. (Link will take you away from this page)

Later we rigged up the GIS, which attracted the usual sort of attention from boaties who are curious when seeing something new. The Goat was definitely the candle amongst the Moths both on and off the water. What amazed me this particular outing was the number of people who correctly identified the boat as a Goat Island Skiff, so I guess this is the internet at work and boaties are more knowledgeable.
We had a great sail together, Mick taking his pics while we sailed among the Moths. We watched them rounding the weather mark for one race before heading down to the start area for the next. Foiling Moths are very intriguing and I’ve added a sail on one to my bucket list.
The following day, we headed up to Grahamstown Lake, which is 45km north of Belmont at Port Stephens. Unlike Lake Macquarie, Grahamstown lake is a fresh water reservoir.
As I didn’t have any pics of the Hakuna Matata sailing, it was indeed a privilege to have Mick sail up and down providing me with the opportunity to snap some shots. I later discovered that I had made life very difficult for Michael because I'd rigged the ratchet block the wrong way. Check out the twisted sheet at the transom end. Sorry MIK!
It was great to see Hakuna Matata being sailed so competently by Mick so that I could get some rare shots from the shore. A 10x zoom with no stability control usually means quite a bit of camera shake is present, but I found a timber post to lean on and so eliminate most of the jitters. Unfortunately, I didn’t notice that the post had been the recent roost for a seagull, so gull poop on my hands and face was the price paid for my inattention. But it was worth it!
The breeze started at around 12kts and later filled in to a very nice 25kts when we went 2-up.

Clicking this photo will take you to a photo-set on Picasa. (Will open in a new webpage)

Michael Storer sailing Hakuna Matata

Video made from still shots of Mick sailing Hakuna Matata

Mods

2010-11-09T14:06:00.001+11:00

Kim and I are back from Sydney having enjoyed the show we went to see, The Jersey Boys which told the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. The show is just awesome and I can recommend it to anyone, even if they are not Frankie Valli fans as the music is just brilliant. I wasn't aware of their story which traced their rocky rise to fame, and which was interupted by stints in gaol!

Anyway Valli aside, sailing wasn't on the agenda today as there is no wind at all, so it was some more driveway development for testing maybe next weekend.

I've installed the vang, reconfigured the downhaul, moved the sail attchment on the front of the boom back a bit, moved the yard attachment back to the 40% position, and added a 2:1 purchase on the clew adjustment.

Just to explain, I have been having issues with lee helm when close hauled. Hopefully these mods will sort that problem, and introduce some desirable slight weather helm.

This pictures show the vang installed, and the downhaul moved to to the front of the boom. Here the downhaul is pulled on so that the luff of the sail is 200mm in front of the mast. This is 200mm further back than the standard position of 400mm in front of the mast, and demonstrates one end of the available adjustment. This position moves the rig back for close hauled sailing and to induce (hopefully) some slight weather helm.

This next picture shows the downhaul released and some vang tension applied. You will see that the boom has now moved forward to place more of the sail to weather of the mast. The object here is to help balance the rig for downwind sailing and reduce rolling from side to side. It also balances the helm. Of course, in between these extremes is the ideal adjustment for the point of sailing (ie. close reaching or broad reaching) and the wind strength on the day. I have already played with this in actual sailing, but without the assistance of the vang which now makes the adjustments easier, and provides more control of both the luff and the leach.

The pics above show how the rig is easily adjusted while sailing. Ideally, with this set-up, the downhaul should be attached in front of the mast. With the downhaul currently fixed to the original fixture on the deck just to the left of the mast, it is binding slightly when the boom is gybed to starboard tack. If this arrangement works well in sailing, I'll move it to the front of the mast. The vang attachment is on the deck behind the mast, and this proved to be the correct place for it as there is no binding of the vang at all.

Notice I have applied traditional systems and have not used a cascading system for either the vang or the downhaul. The reason is because the cascading systems could not cope with the large amounts of movement and are better suited where the adjustment ranges are small. As you can see I just bolted the two single pulleys for the vang together to make a double.

Once the system is proved, then I will bring the controls back to cleats on the front edge of the seat. I don't want to drill holes unnecessarily at this stage.

These next two pics show the effect of the movement of the rig on the mainsheet. I had already moved the sheeting aft last weekend and found that this worked better for me. The rear sheeting does not interfere with the tiller as much, but the main thing I wanted to achieve with this arrangement was to prevent the boom being pushed forward when sheeting in hard. This arrangement works well to solve that issue. I can't say it will suit everyone, but I like it. The traveller is also adjustable via a clam cleat located beside BH4.

Finally, here is the simple 2:1 adjustment for the foot of the sail. The line runs around a sheave set into the end of the boom.

Launched!

2010-06-30T21:40:00.001+10:00

We launched on Sunday 20 June 2010! What a great day it turned out to be.
The day dawned with a heavy fog but by 8am it had cleared with a fresh breeze blowing in from the west. Our GIS had been loaded up on the trailer the previous day and already hitched to the car, so all we had to do was jump in and take off.

We arrived at Taylors Beach (Port Stephens NSW) to be greeted with a fresh south westerly of approximately 20 knots, so I decided that we'd better have a reef tied in for our first sail. Kim's parents, who had given us a 1948 Australian penny for under the mast, suddenly produced a 35 year old champagne for the christening! Wow, was it good, unlike any champagne I had ever tasted. I'll post a transcript of the ceremony in a subsequent post, but we had quite a few intrigued locals over to watch and help.

We named her Hakuna Matata! Means "no worries" in Swahili, and made famous by the song in the Lion King. We had decided a couple of months ago not to call her Shesha, for a number of reasons.

You would never have guessed it was mid winter on the water. Both water and ambient temperature were 20 deg C and a warming sun prevailed, so we didn't even need our warmies!! The splash was small, and she floated mighty high and we were soon off, lucky to be taking off on a broad reach so we could get over the shallows with just a few cm of board and rudder down. Once out in the deep, we were moving pretty quickly, with Kim sitting on the centre seat on the lee side and me on the gunwale. We cruised up and down, trying out all points of sailing. First impressions are how easily the Goat moves and the quick, unfussed acceleration when a gust comes, but at all times she was comfortable with the two of us and one reef in.

After an hour or so, we were signalled that a hot coffee was awaiting us on the beach so we pulled in. The tide was now fully in so the shallows were no problem any more. What happened next was hilarious. I was holding the boat in knee deep water and as Kim climbed out, a gust of wind hit us. Her foot caught on the sheet, and before we knew it we had managed to capsize her on the shore. Kim fell in and was well and truly dunked, much to the mirth of the gallery on the shore. It was a funny moment.

After bailing all the water out and warmed by a cup of coffee, I ventured out alone, still with one reef in. Kim by now was all rugged rugged up in dry clothes and with her dignity restored, but decided that was enough for one day.

However, the wind had died a bit and was probably down to 15 knots. Still, she was well behaved and I felt quite safe and in control sitting on the gunwale. I even threw in a couple of gybes without a problem. Time now to come in and remove the reef!

No sooner was I out there with full sail, than the wind abated some more to around only 10 knots, with just the occasional gust of about 15 knots to make things interesting. With full sail in this breeze, I really only had to hike out using the hiking straps 4 times as the gusts came through, and then it was down to sitting on the middle seat for the rest of the afternoon as the wind slowly dropped, and I only had an occasional opportunity to perch on the rail from then on.

Getting her out of the water and trailered up again was made easy with plenty of interested assistance from locals and folks out for the day having barbeques in the park beside the beach. There were no other sailing boats out there that we saw.

Driving home, we had a good laugh again as we remembered Kim's dunking, which of course was all my fault! I can't wait for next weekend, where we'll be taking her onto Grahamstown Dam, which is a large fresh water reservoir, well known for it's even breezes due to the low lying topography all around.

Oh, I forgot to mention, the camera took a dunking too when the boat was swamped by Kim's little episode, and it doesn't work any more I'll have to take the card to work tomorrow to get the pics off it. Luckily, it was a a pretty old, hardly used and cheapish 3mp Kodak and not my Fuji.
It was a pretty awesome day, so I now know how Christophe and John felt last w/e

Finito!

2010-06-06T18:25:00.002+10:00

I spent a great morning today fiddling with the rigging. The simplicity of the Goat Island Skiff is brilliant and I kept wondering what else I had to do. However, it was done! I just have to redo some of my knots which are not the best. The simple truth is I've forgotten how. I was a sea scout in my early teens and was quite proficient in knots, but all those skills have deserted me.

The yard is attached with cable ties. This was meant to be temporary, but to my surprise it is actually quite an elegant solution, so I might leave them there. See how nicely they hold the sail to the spar?

I also ended up attaching a small block to the U bolt on the tip of the mast, so it's now much easier to hoist the sail. I also added some leather to prevent chafing.

The 4:1 downhaul has nice power and works well. Unfortunately there was only a very light zephyr of wind, so I couldn't really evaluate the sail. My sail has a leech cord, so if anyone can give me some tips of how and when to adjust this, I would appreciate it. The sail has 3 leech battens and a loose foot.
I also weighed the completed hull, which is 49.5kg. The next step is to weigh the whole boat, including all the rigging and foils.
Next weekend is a long weekend. Here is Australia we celebrate the Queen’s Birthday. It’s not really her birthday, but what the heck, it’s as good an excuse as any to have a long weekend!

Here are some pics from today. The sunlight was dappling through the trees so the shots are not great.

Varnishing the topsides completed!

2010-05-22T22:55:00.001+10:00

I want my boat to look nice, but I’m not beating myself up over a perfect finish. I just don’t have the time or inclination any more to spend hours achieving a perfect finish, but the boat has taken up a lot of my time to get it to this point, so I think it deserves to look reasonably good.

I feel that a gloss bright finish lets you get away with a few drips and runs here and there, so this was my choice. Out on the water I’ll be wearing sunglasses so the glare won’t matter :)

As was discussed in my post on 18 April 2010, the timber was first sealed with epoxy (West System 105 epoxy with 207 hardener), and then overcoated with Norglass Weatherfast Marine Varnish.

Here’s a short video of the GIS before I turned the hull to start work on the bottom.

Technorati Tags: Goat Island Skiff,GIS,West System Epoxy,Norglass,marine varnish,Youtube video

Wind indicator

2010-05-22T22:26:00.001+10:00

This is a wind vane that I made for my Goat Island Skiff sailing boat which hasn't been launched yet. It's made from a couple of 5.5mm plastic knitting needles, hot melt glue, and some odd scraps I found in my garage. You can easily make one in about 15 minutes, and if you don't have anything lying around, check out your craft store where you should be able to buy the bits for a couple of bucks.

For the joiner you can use a ball pen casing, while a plastic bead makes a nice low friction bearing. For the vane you can use any lightweight material. Plastic meat trays or ice cream containers are some ideas. You will need to saw a slot in the knitting needle to hold the vane, and fix it in place with some hot melt glue

Technorati Tags: Goat Island Skiff,windvane,wind indicator,windex

Whatever material you decide to use, make sure you balance it reasonably well. Mine needed a bit more weight at the front tip, so I used some black silicon insulation tape, but a few blobs of hot melt glue moulded around the tip would work well too.

A sweet non slip solution for your boat

2010-05-22T22:02:00.001+10:00

Bright, glossy varnish on a boat’s deck when wet is an accident waiting to happen, so I needed a non-slip solution for the Goat, which has had it's final coat of varnish applied to the topsides.

By the way, I’ve used Norglass Weatherfast Marine Varnish, which has an excellent reputation amongst boaties here in Australia as a superior yacht varnish to most imported brands. I chose it not because of a flashy container, but because the Norglass people formulate their products to withstand Australia’s far higher summertime UV radiation levels compared to those experienced in Europe. It goes on beautifully too, looks fantastic and dries hard.

It’s been many, many years since I last applied a non slip surface coating to a boat. In the 60’s & 70’s, there were no commercial products for paints, so we improvised. Sugar, salt, sand and mum’s net curtains were the go back then. Nowadays, there are all sorts of additives which are mixed with paints, such as non slip glass and plastic pearls, and then there are some that are made from fine, cryogenically ground rubber. To be honest, I don’t think any of these new products are any better than refined sugar crystals.

The beauty of sugar, especially if you are applying it to a varnished surface, is that they become translucent and virtually disappear so that you still see the lovely wood grain.

Now, if you’re going to be parking your backside on the bottom of your boat, you don’t want to use ordinary sugar. Ordinary sugar will quickly wear through your shorts. In fact, even if you won’t be sitting on the surface you’re treating, ordinary household sugar is capable of removing skin better than 40 grit sandpaper. No, what you want is CASTER SUGAR. The grains of caster sugar are a lot smaller and when mixed with varnish, make an excellent non-slip surface, that will not remove skin from your knees, or any other body parts for that matter.

Once you have applied the final coat of varnish or paint and it has dried, you are ready to apply your non-slip surface. For a nice even application, the idea is to mix the caster sugar into the varnish. (No, the sugar will not dissolve!). Some people use a sieve to apply the grains, but this is not only messy, it’s also much more difficult to get a nice even spread of grains. You will achieve a far better job if you mix the caster sugar into the paint or varnish.

After masking off the area, mix enough caster sugar into your varnish, paint or polyurethane, so that when you brush or roll the mixture onto a test piece of timber, there is some separation of the grains. They should not be tightly packed at all, and you should see small spaces around each grain. This is the optimum amount you want to add. (As a guide, start with a teaspoon per 50ml of paint or varnish, and adjust if necessary)

You can apply the mixture by brush, but those little white foam rollers are best, and make for a very even coating that is also very quick to apply. Do not apply too thickly. It’s better to apply only sparingly. Once applied and you’re happy, remove the masking tape. That’s it, you’re done!

Because the caster sugar becomes so translucent, it is very difficult to see against a gloss varnish finish.

Technorati Tags: Goat Island Skiff,Norglass Weatherfast Marine Varnish,Norglass,non slip,caster sugar,grains,roller,glass pearls,plastic pearls,non skid,boat,yacht

How much does a Goat Island Skiff weigh?

2010-05-19T18:54:00.003+10:00

I weighed my GIS hull today. It is only 45kg!! My guess is that even though it has 3 coats of epoxy, sanding has removed 1.5 coats. I also think the very low humidity over the past few weeks has resulted in some substantial loss of weight. I really can't see it going over 50kg now, so I’m pretty sure this is the lightest GIS ever built, and by a long shot, maybe 10kg at least. Not bad for a 15.5 footer with a 5 foot beam!
It really is the result of timber choice. Also, I have not deviated from the plans, and I've faithfully followed the designer's construction methods. When I've analysed the hull, I can't see that any strength has been given away at all by my choice of timber, as the Paulownia frames really only take the place of epoxy fillets and glass in other stitch and glue type constructions. Every bit of the hull is just as stiff as it should be. Certainly the Joubert Gaboon/Okoume ply has also made a difference.
Originally I was concerned that the Paulownia frames would dent easily, but the epoxy coating fixed that. It toughens it up enormously with coating.
My tip? Build your boat in winter, but do not epoxy coat until summer when the humidity is lowest. If not possible, get the hull into an air conditioned space for a week or two prior to coating with epoxy, which will seal it up. I really do believe now that moisture has a substantial impact on weight.
I’m really happy about this low weight as it means that I have a boat that will be easy for me to handle and move around, on and off its trailer, all by myself. It will also perform so much better on the water too!

Paulownia info

Box boom

2010-05-01T19:48:00.003+10:00

Here are some pics of the new box boom I made. Because the original boom was too bendy and I have a loose-footed sail, I needed to make a stiffer one.

It's a box boom utilising clear 40X10mm radiata pine, and 19mm thick Paulownia infills. If you think of the GIS's gunwales, that is the basic construction method used. The front infill is 600mm and the very aft one is about 200mm. All the others are 70mm and 90mm apart. The longer front one is to give the boom greater strength to cope with the downhaul stresses. Even though it is quite light 3kg), it can support my 70kg weight OK, so it should be plenty strong enough. The top and bottom capping of the boom uses uber cheap finger jointed pine, but the sides are the more expensive solid pine. In one of the pics you can see the finger jointed stuff on the top. With all those buoyancy chambers, it should float pretty well!

If one used some decent spruce or oregon, I think it's possible to simplify the construction and leave the capping off entirely. This could make lashing the mainsheet and downhaul simpler, and they would not slide. I thought about leaving the capping off, but the sideways flex was more than what I wanted, so the capping was added to stiffen up the sideways bend.

Finished dims are 58X38mm with a 10mm taper along the bottom at each end. The taper at the front disappears over 500mm (half a metre) and the taper at the back disappears over 1000mm (1m). There is a slot cut at the back for a 30mm brass sheave which should make adjustment of the foot easier. I intend running a simple 1:1 control line about 1500mm from the aft end of the boom to a fairleaded clam cleat. There will also be a micro fairlead that feeds the line into the sheave on the top of the boom. In due course I'll post pics of the rigging which will explain things better. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words!

The boom only ended up costing about $20 in timber. With the sheave, fairlead and clam cleat, total cost is a tad over $50.

Cockpit is coated with epoxy

2010-04-18T22:58:00.002+10:00

I spent Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning sanding the cockpit. After that it was a two hour job to vacuum the debris and wipe it down with a microfibre cloth in readiness for epoxy coating. Sanding is my least favourite part of the build and it’s certainly not very healthy!
Now that the epoxy coating is on, it will get a light denibbing (sand) before commencing about 5 coats of marine varnish. Then it will be flipped over and the procedure repeated on the bottom.
For those interested, I used West System 105 epoxy with 207 hardener. The 207 is specially formulated for coating and has UV inhibitors added. I will use an Australian made marine varnish, ie. Norglass Weatherfast Marine Varnish.
Here are today’s pics…

Construction complete!

2010-04-11T22:51:00.001+10:00

I didn’t think that this day would come, but the construction phase is now complete :) It’s a particularly satisfying moment.

This weekend I fitted the rubbing strakes, trimmed down the gunwales, cut the centreboard slot, attached and shaped the bow piece and the breast hook, fitted the bottom runners, assembled the rudder stock and fitted the transom gudgeons. Oh, and I faired inside the CB case so that the daggerboard self aligns with the slot.

Now I just have an awful lot of sanding to do before commencing the coatings :(

Gunwales, inwales, knees and breast…

2010-04-05T21:06:00.004+10:00

This weekend, in between Easter festivities and Kim’s birthday, I added the gunwales and knees. For the inwales, as I only had 19mm Hoop pine stock, I had to make plenty of shavings to trim them down to 15mm with the plane. I only need to add the gunwale capping and then I can trim the whole lot down.

Aren't the knees and breast plate a lot of fun? There are all sorts of angles to keep you on your game, but I'm happy with how they turned out as I managed to get a reasonably good fit. It took me a good few hours to make and fit them though. They should look pretty good once they're all sanded down.

I was planning to do something different with the breast plate, but once I started cutting and planing that lovely piece of yellow Hoop pine that I had, I just knew it had to be kept simple.

OK, what else did I do? Aah yes, I cut the hole for the mast and I filleted the seats. Mmmm, for those fillets I made up a paste of epoxy and micro balloons, tinted with some epoxy dust from the sander bag. It was looking OK until I decided to sand the fillets smooth, and they turned white! Yikes, I don't think I've read about this before! If you look at the enlarged version of the picture, you can see the difference in the colour of the fillets on the rear seat (sanded) compared with the fillets on the mid and front seats (unsanded). AAARRRGGGHHH! What to do about that now? Any suggestions?

I also needed a piece of hardwood for the bow capping. Whilst rummaging around, I found an off-cut of Kauri from an antique table I restored a few years ago. Whilst Kauri is not classified as a hardwood, it’s pretty tough stuff (used for flooring) and it looked fantastic once I’d planed the paint off down to bare wood. That will do just nicely!

You know, there are still no screws in the hull! The marvel of epoxy…

I’ll post some more close up and detailed pics once I’ve planed down the gunwales, knees and breast....thingy.

Front buoyancy tank top fitted

2010-03-24T22:51:00.001+11:00

The front tank top(or should that be for’ard tank top, aaarrrgghh!) has been fitted. I found this was a slow process of test fitting, shave, test fit, shave and so forth about 100 times before the top finally just dropped into place. I managed to spill some DNA onto the ply tonight when my finger caught a bit of razor sharp, dried epoxy on a clamp. Ouch! This was only the second instance of drawn blood during the build. I previously cut myself on some dried epoxy when making the dagger board, so please be careful of the dried pox. It bites! Anyway, I hope it’s a “Good Luck” omen!

This is how the Goat look looks now. The seat and tank tops are not yet glued, just fitted, because the insides now have to be epoxy coated to seal the timber before they are ready for that step. Note also that the screws holding the sides to the stem will eventually be removed once the tank top is glued down and the gunwales/inwales are installed. Those components will then transfer nearly all the stresses from the sides away from the stem.

Tanks and seats

2010-03-22T22:29:00.001+11:00

I had another productive weekend working on the boat. Also, Russell from Storm Bay Sails in Tasmania contacted me to say my sail was ready to be shipped, so that will be arriving this week. That is exciting, even though I am still a couple of weeks away from a trial fit of the rigging.

The first pic shows the mast partner (top) and mast step. The mast step is a somewhat substantial construction when compared to the lightweight design of Storer’s other components. This is understandable given the load it carries for the unstayed Goat Island Skiff’s rig. The step is comprised of a 3 layer composite of 6mm ply and two layers of 20mm Hoop pine, so the whole thing is 46mm thick and very strong. The middle layer has a slot cut in it for drainage which you can just see as a dark shadow in the picture.

The partner will also derive a lot of strength from the ply deck once it is glued on.

These next two pics show the rear buoyancy tank with the Paulownia 19x19mm framework all supported by little ply gusset thingies. I deviated from the plans slightly (which have a fore/aft centre strut) as I want to put a hatch in the middle near the rear of the tank for access to the transom gudgeon bolts, and as the Paulownia is super light stuff anyway, it won’t have much of an impact on weight. The structure is super strong and seems to have already contributed stiffness to the hull. I also did the same for the bow structure. The rear seat is fitted, but not glued.

The centre seat is also fitted, but not glued on. However the frame for it is complete and all epoxied in place. Yesterday morning when I fitted the seat on the frame, I could see a glaring error. The side cleats for the seat were too high at the front which caused the seat to dish somewhat, so I was not happy at all. It is only when the seat top was made that this error became obvious. I had followed Mick’s instructions, for measuring the cleat line, but it didn’t work for me and they did not align to the same level as the centre case.

Removing the Paulownia side cleats to correct my error was relatively easy. It involved splitting the cleats with a chisel and then planing and sanding off the remaining timber and epoxy glue. You can see all the epoxy dust lying on the chine log from the exercise. The mechanical epoxy-on-epoxy bond is extremely strong, which is good to know! The cleats were glued onto the sides which had been washed and then sanded with 120grit. I was rather hoping they would just pop off along the glue line with pressure from the chisel point, but NO WAY, it was well and truly bonded, and they simply would not split along the glue line.

After I had made new cleats, I re-fitted them using a different method to achieve alignment with the centre case. This I did by clamping the centre seat beam cleats to the seat top and after setting the seat in position, placed a straight edge/level across the seat top and marked the new position of the side cleats where the seat touched the sides. This worked very well, was dead easy, and all is hunky dory and level now!

This seat is 25mm wider than the plans show and now covers the end grain of the spacers in the aft section of the centre case. More bum room for the crew!

At the moment, I’m halfway through shaping and fitting the top of the front buoyancy tank, which has also been framed up. Then the insides of the tanks will be coated and the tops glued in place.

The next major task will be to fit the gunwales and inwales. I’m really looking forward to this part of the build.

Still no screws in the hull!

The bottom goes on!

2010-03-15T22:58:00.001+11:00

It was quite a busy w/e for me in the garage.

The bottom was joined during the week. I used a staple at each side to prevent “drifting”. My usual car batteries provided the clamping force.

I took Friday night off and settled in to watch the opening rounds of the RL season with a Coopers and a glass of red (not simultaneously!)

Kim worked on Saturday so I got myself an early start at 7am and finished off bevelling the chines and the bottoms of the bulkheads. The blue steel bars came in handy once more to make sure the angles were right so that the bottom ply edges would sit flat.

Bulkheads 2 and 3 were a couple of mms low, so they were corrected with a mix of micro-balloons and epoxy and then faired level with a plane and keyed for a good mechanical bond to the bottom. By levelling the BH bottoms first, you can screw the bottom down firmly, knowing it will stay flat.

The whitish “cap” is the fairing mix. When the bottom was fixed the filler disappeared from view.

The bottom was dry fitted starting at the bow with just 5 screws along the centreline, one each in the bow, bulkheads and transom. To line up the hull and pull it square, I aligned the bottom centreline with the centrelines marked on the bulkheads. The boat was perfectly straight all the way to bulkhead #3, and then it went skew to side. It was a decent pull with one hand while peeking through the transom’s tiller hole at BH3 and driving the screw with the other! Thank you to the inventor of square drive screws as this would have had potential for disaster with Phillips heads. The transom was easier to align with the bottom as it could be aligned to the outside centreline marking, although it required a heftier shove to move it into position. A quick sighting along the tops of the bulkheads while sitting under the boat confirmed that the hull was in perfect alignment with zero twist. Wow, that was an amazing and satisfying moment!

So GIS builders, don’t worry if your hull isn’t as straight as you’d like as it can be wiggled into shape at this point :)

This pic shows the 10mm misalignment between the transom and the bottom. An easy fix as it turned out!

After that I predrilled all the holes at 200mm centres which needed to be at an angle to ensure they didn’t break through the chines. I thunk up a quick and dirty little ply and pencil template to mark my lines for screwing into the chine logs. It worked like a charm.

The lower edge of the ply is held against the side panel. It follows the side curve and quickly scribes the screw line.

Gluing the bottom went well and was done in three sections. I was a bit dirty on myself for making the epoxy mixture a tad too runny, so that the squeeze out ran down the sides. By the time I had finished screwing it down the epoxy had gone off too much to make cleaning up easy. I was in panic mode at this point but managed to clean up most of the bits that will be visible, but I have a little bit of sanding to do. It will not be pretty looking into the hatches though!

The next morning (a late and relaxed 9.30am start!) I planed down the edges of the bottom ply to within about 3mm of the sides and also removed all the temporary screws before turning the hull over. The Goat is dead easy to turn single handed because it is so light. It can even stand on its side while unsupported, so you can walk around to the other side and lower it down. This boat has hidden talents!

Leaving about 3mm of the bottom edge protruding for now will give the chine some protection when turning the hull, as I do this with the roll method mentioned above.

Checking the hull is square. It’s perfect :)

I was extremely happy and satisfied with the fairness of the chines which really was all due to the extra care I took when planing the chine log bevels and the bulkhead bottoms. Seeing this part of the build turn out so well has been the highlight so far.

Time then for something a little exotic to celebrate! A cold one of these went down so nicely at lunch time.

I spent in the afternoon fitting and gluing the centre case. Up until now I’d not fitted the cleats to the top of the casing as I was tossing up whether to go with the Paulownia or Hoop pine cleats. I decided on the Paulownia, so these were installed as well as the bracing gusset.

Well, that’s pretty much all I did. I had plenty of battle wounds to show, like dried epoxy stuck to me all over, including my hair. But I don’t care!

Birth of another Goat Island Skiff :)

2010-03-07T21:29:00.002+11:00

I did a dry fit of the bulkhead and transom and discovered for myself what I’d learned on Michael Storer’s Woodwork forum, that a second pair of hands are really useful! Unfortunately, Kim works on most weekends (she’s a Registered Nurse) so a different way of thinking for a single handed assembly. It is only necessary to pull in the chine (the hard bit!) and the rest just comes along by itself. As you can see, using two clamps and a piece of rope does the job easily. In this pic I have not yet screwed bulkhead #1 in position as it is firmly held. This makes it easy to tap the BH into position and insert the screws.
There is a LOT of force on the first two bulkheads, which for the dry fit were only fixed with two screws per side. I did not want to unleash all that force by undoing the rope and risk stripping the screws, so I had another trick which worked a treat, and allowed me to undo the rope and move to fitting BH2.
Here it is.
Just a couple of wedges screwed into the trestle on each side to prevent the chines from spreading. It worked a treat.
Using this method, I just worked my way back to the transom, dry fitting the bulkheads.
You can see the low trestles I made to support the hull off the ground. It helps with inserting the screws and operating the clamps. They are only about 10” high.
It was just as well I did a dry fit, as I found myself out with 2 errors! The first was that I’d bevelled BH4 the wrong way! How I managed to do that is still a mystery to me, but it happened. Anyway, I marked the bevel and had it sorted quite quickly with the block plane. The second wasn’t so much an error as a tweak, with the transom side bevels needing adjustment. I do recommend doing a dry fit as it gives you the opportunity to get such things sorted without the pressure of an epoxy mix going off!
Well, after the dry fit, the glue up for real was a doddle and went without a hitch. Pretty boring hey? I bet you were wanting to read about a drama or two, which would have spiced things up a bit, but no, it went pretty well. After BH1, I did change from using Phillips head drywall screws to square drive screws. The square drive screws are so much easier to use than phillips head and the bit won’t jump out of the head when the real pressure is applied while you hold a BH with one hand and screw with the other.
Well, I must admit to a small panic when I came to measuring the boat for squareness. Measuring from BH3 to the opposite corner of the transom, it was off by some 75mm! Holy crap, that was a huge amount!! But folks, the hull is pretty flexible in this state and after figuring out what was going on (the alignment of the bulkheads gives you a clue when you sight down the tops of them), a few pushes and pulls had it sitting square. In the last pic you can see the yellow cord which is tensioning the diagonal. Installing the bottom will give me another opportunity to square things up if there is any spring back.
The last thing done before shutting up shop at beer o’clock was to clamp on the Hoop Pine sheer strake. This helps to fair the lines while the epoxy sets up. By the way, the car batteries are there to pride some weight so I could drive the screws without the boat skating away from me.
I was quite happy with how things went. All up, the dry fit, corrections and glue up assembly took me 7 hours, which I thought was reasonable for a single-handed effort.
A walk around the hull confirms one thing, that this is another GIS! The relief that this part of the build is now done, is considerable.
Guess what else, I’m feeling pretty good too :)

GIS assembly starts! :)

2010-03-06T21:53:00.003+11:00

All is well now, but I had a couple of setbacks very early.

Only yesterday I was saying to my brother how good my old Bosch sanding machine was. Well, I thought I'd give the frames a sand before installing them as it's easier now than later. As soon as I turned the sander on, there was trouble...it was only running at 1/2 speed and there was none of the arm wrenching torque that I’m used to. I stripped it down thinking it was just clogged with epoxy dust, but sadly the motor or the bearings were seized. I've had this thing for 20 years, "Made in Switzerland", so I knew that its replacement was going to be made in China. :(

Off I went to Bunnings. The new Bosch and everything else that looked any good were ALL made in China. NOTHING operated at 24000rpm like the old machine, and the best of the them speed wise was the 250w Bosch at 12,000rpm. However, the Makita (11,000rpm and 250w) had better features than the new Bosch, like better paper grip mechanism and side dust extraction ports rather than through the paper. (My old Bosch had side ports so dunno why they've taken a backward step with "through the paper" extraction, which means it needs holes in the paper.)

And so I walked out with a Makita 1/3rd sheet sander. It's OK, and sucks up the dust very well, but I just knew it was going to be slower than the old Bosch, and it is. It is very smooth and quiet and gets the job done, but I miss the shear performance of the old Swiss made Bosch screamer that you had to really hang onto!

That episode set me back all of 3 hours.

My other problem was during the dry fit. The Paulownia bow stem just couldn't hold the middle screw while I was fitting BH1, and it popped open under the load. Luckily it was a dry fit run, so I've elected to glue up the stem and let it cure overnight under screws and clamps without stressing the joint. This will be nice and strong in the morning for a tilt at assembling the sides and frames. I will just proceed with a glue up and won’t do a a dry run first. Then I'll join the bottom halves for installation during the week.

Here are some pics of it as it is at present, with the stem curing... The $10 ceiling prop comes in handy as a spreader. It will have some mighty work to do tomorrow, as the sheer has to be spread and the chines pulled in. The sacrificial 3ply that protected the Okoume plywood makes a useful temporary floor!

Below is a shot of the stem. Yes it tapers from top to bottom and therefore the angle changes down its length, which imparts "twist" to the sides, hence the usefulness of the spreader bar. The pic above shows the stem taper quite clearly. You can just see the clamp and the offcut wedges that are taking the pressure off the screws. despite the screw pulling through, I'm not worried about the Paulownia stem being strong enough. There is plenty of glued surface area there to take the forces that will be applied tomorrow. The bow will also get a hardwood cap which will provide further integrity to the joint.

Big day tomorrow!

Bulkheads notched and inside of the side panels epoxy coated

2010-02-28T21:57:00.006+11:00

Notching the bulkheads to fit the chine logs drove me crazy. The plans do give some rough measurements, but because there is so much variation in the side bevels, some adjustment is necessary. It was late on Saturday night and I must have been tired, because nothing was going right with BH1. Fortunately a good night’s rest resolved the previous day’s problems, and the notching was completed OK. I didn’t take a pic because I didn’t think to…
In my previous post I showed the chinelogs being scarfed together as the Paulownia wasn’t long enough.
Here the chine logs are being attached to the bottom of the side panels. I needed 4 screws at the transom as the chine log had to be curved, and the clamps simply could not hold the curve. The packaging tape is pulling in the chine log slightly at this point due to the curve. You can’t see the chine logs under the side panels. The reason they are underneath is because they have to overlap the edge of the panels by 10mm and I needed to make sure that the panel aligned with the line I’d drawn on the chine log. The overlap is so they can be bevelled later to fit the bottom.
Here you see the side edge of BH1 being bevelled. It also has a curve along its length, so the low angle block plane was again the "go to" tool. I reckon the block plane is just about the most useful tool in this build, next to the Japanese Dozuki saw. No complex tools are needed at all.
I thought I’d throw this pic in. I’m drawing the back of the rasp along the glue faces of the rudder casing spacer block. This cuts a set of grooves which increase the surface area of the bond and makes a very strong joint. It’s an old trick I used when attaching cricket bat handles in a previous life.

I’ve applied 3 coats of epoxy to the side panels, using the wet-on-wet technique. I masked off the surfaces that will need to to be bonded to the bulkheads and the gunwale strakes. In this shot you can see how the chinelogs overlap the side panels, and you get an idea of the curves along their lengths. Note the bulkheads stacked against the wall in the background.
The wet on wet method, saves a lot of sanding and dewaxing between coats*. It is recommended by West System epoxies as the previous coat is chemically bonded with the new coat. When the previous coat becomes tacky like masking tape, the next coat is ready to be applied. I used West system foam rollers as they can cope with the heat from the epoxy’s exothermic cure reaction as the ones from Bunnies just seem to disintegrate.

The insides will now just need a clean down with acetone to dewax the surface and then a sand before I apply the marine varnish, which will be when the hull is complete.

One of the things I was a little worried about using Paulownia is the softness of the timber and susceptibility to being dented. After coating with epoxy however, I can't even dent it with a finger nail, so I'm happy about that!

Next weekend should see me going 3D with the hull, which will be a big milestone. I guess they don't have kilometre stones?

*Edit: I've just read that West System don't recommend dewaxing with solvent. Only use water!

Scarfing the chine logs

2010-02-25T23:23:00.001+11:00

A lot of people get hung up about scarfing joints, but their fears are mostly unfounded. They are a simple joint and they work very well even if they are not done perfectly. When scarfing planks, a 6:1 ratio works well as it is big enough to provide a big glue area and to get a nice smooth join with no kinks. The ratio 6:1 simply means that the length of the joint is 6X the width of the timber. In my case the timber is 19mm wide, but round that to 20mm X 6 = 120mm. Draw a line 120mm from the edge and then join the corners. Do the same for the other piece to be joined. I like to cut mine with a Japanese pull saw (Dozuki) as they are fast and accurate. Then just to even things up clamp the two pieces tother like in this pic and give them a few licks with a block plane. That’s all.

Here are the panel pins I like to knock in (just a couple of mm) and which are then snipped off close to the surface. When the two halves are brought together, the pins provide the grip to prevent the joint sliding apart when under clamping pressure. (Epoxy is like liquid ball bearings!)

No bells and whistles needed. Just a few clamps. The packaging tape stops the chine log from becoming attached to the support timber while the epoxy cures. No sliding, no mess!

By the way, the chinelogs are 19X45 strips of Paulownia.

This pic is a ring-in. It shows the rudder case all cut and ready for assembly after it gets sealed with epoxy. The bolt holes are all drilled. Some of the bolts will need to be installed during the glue-up. The infill and cheek supports are Hoop pine.

Ciaw for now :)_

2010-02-24T23:47:00.001+11:00

I’ve built the centreboard and rudder casings and given the insides 3 coats of epoxy before final assembly. I’ve made the casings 3mm wider than the foils, so I spent a good amount of time getting all the internal framing spacers planed to exactly the right width. This is where a table saw or thickness planer would have come in handy. I want to add some strips of lexan or similar to snug the boards up and which will also take the wear away from the epoxy coating inside the casings.
This shot shows the structure of the centre board case. The spacers are Paulownia.

I also tried something that I first tried with success when I made the foils. Immediately after laying down the final epoxy coat, I covered it with non stick oven paper and used a squeegee to remove all the air bubbles and even out the coating. Because it is silicon impregnated, the oven paper just peels off when the epoxy cures, leaving a nice smooth surface that doesn’t need sanding or further treatment. I knew it worked on curved surface but it’s good to know that is also works just as well on flat ones. The important thing I think is to make sure you lay the oven paper down straight away while the epoxy is still able to flow and spread, otherwise you may end up with a smooth but lumpy surface.
Removing air bubbles with the squeegee.
Air bubbles removed, now just waiting for the epoxy to cure before the oven paper is removed.
With the paper removed, the finish is smooth But matt. Another good outcome from this method is that flying insects and dust can't affect the surface.
Make sure you are using a non-stick type of oven paper. This paper is silconised and is not the "greaseproof" sort.

I had to stuff around with the tiller as the arms would not bend around the rudder case without pulling the back end of the case open due to the angle. This was a downfall of making the tiller before the case, which I had done while waiting for my ply to arrive from France (via Tasmania). There was just too much stress on the back end of the rudder casing so I’ve cut out one of the Paulownia spacers on the tiller and now it fits just fine. Before I can assemble the rudder case, I have to buy some SS bolts to fix in during assembly as the bolt heads need to be inside the case.

I received a phone call from the chandlers to say some Ronstan rudder fittings I had ordered months ago had arrived. I had cancelled the order, but through some stuff up they did not cancel the order with Ronstan. As I’d paid a $40 deposit I decided to go over anyway and pick them up, and then make a decision about which ones to use, the Ronstan or the Riley I had also bought from another supplier. The Ronstan ones are alloy and fitted the width of the rudder casing just perfectly and without any modification which I would have to do with the other Riley SS ones. The 8mm Riley SS pin also fits the 7.9mm Ronstan holes just perfectly too, without ANY play at all, so I’ve decided to go with the lighter Ronstan ones.

See you next time!

Bulkheads completed

2010-02-18T22:46:00.002+11:00

Today I collected my car’s fuel supply for the week. A local restaurant in Newcastle, Zinc, supply me with enough used cottonseed oil for about a week. Thanks guys! If you’re a local, check them out in Darby Street, you won’t be disappointed with the great food these guys turn out.
Here is my fuel filtering station. It’s a simple setup (I like simple!) that has worked for me for the past 5 years or so. Basically, the cold, used cottonseed oil is tipped into these plastic drums in which are suspended 5micron food grade filtering bags. I have liners in them which are changed out every few weeks. What you see coming out the taps goes straight into my car’s fuel tank. The car is a 1993 Mercedes 300D, a 3 litre naturally aspirated 6cyl diesel, and this particular one has been served this fuel diet for 2.5 years so far.
This car is perhaps the greenest car in NSW, or maybe Australia?? The other cool feature I’ve installed of the car is its 2micron engine oil filter in addition to the standard oil 45micron oil filter. This 2 micron filter constantly cleans up the oil, removing the need for oil changes, and so further reducing it’s impact on our environment.
Well, that’s a little bit of a diversion to let you know something of my other passion!
Back to the Goat….
Here I am sanding the cut-out of bulkhead #2 with a handy little drum sander attached to my cordless drill. These are cool little tools and so handy for this type of job!
Here the holes in bulkhead #3 are being cut out. The jigsaw is a Triton, an Australian brand that recently fell on hard times and actually folded. Happily they have now made a comeback, so we can continue to enjoy using the fine tools they make. I was lucky that Santa put this in my sack last Christmas by my loving wife:) A cool feature of this particular saw is its scrolling control. My right hand is guiding the saw, and my left hand is controlling the scrolling knob which controls blade direction. With this precise control you can cut 360deg circles without changing the direction of the saw. The advantage of this is that the foot of the saw can be fully supported on solid material at all times.
All 4 bulkheads are now complete, together with side arms for #2 and #4 which don’t get attached until after the hull has been assembled. This is BH3.
I’m going to miss the old table when it has to make way for the Goat. It has been really useful as a nice big workstation.
I’m hoping to go 3D in the next couple of weeks, after I have coated the parts with epoxy, so check back soon.
Thanks for coming along! See you next time :)

Parts cut out and framing started

2010-02-15T23:50:00.002+11:00

Using a jigsaw I cut out all the parts that were marked out and described in the previous post. A jigsaw makes this job a lot easier but it could be done quite easily with a hand panel saw, or my favourite, the Japanese dozuki pull saw. They are simply brilliant to use, very fast, accurate and leave a fine finish. I used this saw later to cut the Paulownia framing.
Dozuki pull saw

The late 19th century NZ kauri table I saved from going down in my employer’s old building that was demolished, and restored has proved to be very useful! I believe it was used as a board room table and later in the lunch room. Due to it’s dimensions it couldn’t be removed so I dismantled it and brought home in the car. Aren’t those legs lovely? Ha-ha, the table legs I mean! It can seat 10 comfortably or 12 with much less elbow room. But I’ve digressed, this is about building a Goat….
After cutting out, the parts all had to be planed down to the marked lines. A block plane is what you need for this job. Here I am shaping one of the side panels.
More shaping with the block plane. This is one of the bulkheads.
The next job was to join the side panels together using a simple butt-strap join. Again, the nice flat, long table came in handy for this job. Care is needed to prevent the epoxy joint from sliding, so small panel pins are used to hold the joint. The pins are later removed when the epoxy has cured. As you can see, I’ve employed a hi-tech clamping device while the joint cures! The blue stuff under the house bricks is just masking tape to make the cleanup easier.
This is the finished butt-strap join which joins the sides. There is a reason the butt strap does not extend to the edges!
The flip side of the join. I’m happy with that!
Here I’ve started to build the frame around the #4 bulkhead. No screws are used. Again, if you don’t use screws, you need a method to stop the jointed parts from sliding all over the place.
This is a close-up of how I do it. I mark a pencil line which is used to line up the framing timber following the application of epoxy to both mating faces. Then simply tap a small panel pin (depth about 3mm) into the ply or the framing timber. Then snip off the pin so that only 1mm protrudes. Then when the joint is made, it WILL not slip! This works very well on soft Paulownia, but with harder timbers you’ll need to tap the joint with a mallet to bed in the pins.
I’ve completed the Paulownia framing of three bulkheads. Here’s two of them, bulkheads 1 and 4. Bulkhead #3 is also completed. One more, plus the transom to go.

Bulkhead number two being glued up. This bulkhead supports the rear of the front seat/deck. It will have a big hole cut out to make it even lighter and make an access port for the mast base and a general storage area.

The next task after the bulkheads will be to fix the chine logs to the sides in readiness for joining the hull parts together. The chinelogs are simply a method of fixing the sides to the bottom and in this case are 45X19mm Paulownia. Other methods use stitch and glue, followed by epoxy fillets and glass tape. The chine-log method is pretty simple and I’ll show you that next time.
To learn more about Paulownia timber, click this link.

That’s it, it’s beer o’ clock, so until next time….. If I don’t see you through the week, I’ll see you through the window!

Marking Out

2010-02-10T12:14:00.001+11:00

I have now marked out all six sheets of ply, ready for cutting. I must say that I did underestimate the time this task would take, but I also think this was due to me double checking myself all throughout. I suppose this double checking has saved me time in the long though, because a couple of times I caught myself out and had to rub out inaccurate markings! It’s not worth thinking about the consequences of those errors either, as I can’t just run down to the timber yard and buy more ply, seeing as I live in the Hunter Valley in NSW and the ply came from France via Tasmania!

Something I really did not expect was the subtle curve in the sides of bulkheads 1 & 2. I thought all the bulkheads/frames where straight!

The other thing that had me somewhat perplexed when marking out was the slight negative camber that suddenly appeared in the sheer line toward the bow. When I saw the fairing stick with a convex shape all the way from the transom to the front bulkhead suddenly becoming slightly concave, it just screamed out ERROR!!! I was rechecking and rechecking all my markings and was becoming quite concerned about my measuring skills until the penny dropped. As it turns out, this is what gives rise to the cute upturned nose of the Goat.

I have a new appreciation of the skills of these boat designers now….:)

Tips for marking out:

OK, I’m certainly no expert at this, but I learned a few things along the way that might help others.

The first is that you really do need a longish straight edge so that you can draw your reference lines across your ply sheets. Mine is only a metre long which isn’t really long enough (get you mind out of the gutter, I’m talking about a straight edge!). I happened to have some 3 metre long steel square section (35mm) that was just perfect. As long as it’s dead straight for drawing long accurate lines, that’s all you need. Here you see the steel bar straight edge. Note also I’ve taped two sheets of ply together so I can measure and mark out the full length of the sides and bottom.

I bought a 5m long PVC molding that I thought would make a good fairing stick for marking the curves. The fairing stick is bent around panel pins at the reference points to produce even curves between them. This PVC stuff proved to be too floppy and when I sighted down the lines I marked with it, there were definite kinks where the pins were. You definitely need something with a bit of spring in it to produce a nice fair curve. Fortunately I found that a piece of 19x19 Paulownia which will be used for the for the seat cleats and other light framing was ideal. You might have a piece of some other wood (The plans specify Western Red Cedar but as long as the stuff you have is free of knots, you will likely find your stock will have a piece that is suitable for drawing fair curves)

When marking out the bottom, you have to draw another cut line 20mm outside the true chine line marks. If you’re using the 19x19 material, you just need to draw another line on the outside edge of your fairing stick. Done!

See you next time when I cut out all the parts….

My first mistake

2010-02-05T21:10:00.002+11:00

No doubt one of many! Cutting the Hoop Pine top frame for the transom was a disaster. I had left the jigsaw in "pendulum mode" and the blade twisted badly creating a terribly skewed cut. I cut it off straight and glued on a 20mm piece of pine, so all is well!

I never throw out wedge-shaped bits of offcut wood. Wedges come in handy quite often :) here I'm using then to square up the claps on the curved surface of the transom stiffener.

Joubert Gaboon Marine Ply

2010-02-05T21:00:00.001+11:00

It has been a long wait, but the marine ply finally arrived today from Denman Marine in Tasmania. Andrew Denman is a professional boat builder in a little town called Kettering in the south of Tasmania on the D'Entrecasteux Channel. He became disenchanted with the marine ply offerings generally available in Australia, so decided to import the highly regarded Joubert Gaboon (also known as Okoume) ply from France himself and also supply us amateurs. Check out his website to learn more about Joubert Okoume marine ply: http://www.denmanmarine.com.au/id67.html

I too was not happy with the generally inferior quality of marine ply locally available, so I was prepared to wait for the good stuff.

The six sheets of 6mm 5-ply were sandwiched between two sheets of sacrificial ply, and were wrapped in thick white plastic. Packaging was excellent and the edges and corners were protected with special heavy duty cardboard angle packing. The whole lot was supported by a framework made of 4x2 pine and strapped up with steel strapping. 10/10 Andrew, thanks! :)

Click on an image to see a large version.

This is lovely stuff. I'm very happy with it.

New yard

2009-12-30T08:00:00.004+11:00

It became apparent that the original Yard I made was far too flexible, and I've posted some photos below to prove it! As mentioned in my post on 27 December 2009, I wanted to make a new one and I had found some quite nice 42x42mm Radiata Pine at Bunnings which was quite cheap too.

This afternoon's therapy was turn this Radiata into a new Yard, and I must say I'm pretty chuffed with how it's turned out. At Bunnings I had picked through all the staves and found the most dense and heaviest ones as being most suitable. This proved the way to go, as the resulting Yard has turned out pretty well. I even made it to the original specs in the plans and this one has a round section. (The previously made Yard was left square with just the edges rounded off). I haven't encountered Radiata quite as hard as this before. This stuff was quite hard to plane with my #6 Bailey that had been freshly sharpened to a very keen edge.

After making the tapers and turning it into 8 sides, then 16, and finally rounding it with a #40 grit sander belt, I decided to test its flexibility. To round the Yard I wrapped the belt around the yard twice and set to with the task using a sawing motion. Pretty stupidly I did not wear gloves and consequently now have sore finger tips from the 40 grit

Here is the almost completed yard. The taper is is not very evident from the shot, but it is tapered both ends! Just a final sand and varnishing to go. In this pic I am measuring the flex in the Yard for the sailmaker. This Yard weighs 2.2kg compared to the previous Hoop version which was 2.0kg, so even though the timber is quite dense and hard for Radiata, it's still turned out quite light. Better still, it is twice as stiff for only a 200g weight increase.

To measure the degree of deflection for the sailmaker, on his advice I suspended the Yard#by it's ends and suspended a 10kg weight from its centre. The easiest way to do this is to fill a bucket with 10 litres of water. I have a digital fishing scale, so used this to check that the final weight was 10kg.

47mm deflection. I'm very happy with that!

By direct comparison, this is the flex measurement for the original Yard, 97mm. Twice the deflection!

After sanding the spar round with the cut 40grit sanding belt (Quite a work-out!), I made 3 finishing sanders from used paint rollers. These were split and 3 different grades of paper bonded to the insides with PVA glue. They were a little small for the larger sections, but this is easily fixed by heating the tube with a heat gun and spreading the tube wider, like this:-

Nice comfy sanders they make too! Given the somewhat worn state of my fingertips from the sanding belt, this was a relief :)

Tiller and extension finished

2009-12-28T09:15:00.000+11:00

Tiller extension is now painted and the Ronstan universal joint attached. You might remember that the extension was made from an old carbon fibre fishing rod. These polyurethane fittings are very strong and quite inexpensive compared with the stainless steel ones and have the added advantage of allowing movement in all directions and the extension can be quickly removed if required. It even comes with a piece of shrink wrap so that once the extension is secured with a bolt it can be sealed up for a neat finish.

Gunwale spacer blocks

2009-12-27T23:05:00.004+11:00

I'm still waiting for my Joubert Gaboon marine ply to arrive. Andrew from Denman Marine is hopeful that the shipment from France will arrive by mid January 2009. In the meantime, I'm just ticking off some of the other components that make up the Goat.

I've decided to build another stiffer Yard. The original one I made from Hoop Pine seems to be too flexible. During a recent visit to Bunnings, I found some nice clear 42x42 pine that is straight and somewhat stiffer than the Hoop Pine (quite cheap too). I had to scarfe the timber as Bunning don't sell them in 4m lengths. The join was made using a 10:1 ratio scarfe joint.

Here you can see the scarfe joint being glued-up. The packaging tape is there to provide pressure between the clamps, as I don't have enough of the longer clamps.

Here you can see the glue line and the epoxy squeeze-out. It won't be a dry joint! The glue is West System with the addition of West's 406 Colloidal silica mixed to a margerine consistency.

The other task I took care of today was cutting the 60-odd inwale spacer blocks out of 19x45 Paulownia. I don't have a saw table, so I turned my work table into a docking saw, like this:

So that I didn't have to measure each block before cutting I set up a piece of timber as a stopper. Then after each cut was made I simply moved up the timber until it reached the stopper, secured the clamp and cut.....60 times. The white painted piece sticking out is the stopper. You can see the spacer blocks that have fallen into the plastic crate below.

This pic shows the inwale spacer blocks on a Goat Island Skiff under construction.

The next task was sanding the spacers, as this would be difficult once they are fitted. Again, to speed things up and to keep the blocks nice and square, I mounted a 3M sanding disk in my drill press. Then to keep the blocks firm while sanding I rigged up a simple brace to hold them vertical and square while I gently lowered the disk. This worked well and I powered through the 60 blocks in no time.

In this pic of the setup, I'm sanding 2 blocks at once...

Tiller - 6 December 2009

2009-12-06T18:45:00.002+11:00

I'm looking forward to the arrival of my marine ply so I can get stuck into building the hull. I'm using Joubert Okoume (Gaboon) marine ply, which is made in France. Denman Marine (Kettering, Tasmania) has just acquired the sole distributer rights here in Australian and we are awaiting his first shipment which should be soon.

This weekend I completed some more fiddly bits.

The mast received its final coat of Marine polyurethane clear varnish (7 coats on top of the 3 coats of epoxy).

I made the stem from Paulownia. This needed careful planing to get the taper right. If you look closely, you'll see the sort of "twist" that this taper induces. Clamping such a shape is impossible so I used long panel pins to hold it to my sawhorse while I planed. I was careful to punch the pins deep enough to prevent the plane blade striking the nails.

I also made the tiller from Hoop pine with Paulownia infills. This will connect to the rudder stock when I make that. It now has 2 coats of epoxy.

Being short of stuff to do, I found my old chisels. These did not receive the best of treatment when I was repairing cricket bats a few years ago and had built up a goodly layer of glue which had promoted rust. They cleaned up nicely with a wire wheel and then I took them to my diamond stone for sharpening, so now I have some nice, gleaming and sharp chisels, ready to take on the Goat :)

2009-11-29T21:58:00.004+11:00

Saturday's temperature reached 40degC, so decided not to coat the mast in epoxy in the heat. Instead, we visited to hardware store to buy some 2x4 pine so make some sawhorses, and I spent the afternoon knocking them up ....and of course, hydrating. :)
Like Bob who is also building a GIS in Sacramento CA, I too decided to build Chris Baylor's solid looking horses. These are without doubt the most solid sawhorses you'll ever come across. Check out his free sawhorse plans here: http://woodworking.about.com/od/shopequipmentsupplies/ss/woodSawhorses.htm

Here's how they turned out. After taking this pic, I slapped on a coat of linseed oil.

Today's temperature was a decidedly cooler 33degC, still hot, but I decided to get the mast epoxy coated anyway. I'm using the West System 105 epoxy with the 206 slow hardener. This provides plenty of working time, even in this heat. The big problem was that a VERY strong, warm and gusty wind whipped up and soon the dust from South Australia was blowing in :(
Oh well, too late, I'd already started the first of 3 "wet-on-wet" coats of epoxy. Wet-on-wet is a technique that saves a lot of labour. Once the epoxy goes stiff and tacky, you roll on the next coat, and then you repeat it. This is a really good method and one that the Goat's designer, Michael Storer, advocates. 3 Hours later, the dust, insects and leaves sticking to the mast had to be seen to be believed! Never mind, the Bosch random orbit sander, took care of that :)

About 3 hours after rolling on the last coat, the epoxy was quite hard. This is the stage when sanding epoxy is much easier rather than waiting for a full cure, and it doesn't cause a fine dust that floats in the air. I like to use No Fill sand paper, because it doesn't clog. In fact, the epoxy in this state actually cleans the paper and it stays sharp.

Just some quick pointers on sandpaper:

The most expensive sandpaper is the cheapest in the long run! Believe me, don't baulk at the price of the expensive stuff, it really is good and will save you money because it lasts 4-5 times longer and you'll need to buy far less of it.
I've found the "No Fill" stuff, made in Australia to be the best available by far.
They have a teflon-like coating that helps prevent clogging.
The good brands produce a much better swirl free finish too. This is for three main reasons:

The grit particles are more uniform in size, are harder material and are sharper.
The grit particles have a stronger bond to the paper substrate and don't dislodge. If you are getting a lot of swirls appearing on your timber (frustrating!), this is because the grit particles are dislodging and being rolled around between the paper and your timber, producing those hard-to-remove swirls.
The grit particles are actually wider at the bottom (the side bonded to the paper), and have a sharper point that does the cutting.

OK, that's a very brief tip about sandpaper.

My mast is now nice and smooth and awaits a few coats of UV resistant marine spar varnish.

This pic shows the mast suspended by two screws through a couple of timber scraps clamped in the jaws of these terribly cheap (and very crap) work benches. (These things are rubbish, and only good for this sort of use. A sticker on them says they will support 300kg, but I think that's very optimistic)

2009-11-26T22:42:00.000+11:00

I routed all the spar corners with a 9mm roundover bit this morning. It's the first time I've ever used a router. I was a bit daunted at first because it's a big 5kg Maktec MT360 (made by Makita) machine that I bought on EBay. However, I found that a big, heavy machine with power is quite easy to use as it tends to stabilise itself.

I did a couple of practice runs on some scrap and then ripped into it. Piece of cake, it's a lovely machine and it ate up the Hoop, leaving a great finish. I found the adjustments to be quite user friendly and easy to make

Now I just have to sand and apply the finish.

The mast ended up 7.4kg. The boom and yard are 2.0kg apiece. The shorter one is the boom.

I've also attached a pic of the foils. The colour in these pics looks very red, but in fact its a port wine colour.

Time for a coffee!

2009-11-21T09:31:00.001+11:00

This pic shows the staves all glued up with the packing tape in lieu of clamps. It is amazing the pressure that can be achieved with this method.

The wide mast staves planed down and in its very rough state it weighs 7.8kg. This seems very light. It will be interesting to see how much the fittings and finish will add to the weight.

Building the mast

2009-11-15T21:47:00.005+11:00

I've chosen to build a box mast from native Hoop Pine and using lightweight Paulownia for the infills and the blocking. I was lucky to have been able to source clear Hoop pine and in 4.8m lengths so did not need to scarfe joint any of the staves.

Marking out the staves...

Planing the taper in the staves... You can see the foils in the background which have received their first coat of Norglass marine enamel (colour is Port wine). More of the foil painting later.

Cuttin the Paulownia infills...

Japanese pull saws make short work of the Paulownia cuts! This one is a Kataba, for ripping with the grain. It has aggressive teeth and no back, so depth of cut is unlimited.

Using the Dozuki for cross-cutting. It has fine teeth and a back support on the blade to keep it rigid. A nice feature of this saw is the angled tip tooth which is used to start a cut in the middle of the timber. It really works!

Glueing up the narrow staves and the blocking to make a "ladder" frame. Lizzie checks nearly all my work.

Detail showing the Paulownia infill in place...

The first stage of the mast is almost complete, Narrow staves epoxied to the infills and spacer blocks.

Here, the narrow staves are glued to one wide stave. I broke a couple of spring clamps in the process :(

The next step is to epoxy the wide staves to complete the box mast construction.

Preparing the foils for paint

2009-11-15T21:21:00.001+11:00

Since my last post, I have glassed the foils.

This is the rudder blade with 1 layer of 160gsm glass.

After glassing, they were given 3 coats of Norglass primer (gray), followed by two coats of undercoat (white). They were rubbed down and flatted between coats. This pic shows how the undercoat also helps fair the irregularities in the surface.

The next step is at least 3 coats of Norglass gloss marine enamel.

Foil shaping complete

2009-10-28T20:24:00.002+11:00

The daggerboard is now also shaped, using the same method as for the rudder blade. They just need glassing and coating which will be done this week. As you can see from the pic, the foils have also been "breadboarded" with Tasmanian Oak. The edges are also stripped with thin slices of Tassie Oak, which is a very dense timber, so will provide protection from the inevitable knocks they are bound to receive. The screws have been removed and the holes plugged with Paulownia. You can see the stains in the Paulownia timber, but I'm not worried as they will be painted anyway

Shaping the rudder foil

2009-10-18T20:20:00.003+11:00

On the weekend I shaped my rudder blade and laminated the centreboard. I must say that the shaping was a lot easier than I was expecting, so it has given me a lot of confidence that I should be able to build a GIS!
I have a very old Stanley #6 plane that worked really well on the Paulownia, which is a dream to work. Prior to shaping, I made the foil template according to the plans, but I didn’t end up using it at all. Instead, I cut out the half foil shapes from the plan drawing and glued them to the edges of the blanks with PVA and went to work with the plane making long strokes from end to end. I found that I was able to create the foil shape this way without referring to the template. Well, it worked for me so I’ll use the same technique for the daggerboard!

Wow, this rudder foil is light!

Foils

2009-10-11T18:27:00.001+11:00

Day 1 of making sawdust!!!

For me, this project is as much about the therapy as about the end result of creating a boat. I desperately need a distraction from my stressful full-time job (I work for a local financial institution), a small business hairdressing business we are growing with the help of my 2 daughters, and my father-in-law's battle with a terminal illness. My on and off bouts of depression in the past 20 months seem to be under control now, so this diversion should be a great help in maintaining the status quo. My lovely and understanding wife, who herself also has a stressful job as a nurse, is very supportive, so I'm extremely lucky.

Anyway, enuff guff. Today I dove in and cut the staves for the foils. The foil staves were cut from lightweight Paulownia, with the leading and trailing edges, which take the knocks, being cut from Tasmanian Oak, a local hardwood.

Paulownia is a super light weight and fast growing timber, with the highest strength to weight ratio of any timber, or so I've read. I'll also be using it extensively for the framing timbers and chinelogs.

The hull will be skinned with 6mm Okoume (Gaboon) marine ply, but the ply is not expected to arrive for at least a couple of months, so I may as well start with the foils and then the spars.

This pic shows the staves which have small pins driven in to help keep the staves located during the glue up. Note the pins have been snipped off to remain proud by only a couple of mm. oops, missed one!

The rudder blank glued up using polyurethane glue. The clamps were removed after 3 hours. There is a slight twist in the trailing edge, but this can be dealt with in the shaping. A couple of the staves had edges that were not square. Will have to watch that when I glue up the centreboard...

What exactly is a Goat Island Skiff?

2009-10-10T19:18:00.003+11:00

The Goat Island Skiff is a very pretty design by Australian designer, Michael Storer. It is a minimalist, lightweight skiff with a flat bottom and hard chines. The "Goat" may be powered by small outboard motor, oars or its generous balanced lug rig sail. The GIS as it's commonly called is gaining in popularity and new boats are appearing from home workshops all over the world at the rate of about one a week at present.

Vital statistics of the Goat Island Skiff:
Length - 15'6" (4.73m)
Beam - 5ft (1.52m)
Hull Weight - 128lbs (57kg) - Gaboon (Okoume) Ply
Sail Area - Lug 105 sq ft (9.75 sq metres)

Check out the designer's web page here.

These pics are of one of the first Goats built about 15 years ago... They are "borrowed" from the designer's website, but I'm sure he won't mind.

Why "Shesha!" ?

2009-10-10T19:02:00.004+11:00

Shesha is a Zulu word meaning "fast" or "hurry up!". I was born and raised in South Africa, so the Zulu had a great influence on my early life. Shesha! just seemed to be an appropriate name for for a boat like the GIS.
Shesha is pronounced as Share-sha

-shesha v/i. [ˈʃɛ:ʃa]
be fast; be quick; be rapid; be speedy
be hasty; be hurried; be in a hurry
hurry; get a move on
be urgent

Compounds and phrases (verbatim)
shesha [ˈʃɛ:ʃa] ← shesha
Imperative singular of -shesha (v/i.)

be fast

Shesha is also a Hindu deity, or Naga.