Tomorrow!

Tomorrow is launch day!  This morning I trailered BELLE over to the boatyard, put the mast up (no problem for one person to do), and got her ready to launch on tomorrow's afternoon tide.  High tide  is about 6:30PM, but there should be enough water in the inlet where the launch will take place by 4:30PM or so.  Here are a couple of final "dry land" photos of the boat:

A coat of bottom paint ("Shark White") and a bunch of rigging details taken care of for launch.

With the mainsail laced to the mast (no mast hoops), I decided to leave the end of the boom down for the night and securely bundle the sail to the spars.  It's quite blustery today, with more wind expected overnight, so I thought it would be safer to do it that way.  Plus I don't have the topping lift in place yet...soon! 

I realize I've been remiss in reporting on the various final details of rigging, bottom paint, etc. I'll make up for it,  there will be photos, etc., of various aspects of the final work on the boat to come soon.  Stay tuned!

In the meantime, though, I'm hoping to have some nice photos of launch day here within a few days.  Wish me luck!

Sails, trailer, and another move

I can't believe it's been almost a month since my last post.  With a new job, I haven't got a lot done of BELLE recently, but there's been at least some progress:

I picked up a Load Rite trailer from the nice folks at B&D Marine this morning and loaded up BELLE for the short trip back to the house.  For the last month she's been luxuriating in a fine storage shed at the boatyard, but from now on she'll have to sleep rough under a tarp in my back yard.  I was pleased to note that the ol' Subaru (197K miles, going strong, knock on metal) seemed to have no problem towing BELLE, even up a fairly steep hill between the shop and the house.  The 2x4 sticking out of the window is destined to be the ridge pole of the boat cover. 

Here she is parked back at the ranch.  Home at last!  I'll be able to raise the mast and do final rigging right here in the yard.  The weather is supposed to be very nice the next few days, I'm going to try to take advantage and get a lot done. At some point I'll roll the boat into the driveway, lay down a tarp, and do the bottom paint too.

The other thing I got done is driving down to Bohndell Sails in Rockport to pick up the sails.  Here's a photo of the sailbag in the boat, just for fun.   I'll be rigging them on the spars shortly.  Last weekend I spread them out on the lawn to take a quick look, and I must say they look very good. This is the second set of sails I've ordered from them, about 10 years ago I also ordered sails for my Joel White  Pooduck Skiff from Bohndell.  They seemed to hold up well and sail well, so I went back to them for BELLE.  (They don't seem to have a web site, but their address/phone/email is available through Google.)

The warm weather we've been having this year (the "new normal"?) has got me thinking about getting out on the water about a month sooner than usual.    Just a bit more work, and I'll be there.  I'll post photos of the rigging process, so stay tuned.

Bye for now.

BELLE moved to ground-level shop...plus work on spars and coamings

It's been a while since my last note, in the meantime BELLE has moved!  She's not quite in the water, but at least she's getting closer.  Last week, with much-appreciated help from coworkers, we lowered the boat down from the loft, put her on a trailer, and brought her around to a ground-level shop.  My original plan was to pop her in the water, just to take a look, but the tide wasn't right to launch in the creek next to the shop.  I'll do that in March some time, when it warms up a bit.  My apologies, I do NOT have any photos of BELLE hanging tenuously (actually quite comfortably) from the overhead crane in the shop, I was too nerved up to think of photos!  Still, exciting to see the boat on a trailer and to be able to stand back a bit to take a look at her;  up in the loft, I could never really get a side view from any kind of distance.

Anywho, the coamings are now done and I've moved on to completing the spars (remember those?) and various other bits and pieces:

Here's the last photo from up in the loft!  With the first coat of varnish on the coamings, I made the centerboard cap pieces (Port Orford cedar, left bare), finished off the floorboards (ditto), and temporarily threw in the seats just to take a look. Except for the trim pieces around the foredeck opening, this is pretty much what she's going to look like on launch day.  A couple of months in the sun and  the floorboards and cap will starting turning a nice gray color (like old cedar shingles)  Fun to see BELLE coming together at last...

There are varnished oak trim pieces above the opening;  the side trim pieces will be painted.

After the move:  on a trailer in what we call "Junior's shop".  Next to BELLE is a Castine-class plank-on-frame daysailer in for some winter work.

A quick look at the aft end of the cockpit, with the slatted seats removed.  I've got two coats of varnish on the coamings, at least three more to go.

Meanwhile, back in the loft, I've gotten back to work on the spars.  Here I'm using a little gauge to check the boom as it  is planed and sanded to shape.  (The gauge is made from scrap plywood. A hole saw cut the curve to the right diameter.)

The top end of the mast, shaped to fit the mast band.

That's a nice piece of boat jewelry from Davey.  I'll mount a small block for a flag halyard at the tippy-top of the mast...perhaps I'll use flags to spell out "England expects that ever man will do his duty" on launch day!

That's it for now, until next time.

Coamings coamings coamings...and rudder

After about 10 days off for the holidays, it's good to be back to work on BELLE!  The coamings are now cut & fit, I'll be removing them for sanding and varnishing shortly.  Here's how it went:

With the coamings rough cut to shape/size, I steamed the forward end in a propane-fired steambox.  No need to steam the aft end since there's not much bend there.

The two coamings are clamped in place to "set" overnight.  I first did one side then, about an hour later, did the other side releasing the forward overlapping end about an inch.

I made a pattern for the aft ogee (I guess that's what you'd call it) so I'd be able to accurately reproduce it on both sides.

Next I removed the coamings and, after quite a bit of fussing to get the bevels right, got one side to fit nicely against the temporary 2x4 jig (shown here clamped through the mast hole).  I then made the final oak forward post (back fastened to the deck) and fit the second coaming to that.

Meanwhile, I managed some progress on the rudder.  The tiller will fit through a slot between the cheeks that are here being test-fitted.

This isn't a very good photo--enjoy looking at all those tools on the foredeck!--but it does show the two coaming cut and fitted at last.  I left the post a bit long, so now I'll cut it down before fairing the tops of the coamings.  With all that done...the whole thing comes off!  A coat or two of varnish off the boat, then the coamings are reassembled in place with regular ol' screws and bedding compound.  No epoxy, thank you, a future boat builder will thank me if/when the coamings need repair or replacement!

That's it for now.  Alas, a sad note, wonderful cartoonist Ronald Searle died a few days ago.  Sharp-eyed readers of this blog will have noted a couple of references to the Molesworth books he illustrated (Geoffrey Willans was the author).  He will be missed here at BELLE World Headquarters.

I wish you all a terrific 2012.

Hoping everyone has a great 2012...plus work on transom and coamings

This will be the last post about Building BELLE for the year, I hope you're enjoyed reading about my progress (or lack thereof) since last March.  I had hoped to have a test-sail in the fall or early winter but will have to settle for an early-Spring launch.  Perhaps a frigid late-January test of the hull, just for "fun"!  We'll see.  In any case, you'll hear about it here, and thank you for your interest in this project.

After considering various options,  I'm using red oak for the coamings.   (White oak or really any other hardwood would be fine too, but I like the look of the red oak.)  I found nice clear boards pretty easily in the size I needed:  14' long by 7" wide.  I planed the boards to 1/2" thick, and here I'm test-bending the first board onto the boat.  I made a pattern using scrap 1/8" luan ply for the coamings and carefully recorded various bevels.  I'm concerned about the board cracking while I do this dry-fit, so I'm NOT bending all the way to the centerline forward.  If I'm feeling lucky, I'll do that next time I work on the boat--2012!--but to be safe I'll probably give the board about 20-30 min in a steam box.  That or possibly just pour boiling water over towels wrapped around the board to get somewhat of the same effect.  Only the first five feet or so need this treatment since the rest of the board easily follows the bend of the side decks.   I'll let you all know how it goes next year!

At the other end of the boat, I'm made a bit of progress.  The rudder hardware is now installed (a couple of copper rivets secure the bottom of the rudder rod to the end of the skeg) and I've drilled for the drains.   These are lined with 7/8" copper pipe just for fun (it would be fine to just epoxy-coat the plywood end grain and leave it at that).  Plus I've painted the ends of the planks on the transom for a traditional look.

So that's it for 2011, as far as BELLE goes.  I hope you all have a great 2012.  I'm pushing to get BELLE's hull done by the end of January, so stay tuned!

Finally getting to the coamings...

Christmas draws ever nearer, and I'm trying to get as much done as possible before a week-long break...

At this point, I'm getting to finish work when I can while completing the fabrication of the remaining parts of the hull.  Here's the third coat of varnish on the transom with the yellow pine outboard pad in place.

Had to make the centerboard sometime, so here goes.  It is 3/4" plywood with 'glassed edges.  Later I'll add a small slug of lead to weigh it down a bit and coat the whole thing with epoxy.

Time to make the pattern for the coamings.  As you can see, first I made a temporary jig to hold the bow end of the coamings in place while I made the pattern.  This gives me a chance to eyeball the look of the coamings without cutting any expensive timber.   To make the patter itself,  to start with I scarfed some scrap 1/4" luan plywood together to make a piece about 8"x14'.  With a bit of marking and shaving, I was able to get a pretty good fit to the deck. It's a bit hard to see, but I deliberately made the pattern a couple of inches short at the aft end and then hot-glued a piece of ply to record the exact angle of the transom.  This saves a bit of fitting and shaving.   Once I was happy with the pattern,  I  flopped it over onto the other side of the boat to take a look.   I was glad to note how close it fit to the other side.  Of course, in theory the pattern should fit exactly but sometimes in boat building "stuff happens" and one side of the boat isn't quite the same as the other.  But in this case I can use the same pattern for both sides, hurrah.

I put in the aft well with screws and goo.  Once the goo cures for a few days I'll clean it up with a razor knife.  The unpainted cleats hold the Seagull outboard in place horizontally in the well for when it is not in use on the transom.  They also provide a bit of fore-and-aft stiffness to the bottom of the well (which is 1/4" ply).   The bronze thingamajig is the "quick release" transom mount for the Seagull.

I haven't shown an overall view of the hull in a while, so here it is.  Still a ways to go but starting to look pretty good I'd say!

I'll try to have a final end-of-year post, maybe with some reflections on the project so far, so until then I'll just say à bientôt...