Belleboats.com and Facebook page now available

The new Belle Boats website and Facebook page are now available:

http://www.belleboats.com

https://www.facebook.com/belleboats

We're looking for customers for BELLE, so I hope you'll go and take a look.  Feel free to "like" or "follow" the Facebook page too.  Many thanks!

Coming Soon: www.belleboats.com

Greetings, I have some news:  I'm pushing to finish a new BELLE website by November 1 where  I will be offering sisterships of BELLE for sale.  There are a lot of details, which I'll have by November, but I'm excited to offer BELLE once again.

The original BELLE has a new owner in the Chesapeake, so I'd love to build another version for a new customer.  I say "version" because, as a custom builder, any new Belle would have it's own personality and style.

I'll also have some preliminary information on a new 20ft version, BELLE 20, with a small cabin.

The site isn't complete yet, but here's the address anyway.  Please bookmark...and take a look after November 1!

http://www.belleboats.com

BELLE wins award at Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival

BELLE's new owner took her to this year's Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, Maryland.  He tells me that the show was a lot of fun and that BELLE won First Place in the “traditional design, contemporary construction” category!  Here's his report:

This weekend Belle and I were at the Mid Atlantic Small Craft Festival at the Ches. Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels MD. About 120 boats of all types were there and it was great fun. 

Best of all, Belle won first place in the “traditional design, contemporary construction” category. There were some very fine boats there so her win was very satisfying...Many people remarked on how clean/simple she was and how spacious her cockpit was. I know she was the subject of many photos... 

Music to any designer/builder's ears!  So many thanks to him for taking BELLE to the show and sharing the news.  The Judges Notes that accompanied the award included these comments:

Beautiful lapstrake work, innovative decking, very clean boat, very nice design- lots of thought...Beautiful spars, very delicate, liked the non-wire stays..."

The judges confer...

The ribbon...

Builder's Plate

BELLE's new owner sent along this photo of the builder's plate he made.  Many thanks to him, since I never did get around to it myself!

BELLE photos from the Chesapeake

BELLE's new owner sent a couple of photos from her new home down in the Chesapeake...many thanks to him!

At her new dock.

That's the Chesapeake Bay Bridge way off in the distance.

BELLE has been sold

This will probably be the last post on this blog, since I just sold BELLE to a gentleman who will sail her in the Chesapeake.  I'm hoping he emails me a snap or two, it would be fun to see her sailing in unfamiliar waters (I've been to DC but never sailed in that area).  Fair winds and tides to him...and to BELLE in her future adventures!

BELLE is For Sale

UPDATE:  BELLE has been sold to someone who will sail her in the Chesapeake!  Many thanks.

Well life has been pretty crazy lately and I've decided to put BELLE up for sale.  You can find out more here:

http://www.dhylanboats.com/brokerage/belle-for-sale/

She is located in Brooklin, Maine.  Local pickup only (or delivery within say 50 miles).

By far the best photo of BELLE was taken by Benjamin Mendlowitz for the 2015 Calendar of Wooden Boats: click to see a copy at his Facebook page.

I've really enjoyed sailing BELLE the last few years, and it will certainly be with a heavy heart that I will see her go.  But basically I need to "clear the decks" at this point.  I've got some nice sketches of a 20ft version with a small cabin, I'm hoping to build that at some point in the future.  

Westlawn

Greetings to my patient readers!  Since last time, I've signed up for the Westlawn Yacht Design course to learn a LOT more about boat design, CAD, drafting, etc. With this information, I should be able to do a professional job in preparing BELLE plans.  I'll use my original plans as the basis for a "version 2" of BELLE with various tweaks and updates based on my experience building and sailing BELLE.  I'm also sketching a 20ft sailboat, somewhat similar to BELLE, with a small cabin for overnight cruising but with a similar gaff-sloop rig.

That said, in all honesty I can't give a time schedule for all this.  As I delve further into Westlawn, I should have a better idea of how long it will take to develop the BELLE plans, complete the sketches for the new 20 footer, and do all the work involved with the course.  Including, by the way, learning CAD from scratch.    I now have AutoCAD, Rhino, and Orca3D for boat design, CAD hull fairing, etc.  BELLE was lofted and built the old-fashioned way, and, who knows, maybe the next boat I build for myself will be built the same way.  But no question I need to get myself up to speed on the "new technology" for today's job market.

That said, many thanks to those of you who have made inquires about plans, it is greatly appreciated!  If you like, send me an email (dangonn at yahoo dot com) to get on a mailing list for updates.  Or keep tabs on this blog, I'll certainly post availability of plans here.  Thanks again 

--Dan

See Sketches and Plans for more.

Not yet...

Here it is June...and I'm not in the water yet!  What can I say, work and other things have gotten in the way.  I'll report back when BELLE is in the water--two weeks?--but, in the meantime, here's a couple of photos of maintenance in progress:

Various painting/varnishing underway.  That's the tiller hanging from the nose of the boat while the varnish dries.

Seats looking good.  Much easier to sand/varnish off the boat, I'm glad I made them removable.

Until next time...

Update on Plans Availability

Greetings.  It's pretty much mid-winter here in Maine, and I have to own up to the fact that plans for BELLE are not yet available.  In a nutshell, I've decided to put off releasing plans for BELLE until I've had a chance to try out a few more ideas this summer:  perhaps a removeable bowsprit...2.5hp outboard...and more.  The upshot of these ideas will then be incorporated into the final plans package in late summer or early fall.  I'll have more on these efforts this summer, so stay tuned.  Many thanks to those of you that have inquired about plans, it is much appreciated!

Please see the Sketches and Plans page for more information.

In the meantime, BELLE weathers the Maine winter in fine style...

Update: See my post on Westlawn for important news about plans for BELLE.

Winter

Best wishes to all for New Year's and 2013.  I'll finish 2012 with this photo taken this morning.  Time to get out the ol' snow shovel!

BELLE under cover for the winter.  Time to start thinking about sailing next summer!

October in Maine

A bit of a chill in the air, but I'm still hoping for a few more nice sailing days this year...

Not much wind today, just an overcast fall afternoon down at the mooring.

Don't be fooled, there are a few boats still in the water, I've just artfully avoided them in my photos.

That's the Eggemoggin Reach off in the distance.

A few days later, a misty morning.

I bought some decent foul-weather gear this summer so maybe I'll keep BELLE in the water a while longer.  I haven't forgotten about Rigging Part 2--Part 1 is here-- I'm hoping to have that on the blog soon...

BELLE Under Sail

Just a quick post to let you know that I've added a new page called BELLE Under Sail.  This includes my favorite photos of BELLE sailing along, at least so far.  I hope to have more photos before the summer is over.

To see the page, click here or on the button above.

Until next time...

Q: Is BELLE based on a particular historical type or boat design?

This is just a quick post to mention that I've updated the FAQ page with the above question.  I heard it quite a lot while attending the Small Reach Regatta last week--a fun event, highly recommended--so please click here to take a look (or click the FAQ button under the photo).  In it, I discuss various design influences that went into BELLE's design.  There were many.

Until next time...

Small Reach Regatta 2012

The Small Reach Regatta was this weekend, it was great fun to attend.   Over 50 boats of pretty much all description--as long as they were propelled by sails, oars, or both--gathered at Lamoine State Park for four days of sailing, rowing, and camping.  For those who wanted it, there were even catered lunches and dinners cooked at the Park.  I tried one of the dinners, excellent pulled pork and ribs! 

Thursday and Friday had plenty of wind and terrific sailing, sandwiched by Friday which was quite calm with a lot of rowing.  Alas, most of my photos are from Friday since the other two days we were too busy sailing:

Arrival and set up.  Not shown:  50+ other boats of all descriptions:  modern boats, old boats, restored boats, sail boats, row boats, quite a parade.  

Brent hams it up out on Frenchman Bay.   (Photo taken on Friday.)

I too know how to point vaguely into the distance.  (Photo taken on Saturday.)

My "art shot" of BELLE sailing along in light winds.

Beautiful...but time to break out the oars.  That's MDI (Mount Desert Island) in the distance.

A very nice Oughtred cat-yawl with Bean Island behind her.

For more on this get-together of small(er) boats, there's the web site mentioned above and a Facebook page.  I'm hoping there will be many photos of the other boats, many of which were real beauties.

For the event I borrowed a pair of 8' oars which were definitely too short. Over the winter I'll make a pair of 9'-9'6" oars for next year.  I'll be able to store them in BELLE by hanging them by leather straps under the slatted seats, projecting a couple of feet under the foredeck.  At least that's the plan.

Up until now, I've been using a couple of 5' paddles for getting BELLE over to a dock from the launch ramp and stuff like that.  For the SRR, I knew there might be some more serious rowing, so I added oar locks to the coamings and rigged up a slip thwart (a removeable temporary thwart) to make rowing more comfortable.

Here's the removable slip thwart which stores under the foredeck when not in use. It rests on the centerboard case and seats and has a couple of cleats underneath so it doesn't slip side-to-side.  It's made of cedar and unfinished,  like the floorboards, so it'll turn a nice grey color after a month or two in the sun.

Until next time!

Rigging Part 1

It's been over a month since my last post, sorry about that!  Today was a simply beautiful day and I had BELLE out for a sail. This was the first time I "soloed" in the boat--including launch/retrieval at a local launch ramp--and I have to say it was a joy to be out on the water and zooming around the harbor.   So here's a few pictures of some rigging details.  I've have more soon.

Here's BELLE in the backyard for some rigging work.  I'm working out the lengths of all the parts of the rigging which even on a small boat adds up to a fair amount:  main sheet, two jib sheets, two main halyard (gaff rig has two), jib halyard, topping lift, reefing lines (which I haven't put on yet), lacing lines for both the gaff and the mast, and misc. smaller lines for lashings and such.

Whenever possible I've used simple lashings instead of expensive hardware.  This block will be lashed to the boom for the mainsheet.  These Tufnol blocks work well (I got them from R&W Rope), although some day I'd like to make my own from scratch.  Some day!

OK it's a bit of a mess, but here's what we've got at the base of the mast.   I promise I'll neaten things up for the next batch of photos!  Basically, the idea is I wanted all halyards to attach to the mast itself rather than lead to cleats on deck or on the bulkhead.  Why?  So that they would stay with the mast when raising/lowering the mast which I'll be doing every time the boat is launched.  So here we see the peak and throat halyards for the mainsail and, on the forward side of the mast, the cleat for the jib halyard.  Note the turning blocks on either side of the mast;  the two main halyards run through these blocks before cleating off.  The blocks allow the mainsail to be raised/lowered from pretty much anywhere in the cockpit rather than right at the base of the mast.  Note absolutely necessary, but it's been pretty handy so far.  (You can see that I haven't leathered the mast step quite yet, I've been using little mast shims in the meantime.)

Sorry for the blurry photo!  It shows a little thumb cleat on the forward side of the mast.  (I've seen these on traditional daysailers, so I stole the idea among others.)  The thumb cleat gathers up the lacing lines that attach the mains'l to the mast when the sail is lowered--as shown here--and also provides a place for a "support line" for the boom jaws.   I'm sure that's not the right word, but that's the line going through the thumb cleat which holds up the mast end of the boom (not shown) when the sail is lowered.  In other words, when the sail is down the boom is supported by the topping lift and this support line.    Seems to work well.  I'll try to have a better photo next time!

Incidentally, the rope is Hempex, a synthetic hemp-like roap that I got from R&W Rope.  I used 5/16" for the sheets and 1/4" for the halyards.  It is soft on the hands and seems to work well.

That's it for this time.  I'll have more rigging info. soon, plus I hope some more shots of BELLE under sail now that it's warm enough to sail without wool hats!

Launch Day Part 2

Here's a few more photos from Launch Day, many thanks to Doug Hylan for this batch.  (I also got photos from Ellery Brown which were shown in my previous post.)

Sarah does the honors, pouring Champagne on the bow to mark the occasion.

A bow-on view of BELLE under sail.  The boat in the background is a Hylan Point Comfort Skiff 18, looking very nice.

The wind picked up as the day went on, here she is moving along at a pretty good clip.   Of course,  I'll be tweaking the rig over the next few weeks, but I must say I was very happy with how BELLE sailed right out of the box.

It started getting colder--the wool hats aren't just for show--but Doug caught this nice silhouette before Nick (red hat) and myself  called it a day.

If you're on Facebook, you can see my page for a few more pictures. 

The end of a perfect day?  Just about. There are a few details to work on, but overall the boat has worked terrifically so far.  I'll report back on the tweaks as we go along.  Plus there's lots to learn about her performance in higher winds etc.  

Fair warning, there will be longer gaps between blog posts than in the past:  I may well be out sailing during times I should be blogging!  That said, I will be doing a post in the near future covering rigging issues.

Launch day!

Well it finally came!  After many last-minute details and painting and quite a bit of mumbling to myself about this and that, BELLE had her first taste of salt water today.  It was a very exciting day, I'm going to just post a few pictures for now and report later in more detail.  But suffice it to say that the it was great to launch the boat right in the creek in front of D. N. Hylan & Assoc., mere feet from the shop where BELLE was built as I've detailed in this blog. So many many thanks to Doug, Ellery, Matt, Nick, and Rick!  (I'm sorry I only have photos of me and Nick.)  Hylan also launched a boat just before BELLE, but that's a whole other story...

So here goes with the pictures.  All photos were taken by Ellery Brown, many thanks for doing the honors Ellery!  That said, the only photo of food in this bunch was taken by yours truly.  Typical.

First things first:  a bottle of beer and a wonderful Lemon Cake from Sarahndipity Pies!

Then to the launch. Nick on tractor, me fussing with something or other.  This creek is dry at low tide, so with the tide coming in nicely it's time to get her in the water.  

In she goes! 

Now to take her for a sail.  Let's see, I started building last March and the design two Christmases ago.  A lot of work, time to play!

Now that we're out of the creek and in the Benjamin River (right off Maine's Eggemoggin Reach), time to raise the mainsail...

...then the jib....

...and off we go!  It was a brisk day, I'm at the helm (blue wool hat) and Nick is tending the jib sheet (red wool hat).  Feeling great so far.  The mainsail seems to be setting nicely.  

A nice breeze let us put her through her paces a bit. Here I've relinquished the helm for a minute or two.

Back on her trailer, in front of the shop, awaiting further adventures.

It's been quite a day, I think that's all I have energy for right now.  In a few days I'll have more thoughts and photos on the launch and various small projects to keep me busy until the next sail.  Maybe it'll be a bit warmer next time.

So long for now.

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.