WALDO Sighting

29 Oct 22:

Our shop stool WALDO is Skipper's favorite to put her feet on while she Skippervises, it was spotted today returning from the work deck. Surprisingly WALDO did not get any Kirby Paint splattered onto it while we were painting EXCUSE ME.

 Log of the Boat Shop Stools

BOAT WORKS and HEUER GARAGE Update

 27 Oct 22:

Our handyman finished the paint on the HEUER GARAGE and LEWIS BOAT WORKS, it looks even better than we hoped. The door got a coat of Kirby Marine Paint See Red.  

There will be a small cover over the door, made from powder coated tin sheet. This will help keep direct rain from hitting the door. We cut the small rafters that will support the cover, they're lined up next to the bench. 

The ginger on the right is coming in nice, it will grow just about anywhere. 

It looked a little different on that side of the yard last year.

Some of the azaleas we planted did great, like these that had some shade during the hot part of the Summer. Others got burned up. Gladioloas did well also.

We turned our attention to Skipper's Skippervising quarterdeck. The last of the bricks were put down, then we started spreading pea gravel, river rock and cedar mulch. 

Log of the Carriage House. 

Droopy Tiller

 27 Oct 22:

On some Sunfish with the old style rudder assembly the aft end of the tiller wears down the rudder head notch, and the tiller droops to the deck. One fix for that is to install a shim of rubber or wood to support the aft tiller end.

Marine Traffic Control Board Update

 26 Oct 22:

Marine Traffic Control Board, how we keep up with our Armada. Top boat is the one that has been out most recent. Poor SMEDLEY is languishing on the bottom, he needs some hull repair, that will be our next boat project.

Small Rigger Tool Bench Update

 25 Oct 22:

We lights sanded the little tool bench and applied 2 coats of TotalBoat Gleam Satin Marine Varnish. The wood is very thirsty, after this soaks in we'll apply several more coats.

It would probably be a good time to decide what rigger's tools we plan to keep on the side shelf, and cut those holes to size now, so they can be varnished at the same time.

Gardner Boat Shop Stool Sighting

22 Oct 22:

A friend wandered by the Gardner Boat Shop at Mystic Seaport and spotted the shop stool. It's been there 26 years, made by Wade Smith. Its name is PORT. There is also supposed to be a green STARBOARD stool wandering around somewhere. 

(Image: Ned Lloyd)

2017 sighting.

You scrolled up and down to compare them, didn't you? :) 

FMI: Gardner Boat Shop Stool 

A Sunfish on the James River

 21 Oct 22:

The weather forecast held, so we took Skipper's 1965 ALCORT Sunfish WAVE out to the James River for the first time. Plenty of sunshine, or Sunfishshine on the water. Winds 6-8 knots with a light swell.

One of Skipper's favorite things to do while I'm taking pictures is to sail straight at me and see if I move. WAVE's favorite too.

After Skipper sailed by she said "Catch me" as in get to the beach to help her land the boat. There was no way I was going to catch her, and she beached just fine.

I took WAVE out for about 20 minutes, did a few tacks and rounded one of the channel markers, Green 5. Then, as tradition holds, we did a few jibes on the way back to the beach. 

We always say WAVE is a 1965 ALCORT, but the truth is she has several newer bits. Her rudder assembly is the "new style" pop up that has been standard since 1971, we did that conversion around 2013 or so. She has a late 70s - early 80s swivel cam cleat for the mainsheet, a 1980s era Barrington daggerboard, a 1994 lower boom and the sail is a circa 1984 Riviera. Most significantly, 1/3 of her bow is transplanted from a 1980 AMF Sunfish named SALLY. Captain Jack painted the deck Interlux Brightside Medium Blue, and to confuse people he added the double wide stripe scheme on the bow that was introduced in 1968, the first year that Sunfish had stripes. To confuse them even more, he put stripes on the stern too, stern stripes did not appear until 1971. So WAVE is a Double-Double. 

Our Ford Edge ST SUPER SANDY was the tow vehicle of the day, and WAVE had the smoothest ride that she has ever had, cushioned by the dolly tires. The 6x12 trailer only weighs 700 pounds empty, but that is enough weight to keep the trailer from bouncing over every little bump in the road. 

We are really enjoying the convenience of the Roll On Roll Off (RORO) system, keeping the Sunfish on their Dynamic dollies from storage all the way to and from the water, I don't have to lift them once. Or drop them. 

Tie downs and straps, there are a few, but not many. I try to find the Goldilocks number, and this setup below is pretty close, 3 straps and 4 tie downs. 

For a short haul we roll the sail up on itself next to the spars. Then we take the halyard and work it forward with a marlin hitch, capturing the sail and spars along the way. The excess line can be tied off to the bow handle or the dolly or the trailer. I say bow handle because we know that the internal backer block for the fasteners on our boat is new, and the bow handle is new. If any of those components are of undetermined vintage, I would consider them to be ornamental, and certainly not lift the boat with an old bow handle. We also like bow lines, so on this lash up we tied the bow line aft to the trailer frame, to keel the trailer and dolly from sliding forward during deceleration. 

The blue line is not really needed, but it is a ceremonial remnant of WAVE's bow line that held fast to that bow handle during Hurricane Sally....and not much else, as 2 feet of the deck was ripped off by the storm surge. Capn Jack should be proud, that stainless metal plate was part of a system that he devised to cover old holes where a previous bow handle had ripped off. The old wooden backer block was gone inside, so he wrangled a similar size metal strip inside the hull through the hole on the deck, then glued and screwed the strips together to make a deck sandwich, That's not just any metal plate either, it is chemical plant quality stainless, he got his metal shop buddies on the night shift at his old job to fabricate them for him. Jack would call that "Hell for stout."

We keep old towels in the tow vehicles just for this reason, the padding here is more for the sail than anything else. The halyard is marlin hitched around it. Seen below is also one of three straps that we use, this on is captured by the halyard cleat and angled forward, to keep the boat and dolly from rolling backwards during acceleration. A note on straps, they should be snug, but not tight-tight. Ratchet straps especially can exert thousands of pounds of force, enough to break a deck edge or force a roller up through the keel.

Strap 2 of 3 is captured by the swivel cam cleat and angled backwards, to keep the boat and dolly from (fill in the blanks) rolling  __________ during ________ .  We can also see where the white mainsheet is starting its marlin hitchery and will head aft to the stern.

INTERMISSION: Eeeeeeyew! We were spoiled with soft white Appalachian quartz sand down in NW Florida. Here at the Mid Atlantic station the river sand is a coarser grain and contains among other things, blue quartz from the Blue Ridge Mountains, good old, brick bits from centuries old coastal settlements, mud and iron from all the ships that the explorers abandoned here. And clay, lots of clay :) 

BACK TO OUR PROGRAM: The mainsheet marlin hitches the towel around the spars, and we use a few wraps around the bridle to take up excess sheet and secure the spars. Strap 3 of 3 holds the stern down

So to recap, WAVE has now sailed the Pacific during her time in Hawaii, tacked and gybed in the brackish waters of the Gulf of Mexico and now can add an Atlantic estuary to her resume. Probably appropriate that Skipper wore her GANNET hat for the sail today, a gift from our friend Webb Chiles, a serial circumnavigator and his Moore 24 GANNET.

Log of WAVE.

ALCORT Sunfish WAVE Ready To Roll

22 Oct 22:

Weather forecast is good for tomorrow, so we loaded Skipper's 1965 ALCORT Sunfish WAVE onto the utility trailer. Gave us a chance to check out how the 6x12 trailer will work hauling a 14 foot boat, and everything fits great. Plenty of room and easy to load. The spars mostly fit within the trailer bed if laid diagonally. 

Ready to toll tomorrow afternoon!

Log of WAVE. 

Rivet Review

 21 Oct 22:

Our Sunfish WAVE needed a rivet to hold the deck edge trim in place, the old rivet had torn loose from the deck edge at the end of the aluminum trim piece, a common problem. The deck edge could be repaired with thickened epoxy or redrilled, but at the end of a trim piece we don't mind adding a second rivet. 

We use 1/8th inch diameter aluminum rivets with a 1/6ht - 1/4 inch grip range.Drill the old rivet out with a 1/8th inch diameter metal bit, being careful to not go through the bottom of the trim piece, or in this case, drill a fresh hole net to the old rivet. 

Test the fit to see what grip range will work best.

Pull the rivet with a rivet gun.

Check that there are no burrs on the top of the rivet. If there are, use a metal file to smooth the top of the rivet. Check the bottom of the trim also for sharp edges.

Video: https://youtu.be/WU6JkjKQMEs

Drascombe Lugger Rudder Chock

15 Oct 22:

The Drascombe Lugger ridder drops into a trunk from the top. For decades we  launched from a ramp and just completely removed the rudder and laid it on the cockpit sole. In our new area of operation there are times when the rudder needs to be "retracted" for beaching and launching from a beach. Other folks around the globe have developed different methods to hold the rudder vertical in the trunk. One method is to drill a hole through the weld between the rudder stock and the top cheek plates. The method we chose was to make a wooden chock that slips under the rudder cheeks, around the thinner rudder blade. 

One note about Lugger rudders, the early blades were fixed, 1967-1976ish, and also shorter. After that a longer swivel blade was available. Looking at the blade and the drop through trunk design, you can imagine why it might be a good idea to raise the rudder before going into a shallow beach area.

The chock was cut from 1x pine with a jigsaw.

We cut a little wider slot at the open end of the chock to facilitate easy insertion. Also added the little strip underneath so that the chock keeps the metal rudder from touching the teak top plate and prevents side to side movement. This strip would be helpful if the boat was left on a mooring for extended periods with wave action rocking the boat. 

We store the chock in the cubby when not in use, easy to reach. The edges were rounded because we round edges. Our mantra is No Sharp Edges in a small boat cockpit. 

We learned about these tips from the Drascombe Association Forum, found on the Drascombe Association (DA) website. The DA puts out a great quarterly newsletter called, you guessed it, the DAN, Drascombe Association Newsletter. We highly recommend that anyone interested in Drascombes, cruising and who likes to read about Rallies join the DA and join the conversation. See you there!

Cheers

Clark and Skipper

Drascombe Association

Back Yard Theater and MORP

09 Oct 22:

Turns out the "Work" Deck is an excellent place for afternoon naps in a deck chair. When I was embarked aboard the USS Belleau Wood with the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, we called this rest time MORP, Marine Officer Rest Period. 

Nice shaded area, birds chirping, woodpeckers debarking trees, neighbors mowing... Richard also points out the suspicious spacing of trees that may support a hammock... Skipper thinks she is sneaky, I already sniffed out her Puppet Theater plan, and now she has named the space the BYT, Back Yard Theater. Seasonal schedule to be released soon.

Tally so far... Naps 3, Work 0. 

Lewis Boat Works Work Deck Fini

 07 Oct 22:

We finished laying the 2x6 pressure treated pine deck and built a few steps around the perimeter. Let's take a tour. You might remember back to when we laid a gangplank for loading and unloading the shop, level from the driveway, and back up to before that when we had the shed placed so that the floor would be level with the driveway, and back up before that to when this area was a shady mud pit. 

Here's the big reveal video: https://youtu.be/6wgUWaY9Q84

The deck was barely taking shape when Skipper showed up with a deck chair and Skippervised. That's okay though, she brought me bread and water.

We can roll right through now...

...but should remember to stop at the end.

A few bricks left over from the home construction will make a nice area for The Usual Visitors to comment on how I'm doing it wrong or how they'd do it. Loud saws and drills will drown them out.

We decided to change the layout pattern of the brick from what had been previously started, and shifted the layout a bit so that it parallels the new deck. Should be about 6' x 6' when all the bricks are down, and we might put an additional stone or wood perimeter around it. The gaps will be filled with paver sand and/or pea gravel to stabilize the loose brick. 

We're hoping for grass to fill in on the right, and the small area on the left may get some river gravel and flagstone to promote drainage. Should be an area that a small leaf blower can maintain, and the trees will still get water. 

Log of Lewis Boat Works.

Work Deck 12 x 20

 06 Oct 22:

We like decks near the Boat Works to roll projects in and out for sanding, sawing and to enjoy nice weather. Skipper found a shady spot behind the Boat Works for a 12x20 floating deck and we spent a few days laying out the blocking and rim joists, our variation on pier and beam construction. 

We repurposed some concrete retaining wall block, aka castle wall, to serve as the piers. Those were leveled with gravel and shimmed with pressure treated lumber in a few spots. Normally for a "floating deck we'd use 1 inch pavers as the pier, but his beck needed to be up a little higher to be level with the shed floor. 2x6 pressure treated joists are set on block, 24 inch on center. The allowable span for a 2x6 yellow pine on 24 inch centers is 7' 7", so we placed a block at 6 feet mid span on each joist. Rim and floor joists were fastened with Grip Tite deck screws. 

Here we are working our way out from the shed, checking for square. We could have gotten 2x6 in 20 foot sections, would have delayed us a few days for delivery, but decided to grab the first batch of shorter boards ourselves with the trailer and get started. We alternated 12 and 8 foot boards around the rim and on the deck, deck joists are just under 12 feet. 

Deck Joist Sizing and Spacing

Skipper nowhere to be seen when 50 pound bags of pea gravel and 20 pound blocks are being tossed around. It took a couple of afternoons to get to this point.

Mid morning on the 6th we had more deck planks delivered, and got a fair number of them tacked into place before the End Work whistle blew.

2x6 decking, spaced 1/8 -1/4 inch apart, as we like a gap for rain and leaf debris to get through. Turns out a carpenter's pencil is 1/4 inch wide. Now this gap will increases as the wood dries, as much as an 1/8th inch or so, so that gap may get as big as 1/2 inch. That's okay with us, we like the airflow to keep things dry. Another way we avoid rot is to buy ground contact rated lumber and set it on concrete. The pea gravel also promotes drainage and drying. 

Log of Lewis Boat Works.