Keel Steel

 5/8 16mm for vertical part. 3/8 9.25mm for horizontal 

Had parts laser cut by Precision Laser & Fab Inc Saskatoon. 

 

Hull plating

9mm Okume 

 Order 

Sides, chines, bottom x2 

Shaping the frames and stringers

 This was a task I was really looking forward to.  Watching other builders/off center harbour/YouTube it felt like this is the point you see the shape of the boat and how well you did install stringers and frames.   

I started with the easy ones and just kept plodding along.  It took a long time as I was always fearful of taking off to much which I did on occasions.  As mentioned in stringers some of my stringers were set in to far or twisted so need to add material and or shape them based off the stingers around them and frames.  

TBC. 

Stringers

Douglas Fir Stingers came from a grain storage building I got for “free”.  Costs for actual getting it. 50ton crane for 2 hours, semi to transport it 3hrs home.   $2500. Plan was to make a boat shed and use left over Douglas Fir for boat builds.  Boat shed may not happen due to uncertainty of the land we are on but the Douglas fir is old growth from the 40s/50s compared to the sappy/plantation stuff you get today it’s almost a different wood species.  Once the building walls I need were dismantled, I went though and picked the heaviest/least knots 2x6 / 2x18 @ 10’ and 16’ to make the stingers.  Ripping and planing stingers to size was good learning experience and fun but it would have been cheaper and faster to order the correct lumber from a lumber yard and get milled professionally, although the quality of the wood is a lot better. .  

I did 1:10 scarf joints to get the required length.  Scarf joints were done on a radial arm saw with a jig.  To join stringers I used thickened epoxy and clamps.  Getting stringers not to slide against one another was a challenge at first as I was not clamping the ends of the stingers to something.  Once I started using a long table set up it was a straight forward process to joint stringers.  

I put a 1/4” round over on all the stringers with a router. 

Fitting the stringers to the frames proved more technical than I had hoped as the frames were CNC cut on a router they are only correct in the XYZ axis in one slice at the most outside final point,  aft edge going forward from mid-ships, forward edge going aft from mid-ships, everything else had to be adjusted and material removed to get the stringers to sit correctly to get a fair line.   As the stinger is one piece it takes a number of test fits and working down the slot in the frames on either side multiple times to get a good fit.

  I had three failures in stingers which could have been avoided.

1. The 2nd stringer I did was one of a smaller stingers it was very tight on D frame I was forcing it in and out the slot working down the other frames using a soft mallet.  It was being held in fore and aft by friction only but I had to pull it again and instead of starting at one end I knocked it out in the middle it came out in of the bow but not D frame, the spring back cracked it at D frame.  I had scored the wood putting it in and out the slot coupled with the potential energy from the loaded stringer was enough to crack it.  Lesson, slots don’t need to be hammer tight, only release clamps one at a time and work stingers out by hand not by hammer. 

2. There was a board that had a good knot in it, i should not have used it at all. One of my helpers was moving a stinger holding one end like a bent fishing pole and it snapped 3’ down right at the knot.   I then went and redid three other boards that had knots.  Lesson - it’s easy to scarf joints with correct jig, if you have a knot that looks suspicious remove it and scarf in a new piece. 

3. The gunwale stinger is the widest/highest of all the stingers, opted for a hybrid stringer in this area higher down cabin sides and lower over bow and cockpit, I was trying out steam to assist in bending using a wallpaper steamer.  I had soaked the stinger with rags and had the steamer positioned under the rags moving it forward as I brought clamps in.  It was working well and I thought well what could it hurt to leave it for a while, so I started the other side, it was in one place for about 15mins and then I heard a crack.  Turns out I had left the steam hose directly underneath the epoxy joint at point with the great tension. So while the rest of the board was drying out this small area was getting softer and softer.  - lesson don’t steam small sections at a time, don’t steam epoxy under tension.  Do not steam on this boat, it was not necessary, time was much easier, I’d put a board in place and over a couple of days pull it in.  Let it sit for a few days then remove to glue in.  Takes a long time but I’m in no rush. 

For finial install of the port stringers I left on the starboard and bottom plywood screwed on every frame. The ability to twist, move forward/aft the frame with the stringers was quite amazing.  Having my time again I would have installed temporary support stingers on the inside of the hull, especially on the back side of the chine and gunwale.

For the starboard side I left the bottom plywood on. 

As I was installing the stingers the ones I cut to deep I blocked out, I did miss one which meant I had to epoxy on a piece to plane down later.  At the bow my smaller stringers did not sit perfectly on the correct plane port - starboard and the twist was greater on two of them though the middle, I think this is just a function of smaller cross section of wood being under stress and well supported at two ends so it moves where it can. As Gregg Martell told me the art of boat building is getting the wood to stay where you want it for long enough to make it permanent.  Probably more rotating clamps between the frames so I could set the twist as it came in better would have helped.  Not sure if it’s visible in the photos. 

Photos with comments 

                    "free" grain storage building, Built with stand a great deal of force internally, 2x6 construction with double lathe exterior.  Plan was to use 10' of walls to make boat and re-stand remainder to make a 30' x 16' boat shed for long term storage and summer work. 

Breaking down side walls for stringers

Ripping stringers to size 

Planning stringers to size with help of Elenie and Logan.  At Aunty Sharons up the road. 

Sails

 

I ordered my sails late January 2023 and they turned up in Saskatoon March 21st 2023

I have not unpacked and inspected them as yet, I expect I will not be able to roll them out till later in the year once the snow is gone.  The corner of the main was run over by a forklift in transant from Annapolis to Saskatoon.  It all looks ok apart from a small tire mark on the sail

Main with Rutgerson Marin track slides

  Jib hank on bronze hanks

Storm jib - safety orange 

A5 - pink 

A3 - green 

Frame work, fillets and hanging frames on jig.

 I have been slowly picking away at the frames.  Completing them as far as possible on the bench which does add quite a bit of time for me.  They are all assembled as of September 09 2022 but still require finishing with with fillets and blocking.  I will then coat every thing with epoxy again as there are some areas with construction and and sanding that are now do not have epoxy on them, and some pieces I missed during the initial coating of all parts.  The screen shot from Facebook is from Martell Marine (Gregg Martell)  https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=martell%20marine  Every joint could be filleted, this is lot of work and material (time and money) all on its own.

Frames set up had to be readjusted once I used the side panels and base panel to check the length.  

I added extra supports to the frame/jig to try and limit movement when applying stringers, as it was relatively to move a frame. 

Mast and Rigging Selden package

Mast and Rigging arrived. 

 

Post to fourm

Hull 133.
paid Mcintyre Adventure June 14th for mast and door-to-door shipment from Selden
mast shipped via ocean freight on or around the 26th of June 2022
mast arrived in Montreal, Canada, around August 8th and cleared customs, got to Canada freight forwarder around 07th of September 2022.
mast shipped rail to Saskatoon SK, Canada. (middle of Canada) arrived 19th of September 2022.
So from payment to delivery, three months. Costs over what was paid to Mcintyre Adventure, $536.10 for customs/brokerage and local taxes. All in $5954.89 Canadian dollars.
Maybe 20 emails, which were mostly me asking status, little confusion on who was paying port to Saskatoon, but Selden fixed it quickly.
Everything arrived in one piece. Looks like a great kit with lines and labels. I was very happy I went this route as I'm not experienced at building rigs (or boats..) I think if you were in a location that has a rigging company locally I would have worked with them but the nearest one to me is 1600kM away.
One thing to keep in mind, I'm part owner of a business that imports and exports; we are all set up with brokers etc. If you are doing it as an individual it could be a lot harder.