Boat Plans At Mystic Seaport | Latest on new skiff builds going on

Boat Plans At Mystic Seaport

Here are some updates on one of the past skiffs being built and some new skiffs being designed and built. I get these photos via emails and on Facebook.

 The first skiff is Jon Conners from Vermont.

In the last blog post Jon was building his skiff. He has since launched her and has been doing sea trails in a river near his place. I dont know if this is salt water or not. I dont think so because the trees are so close to the waters edge.

Jon and I first met when he emailed me asking if I would email him a clear set of drawings for my Ian Scott Devlin skiff proposal. Sure. He liked the idea of a slightly rockered bottom and some of my chine details. He wanted to design his own hull to be built in plywood using the stitch and glue method.

During sea trails we have talked back and forth via email about her performance.

Here she sits. I say she looks "right". By that I mean that everything flows well in this hull and shape.

Jon wanted a simple light weight skiff that would pole well with him alone and for small hp. 25 hp is his goal to have on the stern. This boat weighs under 300 lbs as built.

On the first few runs Jon used a very small trim plate on the engines cavitation plate. Here you can see her bow up attitude with the engine level. Jon had added a long wedge to the outside of the lower Chines to help the bow come down. I sent him the measurements of my outboards trim plate.

He removed the wedges which were slowing down the skiff a bit and making it very stable in turns.

Bow up quite a ways.

See all the leaves and flat water. This kind of bow up is really only good for very flat water running.

The engine with the right sized trim plate will lift the stern and the bow will still be out but the angle will not be like this. A more level angle.

Now a few weeks later! New trim plate, cold weather has set in and all the leaves are on their way out.

See the difference in the trim with a bigger trim plate. The skiff now does not have the above mushing along look.

Jon and a friend went up and down here and never got wet. It was a wet windy day. The ride was fine for all.

Bows trimmed right down now. All you have to do to lift the bow is tilt the engine a bit up by using the trim pin or you can build one of Jons simple trim plates.

You get this kind of prop wash when trimmed all the way down.

Look at the bow and you can see the seas - chop that hes going through. Are they called seas in a river? 

All in all Jon reports that he is very happy with his new skiff. I hope Jon comes to visit me when I get back to our place in the Bahamas. It will be fun to talk building and designing your own skiff.

Well done Jon.

This is Alexyz Milians skiff vison.

 Alexyz emailed me asking a few things about design. He has built a beautiful strip plank wood canoe and wants to build himself a no motor zone poling skiff that is very light in the same manner. This skiff is 4x14 long. It will draw very little.

He had several questions.

The first was why was his bow so down when he placed his hull in the water.

Why did on my bow on lines drawings of skiffs look like the decks of the skiffs were curved?

How to get the bow up look?

Simple answers. Its good for me to get questions like these as I need feedback to see if people are understanding my drawings and thought process.

Heres Alexyzs hull sections.

 

From this angle you get a real good view of his shape. Lots of firm displacment aft going foreward.

This will make the boat stable. The 4 of beam is not too narrow. The wide stern will do its job keeping the boat steady. I would place what ever weight I was going to bring along back there to replace the engine.

Here I explain in my email drawings how to add or subtract displacement-bouancy. What the skiff needed was 2-3" of freeboard added to the bow tapering aft. The design is fine at the waterline as it is.

The curved line you see in bow on hull lines drawings is the sheer. Because all the stations are laying one on top of each other the sheer line gets exaggerated.

This sketch explains how his skiff will sit with different loads.

Now a new sheer with no weight in the stern. Perfect.

The new hull stations ready to take all the measurements off of.

A nice shape. This shape will be easy to strip plank. With a 5 hp two stroke it will plane out doing most likely 12-15 knts with one person on board.

Nice job Alexyz, I look forward to seeing the hull being planked.

I saw this hull on Facebook the other day. I think its coming from a shop called Glasser Boatworks.

This is a very well proportioned skiff. Really looks nice.

Same skiff I believe inside the shop. I can see they have station molds in the background so its a one off. Nice to see new skiffs out there. Nice rounded transoms edge. I dont know who you guys are but youre doing a nice job.

Heres an email acquaintance that is building a Carolina type small skiff in epoxy and core.

This will be a nice all round skiff. But not a quiet skiff with that chine setup. But she will be the best looking skiff out there. Classic

Thats it for now. 

In a few days I will post all the latest on the Tom Gordon- Islamorada Boatworks skiff that I have played a small part in. They will be doing sea trials this week so will then post all the pictures and give you all the details.

Send me your skiff ideas and builds and I will post here. Over 95,000 viewers this year.

3/4s though read my sailing stuff though.

Do you find information about Boat Plans At Mystic Seaport are you looking for? If not, below may help you find more information about the Boat Plans At Mystic Seaport. Thank you for visiting, have a great day.

Read More..

Boat Plans Catamaran | New blog hogfishdesign wordpress com

Boat Plans Catamaran

With my daughter Lilians help I now have a blog site at Wordpress that will show all my designs and sketches very clearly. Everything I post on there is free for all to use for building your our own boat.

Please remember this. I am a lifes experiences and self taught idea man that is sharing what I feel would work for me and possibly others. I am not in the plans selling bussiness. I am sharing my ideas in order to hopefully help others get motivated to design and build their own boat. 

This new blog will only have my sketches and designs in it. Please bear with me as I learn the working of this new site. I will over the next few weeks upload all my drawings and designs that I have with me currently on my sailboat the Hogfish Maximus. It will be very random jumping from powerboats to sailboats. 

The best way to ask me questions is via email at...spankthermermaid@gmail.com

I will continue to be posting on Chris Morejohn. Blogspot as usual.

Today finds us hauled out with us in Jolly Harbor painting the HFMs bottom for the coming sailing season. We launch on Monday and will be off sailing south for Martinique on Tuesday.

Lots to say in this new year. Wishing you all a great year ahead.

This morning. One more coat to go. I like to paint alternate colors so I can see how its wearing off.

Christmas Day with our daughter Lillian and Rachel on the HFM

Party hats later in the day with Rachel and Gayle on Wild Bird.

Talk soon....

Do you find information about Boat Plans Catamaran are you looking for? If not, below may help you find more information about the Boat Plans Catamaran. Thank you for visiting, have a great day.

Read More..

Boden Boat Plans Australia | Star 45 Model Sailboat GET THAT TOPPING LIFT RIGHT if you wanna go fast !

Boden Boat Plans Australia

By Phil Geren

Of all the go fast stuff I have learned from tuning experts over the past year, the most valuable, and the thing that has provided the most additional boat speed for my 13#-3.5oz Star 45 (the "Fat Lady") is how to get the Jibs topping lift set right. I am doing much better in my racing since learning this.

The curve of the leech of the Jibsail MUST resemble as closely as possible the curve of the leeward surface of the Mainsail when sighting from the foredeck. If the Jibs leech is flatter or fuller your boat will not attain its speed potential while beating and reaching.

The topping lift enables you to get the curves aligned. Tightening the topping lift makes the Jibs leech fuller, more curved. Loosening the topping lift makes the Jibs leech flatter. With a little practice you can get the curves to be identical.

Heres how:

Pull the Mainsail in to the beating position; Swivel the Jib boom with your finger (apply only lateral force, no upward or downward force on the Jib boom) so that when you sight from the foredeck and look up and down the curve of the windward surface of the leech of the Jibsail it is superimposed on the curve of the back (leeward) surface of the Mainsail.

Are the curves identical? If not, is the Jibs leech more curved?
If it is, loosen the topping lift.

If the Jibs leech is flatter, tighten the topping lift.

Make small adjustments. This is very sensitive, and you can get it right if you persevere.
Recheck the need for adjustment after every few heats of racing or if you change anything else.

On sailboats EVERYTHING is related to everything else, and you will need to readjust periodically to maintain your added speed.

Dont have a topping lift? INSTALL ONE NOW! You wont believe the improvement!

Do you find information about Boden Boat Plans Australia are you looking for? If not, below may help you find more information about the Boden Boat Plans Australia. Thank you for visiting, have a great day.

Read More..

Boat Plans Arch Davis | Come and go blues

Boat Plans Arch Davis

"Come And Go Blues", a great song by the Allman Brothers, but also a fair summary of our canceled launch date. We had scheduled with the boat yard to drop us in the water on July 10, but life and boat building has again collided, so that date is going to get pushed back.  Shes able to be launched, but a situation with  my 81 year old mother found Shannon, my sister, and myself pulling together to help mom, and less important things had to be shelved.  Anyway, a launch is imminent, but it will be later in July, or early August.

Boat building is still moving forward. With the devil being in the details, Im at the stage where getting things completely finished is high on my list. Im putting to bed quite a bit of work hoping to not have to re-visit these projects again. Im actually to the point where I can start to think about hauling some left over construction material off of the boat.

I had to dig the welder out of the forward cabin and make some brackets for the throttle and transmission shift cables. The correct length cables arrive at the boat early in the week, and I finalized  the installation late in the week. Listening to Terry at Washington Marine was a prudent move on my part and having him order the correct length cables was worth it. The shift motion is firm and easy on the touch, and Im happy with how well the throttle control is.

While I had the welder out, I made a bracket for mounting the air horns that will sit on the bill of the wheel  house, and  mounted the horns. The junk air solenoid valve that came with the horns did not work, so the only way to test the horns was to use the blow gun. The horns work well, and the 170 decibel rating makes your ear sting if youre standing in front of them. A  new solenoid switch is on the way.

While I was welding on top of the wheel house, I welded in three couplings. One coupling for the air horns, one coupling for the VHF cable, and the last coupling for a search light.

All the anodes are bolted to the hull.

I decided to install a scoop strainer for the sea chest intake. I was afraid that without a scoop, there might be a tendency to suck the sea chest  dry when were under way.  Instead of fooling around with welding a bunch of studs to the hull for the scoop, I welded one 1/2" stud, and used a isolator bushing to electrically disconnect the scoop from the hull. I also decided to add a small anode behind the scoop. With only one beefy stud pulling the scoop tight to the hull,  a rubber gasket was also added to help tighten things up and keep the bronze off of the steel.

A big piece of the engine system is ventilation of the engine room. The engine room ventilation is done via a stack that exits up through the center of the boat and out the roof.  The stack is 26" x 26", and is partitioned in the center crating two stacks with one for exhaust, and one for intake. Fans are going to have to be used as I dont think passive ventilation will work.  Once the water tight engine room doors are closed, the room is now air tight with only the stack allowing air in or out. So,  if I pull air in to the now  pressurized engine room via a fan, the air now has no choice but to exit the engine room via the exhaust side of the stack, forcing out the hot engine room air. The key here, in my opinion is not letting the intake air to short circuit. For the short circuiting issue, I decided to create a shroud in the stack on the intake side, and mount the intake fan in a precisely cut hole in the shroud. The shroud was made using scrap aluminum left over from the scrap aluminum I used to sheath the engine room sole. The shroud is bolted in place so its easy to remove or expand, and I mounted the fan using threaded rivets, so that too is easy to replace. I purchased two 9" axial fans from Delta T for ER ventilation. The quality of the fan is about as good as one could find with the fan having been built for specifically this application. So yesterday afternoon, Im down in the 90 degree engine room ( remember summer  has found us), building the shroud and installing the fan. Im looking at this fan, and doubts are filling my mind. " I should have gone with the 11" fan". " Theres now way this fan is going to  do what I want it to do, its to damn small". With the fan installed, I decided to energize it even though I did not have proper wires run from the wheel house. Using the hot wire for the ER lights outside the ER door in the master cabin, I powered up the fan. Man, was I surprised  how much air that thing puts out, and how relatively quiet it is. The fan is supposed to be rated at 750 CFM, and the old head in front of the fan test tells me its pushing out 754.  Because the temporary fan power wires are running from the master cabin through the ER water tight door, I could completely close the doors to the water tight position for fear of cutting the wires, so the door dogs were only about 1/4 engaged. The door was hitting the gasket, but not compressing it, and I could tell this by feeling how much air was short circuiting out the door... not a lot, but I could feel it. That all looks good, so lets go roof top and see whats happening at the stack funnel. Up on the roof, the first thing I noticed is that the fan seems louder up top. The second thing I noticed is how much air is pouring out the exhaust side of the stack. I could sort of feel air being pulled in on the stacks intake side, but its difficult to feel with ones hand. Using a garbage bag, I placed it in front of the intake Louver, and the baggie was immediately sucked into the grill. If I did not get insect screens with the Louver, the baggie for sure would have been sucked down in to the stack and into the fan. The last thing I wanted to check was the amperage draw which I found to be 9 amps. Most times, a few small things together can add up to a large thing as to how things  perform. "The devils in the details" . While the shroud fits good, I decided to use some duct tape to seal up the edge of the shroud where it hits the ceiling. 

As I said before, I bought two of these axial fans for the ER. The other fan Im going to install in the aft corner, pushing air towards the work bench. Because of the amperage draw, I have to decide if I want to use two circuits or one. Im inclined to use two circuits as I might be able to get by using only one fan. The intake fan is for sure going to be running 100% of the time the engine is running along with some time after the engine is stopped to help with cooling the engine room down. The pushing fan might not need run as much, and given that it will see less duty, it should last much longer. If this proves to be the case, the less run pushing fan will also double as a spare fan to be used to replace the intake fan for when it fails. The intake fan for sure  has to run, so putting the fans on separate circuits gives me some redundancy.
 
The next step to finish ventilation project is to pull the wires and land them in the wheel house. While Im pulling wires, I might as well pull wires for the fresh water pump along with the bilge pump switchs. I have six spare DC conduits installed from the wheel house to the ER, so this one wire pull will fill one of the conduits.

I might as well add that theres a solid day of cleaning for two people once we pick a launch date.... shes a dirty mess.

 Cheers 

Do you find information about Boat Plans Arch Davis are you looking for? If not, below may help you find more information about the Boat Plans Arch Davis. Thank you for visiting, have a great day.

Read More..