Thread: Beth - New Build 'Boreal'

Originally Posted by Andykane

How long until you get YuanFen out sailing again?

She needs few of cosmetic treatments and I'm waiting for warmer days because I haven't appropriate clothing - dry and warm. First "official" trip will begin on May 17. It will be called Raid Poland 2012 - continuation of the event 2 years ago:
Jerzy Kuliński

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Thank you for more photos! I like your build very much for cleanliness and accuracy - I was able not to achieve.

Warmer days definitely sound worth waiting for. Over here we're getting one or two nice days, but still lots of wind and rain which make building a lot more appealing than sailing.

This looks exciting:


I don't have any in-progress photos of the work but I trimmed the gunwales flush with the deck and rounded the edges. I also trimmed the cockpit coamings down to a nice curve. The plans say they should be about 18mm above the deck at the front but for some reason mine are only about 10-12. I think my carlins must be slightly lower than designed. Whatever the reason, I'm sure it won't be a problem.

My boat got it's second taste of outside air! I wanted to check that I'd trimmed enough off the deck for the masts and generally check that everything looked good. The boat isn't heavy but it is a bit awkward, especially inside a garage, so I put it on a dolly and rolled it out in a very civilized manner.


The deck wasn't quite trimmed enough for the mizzen but a file quickly took care of that.




The mizzen maststep still needs to be glued in. For some reason I didn't mark the step position while I had the masts in. That would have been helpful - I guess I'll have to roll it outside again before I do that.


I'm glad I painted the cargo compartments - the white paint makes a massive difference.


Back in the shed, here's a shot showing the cockpit coaming.

Gasp ... she is beautiful!

Michael

Life sure gets busy sometimes. Right now I'm trying to finish this boat, replace 2 pairs of headgaskets and a steering rack in a third car, make a double bladed paddle for my canoe, put another coat of varnish on my sailing dinghy and clean out a garage, all before summer gets here properly!

Despite this, I managed to glue in the rudder bearings, start the tiller and steering yokes and round the chine. No time for photos right now but I'll post some tomorrow. Looks like I might be able to launch by the end of may depending on how things go.

As promised, here's some pictures.

The rudder is a fairly complicated part: tapered in one direction, curved in another, with a pivot hole that needs to be square to the sides and a projection on top for the yoke.

I started by cutting the taper. Note that I left the three pieces connected so that I would have a nice flat reference face for the next steps.


I'd previously glued a paper pattern to the wood using ordinary water soluble white glue. This can cause some distortions in the paper but is a lot less messy than spray adhesive or contact cement.

I then drilled a couple holes to get a nice inside corner at the bottom of the "yoke post" and cut the shape out on the bandsaw (a jigsaw would probably work fine too but I don't own one). I decided to add a nice curve to the tiller to match the rest of the boat but if the straight sided one shown in the plans would definitely be simpler to build.


I was able to do most of the cuts with the sides still connected but eventually that last cut split them off.


I originally drilled a 5/8" hole but I carelessly made it square to the bottom without checking that the bottom was square to the sides! This resulted in a noticeable slanted hole so I decided to drill it out to the 3/4" shown in the plans which let me straighten it.

While cutting and drilling I discovered a sap pocket right through the end of the tiller. Normally these aren't a big deal but right here it really weakened things and sap is really sticky.


So, I decided to cut a big slice off my new tiller and glue on a replacement piece. I found a nice sap-free piece left over from making the mizzen mast and cut it on an angle so that the grain would match up.


Epoxying the new piece on:


And the final result after cleaning up the sides with a plane.


Lots of little tasks to finish at this stage. I didn't have a drill quite the right size for the mizzen step so I decided to fill the hole in somewhat with epoxy. I cut a small piece off the end of the mizzen (I haven't trimmed it to final length yet), wrapped it in masking tape to give some clearance and then covered it in packing tape so it wouldn't stick to the epoxy. This plug worked great and now I have a nice snug fit.

Hoping that the plug wouldn't be forever stuck to the mast step:


Success! Just needs some sanding and it'll work great.


I also glued up the rudder bearings. Not much to say - everything went easily. Having the rod long enough to rest on the cockpit makes this step really easy but I can't figure out if it's supposed to be this long when it's finished. The plans don't seem to specifically say one way or the other but since there is nothing on the bottom to support the rod I assume that it's only left long for alignment and that it is meant to be trimmed before final installation. My plan is to glue a nice wooden knob to the top and drill the lower end of the shaft for a snap pin. Should be nice and secure but easy to remove.


I also finished the under deck filleting. I'm not good upside down (I get dizzy) so it was a bit tough getting these all done but the results seem ok. Made sure to wash the blush off the deck coating first - you can sure feel the difference when you're looking for it. The unwashed epoxy has a very waxy feel when wet but the washed epoxy has a much grippier feel.


And finally I put a little round on the chine. A router would probably make quick work of this but I don't have a suitable bit so I just used a block plane and a foam sanding pad which works fine.

Nice Problem solving!

It is annoying when a big bit like this chips out.

Sometimes you can avoid by part drilling in one direction using a spade or Forstner bit or holesaw ... and then when the centrepoint comes through stop, flip it over and go the other way.

But it is a bit tricky anytime. Nice fix up!

Michael

Yeah, that's a good idea. I used a forstner bit and usually there's no problem but that sap line through the middle of everything weakened it a lot.

Originally Posted by Andykane

Ouch!

I've used aluminum rod with a diameter of 13 mm (a bit more than 1/2") as a pivot without similar problem. It works OK:





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I really like your build and progress! It looks great!

Really nice pics and sweet build. I can't wait to see pics of it on the water!

Originally Posted by woodeneye

,...I can't wait to see pics of it on the water!

Me neither! I'm really looking forward to it.

Bit more progress: got the chine fiberglassed. As part of the same operation I also filled all the screw holes using a syringe. This worked great and after some practice I did all the probably 150 holes in probably 30 minutes. I was going to try using a squeegee to apply the epoxy before laying down the tape but it's such a narrow strip and half vertical that I found a big brush (35mm) worked better. Once I had epoxy on the wood I pressed the tape into place with my fingers along the chine and then pressed the bottom and side portion down with a squeegee. That worked quite well although the first side didn't have quite enough epoxy so I had to go over a bunch of areas to keep things saturated.

Bit messy up in the bow and I didn't have quite long enough tape so one side has two pieces.


Stern looks neater:


I also glued in dumb sheaves for the halyards. I've used this method on my other boat and it seems to work fine and I like the clean look compared to the bolted on eye. I'll be painting the ends of the spars (varnished with white painted ends) and I think between that and the slippery spectra halyard there shouldn't be much problem with chafe.

Originally Posted by Andykane

I also glued in dumb sheaves for the halyards. I've used this method on my other boat and it seems to work fine and I like the clean look compared to the bolted on eye. I'll be painting the ends of the spars (varnished with white painted ends) and I think between that and the slippery spectra halyard there shouldn't be much problem with chafe.

Andykane,
It looks great, but IMHO if you want to hoist your mainsail from the cockpit (on the water) the friction will be to big - because the yard, sail and boom a bit heavy are and small block will be better there. I just change it! And I'm adding the topping lifts (lazy jacks) for it!

Hoisting the mains'l from the cockpit is not comfortable and subsequent position of the sail not very good:


DSC02518 by klonersi, on Flickr


DSC02519 by klonersi, on Flickr

That's a good point. I'll do a test hoist and see how it feels and then switch to a block if it's too much work.

Well, there's good news and there's not so good news.

Good news: got the blank for the foils glued up. I finally gave the squeegee a shot and found it worked very well. I could stack the various pieces together and slather glue on them all at once then flip them and cover the other edges and clamp them together.


I might have mentioned this before, but my homemade grommet punch failed almost immediately - you really need hardened steel for this. I decided to try using a nice sharp gouge and that worked extremely well. It takes a few cuts to get the whole circle but it goes through even a dozen layers of sailcloth effortlessly.



Bad news: I made a mistake with the centerboard trunk. The sloping spacer is raked aft too much so the lower opening is too small! I can only fit a 235mm centerboard instead of a 265mm that would fit in the trunk normally. I wish I had a photo so I could see where I went wrong but for some reason I don't have a single photo of the centerboard case during assembly.


(you can see where I've marked the proper slot size)

I figure that the smaller centerboard would probably work fine (I have a template drawn up for a Naca 0010 foil which seems to be reasonable) but I wonder if it's worth my effort to modify the trunk. I figure I can probably cut the offending piece out and glue in a new spacer at the proper angle but it would definitely be tedious.

I'm also curious where the centerboard is supposed to sit in normal operation. Is it supposed to be vertical (against the aft spacer) or on an angle? The drawings seem to indicate it should be angled, but if so then I wonder why the aft spacer isn't parallel to the forward one. Maybe you can adjust it to balance the helm like Fenger's Yakaboo?

Originally Posted by Andykane

Bad news: I made a mistake with the centerboard trunk. The sloping spacer is raked aft too much so the lower opening is too small! I can only fit a 235mm centerboard instead of a 265mm that would fit in the trunk normally. I wish I had a photo so I could see where I went wrong but for some reason I don't have a single photo of the centerboard case during assembly.


(you can see where I've marked the proper slot size)

I figure that the smaller centerboard would probably work fine (I have a template drawn up for a Naca 0010 foil which seems to be reasonable) but I wonder if it's worth my effort to modify the trunk. I figure I can probably cut the offending piece out and glue in a new spacer at the proper angle but it would definitely be tedious.

I'm also curious where the centerboard is supposed to sit in normal operation. Is it supposed to be vertical (against the aft spacer) or on an angle? The drawings seem to indicate it should be angled, but if so then I wonder why the aft spacer isn't parallel to the forward one. Maybe you can adjust it to balance the helm like Fenger's Yakaboo?

Ouch! What a pity!

Andykane, I'm not an expert with NACA profiles but:
I think - you can use a bit longer/deeper centreboard for obtain similar surface area to the designed one.