Thread: Goat Island Skiff

I think that MIK writes in the materials section that clear pine of a variety that glues well is usable (if not the first choice) for the mast. I think that I will end up with a pine mast (pinus sylvestris). My intention is still to find a piece of dense, straight, knot free spruce (picea abies), the traditional mast making material in Sweden, but I find it difficult to obtain. From my understanding, a pine mast (at least the sort of pine we have here) will be strong enough, but maybe a bit heavier than spruce. I wouldn't reinforce it with glass fibre. A light mast is what you want. As far as I understand, the mast as designed (the hollow square one) is plenty strong anyway.

Pontus

Once I just manage to gather money for my GIS project, I will probably use either pine or aspen for my mast. Nordic aspen is very strong but having vulnerable surface, so it needs a cloth there were chafing is happening.

Kom över till Finland när du har din båt färdig!

I found a different section of the lumber yard today where they keep their "select" lumber. It was much higher quality than anything I had been able to find. Western Red Cedar was abundant in the correct sizes and Oregan was mixed in with other stuff but could be sorted out. I'm going to have to learn how to make good tight joints, but that should not be too hard.

Time to get busy before this snow melts and I get distracted by other things.

Jery

Great! Looking forward to your build thread with lots of pictures!
/Pontus

Two more pages about the Goat on the website. It really is to present the videos we have from different contributors in a more systematic way. If you can think of other videos that fit in the contexts I would be glad to include them.

Goat Island Skiff Videos – at speed with and without weight aboard – GIS planing freely | Michael Storer Wooden Boat Plans

Goat Island Skiff Videos – Goat Island Skiff Sailing, Reefed and Manoeuvring – Handling the Goat! | Michael Storer Wooden Boat Plans

what is an estimate of how much the finished boat actually ends up costing?

Originally Posted by OSUDove07

what is an estimate of how much the finished boat actually ends up costing?

There's a lot of variation because everybody makes different choices. But I would say $2500-3500 is the ballpark in the US. Plus the value of your time of course...

Mine was at the higher end of Dave's estimate. Probably $3500 plus another thousand for the trailer and a professionally made custom cover. I used good occume from France but selected from lumberyard timbers for the solid wood bits. Top notch two part paint and varnish, CPES and epoxy sealer under everything. For the mast I bought and adapted a 17 foot aluminum flagpole (about $150). Yard and boom were select Oregon purchased 350 miles from here and hauled on the roof of a minivan.

In addition to what MAM said, I'd also add it depends on how often you screw up and have to re-buy something. As my first boat-building project, I made some mistakes and purchasing mistakes, and lots of things were purchases a few times. You have to be OK with making a mistake, better to fix it and do it right than regret it...

People will want to skimp on materials to save money, but the savings will be a small percentage compared to the overall cost of the boat-- better to spend a few extra bucks up front than be kicking yourself for the lifetime of the boat.

Originally Posted by callsign222

In addition to what MAM said, I'd also add it depends on how often you screw up and have to re-buy something. As my first boat-building project, I made some mistakes and purchasing mistakes, and lots of things were purchases a few times. You have to be OK with making a mistake, better to fix it and do it right than regret it...

People will want to skimp on materials to save money, but the savings will be a small percentage compared to the overall cost of the boat-- better to spend a few extra bucks up front than be kicking yourself for the lifetime of the boat.

Like I did with my original BETH.

I decided that a conventional dinghy finish - varnish all over and CPES inside the boat was OK and I would use cheap and heavy ply for the bottom.

It was a silly mistake. The cheap plywood sucked in water through the lower grade finish and the varnish would never really stick to it.

The outside of the boat, despite a really nice fitted cover was prone to water getting into the ply and making it crack and then the grain raising.

These problems started two years after I finished it. It was the first wood boat I built so a learning curve. Also within a couple of years of my beginning with full epoxy sealing.

Every ... and I mean EVERY boat that was properly epoxy sealed and built at that time has been almost absolutely trouble free. My scientific background requires me to put in "almost" but really I can't think of one exception. They have all been very long lived trouble free boats. And I'm not talking one or two - I was working with Duck Flat, classes, kits all over Australia, Plans for lots of different designers all over australia, plywood all over Australia.

And that is 25 years ago now. And the original BETH is just a memory and a foot or so of bow up on the wall in the Duck Flat workshop.

If you plan for only a year or five out of the boat then you can put up with the eventual leaks and slow degrade that is likely. With epoxy sealed structures - 15 years - no leaks or construction issues ever.

MIK

I've extracted this from a pdf RC newsletter.

This remarkable model of an 18 foot Skiff was built by Dennis Kenna. It is a faithful reproduction of an 18 footer that Dennis sailed in the 1970's - He had this to say about the project:


I sailed an 18 footer on Sydney Harbour for 5 years back in the mid to late 70's, I have always wanted to build a model with a crew and having had the plans of our last skiff, I decided to give it a go. The hull took me around 4 months to build, and then the painting and fitting out had to be done, and the sails made, so the whole project took around 15 months to complete.

• The hull is a metre long, with a beam of 400mm and 490mm from wing tip to wing tip at the widest point.
  
• The whole skiff is built out of marine ply and coated in fibreglass resin inside and out before painting.
  
• The crew are all around 300 mm high and were recruited from the local second hand shop.
  
• The mast is 1830 high and the boom is 630mm.
  
• The sails were made by Steve Arthur, and what a fabulous job he did, they are fantastic.
  
• The centre board is 500mm long in the water with a 1 kilo weight hanging off the bottom, and the rudder is 200mm in the water.
  
• The rig is based on the intermediate or second rig we had in the boat, 18 footers all had three rigs small, medium and large for different wind conditions.

I have set the skiff up as a pond skiff after deciding that making her R/C would spoil the look on the inside with all the gear needed to make it R/C. It ended up being a good decision as she sails and looks a lot more realistic this way, and is a lot of fun also. I have been amazed at just how well she sails, no weather helm or lee helm at all, I just set the rudder and sails and off she goes and go she does, after all she is a skiff.

dk4.jpgdk5.jpgdk3 (1).jpgdk2.jpgdk1.jpgdk6.jpgdk9.jpgdk8.jpg

I could not resist.

From an inauspicious beginning, this thread on the Woodenboat Forum was quite interesting.

Lots of people like the Goat.

http://forum.woodenboat.com/showthre...-the-125-plans

MIK

Yes I saw that one. I think you came out of it rather well.