Frustration

I wish I had more time to work on the Microskiff project. Real work is really busy right now, and I just don't have enough hours in the day. I'm trying to fit an hour or so a day boat building in somewhere. Perhaps I'll get time this weekend. I know exactly what needs to be done - nothing is difficult but the epoxy cure time delays are killing me.

There sure is a big benefit of Eric's low tech assembly method - I could have things done three or four times as fast. You just have to be patient with epoxy - rushing is the quick road to disaster. I've got to get more 205 fast hardener! I had a little can here that I bought last year that didn't last long.

I'll stop whining now.

Organizational pause ....

I took a few minutes early (6:00AM) this morning to wet out all the remaining panels with epoxy. Everything is now done in terms of wetting out prior to assembly. There are lots of tasks on the go and I thought a brief pause to organize a list of items would be useful.

• Complete the centerline frame and splice in the new daggerboard trunk (done)
• Epoxy some stubs 1/16" offset from one side of the centerline of the hull bottom (inside the boat) for screwing the centerline frame in prior to filleting. These little wooden stubs are big enough to hold the frame vertical, and maintain the hull bottom curvature long enough to get the filleting done. Once the centerline frame is filleted and cured, the little blocks could be removed (done)
• Cut the Mahogany blanks into 1"x3/4" strips, reverse every second one and epoxy it back together. This stabilizes the blanks for making the foils
• Epoxy the chine logs to the inside of the hull bottom (done)
• Glue the stringers where needed on the bulkheads & frames (done)
• Think about hardware mounting locations and block accordingly (done - at least the thinking part!)
• Cut out the foam structural supports (done)

I'll add more as I think about it. I've got to get real work done for the next eight hours or so.

Invisible work

I've been working hard on the Microskiff project ... really. There isn't much to see as what I've been doing qualifies as "invisible work" or stuff done in preparation for future steps. I've epoxy coated just about all the panels - there is one side of the four side panels to go, and I'll try to get to it tonight after dinner. Same goes for splicing the daggerboard trunk into the centerline frame. The trunk is cured and very stiff. It needs a little sanding before I cut the centerline frame and put the trunk in.

I'm taking my time on the project, not trying to rush, as some of the attention the project has gained make me think that I better do a good job. I'm trying to get all the epoxy work done before Thomas gets back from his grandparents (my parents!) -I'd rather not have him deal with epoxy. Thomas will be here to fair, sand & paint, to help rig the boat and to help test & tune the rig.

I grew up the son of a craftsman (thanks Dad!) - hence my lack of fear taking on the project. Because I'm familiar with reasonable quality woodwork and boat building, I'm going to attempt to make a standout example of Eric's design work - in the hopes that it be photogenic if the project does gain a larger audience. I'm staying true to the project's low cost goals - everything (except Norm's donated African Mahogany for the foils and the West System epoxy) has been purchased in a neighborhood lumberyard. No exotic woods, no marine-grade Okume plywood.

So far, none of the necessary tasks have been remotely difficult and out of reach for the average kid with a Mom or/and Dad's help. I've planned (and will be doing) a little fancy (but completely unnecessary) work to make an arched support for the mast partners, as well as some "wooden" boat fine finishing touches. I don't want Thomas' boat to be confused with a piece of rotomolded plastic!

I've recut the hull bottom and cockpit floor panels using a jigsaw and it was so easy I'd not bother with the $120 CNC cutting if I had full size paper patterns.

The only necessary tasks I see as possibly challenging for people new to woodworking is making the foils (daggerboard and rudder). You can make basic foils from plywood, rounded on the front and tapered on the back edge, but they do not perform very well. Eric, Robert and I come from a very high performance dinghy sailing niche called "Skiff" sailing - the highest performance small boats on the water today (excepting the crazies sailing hydrofoils). Upwind performance is very tightly coupled with precise foil design and execution. Hydrodynamically-optimized foils make a world of difference in a boat's performance. High performance foils are as carefully shaped as airplane wings to optimize lift and reduce drag.

The Microskiff is intended to be able to perform very well - combining good foils with very light weight and well-designed sails means this boat should be able to "plane" like a fast motorboat on top of the water - exceeding the traditional sailboat speed limits of displacement hulls. Keep in mind though that this is a KIDS boat and is intended for their safe & fun use only.

Postscript July 28: The bamboo arrived a few days late, and Purolator damaged a bunch of it. A fair amount of cracks & a couple shattered poles. I caught the driver before he drove off and got him to acknowledge the damage on his delivery tablet - now I've got to go through the claims process with Purolator. Damn.

Progress

Been raining here so much the ground is completely saturated. Every step you sink in and get a soaker. Now I know what the Pacific Northwest is like.

Yesterday I made good progress and tonight I'm going to try to get some more done. Too busy with paying work to go fool around in the garage right now. Robert emailed Eric and I this morning with a progress report and he's now sanding and filling Eliane's boat starting the process of getting ready to paint. He's asked Eric for a detailed painting process outline so he can re-explain it to Eliane in French and in "kid" terms. Eric speaks perfect French, but Robert has lots of on-the-job experience speaking "kid".

From what I remember, the idea is to varnish all the raw wood after the sanding & filling process is done. After the varnish to seal the wood comes the fairing with putty and a light re-sand, then comes paint. When Eric sends his procedure out, I'll fix any errors I've made here.

Postscript - July 28: Here's Eric's procedure:

1. Apply diluted (25%) varnish on all plywood edges, repeat as much as it will absorb
2. Remove staples with a long nose if you cannot, push them in with a punch and hammer
3. Fill all joints, holes with putty
4. Sand the putty, sand lightly the varnish
5. Apply the paint with the "roll and tip" technique. With a narrow (2-4'') short hair (or foam) roller, spread paint over a small area (4-8 sq.ft.) then quickly and delicately stroke this area with the tip of a dry brush (cheap foam ones are ideal) to remove bubbles. Do long regular and parallel strokes. Move to a next section and keep a wet edge to overlap the sections, if you cannot maintain a wet edge reduce the areas of the surfaces you work on at a time
6. Three coats of paint minimum

Thomas' boat will be different due to the epoxy that has been pre-coated on everything. I'll sand and then fair the hull. Areas which will need attention are the chines & outside panel joints. There shouldn't be any other major filling as I'm not using the screws anywhere on the outside of the hull. Once done there will be a light re-coat of epoxy, a finish sanding then paint.

Robert has been having fun sanding - the construction adhesive has a long full cure time (7 days) and it frequently gums up the sandpaper as it remains somewhat flexible even after curing. Cure time is also affected by ambient temperature, material porosity and humidity - all things that have not been optimal around here lately. Robert wanted it known that a harder setting sand-able adhesive would make things a lot easier. This goes hand in had with Eric's thoughts that a good waterproof wood glue would be better for a lot of tasks.

Eric sent out the basic sail dimensions today - we have to keep multiple project streams running concurrently to get this done.

I'm still working on Tyvek. The bamboo shipment has gone missing - it should have been here on Friday, but it was lost in Toronto and never made it to Ottawa. The Purolator Courier folks are on the case and they've commenced "an intensive warehouse search protocol" to find the shipment. Some Purolator shipping warehouse worker probably made our shipment into "Tiki Torches" for their Friday afternoon "staff meeting".

On your mark, get set, ready, go!

Yesterday I started the day making my wife a happy woman. I cleaned the garage. She was very happy to hear me vacuuming, throwing out stuff and generally organizing things. To prevent marital discord, I made a curtain of landscape plastic sheeting I had sitting from an old gardening project to form a barrier between the canoe, bikes, snowblower and things that don't like sawdust etc. from the "work" area.

Made up a plastic covered table top to be clamped when needed on top of a Workmate bench as an epoxy mixing station. One thing I learned from Eric on the last build was to keep a clean and clear epoxy prep area where mixing and all the epoxy-related stuff was segregated. Eric is super careful about contamination of his epoxy measuring pumps and materials.

I've found a big part of shop productivity is directly related to organization and preparation.

Once I had the garage relatively clear I started moving the Microskiff materials out there and I started boat building in earnest. A pile of 3/4"x1/2" stringers, one of 3/4"x3/4" stringers, one of the angled chine log stringers etc. After watching how well using a straight & level 8' long 2'x8' plank worked for Eric & Robert as a work surface, I put one in the jaws of a Workmate and that became the central work surface.

Those who have followed this blog so far know that my boat building activities have been limited to milling wood, cleaning & edge sanding the CNC cut panels and marking up the keel frame. Yesterday I marked and cut the new hull bottom from a 1/4" sheet of plywood. I know, the design plan uses the 1/8", but consistent with my "build it to last" philosophy, I feel the 1/4" bottom will withstand abuse better than the 1/8". I see less need for fiberglass as well with the 1/4". Yes, the weight of the panel is doubling, and that isn't trivial, but I'm getting rid of a bunch of the stringers and construction adhesive, so I don't think the net effect is that dramatic. I didn't use Okume plywood and stuck to the Luan outdoor grade lumberyard stock.

Today (Sunday with no sun) I kept things moving. Optimizing build simplicity for Eric was a goal from the start. One of the things he did to make things simple was to place the daggerboard trunk slightly off center, allowing a full length centerline frame to be used. Just because I can, I made a new daggerboard trunk today to be placed on the centerline. I used the existing CNC-cut side panel as a pattern, cut two new ones from 1/4" ply (offcut from the new hull bottom) and epoxied together the new trunk. It's in clamps right now, and I'll splice it into the frame next step.

Because I mixed epoxy today and also because it's a crappy day I started epoxy coating a bunch of the panels & parts. I got all the panels needed for the first stage of assembly done, and I may do some more later after the first batch cure. I don't want too many things on the go at once, so I'm not rushing. Every time I try to do too much at once, things start going wrong.

Mea culpa

Okay, I'm coming clean. I went out today to buy the PL Premium and PL 300 adhesives for Thomas' build (along with various and sundry other needed things). I was driving to the building center to buy the stuff and my car steered itself to Lee Valley Tools. It does this sometimes. The car shares my joy being in the calming presence of quality tools and a quality company.

I arrived at Lee Valley Tools and proceeded to get in a good discussion with the store's adhesive expert, talking about laminating the sheer clamps, the frame/cleat joints and good waterproof glue. He recommended the Titebond III glue for the job - and felt it a far better choice.

While I was there I decided that regardless of the addition incremental expense, I'd use West System epoxy instead of the construction adhesives to assemble and saturation coat the boat. The incremental cost is not that huge - probably an additional $100-150, but in the grand scheme of things it will give the boat a much longer lifespan. I've been struggling with the whole low-cost paradigm, and have concluded that low cost is indeed important, but you also have to consider the potential for resale value and more than one kid benefiting from the boat and build effort. The one problem I have with my decision is that I'm not going to have Thomas participate in some of the build steps.

Almost all of Eric's build techniques still apply.

Part of my reasoning is that I already have both resin and both 205 and 207 hardeners here, as well as the 406 colloidal silica and 410 fairing compound. I'm not actually spending a lot extra money since a good part of this stuff was paid for long ago.

I'm okay with my decision, as we already have one boat built using the innovative but new and untested construction adhesive technique, so my caving in to the siren call of West System epoxy doesn't hurt that bad.

Updates & more notes for those who follow ....

This post is to help me remember things learned through the build process, as well as commentary from people I should listen to.

Steve Clark noted on in the Dinghy Anarchy thread:

A couple of thoughts.

• I hope you slopped a couple of good coats of paint and or sealer on the inside of the hull before putting the deck down
• Keeping the thin plywood dry is going to make a difference to how it all feels and lasts
• Epoxy really is cool stuff and hard to live without, I know about keeping the kids toxin free, but maybe there s something in between
• Tony DiLima at MAAS has a "Lo-Tox" hardener for MAAS epoxies which is quite a bit like the old Versamid hardeners we used to use with Dow and Epon resins. Used to say "it takes a quart to kill you" There are other choices that are pretty benign that may allow you to seal and glue the bits together without feeling like you are giving the kids a head start on their cancer
• CAN$ 750 doesn't seem that cheap to me.... unless it is for both boats

SHC

Eric mentioned a few things in passing during a conversation as well:

• The PL Premium adhesive bonded stronger and better than the PL 300. The PL Premium isn't Styrofoam friendly, but he felt it a better choice unless it was directly bonding the Styrofoam. He thought the PL 300 was a good choice for the Styrofoam
• Eric felt if the boat was built with epoxy instead of the construction adhesive it would be dramatically lighter & stronger yet. Robert had 20 empty 300ml tubes in the garbage after the hull build, and that is a lot of weight
• Subtract >400 #6 brass screws as well, that's got to weight a couple pounds
• Eric felt the PL construction adhesive was okay, but not optimal for a lot of the jobs in assembly - it filled gaps well and worked in situations where you would fillet thickened epoxy, but it would be better to use a waterproof carpenter's glue for things like laminating the sheer clamp, and attaching the stringers to the bulkheads & frames

Chasing stuff down

Today I called Dupont in the US to find out about unbranded, white Tyvek (Spun Olefin building wrap) for prototyping the sail. I like the idea of sail prototyping with Tyvek, but have some reservations of displaying their logo on Thomas' boat (without sponsorship compensation!).

Eventually navigated my way through the Dupont voice mail minefield and caught a real person unawares picking up the phone. This person seemed stunned their customer avoidance training had failed and they had to talk to me. I asked about unbranded Tyvek and they put me on to a Canadian representative out of Toronto (pronounced Tronna if you are local). Called him and after three tries he answered his cell phone. It took me some convincing, but he eventually conceded Dupont may sell unbranded Tyvek. I said to Google "Tyvek Sail Boat". He said Tyvek was not appropriate for the application - it has a four month lifetime while exposed to UV - I said a couple months of direct exposure was more than long enough for testing sail designs.

He's looking into it and will get back to me. Yeah right. I'm not holding my breath.

Eric sent me the measurements I need to start the assembly layout on the keel frame. I'll go buy some large paper and make templates to layout the foam cuts better. I'll talk through this more as I describe things later on.

My over-the-fence neighbor Norm has a secret stash of African Mahogany he salvaged from an Elections Canada government office being renovated to use modern cubicles. I help Norm out with computer and communication issues and we take care of each other. He's a retired RCMP officer who happens to be a great neighbor. I'm going to see if I can come up with enough Mahogany to make the Microskiff daggerboard & rudder blade. Be nice to have some bling for Thomas!

<insert dramatic pause ....>

Just came back from Norm's place with enough Mahogany to do the foils for the Microskiff. Awesome.

We're showing up on radar

This project has always been about first one kid, my son Thomas and then another, Robert's daughter Eliane. I quickly determined that what was good for our children would be great for a lot of kids and for the sport of sailing as well.

This project has had serious benefit of input from one hell of a lot of talent - and Eric's final product shows it. If timing has worked out different and Eric had not stepped in making a good case for simplicity and low cost, I'm pretty certain I'd have built one of Chris Ostlind's Cabrillo designs.

I have to say, this is one example where a public community and open collaboration works well - Steve Clark's input is very visible in Eric's design, and both Chris Ostlind and fdsailor's renderings pushed the ante higher in terms of "cool".

In January 2009, I wrote a tongue-in-cheek post in Sailing Anarchy in response to Steve Clark on resurrecting an interesting development class of sailboat. Here's an excerpt from the post:

I'm still enthusiastic on the last two ideas you've posted: the standard canoe performance sailing conversion and the inexpensive kids boat! I think people should pay more attention.

Perhaps I should write Carl and elucidate on these two ideas. I'm a Woodenboat subscriber, and their startup homebuild projects are pretty lame. Slab sided, flat bottomed rowboats just have no potential to raise a pulse rate. Articles on caulking with mallets & irons are nice history, but aren't going to interest the snowboarding generation.

I think the Loyal Order of Cantankerous Maine Boatbuilders (Woodenboat publishers) would consider getting behind projects like this - they just need to learn there have been new wood boats designed since Herreshoff passed. No disrespect to Phil Bolger and the like, but your new canoe should have been noticed. We have to get on their radar, as they've got the stage on which projects can be noticed in the builder's community.

It wasn't surprising to me that Carl Cramer, the publisher of Woodenboat responded indicating he would be following the homebuilt wooden kid's boat idea further. I sure hope Carl wasn't offended by my attempt at poking fun at his publication.

Carl is as good as his word, and he's apparently been following the thread in Sailing Anarchy and this blog as well. Eric received a phone call from Carl this week, and it appears there is interest in talking about the Microskiff design. Woodenboat. Wow - now that's something worth posting about!

Hey Carl, if you read this, thanks for keeping your word!

--
Bill

Now that I've seen the light .... (light boat I mean)

I'm at an interesting point in the evolution of this project - and having Robert and Eliane build her boat first puts me in a unique position. Usually, the person driving a project like this builds the first boat, and had to figure out "refinements" and "what they would do differently next time" either on-the-fly or after the fact.

First off, there isn't much I'd change on Eric's basic design. It is pretty damned good right now!

Since the boat hasn't hit the water yet, and it hasn't seen usage (and abusage) by the target sailors, we don't really know if it is up to the task yet. Having Thomas at 100 pounds walk around on the unfinished deck without ventilating the plywood was a seriously good step.

The build process worked out well in terms of speed (great!), level of skills needed (again very appropriate), and quality of result (spectacular!). There was a minimal (but still some) amount of judgment needed to work through fitting things.

As anyone involved in product development knows, variances and tolerance problems tend to magnify & exponentiate the closer you get to the final product. A little deviation at step one can make step twenty a nightmare. Robert's build didn't show major final assembly problems when the cockpit was assembled, but there was a bit of hand-fitting and customization done to the final panels.

Here are my thoughts so far:

• The angled stringer used inside the cockpit on top of the floor worked out fine in the end, but the angle cut didn't exactly match the curving cockpit sides perfectly. I'm going to rout a quarter-round on the cockpit floor stringer before install. I know many builders may not have a router table, but I do. I'm also going to undercut the angle on this (the exposed floor stringer) a little more to compensate for the changing angles of the cockpit sides. The normal assembly sequence is to glue and screw the stringer to the floor before putting the floor into the cockpit, but I may try dry fitting the floor, dryfitting the stringer, marking the best placement and screwing the stringer in there instead of following the edge of the floor panel.

  Postscript: I've been thinking about this and if I opt to use epoxy, I'll just fillet this as per normal, instead of fooling around with the stringer. Eric and I talked about this fit today, and he's going to alter the CAD files for the next build to make this section a little easier to assemble. He also said the cockpit side panels need to be fitted before dryfitting the floor - with the foam behind them. This forces the side panels into the right position

• Eliminating the foredeck is a go for me
• I'm going to construct a mildly arched mast support thwart / mast partners to replace the deck. The arch will increase the distance between the step and the vertical support location, better supporting the free standing mast. If the partners were placed level with the cockpit rail, there would only be 6-8 inches of mast captured - not enough in my opinion. With an arched support it will increase this to 10-12 inches. Much better, although it will create a problem stacking hulls or inverting the hull on a roof rack.
• I may put a small vertical support in the center of the transom bar, so that my son won't break the transom bar easily by falling on it, or dragging behind the boat.
• I'm thinking I will make the outer laminations on the cockpit rail (sheer clamp) 1" deep instead of the 3/4" used in Eliane's boat. The extra 1/4 inch would be inside the boat, and it would allow me to rout a large quarter-round bullnose on both the inner and outer faces. I'd be a little concerned about the 3/4" and routing too much - I don't want to affect strength - just hiking comfort. The other thing that falls out of this is that the laminations will have to be done with glue & clamp - without the screws, as router bits aren't happy routing the heads off brass screws! I'm also contemplating using 1/4 inch layers and alternating dark and light layers - and exposing the finished wooden rail with varnish.
• The boat is so beautiful, it would be a shame not to spend a little more and have it last ten to twenty years. Some 4oz glass and an epoxy layer on the outside may be worth considering - keeping the current construction method in place for the basic hull.
• I will be pre-painting / sealing all the bulkheads, frames and inner boat hull before assembly to limit damage in the event the hull is holed. I know this will add a pound or two, but it is an ounce of prevention type choice.
• Both Eric and Phil simlutaneously and separately suggested the idea of oarlocks, and this will require placement of a support block under the rail inside the boat if flush mount oarlocks are fitted. I'd want to go with flush mount ones so they didn't get in the way of hiking. Phil suggested a small seat that fit in the daggerboard slot, creating a small skeg for directional stability while rowing. Great idea.
• Thomas has suggested that we also create a way to attach my little 3hp Evinrude outboard to the boat (currently on long term loan to a friend as auxiliary power on his clinker-planked vintage catboat - Hi, Frank!). I've got some ideas, although I'd rather he sail
• When laying out the plywood sheets for the CNC cutting (or manually cutting them with a jigsaw), flip both of the side panels (inside and outside) so that the "good" side of the Luan plywood is different on the two panels cut of each. This will prevent using one "bad" side out of each panel. If your don't mirror image the two sides, one of your exposed sides will be pretty rough.

I'll keep on adding to this list and put it up for community discussion and debate. I've given Robert admin access to this blog, so he can add feedback as well.

The one hard choice to be made is the value of added craftsman beauty (subjective) versus minimizing cost. The other hard choice is the incremental cost of making this a ten to twenty year lifespan boat.

I think the optimal mix may be keeping with the construction method Eric designed for the basic hull, and then seeing how to minimize the additional cost of creating re-sale value to the next generation of kids after Thomas is done with it.

Attention on deck!

Thomas and I worked on his boat today. Just cleaning the edges of the panels with blocks & sandpaper, and trimming the panel CNC breakaway tabs off with a razor. I had to re-assure Thomas he wasn't going to make mistakes, and that this was his boat .... convincing him he was a big part of this project. My fault probably - I like things done right and am admittedly a bit of a control freak when it comes to this kind of job.

He worked with me a for a while, preferring to work on the smaller panels.

After about an hour of this, I asked him if he wanted to go for a ride to see Eliane's boat. He did, somewhat to my surprise. Thomas generally likes to stay close to home, and he is often shy in places he doesn't know well. We jumped in the car and drove out to Robert's house, hoping an unannounced visit would not cause trouble. We talked boat colors on the way out, and Thomas said his boat was going to be red, with a white cockpit. I approve of that.

Got to Robert's place and luckily we were both welcome and able to see the Microskiff. Robert asked Thomas to take off his shoes and to try walking on the cockpit floor. The cockpit floor held Thomas' 100 pounds without any problem. Whew! I've been wondering about the reality of the 1/8 plywood as opposed to the theory of the 1/8 plywood. I did some subjective testing here at home, and as long as the 1/8 ply is firmly supported, I can walk on it without problem. Basically, the Styrofoam support concept appears valid at first glance.

I'm sure with paint it will be better, but Thomas did no damage at all.

Thomas and Bibitte got on famously - although Thomas now saw some failings in our 14 month old puppy, who doesn't obsess on playing with him, and also can't catch a ball on the fly while twisting like a pretzel. Too bad Eliane wasn't there, Robert assured Thomas that Eliane had secret turtle catching abilities.

The Microskiff looked better in person than in the pictures.

I really want to get the measurements from Eric to start layout of Thomas' boat!

Five days .... talk about instant gratification

Robert just posted three pictures of Microskiff hull #1 "Plouffe-plouffe" after five days of work, including the half day he spent here milling the pine with me. The boat isn't finished by a longshot, but the major milestone of completing the hull construction is basically done. I'm just stunned. Take a look:

I don't know about anyone's impression but my own - the boat is far more beautiful than anything costing this little has any right. It certainly blows away my original criteria of "Cool. Whatever that is". What kid would choose an Opti over this? What parent would pay $3K for a O'pen Bic when they could build this WITH their child, learn a lot and save well over two thousand dollars?

I'm speechless ....

Money dicing

Like most normal people, I don't like to talk about money. Since this project is being done more for the benefit of the general public, I'll get over my natural reticence.

Here's where we are on the money aspect of the Microskiff so far:

• Plywood panels - 6 x 13.95 each (100.00 tax included)
• Pine for stringers, cleats, foils & chine logs - (67.50 tax included)
• Bamboo for spars - 13.18 plus 87.75 shipping (ouch!) (110.00 tax included)
• Styrofoam panels (3) - (26.00 tax included)
• CNC cutting of plywood - (120.00 tax included)
• Designer fees - (75.00 tax included)

That brings my total to $498.50 so far. This doesn't include the adhesives, shop supplies, screws etc. Robert is tracking his expenses there and will update. Also to be added is the Tyvek for the sail, pintles & gudgeons, blocks, cleats & cordage. The sailboat-specific stuff from The Chandlery is expensive - it is easy to spend 100.00 bucks there on a project like this. I'm hoping I can get pintles & gudgeons from Phil & Dave at Phil's Foils / Competition Composites at a better price.

By the seat of my pants, guessing the Tyvek to be cheap and the PL-300 to be 6.29 for the big tubes (x 6) (37.74 plus tax) screws at 15.00 - say another 100.00 total for supplies.

Robert and I are splitting the shipping fees for the Bamboo, so that will be lower by half in reality. I bought a little extra Bamboo just in case (and because Eric wanted a 3"x8' piece for a project). Bambooworld had a $40.00 minimum order in any case - the shipping is the same for one or two boats - has to do with overlength penalties and whatever from BC. Add $50 for paint.

Adding all this up comes to a build price (estimated) totalling $750 Canadian dollars taxes included. This "estimate" will get better as we collect receipts for the stuff I don't have an exact handle on. I think this is pretty accurate on first review. Sure looks better than $3000+ for an O'pen Bic!

All this is assuming no labor costs and no tool purchase cost. The CNC cutting cost of $120 could be eliminated, but there would be an attendant bump in the designer fees if Eric has to supply full size templates for lofting self-cut plywood.

Postscript (July 19): Robert has pulled together his numbers as well - a bunch of his "actual" numbers are much higher due to emergency buys (at twice the price of a mega building center) at rural shops, and overbuys of Styrofoam etc. I'm trying to use this section to figure out a projected price for people who buy "just enough" materials at lowest cost instead of the real world mistakes he and I make because it has never been built before. I'm going to buy his Styrofoam overstock, so his actual spend will drop a little. Robert also bought all Eliane's final paint etc.

Time slicing

Had to drop off Thomas around 8:15AM this morning at the University of Ottawa for his last day of camp. I was suddenly hit by a Non-Maskable Boat Building Interrupt! Since I was downtown, and pretty close to the main bridge to Quebec, I decided to take a half hour drive to Robert's secret lakeside boat building shop to check out progress firsthand on hull #1.

Got there just before 9:00AM, and was greeted by Bibitte with a tennis ball in her mouth, looking hopeful for a friend victim to participate in her ball retrieval obsession.

I really wanted to see the progress, so I ignored her and proceeded to the garage boatshop. Wow.

That one word, "Wow" describes my exact feelings on seeing the Microskiff progress. Robert and Eric were dry fitting the cockpit sides and floor, and I have to say it really looks like a real boat. Eric asked me to pick up one end while he picked up the other and the whole thing could not have weighed 45 pounds! Even with paint and fairing adding 10 pounds it is going hit the weight targets.

The laminated rails caused the whole boat to become true and fair, forcing the plywood sides into a smooth curve. Without thought, I bent down and tossed the tennis ball by my feet out into the hillside to quiet the dog's pleas for a friend. As soon as I tossed it, Robert said "You shouldn't have done that, she'll now never leave us alone! Completely ignore her".

The boat took my attention away from the disappointed, softly crying dog once again, and I could not believe how in four days of first time assembly somehow a boat was built. Part of the speed has to be attributed to Eric's participation and expertise, but this was done with no on-site power tools other than three battery operated drills (one each for drill, countersink & screwdriver) and Robert's commercial quality coffee/expresso maker. Really! All saw duties were handled by hand tools, and the construction adhesive handled the rest with a few C-clamps.

Points noted during the conversation were that they used more PL-300 than first anticipated, with the rail lamination process chewing up a bunch (much of which will be sanded off). The screws used needed to be doubled for the 3/4" and a box of 1" added. Robert commented that there was a little manual "adjustment" and fiddling needed to attach the inner cockpit side panels - they needed a bit cut here and there to fit around bulkheads and the transom. The upper edge needed trimming along the full length to fit the rails exactly, and the cool, chopped transom turn from the rail at an angle required a lot of eyeballing, cutting and fiddling.

By the time a rookie woodworker gets to this point in the project they've already got enough skills to handle this challenge. It makes the boat look so good!

Eric noted we were right on the edge of pushing the pine's characteristics for tolerating bending pretty far, considering the (low) lumberyard "Select" grade of pine used. Any knots or woodgrain problems become obvious by the snapping sound if you don't pick a clear stringer for the rail bending. Really good clear pine would not be as touchy to bending.

My impulse control problem is back with a vengence, as I'm contemplating the boat rails, the mast partners and the transom support in alternating layers of dark & light woods, epoxied instead of glued & screwed. It would definitely add some time, as epoxy / clamp repeated a few cycles takes time.

I've been thinking about the layout of the boat since I saw the first drawing, and because I witnessed kids at the NSC O'pen Bic Unregatta last year, I know they loved the "freestyle" competition - where they hang off the mast, tack and gybe by running around the front etcetera. By removing Eric's planned foredeck and leaving the bow open, this boat could "play" the same. I suggested just putting a crossing thwart at the mast partner location and leaving the foredeck off. If a kid tried to go around the Microskiff bow as it is currently drawn, they'd put a foot through the 3mm skin on the first go.

Reality Interrupt. I'm due at a client site at 11:00AM by the airport (an hour away) so I have to say my time at Robert's has been a slice. Robert has promised pictures via a CD soon, so I'll be able to show more. He's going to post photos after he and Eric finish today. Oh, and by the way Eliane was MIA today due to visitors arriving last night, and too much extended, boring shopping with her Dad at the Quincaillerie (Hardware / Building Supply store).

¡Ay, caramba!

I had a full day in the office planned today, writing a new system module to handle an emergency client situation duct-taped on to existing business systems in response to one of their customer's random demands. Sigh. I hate emergency response programming! It almost never works as well as cleanly designing things right from the start.

By late afternoon I was brain dead and couldn't write good code to save my life, so I started to play puzzle pieces with the CNC cut panels on my office floor. It's a 3-D Tetris game making a model out of flat panels especially when you can't stitch them together and you have to imagine the 3D result from a 2D flat layout.

I could not for the life of me make things work, and I take pride in the (hopefully) exceptional 3D spacial capability inside my melon. The hull bottom didn't match up to the transom width, and the cockpit floor was too narrow. For giggles I tried reversing their position and things suddenly started making more sense. What we thought was the two piece cockpit floor was actually the hull bottom, and the one piece panel that didn't fit on the hull was the floor.

This threw a monkey wrench into things. By placing the two piece bottom panels side by side and separating the two by .25 inches (router bit width at Phil's Foils), everything now lined up and made sense. I phoned out to Robert's place and was greeted by an anxious voice asking if I had started my build. I said no, I stopped dead when I noticed a problem. They had found out the exact same problem and had to reverse the build somewhat to correct for it. Nothing too serious, but I'm sure I would have learned new colorful French phrases to expand my emotional vocabulary had I been there! The French use a very un-English blend of religion in their profanity. What's even more interesting is that they modify religious words to be slightly different so it isn't technically a sacrilege, but the intended meaning gets through. Tabernouche! You have to admit, it's more interesting than using one word commencing with "F" over and over.

We have to recut the split hull bottom panel to make it one piece and all will be back on track. Not a huge deal. There are lots of little details in CAD file transfers that need person to person communication - just sending a file without a narrative is a recipe for this kind of problem. I don't hold anyone responsible at all - it is just one of those things that happen on a first prototype build. I'll have to go buy another 1/8 panel and trace out the corrected one piece panel on it myself.

While I was working today, Eliane, Robert & Eric made huge progress on her boat. They worked through the issue I describe here and have the basic hull half finished - in TWO DAYS of building. What remains is a little more stringer re-inforcement of the frames, insertion of the structural foam supports and then installation of the floor and cockpit side panels. Notice the inside of daggerboard trunk has been pre-painted during assembly. Photo courtesy of Robert (roblynn on Sailing Anarchy).

Dodged a few bullets there! Sometimes being on the trailing edge beats the bleeding edge!

I'm kind of relieved my puzzle play problems were justified and the 3D modeling problem I anticipated was real.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines ....

Picked up Eric & a minimal assortment of his tools after a stop a client's office. After a quick reconnaissance pause at the St. Cecile de Masham Quincaillerie (Hardware / Building Supply Store) we arrived at Robert's lakeside lair. Eliane and Bibitte (her ball retrieval obsessive-compulsive disorder Labridoggie) were waiting and ready to go.

First job was cleaning the edges of the CNC machined plywood. Cut the tabs with a razor, then block sanded the tear out from the edges. Very quick on 1/8 inch ply! Once the pieces were clean Eric proceeded to layout the assembly basics on the keel piece and the bulkhead frames. This basically meant cutting out places for the chine logs and the stringers, as well as the slots for interlocking the frames and keel. Using a sharp Dozuki (handheld Japanese cabinetmaker's back saw) made the cuts quick work and avoided tear-out from the thin plywood. One thing to note was that the CNC cut of the floor was split into two pieces instead of one piece as Eric intended - he thought he may have left a centerline on the CAD files, and Phil interpreted that as a cut line.

Our chine logs worked out dead on - matching the angles of the frames exactly. I love it when a plan comes together in the intended manner.

Eliane stuck bravely with her task of sanding the edges far longer than I would have at her age. She's really taken possession of her boat build - explaining her color choices to Eric quite clearly. Even when she took mercy on my inability to say no to Bibitte on the thousandth tennis ball throw, she remained with us while we worked on the boat. Bibitte retired inside the house so I could work uninterrupted for a while.

Robert went on a run to the aforementioned Building Supply store and purchased the needed 2"x2'x8' white/green Styrofoam sheets. When he returned, Eric laid out the keel frame on the Styrofoam and traced out a bunch (six I think) of pieces to be cut, carefully denoting the frame crossing points. The foam will be laid vertically side-by-side along the axis of the keel - making each one a made-to-measure support for the plywood sheeting on the hull bottom and decking. I had thought the foam would be laid flat on the bottom, and I guess that's why Eric is the designer and I'm not. This way makes eminent sense, and now I can see better Eric's intent to make the Styrofoam fill become a structural support to the thin plywood.

Once the foam layout was done, we proceeded to start to attach the stringers to the keel frame - using the PL-300 adhesive (Styrofoam-friendly). Started in the center and working outwards, pilot holes were drilled, countersunk and then a 3/4 #6 brass screw was used to hold down the now slightly-bent stringer to the base of the keel frame. Checked frame straightness on the floor and then filled in the screws to one every six inches along the keel.

I had to bail out at this point as my allocated time off paying work expired and I had an hour's drive back to my office and client meetings this afternoon. I took pictures during the process using one of Robert's cameras, so I'm hoping he can send them to me for use here.

Eric will be sending me a layout sheet specifying all the measurements used to layout the keel, daggerboard trunk location and other stuff that didn't make it into the CAD files used on the CNC table.

Making sawdust....

Robert came by today with his beautiful daughter, Eliane. Reducing the 10'x0.75"x8" boards to various sized stringers & chine logs is a job for more than one person. With both Robert and Eliane on hand to help, we cut all the parts for two boats in a little over an hour with my table saw in the driveway.

I bought "select" grade pine stock from Builder's Warehouse, and I had bought two 10' boards extra above Eric's Bill of Materials. Figured that the knots & grain problems with "select" grade wood would necessitate a few rejects. They did.

Before we started on ripping the wood, I gave everyone ear plugs and introduced Eliane to Roz, our gentle 13 month old Husky/Shepherd puppy. Eliane stuck with Robert & I for a good 45 minutes before she got a splinter in her finger, which necessitated a visit with nurse Roz after a session with Doctor Papa. I was surprised, Eliane's attention span during noisy wood sawing was better than Thomas' would have been. Thomas opted for a third week at Science and Tech camp at the University of Ottawa this week.

Both sets of raw (wood) materials are now complete and Robert, Eliane and Eric are starting Eliane's build tomorrow at his house. For future builds, the only slightly complex saw work was cutting the angled chine logs, but I dusted off my trigonometry before Robert & Eliane arrived to calculate the size a straight blank that could make two chine logs in one pass through the saw.

Eliane is naming her boat "Plouffe-plouffe", she has colors all picked out and she's enthusiastic about getting a "tippy boat" just like her dad who singlehands a modified 29er on the lake they live on.

Just for the record, here's the designer specified cutting today for ONE boat:

qty    description
-------------------------------------------------
8    0.75 x 0.75 x 10' stringers
8    0.75 x 0.50 x 10' stringers
5    1 x 0.75 x 0.475 x 10' with 35 degree cut (I'll post a diagram later) chine logs
1    8 x 0.75 x 6' board for daggerboard & rudder

We actually allocated 10 of each of the stringers and 8 of the chine logs per boat so there was replacements if any were rejected due to knots etc. All measurements in inches unless marked as feet (').

Took Sunday off ....

Yesterday was offline for the Microskiff project. Went for a nice long bike ride with my wife on Sunday Bike Day. For people that don't live here, the national capital area shuts down a bunch of local parkways to cars Sunday mornings so bikes, rollerbladers and walkers can move without fear of cars. After the bike ride, I went out sailing in the Falco, although there wasn't a lot of wind.

Sailing in the Falco never ceases to amaze me on light wind days. I think it never fails to amaze the local keel boat sailors as well. Yesterday it was very light with wind from 0-5 knots. As Pornstar (one of our local I-14 sailors) said - it's the reliable Ottawa afternoon seabreeze - all 100 square feet of it. Ottawa is known for little random patches of wind surrounded by huge glassy expanses of nothing. The Falco often can sit in one of these patches, planing with the kite up - ripping along at 8-10 knots while the keel boats 20 yards away are sitting dead with sails slatting and drooping. One of the keel boaters yelled across at me (half trapped) "Where is the motor in that thing?". He's completely becalmed and I'm half trapped, planing with the kite up 20 yards away. The thing you have to be aware of is sailing right through the patch of wind (since you are going much better than windspeed) and teabagging. On the way back in to the dock, I was able to keep up with an elderly Tornado/tanning platform.

I've figured out how to single hand the Falco a lot better. Getting in and out of the water is the big challenge. You have to drop the rig across the dock (like the International Canoe folks do) and just let it sit there while you deal with dolly and ramp issues. Capsizing the boat intentionally across the dock isn't pretty, but it is the only way to buy time to get things done. I also concluded yesterday that I've got to get a new rudder headstock/tiller built, as the one I'm using right now has the tiller extensions attached too far aft. The tiller extensions just aren't at the right angle, and combining poor sensitivity with awkward angle just makes steering uncomfortable.

Sail plan ....

Eric just posted this sail plan line diagram on the Sailing Anarchy thread ... using high grade Tonkin bamboo (probably referring to the Tonkin Gulf in Vietnam). This is construction-grade bamboo of the kind used in the far east for construction scaffolding. I've got to order some from a supplier (bambooworld.com) on the left coast and have it shipped here.

Here's what Eric had to say:

Here is the new and final sail plan: a modernized lug rig. It requires very little hardware: halyard, sheet, Cunningham, five blocks total plus two cleats - all of which can be purchased at the local hardware store.

The rig as shown is designed to trys to accomplish a few goals:

• good performance both upwind & down
• low center of effort as this is a kid's hiking boat
• using simple unstayed bamboo spars
• using a simple, home sewn Tyvek sail (this does NOT mean unsophisticated)

I guess the closest proper description would be a balanced lug rig with a diagonal batten supporting a square top. I'm hoping Eric will elaborate on the choices and compromises he made arriving at this rig at some point.

Impulse control issues

I'm going to try to go to the local Builder's Warehouse lumberyard today to scope out the pine planking. Hopefully they've got some relatively clear stuff I can use to make the stringers and chine logs. The snobby part of me wants to buy western red cedar or nice douglas fir instead of lowly white pine.

I've been dealing with the temptation to go buy a big jug of West System epoxy and saturation coat all the plywood. I know this project is an attempt to prove we can build a low cost, low tech boat, but the desire to use proper epoxy is strong. The plan is to use tubes of construction adhesive, primer and paint instead of epoxy.

I have to have faith in the design/build plan and not upgrade materials until it is proven necessary.

<insert dramatic pause here>

Returned from the lumberyard - haven't bought anything yet as I was driving the little Toyota Tercel and it is not exactly 10' plank friendly. For the two boats I have to buy 8 x (1"x8"(undressed) x 10') and 2 x (1"x8"(undressed) x 6'). Even their best quality "clear" pine isn't exactly clear so I'll probably end up buying 2 extra 10' boards so I can throw out stringers with knots that are going to break. I could go down to Adams & Kennedy / Woodsource and buy real clear pine at twice the price, but that isn't in the spirit of the el-cheapo build.

The 2" foam isn't exactly cheap either - a 2'x8' panel was around $20 bucks per - and Eric's napkin math had us needing 3 sheets of 4'x8'. I want to re-confirm this with Eric as that's a hell of a lot of foam. $120 per boat plus tax for foam?

Postscript (July 16) - Later on I discovered that Eric was not planning on using the blue thermal foam - he planned on using the cheap beer cooler style white Styrofoam panels - about $7 per panel. Much cheaper and easier to see lots of people paying for. It does necessitate careful choice in the adhesive department - many adhesives and paints eat white Styrofoam chemically like free beer at a regatta

Postscript (July 17) - We actually only need 3 panels at 2'x8'x2". Robert has three unused panels in his garage I'll "buy" from him during our settling of expenses. The inside of the hull is not packed solid with foam - it is used to fill about 50-60% of the space more for structural support than flotation.

About Thomas

This is my son Thomas. This photo was taken in our back yard last year - he likes to use my whitewater kayak to paddle around the pool. As you can see he has his own wetsuit and likes the water.

Thomas has been sailing with me a lot and likes blast around on windy days, but has some concerns about sailing a boat by himself. Like most guys his age he likes technology, has a better iPod than anyone else in the family and just got his own cell phone so he could talk to his mom and I from Kid's Science and Engineering day camp at the University of Ottawa. His phone (fueled on a $10 pay-as-you-go card/month) is cooler than mine. Go figure.

I think he'll like sailing in his own boat if I let him use a GPS once in a while - so he can see his direction and speed. He's also suggested some waterproof VHF handheld radios so we can talk while on the water. He's not a fan of the spinnaker in my boat - it goes too fast and he's caught the boom with his head on an unplanned gybe.

About the designer ....

Eric McNicholl of Velox Design designed the Microskiff. This isn't the first project I've done with Eric - he designed the Falco single hand skiff I often swim from and sail (and built with him) from the Nepean Sailing Club in Ottawa, Canada.

(Falco photo credit to Arwenberg Photography, Chelsea, QC - thanks, Laura!)

Eric is full of ideas and willing to go far out on risky design projects that other people would not chance - brave, innovative and creative.

The Microskiff project presented here combines my original design brief with Eric's sensible social conscience, interest in environmentally safe designs and his willingness to teach people about his trade.

The plan

Here's the plan for people who haven't followed this blog's predecessor thread on Sailing Anarchy:

1) Assemble all the needed parts & materials for the build. I'm going to do the milling of the lumber myself for both Robert's daughter's boat and Thomas', so I've got to go buy the pine.

2) We are going to build Robert's daughter's boat first, with Eric so he can document the process and sort out the build, and then I'll build Thomas' boat with him. The build is "scheduled" to take place during a vacation week from school over the summer for Thomas. I'll work half days and build the boat with him the other half in the garage and driveway.

3) Once the hull is done, we'll work out rigging the boat. Eric has some ideas about using bamboo for the spars and Tyvek for the sail. I'm not afraid of sewing machines, so I'll probably end up making the sail for him. There are good resources on the web for sail design and panelizing. A serious consideration about the project is keeping with the low cost aspect, and that is why we want to try bamboo/Tyvek instead of just using a saiboard mast and a laminate sail. The good news is that if the "low-cost" design tanks we'll be able to just substitute a sailboard mast and appropriate sail.

4) Timing. I'm hoping we can get this thing done before we take off for summer holidays on Lake Huron at my parent's house. The "Microskiff" should fit inside my sailboat on the trailer and not even be noticed.

It's getting real ....

I'm a fan of less work, more progress as long as the budget is kept in line. To that end I had Phil & Dave of Phil's Foils / Competition Composites use their CNC table to cut the panels of the boat from the 3mm luan plywood we chose as the skin material. Eric took the 12 plywood sheets (6 for my son Thomas, 6 for Robert's daughter's boat) out to their shop on Tuesday. Picked up the cut panels on Thursday - talk about service!

Phil & Dave charged us $20/panel ($120/boat) to do the cutting. If I did the work myself (and I certainly could have) I would have spent way more time and would have had to loft the drawings out in full size before even marking up the material to cut. At my hourly billing rate for work, doing this job myself would have cost more than the boat should total in cost. As it is, Eric sent the CAD files direct to Phil, panelized and ready to go. Because Eric wanted to keep all panels within a 4x8 sheet size, most of the longer panels were laid out diagonally - so the cut density was very low. Waste material was over 50% of the six sheets, but at $13.95 per sheet, so what. We didn't want to have to scarf the plywood to get the boat built. Scarfing would have taken build complexity out of range and also would have made epoxy a necessity.

I'm sitting in my office looking at a stack of cut panels.

I've got to go buy a bunch of dressed pine 3/4 inch boards to make the stringers and support stuff from, as well as the board blanks for the foils. The only "complex" tool/job in the build is using a table saw to angle cut the outside edge chine logs. The angle of the chine logs basically drives assembly. Outside of the chine logs, about everything else can be done using very basic tools.