It's SPRING!!! Repairs, finishing, and the Maine Boatbuilders Show!

This is a for-real AHOY MATEYS because IT. IS. SPRING.  (Insert cymbals here!)  Spring means:  Awesome.  Boats.  Sailing in my Goat Island Skiff.  More Awesome.  I am freaking out.

I ended winter with a bang-- and I drove all the way up to Portland Maine to attend the Maine Boatbuilders Show with one of my enabling buddies who helps convince me that boat related purchases will be beneficial to my life.  He is currently building a Ross Lillistone Phoenix III.  The boat show was awesome, with lots of boats, boat supplies, tools, and other sundries in multiple warehouses.  It was sweet.

What was totally sweet, however, was Clint Chase Boat Builder who was an exhibitor in residence showing off one of his Goat Island Skiff kits!  Clint presciently brought in an unfinished kit because it was, after all, a boatbuilder show, so the Goat was in unfinished conditions-- demonstrating that the Goat is a realistic build for the amateur and is really not a very complicated boat after all.  The passer-by could actually see themselves building such a vessel, as opposed to some of the other boats that were in museum-quality finish.  In short, the Goat is an attainable boat for almost everybody!

Clint Chase and myself with Goat

Clint Chase was the designer of the very sexy mizzen/yawl retrofit/plan for the Goat Island Skiff.  Clint works magic with birdsmouth masts, mizzen masts, oars, whatever you want, and he dutifully provided some of his wares, including bringing the mizzen for this boat:

Nice!

Gawkers, gawking.

Apparently, Clint said the Goat was a hit.  Again, this is an affordable, attainable project for most people with/without experience, and out of the project, the builder gets a most capable boat.  What are you waiting for?!

I also must plug my homeys over at Maine Island Trail Association.  

That is Ted, who is awesome and posed in a picture with me, at the MITA booth.  The intreprid reader will remember that the MITA helps maintain the Maine Island Trail, and the author of this blog (me) uses this trail for adventures on the high seas!  I highly recommend anyone interested in cruising the Maine coast in small boats (or big) to become a member of this most worthwhile organization.  Go MITA, GO!  (I want that beard...)

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In other news pertaining to my vessel, I have dragged her out into the sunlight on this first day of Spring!

Yes, it is Spring!  I have jumped into the boat repairs, and lemme tell you, dear intrepid reader, there is almost nothing like a sharp plane skinning away pieces of wood to bring a smile to this sailor's face!  Clint Chase's boat at the show is going to be a fine piece of vessel when she is finished, and I admired the small touches that he has gone through the trouble of doing to make her classy.  I was duly inspired, and have undertaken the task to clean my boat up and make her even more worthy of my pride!  I will admit, when I built her I didn't know what I was doing, and I also used her as an aggression sink, and I directed much work-related stress into her construction.  I rushed her finishing to get her on the water, and the entire season last year I made excuses for her rough fillets and unfinished edges.  Today, that ends.

I am rounding her off, literally taking off her sharp edges, softening her up, and getting her pretty so that this year, we will cruise with a new temperament, based on relaxation and fun.  Clint showed me how to shape fillets, and I don't know why I didn't try it earlier.  Thank you Clint for the inspiration!

Happy Spring, readers!

Winter repairs and hibernation

AHOY MATEYS!

It has been a few months since you've had a tasty morsel of an update from the world of my Goat Island Skiff, and this almost mid-winter update will focus on the damage incurred over the past 30 day (or so) season last year, and what needs to be fixed.  I took many of these pictures last fall for this post specifically, but decided to hold off posting until I got into a mood.  Today, while perusing some photos, I got in that mood.

To recap:  Last fall I needed to pull the plug on sailing, and I did that at Clint Chase's messabout.  There were a few more good days of sailing that season in early November, but the water was cold, and I had to draw the line somewhere.  Additionally, I wanted a warm day to wash the boat so I didn't have to do it in freezing temperatures, so when that day swung through with heavy fog, I took advantage of the opportunity and washed and stored my GIS.

As you can see in these following photographs, the hull fared quite well over the past season with minimal damage to her underside.  The intrepid reader will remember that she is not glassed out or in, only some tape along the chines.  I added a bow skid (not in plans) to take the brunt of grounding her on rocky New England coasts, and I'm glad I did.  In retrospect, I should have laid down some fiberglass cloth for abrasion/puncture resistance and skipped the bow skid, because rocks still punched through the ply-- indicated by the little spots speckled around the bow.  Those are not dirt marks, the hull has been washed, those are holes that punched through the outer veneers of the plywood and were quickly patched with epoxy during my busy season.  There are also many scrapes along the chines, which take a good beating.  Heavy fiberglass tape is essential here if you plan on adventure cruising your Goat Island Skiff along rocky shores.

Interestingly enough, the stern, even though it was repeatedly dragged around miscellaneous beaches, suffered almost no ill, it is shiny and smooth and in wonderfully good shape.

The daggerboard trunk took some hits with the daggerboard, everytime I hit something the board would slam against the aft end of the slot, and the plywood really got beaten up here.  I kept adding epoxy as the season went on to keep it sealed.  This winter I would like to add a heavy rubber or foam strip to cushion the board from doing such damage to the boat.  Apologies about the focus.

In the interior of the hull on bulkhead 3, there is this crack that runs up the port side to the seat, and stops were the plywood is backed by the seat cleat on the opposite side:

If you look carefully, it's that thin black crack that extends up from the corner.  I have no idea how that occurred, but my hunch is when I collided with rocks in the middle of the night in Casco Bay during the VisionQuest/ManQuest 2010.  My shipmate Jason detailed the accident here.  I was tossed over the center thwart, and my shin hit the bulkhead pretty hard during the collision-- so that is my hypothesis.

The floor of the boat has multiple dark stains throughout where objects were dropped and bailing buckets were scraped-- Storer does not recommend fiberglassing the interior of the boat either, but even with three coats of epoxy and 5 coats of varnish, I still was able to wear or puncture down to the plywood in multiple areas, which introduced water and stained the Okoume.

Notice the dark spot to the left of the yogurt container (dropped the anchor) and the multiple scrapes next to the chinelog in front of the sail (scraping from the bailer).  This is just an example, almost all quadrants of the floor exhibit these marks from wear and tear.  Unfortunately, I have non-skid down and sanding this down to get a good nice epoxy layer to cover this will be difficult.

Otherwise, things came through in decent shape over the season.  There is definite wear on all surfaces that rub, such as the inside of the daggerboard trunk, the mast partner and step, the inside of the rudder stock, bulkhead arms, gunwales, etc., but nothing that a touch of epoxy and varnish won't take care of.

The last item is the daggerboard itself, which took multiple hard hits over the season, and the trailing edge took a beating.  I had filled some of the beatings with thickened epoxy, but these end up harder than the wood around the filling, and when the trailing edge is smacked against the daggerboard case, it wipes out even larger areas of wood.

The crunch on the right was filled like the one on the left, but another grounding wreaked considerable havoc on the edge as you can see-- bummer.

Finally, I have a cosmetic issue that bugs the living crap out of me, and I would like to fix it if I can.  When I built the boat, I screwed up with the buttstraps that glue the two panels for the sides together.  I did it in a cold garage, I didn't use enough glue, and I didn't apply enough weight to the buttstrap.  My port side buckled outward a little bit and I faired it somewhat with a sander and called it good.  The starboard side was smooth and fair, but over the season it began to buckle a bit too.  This picture with my Goat Island Skiff friend Al from Brooklyn and me in Casco Bay shows the seam:

This clearly shows what I'm talking about.  It's actually quite minor, and barely noticeable unless the sun is at a low angle, and it doesn't affect performance, but it bugs me to no end!  ARGH I hate it!  So it must go.  Some sanding, some epoxy, some Quick Fair, and I hope it's good to go.

But, lets finish this post with a pretty picture of "I Am Zinea, Pterodactylus" ship shape and Bristol fashion for the winter season:

It was a pretty fall, and now it's winter.

I'm going for a schuss!

Quick Canoe

Since the Goat Island Skiff is laid up until next season, I nosed around the garage for a bit putting together a little somethingsomething that would get me out on the water.  The Goat is great, I love it, but something that could easily get onto the Merrimack River, which is close by, would be great.  Nothing like a little late fall paddle up a river with a float back down, right?  Right.

Enter:  3 sheets of Sureply vinyl floor underlayment from Lowes for 20 bucks a sheet.
Enter:  Miscellaneous wood left-over from the Goat.
Enter: A few quarts of Rustoleum (latex exterior house paint would've worked too) for 40 bucks.

ENTER:  QUICK CANOE

Add a little bit of your time, really, not much, and next thing you know, you have a canoe.

See the thread at Storer's Forum here.

A new design, less than a year old, and already many have been built all over the world.  Some are experimenting with sailing rigs.  Others made skinnier prototype versions.  It comes with solid, fast, inexpensive boatbuilding technique.  Yes, you could probably get on the water for less than 200 bucks.  What in the name of Poseidon are you waiting for!?!?

Clint Chase Messabout and the End of a Spectacular Season

Well intrepid reader, it is time to close out this season.  It's getting cold, the days are getting shorter, and the fresh water is about to become hard.  I needed to have a definite end date to this sailing season, mostly because if I didn't, I'd keep sailing into the early reaches of winter, and I'm sure something would happen that I would regret.  Additionally, the Goat Island Skiff needs some attention, she deserves a de-salting and a rest while the temperatures are still above freezing.

Saturday was the last day, in Portland, in conjunction with Clint Chase Boatbuilder's annual boat-talk and small messabout at the East End.  I am relying on others who took pictures and the video.  All the pictures below can be seen or accessed through this thread at the Wooden Boat Forum.  There are pictures of other boats too, dories, a Pea Pod, and the like.  I took several people for rides, all of whom I think enjoyed it.  I am always happy to share my boat, sailing is awesome, sailing with others is even better!  Many thanks to Jonathan, Gareth, Milo, Dan, Shane, and Clint for cruising with me this afternoon.

You'll notice that I stand a lot sailing this boat.  There is a reason for it.  First, the boat is very spacious in the cockpit and it's large floor is ideal for standing.  Second, my ruptured discs in my back don't like it when I sit for long periods of time.  With this configuration, I get back relief and get to go sailing!  So awesome, and an unintended bonus of the design. The boat is very comfortable for sitting too, so it's kind of a shame.  But sitting on the floor with legs propped on the opposite side as well as the gunwale is all very comfortable.

To the pictures, and some video:

 

Goat Island Skiff with a Beach Pea

With GISAmateur fan, Jon!  Yes, I have a fan!

Tight Maneuvering around the dock makes for fun sailing!

Heading out with Dan Noyes of Beachcomber-Alpha fame.  I am humbled.

Clint Chase Boatbuilder holds court while I demonstrate the impressive stability of his Deblois Street Dory.

VICTORY For I AM ZINEA, PTERODACTYLUS!

So it was quite the season!  Some 30+ days of sailing, 8 of those were spent overnight cruising, several day-cruises to islands in Casco Bay and  beyond, and lots of lake sailing in beautiful New Hampshire to boot!  My back injury hampered certain adventures that were supposed to happen, but I had other adventures instead.  It was a good season, and I am a happier man for it!

The intrepid reader will be advised to keep an eye on this blog, as I will soon be unveiling another Storer design, as well as addressing end-of-season mechanical issues with the Goat Island Skiff.  There is a laundry list of repairs, cosmetics, and maybe even wholesale additions to the boat.  The season is over, but the passion of boating is not!

Fair winds!

Weekend in Casco Bay

This weekend I shot up to Casco Bay with Al from Brooklyn who has built a stunning Goat Island Skiff in his shop.  He launches it into an East River tributary by unceremoniously dropping it off the sea wall into the water.  The original plan was hopefully for two boats, but Al wasn't able to get the trailer finished in time, so we took mine, which is just as well since Saturday was hot on the heels of a decent sized Nor'Easter we had up here in New England last week.  We got a late start on Saturday, and in confused seas we set out for Little Cheabeague-- not too far away, but with a beautiful sandy beach.  Far enough.

The ride out was exciting, we shipped a lot of water over the bow in the steep seas, and the last half of the journey was characterized by a fast reach to the island.  The ride was wet, and Al did his fare share of bailing.  One tack, all the way.  In all the excitement I left my trusty camera in the one of the watertight buckets that turned out to be... not so watertight.  My camera took a salt bath...

Thankfully, on the return journey we ran into Talisman, a 24' Ostkust.  You can see pictures and read about Talisman Here and Here.

The skipper of Talisman took some pics of us returning to South Portland that afternoon, and, video!

Goat Island Skiff Homeward Bound

Fort Gorges in the Background

Here is I am Zinea, Pterodactylus in all her youtubes glory!




Another exciting weekend of sailing!