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I have used all Wi-Tom's tricks, including having a second mount for my hand-bearing compass on the aft compartment bulkhead, which I use as a rowing compass.

However, I finally added a mirror on...

Thanks Max. I had been following your build with great interest. I picked up several tips from you but I don't aspire to your wonderful level of craftsmanship and finish - I'm too impatient. Mine...

The bags I bought, from Lee Valley Tools, did not automatically come with a funnel but do have a short length of tube that fits over the opening of the bag. I bought a $3 plastic funnel at the Home...

Horses for courses.

I have an original Workmate, like yours, that I bought when building my first house over 40 years ago. It's getting beat up and a little rickety, but still very serviceable.
...

I painted the tip of the foremast on my sail and oar boat white for two reasons:
1. I originally miscalculated the length of the mast I needed. I scarfed in a piece at the tip to lengthen it after a...

The weather finally turned decent enough a few days ago – warm, and dry overnight for several days in a row, that I was able to get the masts varnished, in between , applying epoxy, sanding, scraping...

A nice lady from Port Townsend bought it. She is a sailor and a rower, apparently. How much expeditioning she will do with it is an open question.

The End of an Era: Fire-Drake leaving my stewardship. Picked up yesterday by her new owner.

https://i.imgur.com/MkZvf5R.jpg

Glad to have been of help.

Thanks Hugh and Jeff!



That's the plan, eventually. I have gone so far as to take measurements and sketch up a possible arrangement, but I'm impatient to get the boat in the water this summer...

The lid is on:

https://i.imgur.com/l5mhRTw.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/2NJKQAQ.jpg

I've built two glued-lap boats by scarfing the planks in place on the boat, both about 18 feet long. I primarily did it that way because my shop is too small to have a separate layout space to scarf...

Thanks Bruce. Getting there!

When it came to gluing the pilothouse sides on to the deck, I figured there were at least four ways I could screw it up: sides and front not lining up with the deck and each other, sides not parallel...

It is perhaps a good thing that the end of the build approaches. I think I many be spending too much time thinking about nothing but boatbuilding, as I woke this morning with this haiku forming in my...

Thanks, DP!

The design would lend itself to a kit, for sure. Would reduce the amount of time and work but it is by no means an instant boat.

Thanks for buying the book and I hope to have the...

Thanks! Windows will not open. I do have a brass ventilator cowl that was given to me that I plan to make a Dorade-type box for, eventually.




Thanks Hugh.

Deck is glued on, faired, glassed, sanded, faired and sanded some more.

Here is the underlying structure of cross beams and stringers:
https://i.imgur.com/ItChJrs.jpg

This is the lash-up of...

Fair winds and following seas Jack. He will be missed.

You really should sit down and, as the future owner, write yourself an "owner's requirements" document, to guide yourself when in your roles as builder.

As a project manager you should appreciate...

You can stop building boats any time you want to - you just choose not to.

Was it really as long ago as 2014?

I guess it was. Our outing to The Broughtons, as documented by Tim's thread that year, was the last time the sail-and-oar mafia got together for a long trip.

Your tale of the Honda brings to mind these lines from a Shakespeare sonnet:
“Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,
To mar the subject that before was well?”
Which is, of course, one more...

Obsessively dot-watching the progress of Julia and vicariously imagining this wonderful journey. I see that Julia has reached the classic coral atoll of Keuehi in the Tuamotus. From the position,...

Well done!
One journey ends and another begins. Thanks for sharing the first journey with us. I hope you will share some of the ongoing adventures of Hulk!

Wonderful travelogue, Jon! Thanks so much for sharing your adventure with us.

Your picture of the coast of Fatu Hiva reminds me of the west coast of Kauai.

Your observation about the...

One thing leads to another – we all know that – and sometimes it gets a little out of hand. In my case it started with wanting to replace my antiquated handheld, AA-battery-powered GPS, for which I...

For my 18 ft open sail and oar boat, which has a board-up draft of 7" and can therefore anchor in shallower waters than keelboats:
1. Three strand
2. Thimble and shackle to chain
3. !00 feet,...

Steve, I've started in on the wiring and should be finished the rough-in, as it were, in a few days. Pictures to follow then.

When I built the mizzen mast, I anticipated putting the antenna there...

I had, in fact, talked to the sailmaker in the fall and he said then that it was likely to be months, not weeks, but I think 5 months was longer than even he anticipated.

Picked these up yesterday from the sailmaker. Jib and mizzen. Main is too big to fully lay out in the house and it is too wet outside to do so on the lawn.

Five months since I put in the order...

Congratulations on the launch! The boat looks very much at home.

Rich, The cleat guard idea did not originate with me. I saw an ad for some commercially-made ones someplace - can't now recall where. However, they were a generic size, kind of pricey and made of...

The 6HP Tohatsu OB I bought does have charging capability. As far as I can tell it is just an extra coil on the magneto that outputs rectified DC, probably about 14-18V - haven't measured it yet....

Thanks!

Electrical work next, but that will have to wait until after the long weekend (here in Canada) is over, as I have relatives visiting, so no boatbuilding.

I’m with those who are asking why the person wants to modify Alaska, and wonder what they are looking for that the Alaska doesn’t provide.

Having built an Alaska and rowed and sailed it for a few...

Lots of ways to make specific motor mounts for an open boat. In the case of my 18' yawl, Fire-Drake, one side of the transom is occupied by the mizzen boomkin and the other by the push-pull tiller,...

Got the interior painted, finally. Four coats. It’s not gelcoat-smooth, but I was tired of sanding.
https://i.imgur.com/cVYipMM.jpg

With that done, put some paper down and it’s a good surface to...

Thanks.

I was also concerned about cutting mortises into the tops of the ply bulkheads and possibly, if I didn't get the gluing exactly right, compromising the main athwartship deck structure. It...

I should be doing the final sanding of the interior right now, so I can get on with painting, but one knee is a little dodgy at the moment and is not happy with kneeling.

So instead I have jumped...

|;) You're welcome!

Looking good, David!

It will take some experimentation to find the optimum place(s) for the solar panel, so that it gets the most amount of sun, isn't shaded by sails and so on. On Fire-Drake, I...

Happy to help. One of the great things about this forum is that we don't all have to accumulate the same scar tissue.

Thanks for the pointer, Dave.

Backtracking a little, folks might be interested in my solution to making the cockpit coaming, if only as a cautionary tale. You may look at what I have done and say to yourself “there’s gotta be a...

Steve, the radio I bought is a Standard Horizon Eclipse GX1400. I am going to bolt it to the top of the "electrical panel" that you see in the picture, using the U-shaped bracket that came with it....

I have hopes of bringing the new boat to the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival in Sep, COVID permitting. If you plan to attend, that will be the place to see it.



Thanks Tom. More work indeed....

I see that it has been a while since I have updated this thread on the progress of the build.

One of the ongoing challenges of a build like this is to think ahead to figure what parts of the build...

The odds of most of us getting to the Marquesas by sailing our own boats there is pretty low, so your sharing of your experience of doing so is a wonderful substitute. Thanks very much!

Beautifully done, Max!

You can be proud.