Building a William Atkin Perigee

[RFNK]

Looking great! Well done and congratulations! What are rudder lashings?

Rick

PS Oh yes, I'd forgotten!

[Sailor]

Those lashings look very interesting. I've never seen them before. I'm at work behind a firewall so I can't see the video posted in 67 but I'll check it out once I get home. Much cheaper than bronze and easily repairable anywhere. Worst case, lop a couple of feet of a jib sheet and lace her back up...... There is certainly an appeal to that.

[Small boats rock]

Blowfish looks great! How much of the sail handling can you do from the hatch?

Thanks. All of the sail handling is managed from the main hatch. The jib is hanked to it's halyard tail such that it forms a temporary stay at the same time as tensioning the sail. There is also a tackle attached to the tack to provide more tension. The whole thing can be launched from or dragged back to the main hatch, so no deck work at all apart from handling the anchor.

[Small boats rock]

!!!! Blowfish !!!

You like it?

[Small boats rock]

Those lashings look very interesting. I've never seen them before. I'm at work behind a firewall so I can't see the video posted in 67 but I'll check it out once I get home. Much cheaper than bronze and easily repairable anywhere. Worst case, lop a couple of feet of a jib sheet and lace her back up...... There is certainly an appeal to that.

I once owned a boat with bronze rudder fittings. They had problems with wear, which was one of the reasons to consider the lashing option. Very happy with the lashings so far, but only time will tell how good they really are.

[Steamboat]

!!!! Blowfish !!!

You like it?

The Wiz was expressing a low brain perception.

BTW I have acute launch envy! Congrats on a great boat!

[Small boats rock]

The Wiz was expressing a low brain perception.

BTW I have acute launch envy! Congrats on a great boat!

Yes, launching is good. I enjoyed building, but so glad to get back to sailing.

[wizbang 13]

Yes I like her. I like the design, your concept , the rudder “fitting” and her name. SBR you have succeeded where many...MANY ....have failed.

[skaraborgcraft]

Thanks. All of the sail handling is managed from the main hatch. The jib is hanked to it's halyard tail such that it forms a temporary stay at the same time as tensioning the sail. There is also a tackle attached to the tack to provide more tension. The whole thing can be launched from or dragged back to the main hatch, so no deck work at all apart from handling the anchor.

Excellent. I can only concur with Bruce, great job on executing what you wanted. So......where are you off to?

[Small boats rock]

Excellent. I can only concur with Bruce, great job on executing what you wanted. So......where are you off to?

It is encouraging to get positive responses, particularly when it comes from people like Bruce and yourself with so much experience.

I plan to do lots of local sailing while I finish off details of her fit out, and so get more intimate with her strengths and quirks. When more confident I will start to explore the coast a little, and after that... well it doesn't matter too much really, it is the process of sailing there which is most important... the destination is just a bonus intrigue.

[Small boats rock]

Blow Fish is now has had a decent shake down cruise having just returned from a cruise of two weeks from Rockingham to Geraldton and back with a stopover made at Jurien Bay. She experienced everything from calms to 25 knot winds (according to coastal waters forecast) which gave plenty of opportunities to try out her reefing system, ability to heave to, and to fiddle around with self steering in the form of lashing the tiller, or using sheet to tiller, as best fitted the situation. I never imagined her hull shape and displacement would allow her to go much above hull speed, so was much surprised to find her frequently hitting sustained speeds of over 6 knots, and at one time getting briefly up to 9 knots. These high speeds were attained under heavily reduced sail, and in rough, but not particularly large seas (maybe around 2 metres). She sailed well in 25 knots with triple reefed main and her half sized working jib, but I felt if the wind increased much she would need to reduce sail again by either swapping down to the tiny storm jib, or by keeping the small working jib but dropping the main. My feeling, yet to be properly tested is that she will be able to sail anywhere up to about 30 knots, but after that will be starting to have only off the wind sailing potential. Quite respectable for a boat of 15' on the waterline. She hove to nicely allowing me quite a comfortable nights sleep on the leeward berth. The only disruption to sleep was needing to make occasional checks of shipping movements in the area. Steering was good. Naturally she steered herself perfectly on the wind. On a beam reach she was a bid tiddly, but with wind a little aft of the beam she steered will using sheet to tiller methods. Dead before the wind required my active input, but was not hard work as she would maintain course for 5 or 10 minutes at a stretch with just occasional corrections from me. All in all I was very pleased with her performance and look forward to further cruises.

Underway in perfect conditions.
sailing.jpg

View of Geraldton light house from seaward.
lighthouse.jpg

Anchorage at Jurien Bay
jurien.jpg

Sailing from the inside
interior.jpg

On return to The Cruising Yacht Club there were some interesting dramas related to boats falling over on the boat ramp and a winter storm sending 52 knot winds into the club anchorage. This story is told and depicted on my new 'A cruise to Geraldton' page on my site http://geoffboat.weebly.com for those who may be interested.

[RFNK]

That's quite a `shakedown cruise'! Excellent - you must be really pleased with her! Congratulations!

Rick

[skaraborgcraft]

Excellent. Does she sound very "drummy" inside in those conditions? A friend complained of such noise in a similar boat, but it might have been down to a lack of frames and stringers, i dont imagine there is any flex to speak of in a hull constructed like Blowfish.

[MattSplatt]

Fabulous result! Thank you for the report.

[Small boats rock]

Yes she did when completely empty, but I notice the more things on board the more muted the sound becomes. On the to do list are: upholstery; insulation; and maybe curtains, among other things, all of which will give her a muted quietness inside. I would say she is more noisy than trad construction, but not more noisy than the various glass production boats I've owned. Agreed, no flex whatsoever.

[The Jeff]

That was an interesting read on your website. Thanks for writing it up!

[Small boats rock]

Glad you enjoyed it.

[wizbang 13]

Were you ever able to test these?

[Small boats rock]

No that was as far as I got with those fittings. I think they would have been strong enough, but they seemed a bit clunky, and still required metal fastenings to secure them, unless I had glued and glassed to the hull which would have been even more clunky. So I took a different approach which involved drilling holes through the stem like this...

stem_holes_out.jpg

and then splicing a continuous loop of dyneema which I then passed through the holes from inside the stem, served the two loops which poked through to the outside to effectively make them into a single loop, and fitted a thimble while I was at it. The end result was this...

bobstayfit1.JPG

bobstayfit2.JPG

On the inside of the stem I built a sealed box (with removable lid) around the two holes so that if any water should enter it would be contained and drain out the same way it entered. All of this was extremely well sealed with epoxy of course.

So far this fitting has proven extremely strong. The dyneema loop has a breaking strain of many tons (I forget how many, more than 4 I think). I use the fitting both for the bob stay and as a 'towing eye' to assist getting the boat back on her jinker. If building again I would definitely repeat this approach to the bob stay fitting.

[Aquinian]

Hi Geoff,

I'm visiting Kwinana Beach this afternoon, so afterwards I'll drop in and see your boat, and if you're around, you also.

Regards,
John.

[Small boats rock]

John,

I am back home in Toodyay at the moment, but by all means go and take a look. Her bay is next to the shipping container used by the canoe club.

Geoff.

[jsjpd1]

Wow, nice build! What a great first trip. I’m looking forward to seeing more.

[Small boats rock]

Everyone's dreams are different, but for me Blow Fish has already surpassed my expectations. My main aim now is to get in some decent cruising time while still young enough to handle it. For the winter I'll be doing some minor enhancements and then hope to set sail again in summer. Blow Fish will be south bound... but just how far she gets will only be told after the fact.

[Aquinian]

Well that was certainly interesting, Geoff. Lovely boat. I didn’t know that kind of thing existed. Sort of a scaled down version of my own boat, looks phenomenally seaworthy and solid as a rock. What a delightful thing! Nicely built too!

Rockingham today was miserable. Blowing, raining, cold, and boats stranded along the shore. It’s always been a lousy anchorage. Glad to see Blow Fish safely on the jinker!

OK, the mandatory photos.

Love that touch of tumblehome.

01E65D1D-AB76-4D06-BDE8-9CD5FE5033C0.jpg


Hmmm, that doesn’t look right.

582691FA-C20E-4FAC-ADA5-B91230B11AA8.jpg

071C91FA-6881-4772-8E21-69AE46E86CA8.jpg

There me were four cruisers, a dinghy, and what looked like an S&S 30 (cleats ripped out of the foredeck).

Cheers,
John.

[Small boats rock]

Love your pic of the mooring buoy. For some reason I find that side splittingly funny!

[rayman]

congratulations SBR. I am suffering a slight touch of envy. and now I shall go over to your website

[Small boats rock]

Thanks Rayman. Hope my website holds something interesting for you.

[alemon]

well done! any updates?

[remakingthelady]

Just saw this. Beautiful pocket cruiser, great job!

[Small boats rock]

Nothing much to update yet. Over the last few cold wet windy months I've been attending to some odd jobs such as interior lights, finishing locker lids with seals and toggles, making some mods to my companionway-step-cum-pilot's-seat, sewing up a bag to hold the main sheet, maintenance on the jinker, etc. In the meantime, my piece of bush land in Toodyay had been rather neglected while I was building Blow Fish, so now lots of time is being used to get my fire break back in order and my junk strewn yard less full of junk. However, too much time ashore is making me very restless, the sea calls with increasing urgency! Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with an urge to drop everything and go immediately. Do others suffer from this kind of sea sickness? Loosely thinking of getting back in the water some time in November or December for a cruise south, so it is time to stock up on baked beans, two minute noodles, and other culinary delights. No plan to go particularly far, but every plan to take my time and do everything in the slowest way possible.