Deer Isle Tammie Norrie Build

[Bill Wiegmann]

My latest build is a Tammie Norrie designed by Iain Oughtred:



I was looking for something that I could use as a reasonably burdensome tender for my big boat, but also a boat that I could use to teach the little kids in the family how to row and sail. I contacted Iain Oughtred by e-mail and he concurred that the 13' 6" Tammie Norrie would fit the bill. I bought the plans from Iain directly; payment by PayPal was a snap and in two weeks I had Iain's beautifully drawn plans.

[capefox]

I've always liked that design. Best of luck.

[Bill Wiegmann]

To expedite the build, I decided to buy the planking kit from Hewes and Company. The kit includes 6mm okoume planking, a transom, building molds and full-size patterns for the stem and transom. I had Hewes do the transom and sheerstrake in sapele, which I plan to finish bright. Hewes's instructions made it clear that the stem and transom are slightly differently shaped from those in Iain's plans, to facilitate the pre-cut planking shapes.

Here are the molds being set up on my building jig:



Here is the transom laid over the Oughtred plans:

[Bill Wiegmann]

The planks come in two pieces with a pre-cut scarf to join them. The alignment process is pretty simple: a series of holes is pre-drilled in the edge of each piece, along with one hole in the middle of the scarf joint; you tack one end of the plank down to your work surface with small nails through the holes and then add the second end joining the two with a nail through the scarf joint hole; you then pivot the second half around the scarf nail until a string strung around marked points on each half just touches the scarf nail; sight along the plank lines to make sure they are in alignment; and then tack down the second half of the plank. You then snip off the heads of the nails so that you can slip the second pair of halves for that plank over the top to double check its alignment; take everything apart for glue up; and put it back together for final assembly. Here is a plank being glued up on my workbench:


The transom came as 6mm ply. I was thinking of building a frame for it to give it more substance, but, having decided that I wanted to build the lug yawl rig, I realized that there would be a lot of transom penetrations for tiller and mizzen strut and attachments for the mizzen mast. Rather than build a frame that tried to beef up each of these areas separately, I just decided to glue up a complete back up for the transom out of Honduras mahogany:


The sapele ply transom was then glued to this blank and I used a router to cut it to shape.

[Bill Wiegmann]

I used the pattern provided with the kit to make the inner stem. First, I glued up Honduras mahogany planks to fit the curve of the inner stem:


I then cut out the stem according to the pattern and roughly shaped it on the workbench:


Here is the inner stem attached to the building jig:


After fitting and beveling the keelson, came fitting the garboards. These were a little tricky. After beveling the forefoot as best I could, the garboard plank edges did not match the lines taken off the Hewes inner stem pattern. To double-check the setup, I remeasured everything and then tried out the forward halves of each of the other planks in turn to see where they would land. It looked as though everything would eventually mostly catch up to the drawn lines, so I went for it. Here is the garboard being fitted:

[Bill Wiegmann]

The kit enables planking to proceed pretty expeditiously. Here is the hanging of the fifth plank:


The kit comes with those convenient OSB plank clamps.

Here is another photo of where things stand now:

[Howard Sharp]

Looking really good! Love that design too.

[Rob Hazard]

Pretty boat! I look forward to seeing her on the water someday!

[Bill Wiegmann]

Today I hung the whisky plank on my Tammie Norrie. Final plank on port side:



Here is the starboard showing all the planks:



The sheerstrakes are sapele, hence the darker look. Next steps: stem and keel.

[Bill Wiegmann]

I built my stem out of laminations of white oak, glued together with West G-Flex epoxy.



Fitting the stem:



Fitting the skeg:

[Bill Wiegmann]

Stem, keel and skeg installed:



From forward:

[andrewpatrol]

Watching with interest Bill, another set of plans I have tucked away! Looks to be a great job youre doing. Nice even planking at bow

Have you decided on a rig?

[Bill Wiegmann]

Thanks, Andrew. I am planning on the lug yawl rig.

[almeyer]

Looks very nice, Bill. You'll be turning the hull soon? I'm building a TN from plans (no kit), but my progress is best described as glacial.
Al

[Bill Wiegmann]

Thanks, Al. I am currently attaching the rubbing strakes. After that I plan to epoxy coat the hull, taking care of any dings and gaps. Then paint and varnish and I will be ready to turn over. Perhaps 2-3 weeks.

How far along in your build are you?

[Falcon1]

Watching with interest. You may win the "tidiest build on the forum" contest!

Your progress is very fast, too! I like Tammie Norrie a lot, and I'm missing Iain's drawings a lot.

Keep up the good work.

Mike

[almeyer]

Thanks, Al. I am currently attaching the rubbing strakes. After that I plan to epoxy coat the hull, taking care of any dings and gaps. Then paint and varnish and I will be ready to turn over. Perhaps 2-3 weeks.

How far along in your build are you?

Really moving along, Bill. I take it the sheer will be bright finished?
I'm a little behind you, hanging the garboards this weekend.
Al

[Bill Wiegmann]

You may win the "tidiest build on the forum" contest!

Your progress is very fast, too!
Mike

Thanks, Mike. I always try to tidy up a bit before taking photos so you can see the boat instead of the mess! Progress always seems faster if you start your thread when you are halfway through planking.

[Bill Wiegmann]

I take it the sheer will be bright finished?

Al

Yes, Al, the plan is to finish the sheerstrake and the Honduras mahogany rubbing strakes bright. When I built my Oughtred Auk, I left the laminated white oak stem and the keel and skeg bright as well, but I think I am going to paint them off-white here to match the rest of the hull paint scheme. I am always getting black spots in the grain of the oak on my Auk and paint should provide better UV protection of the epoxy in the stem laminates. I am just pondering how the transition between bright sheerstrake and rubbing strakes will look against the white stem.

[almeyer]

I did something similar on my Penobscot 14; it has decorative badges fore and aft on the sheerstrake. I also left the lower rubbing strip bright. The masking was a small pain, but I was pleased with the result.
Al

[Bill Wiegmann]

Gorgeous Penobscot 14, Al! I really like the painted exterior, bright finished interior look. How did you do the interior finish?

Oughtred has a lot of positive things to say about a Deks Olje finish, as opposed to varnish, and I am considering going that way, but I am worried about the exposed interior lap edges of the plywood planking. My instinct is to try to coat these end grain edges with epoxy, but how the epoxy would blend with a Deks Olje finish and how much UV protection Deks Olje would provide for the epoxy are unknown to me at this point.

Bill

[almeyer]

Interior is two coats of System Three Clear Coat followed by two coats of varnish. I try to put a fresh coat of varnish on every spring (the Texas sun is a little rough). It's an easy chore if you keep up with it. When I built the boat, I clear coated the real wood pieces as well as the plywood. That was a mistake. The Clear Coat worked well on plywood, but I wouldn't use it again on real wood.
I've heard good things about Deks also, but haven't used it yet, so can't give a qualified answer to that.
Al

[pvg]

Any news on your Tammie Norrie? I recently bought plans from IO for "Penny Fee"- a very similar design.
Havent started building yet, but was enjoying your thread gaining insight and inspiration ��
pvg

[Bill Wiegmann]

Hi, pvg. Getting ready to turn over. Finished rubbing strakes, painting and varnishing bottom and installation of brass half-oval strips to protect keel. Should have pictures in a few days.

[pvg]

Thanks, Bill. Looking forward to it.
pvg

[Rich Jones]

Thanks, Andrew. I am planning on the lug yawl rig.

Everyone loves the mizzen on those small yawls. The boat is looking very fine!

[Willin']

Great build, Bill. Just wondering your opinion of how the gains (or rebates, as some call them) worked out straight out of the box? Did you feel the need to touch them up at all? Those are pretty close tolerance fits for a CNC machine to cut.

[Bill Wiegmann]

Great build, Bill. Just wondering your opinion of how the gains (or rebates, as some call them) worked out straight out of the box? Did you feel the need to touch them up at all? Those are pretty close tolerance fits for a CNC machine to cut.

Thanks. The gains are not pre-cut on the planks in the kit, so you have to measure and cut them yourself. The plank laps at the bow were about 1/2" or so, but the planks did not land exactly where the Hewes & Co. template placed them. The sheer edge of the garboard was about 1/2" lower (toward the keel) than the template showed it. I was worried the stem would droop with each plank I fit, but, in the end, I was able to make up most of the difference by the time I hung the sheerstrake. Possibly I was edge-setting the planks somewhat to get closer to the lines, so my gains did not always fit perfectly. If I ended up with a slight gap, I filled it with thickened epoxy.

[Bill Wiegmann]

Progress report:

I made my rubbing strakes out of Honduras mahogany. They were epoxied to the sheerstrake with a screw at either end.



Because some of the planks had some grain run-out and were a bit rough, I gave the exterior a coat of unthickened epoxy to stabilize it and filled any gaps and dings with thickened epoxy. After a good sanding, I primed with two coats of Interlux undercoat, followed by three coats of Interlux Easypoxy off white. The sheerstrake and rubbing strakes were varnished with Epifanes.



I decided that I wanted the paint/varnish line to lie at the joint between the sheerstrake edge and the lower rubbing strake, so I taped to that line and varnished over the edge of the tape. After the varnish was dry, I added primer and topcoats. After everything was dry, pulling up the tape produced a clean, sharp edge.



I was happy with the result.

[Bill Wiegmann]

Next step was to add brass half oval to protect the keel.


I cut the pieces to length and bent them before drilling the countersunk screw holes on the drill press. Here is the final result:



I was now getting ready to turn over. Because I picked up my planking and mold kit in Blue Hill, Hewes & Co. had cut out the molds (and the planks) from the full size ply sheets for me. As a result, I did not have any mold offcuts with which to make supports for the hull when turned over, so I had to start from scratch. I started by templating the shape:



I then cut the supports out of 3/4" ply and padded with some old carpeting.

[andrewpatrol]

that looks really impressive Bill. Bet your proud and cant stop looking at her!

How'd you finish the transom, clear?

[Bill Wiegmann]

The turn-over.

Up:



Up:



Up:



And over:



Landed:

[Bill Wiegmann]

Next step: clean up on the interior. I was pleasantly surprised that there weren't many epoxy runs.

[Bill Wiegmann]

that looks really impressive Bill. Bet your proud and cant stop looking at her!

How'd you finish the transom, clear?

Thanks, Andrew. Yes, the transom is finished bright with Epifanes varnish. Still plenty more coats to go, however.

[almeyer]

Wow, that's a pretty boat! Very well done, Bill.
Al