Blue Moon, an unusual 16ft Sailing boat..

[The Q]

First a little History.
Way back in the very late 1970s / very early 1980's there was an outbreak of small single hander mini twelve meters and one or two boats of a similar style not following the metre class rules..
My RAF note pads during a technical training course, had all sorts of boats drawn on them, I'd been to the RYA dinghy show at Crystal Palace and seen a couple of that type of boat there.

I wanted one, but couldn't afford to buy, so I cleared a patch of land .. started to get ready and... The RAF Posted me to the Outer Hebridies.

Life and the RAF then intervened for many years, till some time later in 1996, I began working in Saudi (not in the RAF). As I arrived at my accomodation for the first time, I spied not fifty feet from my room, there were two people building their own boats. However the following morning, I was off down to the sailing club and went sailing..

So ... I'm mad enough to design my own boat..

The principles of the design were:
Two seater, tandem seating
16ft LOA, maximum draft 3ft. ( That's about the limit where we sail)
Style to be very roughly that of a Yare and bure one design http://www.ybod.org.uk/
For light air sailing, as the river we mostly sail on, is tree and house lined, so very round bilged, easily pushed along by the wind.

So work commenced on a design, which gradually departed from looking like a white boat..
After about three months of Drawing, no internet then in Saudi, to do any research, scrapped ideas, and two plasticard models. I eventually came up with some plans..

The beam was to be 4 ft, all up weight 1/2 a ton and I've put a retroussé stern on the design.
At this point I came home on Holiday and found the class I intended to race in had disappeared (Allcomers under 17.5ft).

So back out in the sun and the design was changed to 18ft 6 inches to allow entry into Allcomers A, that's open Keelboats over 17.5Ft..
The modified design had parallel sides to enable the extra to be cut out later if required..


and so much for this installment, as the drawings and pictures are on another computer..

[The Q]

Soon after I came back from Saudi, I came across the free boat design programme Freeship.. after a little experimentation, I loaded in Blue Moons figures. and the following Drawings were produced.
Gratifyingly the computer generated figures were very close to those I had hand calculated some years before..

Blue Moon 15_Linesplan.jpg

[upchurchmr]

So many good boat designs available where "most" of the mistakes have already been found and fixed.

Good luck with your design. Please keep up the reporting on progress. Most new boat designs just disappear.

[The Q]

A set of trestles were set up in the sand, very carefully lined up and leveled
With the help of blocks screwed to the trestles, two 6inch wide, 18ft long ply planks were set on edge, 2ft apart, but sewn together at the bow ( very strong woven string) .

On a wooden work bench I got given, but heavily modified by me, a set of 5 and 1/2 ring frames were made, outside edge 1/4inch inside the perimeter of the hull, inside edge 3 inches inside that, most having a central 3 inch wide pillar. 3inch wide strips were inserted inside the frames so forming a T, and a fillet of resin both sides to bond the pieces. Slots in the ring frames Matched slots in the 18ft long planks. These were interlocked onto the planks on the frame, along with the blank stern piece.
Note two 1/4 inch deep one inch wide tabs were left on the outside in line where the 3 main planks and the deck would be.


Then two more strips 18ft long 3inches wide, were interlocked at 2ft spacing at the top opposite the planks on the trestles. These strips were of course curved to follow the hull lines..

Interlocking.. Two slots cut where each piece crossed each other half way through each.

Then the bottom plank 1ft wide in the middle tapered at the ends was sewn onto place on top of the skeleton.
The two main 1 ft wide side decks were clamped into place and then sewn on.
This was followed by the two 9 inch wide side planks.
After much checking of alignment, All joins were then filleted with the thickened resin..


Then the side planks were offered up, each 4 inch wide, placed and clamped on. Then a pencil run along the overlap at the ends, the excess cut off, then the plank sown and filleted on.
Each side alternately of course.
Getting up into the bows was hot work.

The boat was then sanded down on the outside, filled, sanded etc, this removed the string. Then two coats of fibreglass cloth was resined on.

Then some frames were made to hold the boat and then the whole thing turned over.

[The Q]

A center plate box was built and inserted, as was a box for a cassette rudder.
The whole of the inside was glassed over.
The foredeck with hatch for mast to tilt through, was completed.
Lids were made for each compartment of the boat, only the aft one over the rudder, and the foredeck hatch will be sailed with.
When i came to make the rig, it was conveniently about the time one of the others was about to make theirs, we trundled off in a company minibus and came back , with five pieces of spruce, 2inches thick, 8inches across and up to 20ft long. All tied on the roof with ropes going through the windows..

For my mast, I cut it down the middle length ways, spun one half round and over. Then hollowed out about 1.5 inches radius semi circle in each. Then glued them face to face.
Except for the bottom three feet, it was the marked up and planed into an octagon , then to sixteen sides then to a circle.

The gaff was half of 1, 12ft length, that half cut in half lengthways spun round and glued together. Then rounded off.
The jaws were made from some iroko type wood lined with leather.

The mini bus came into use again as the above piece of iroko was much larger, 8inch wide, 2inch thick , and 16 ft long.
This piece was cut lengthways, many times to produce 3/8ths wide strips intending to plank the decks and stern with the strips. The strips were put to one side to continue on another day. When I came back, one piece had tied itself into a figure 8. All the others were severely bent..
The best were selected for the stern and the deck kingplanks. Much clamping and weighting was required to epoxy the pieces into position. I had intended to plank the deck lengthways, but this was now impossible, so after a few trials I selected 45degree planks , so they are only just over a foot long, so I could recover more of the wood.
This was the sanded down and varnished. Unfortunately the only varnish available was that for Doors..

A trailer was made for me by a guy in the same accommodation building, the hubs etc came from scrapped bomb trollies.
A steel drop plate and two ballast weights were made by a local fabricators.
Flat Sails were made by a car cover makers ( covers for cars are popular due to sun and sand).

The boat was licensed, using the one sailing club kit.. You are required to have on board even for a windsurfer, a Saudi flag, flares, first aid kit, life raft and various other bits. The sailing club kit just went from boat to boat as licensing was required..

It was the launched, sailed twice it needed more ballast, and a bigger rudder.
And then....


We got moved to the mountains, it was never sailed again in Saudi. When I came back it was put into a container, and shipped home. I was told six weeks... Two weeks later a phone call from Felixstowe.. It had arrived, rush round to hire a tow truck, actually a Luton van with tow bar, as the rest of the container had all my stuff in it...

[The Q]

A week or so after I came back from Saudi I was told someone needed a crew on a yeoman http://www.yeomankinsman.org.uk/yeoman/yeoman.shtm he had just bought, so for the last 18 years, I've been sailing with him each winter, though not this winter coming.

Last year in August he was helicoptered to Addenbrookes hospital after a major motorcycle accident. He had, a fractured skull, smashed wrist and ankle. Fractured pelvis, broken femur. He hit the front of a tractor, after hitting a pothole first, the police say it's not his fault..
He's still awaiting Further operations on his leg and has been unable to work. It's now looking doubtful for this winter too.. He's getting very frustrated with a non healing thigh bone..

I also began sailing yeoman every summer, so the boat got stuck in a shed. I ended up as National Chairman of the yeoman fleet without ever owning one.. http://www.yeomankinsman.org.uk/

About five years ago my last summer yeoman owner sold up. I decided to restore the boat. By this time the sailing club had started a sailing school. 80kids learning every Thursday evening, and some adults.. We now have a large below 17.5ft class.
The below 17.5ft class has 4 races every Sunday, the above 17.5 ft classes only have one allcomers race each Sunday but several class races.

So the decision was made to return the boat to around 16ft.

The boat was pulled out of the shed and placed along side.
I marked out the hull round the middle to have 28inches cut out, also marking the places of the stringer cuts. A week later I measured it all up again, it matched, and so I cut out the skin between the stringers.

Then.. SWMBOs aunt and uncle became ill in turn, we lost 18 months, travelling 400 Mile return journeys to visit before they died ( about a year apart.) Meantime the boat was just left..

[The Q]

I Arrived in Saudi a week after the tower block the American military were living in was blown up, (just a mile away) so with security so tight, I didn't risk a camera, so there are no photos of the build..

I was taking advice from those already building, as they had been touring the area finding where to get stuff.
One guy had already built a small wharram catarmaran, to then discover his home port in Cyprus said.. 2 hulls two fees...So he sold that and was building a double ender of about 20ft ( Selway Fisher design?) .
The other guy was building a 30ft seagoing long keeled boat.
Both of these were in their upside down plank the hull stage, when I arrived..

So a few notes about materials etc..

Epoxy resin, it's made locally for the lining of raw oil tanks with glassfibre to prevent corrosion, and to make glassfibre tanks, it's extremely cheap. 5 litre for less than £10..

Glassfibre, imported not cheap, limited range available compared to the UK,

Colloidial silica for thickening, very cheap, a full size bin bag full for 10 riyal.. (£1.67)

Plywood, marine not available, a poor WBP, was available. Hence covered both sides with glassfibre when used. 40 mile round trip to get this...

Solid woods, quite a good range available, but you had to watch they didn't palm you off with duff stuff. The wood yard was only a hundred yards away, unfortunately there was a dual carrigeway between so a couple of mile round trip...

Marine parts not available, stainless screws of variable quality, hence the use of strange things, which will be reported later..

Tools.. you had to be very careful, a lot of fake big name stuff around, but when you found it, a good tool was cheaper than the UK..

Working area and Conditions.
30C mid winter, 50C mid summer IN THE SHADE.

Ground solid under a foot of sand and sawdust, we had to put up no smoking signs after someone threw a fag end into the sand and it caught fire.. There was that much sawdust in it..
No point clearing the sand away.. it just blew back in..

Humidity could be HUGE we were within sight of the coast, on the bad humid days the resin would turn into rubber instead of solid, so you would have to chisel off and start again..

We were issued with 10 Pairs of overalls, the guys working on the flightline would go through half that in a day.. Me I worked in a lab 90% of the time so I didn't have to wash them overnight, just put them in the laundry..
Each working on the boat day, we each would take out with us a 2 gallon insulated container of water /Ice / Lemon, we would drink that and more..

I was a shift worker, giving lots of spare time, I wish I had that now..

[johngsandusky]

This is an amazing story.

[The Q]

I've just realised I've missed a bit ...
The chain plates on the sides are actually two stainless steel rods each formed into a U and bonded into the side of the hull...
The Source? from the inside of an abandoned Air-conditioner system that was big enough to walk into.
The goose neck, from a lifting tackle hook and two sections of angle aluminum from inside that air conditioner.

Blocks and tackles.. the Blocks were made from two cut sheets of Tuffnol plus some tuffnol spacers, the rollers were rod Nylon turned up on a lathe in the next lab at work, all bolted together with machine screws.

[The Q]

The jungle was cleared back, the covers removed and the temporary " box" above everything removed. The White plate at the front of the boat is the original Drop keep without it's weights which would be bolted on. I moved that plate onto a bench Sunday ready to start altering it.

The hull was then marked up for the next set of cuts, these being staggered by up to just over 2 ft.
If you were facing the side of the boat with the bow on the left, the first mark was from where the hull meets deck. Forward for over 2 ft (to a convenient deck plank), down the line of the deck plank to the cockpit combing, then back aft along the bottom edge of the combing about a foot, then through the combing.

Inside the main stringers were cut a few inches forward of center. for the moment the centre box was left as is.

The same was done the other side, then a week later I came back,measured and checked the markings, All was OK.

Time to cut, much was cut with a jig saw (and many blades), in some tight spaces a Japanese style pull saw and a dremel with a disk saw in some really tight spaces.

Then when all was removed and I had room to mark up the centre board case it came in two parts.. First was two vertical cuts in line with the skin removal, many jigsaw blades were used as the case was layered up with glassfibre, ply and tufnol sliding surfaces. this finally destroyed the jigsaw as well, it had to be finished cutting by hand. It was gratifying when the final cut was made there was only a creak but no real movement of the now two halves of the boat.

Four 6inch wide 3in inch deep and 1 and a bit inch thick pieces of wood were made each with a pair of matching 10mm holes.
four 1M treaded rods were fed through one pair of blocks with nuts on. Fitted one top on bottom of the remaining centreboard case and their supporting frames.

I then sat in the back added the other two blocks and Nuts.. Then with large spanner started tightening each nut a turn at a time , every so often there would be a creak and the two halves would approach each other....

Many turns later i inserted a board in the closing gap to keep the remaining bits of centreboard case in line.. once the first edge touched, there was much measuring, and once I was happy, a grinding bit in a drill was passed round the joins, leaving a perfect 10mm gap. Then the final winding of the nuts...

Time to fix it all together...
I stripped the hull of resin / filler / glassfibre on the outside about a foot either side of the join, this was then bandaged up with glassfiber and resin.
Transfering to the inside, liquid resin was soaked into the joins before being covered by, cut to fit, glass fibre resined pads . A couple of layers on the sides, 4 on the bottom..

The stringers were doubled and glassed..

After another weeks break allowing that all to set, l lay uncomfortably in the bottom chiseling off all the old filler fillets. This was followed by making more fillets of thickened resin. .
Then the cockpit sides were doubled over the join, but this was only in the forward cockpit area between frames.

All set it was time to remove the two centre sections of frame supporting the remaining bits of centre board case. This time I got out the angle grinder, and a diamond disk. I wish I had used that before, with a bit of smoke it was through in a few minutes. The disk was then changed to a sander and the lump on the floor ground down to level with the two frames.

Two more doublers were fitted on the cockpit sides, where the centre frames were and the former aft cockpit.
When set, this was trippled with a full length plank glassfibred over.

Since then 3 Oak keel bearers have been made and bonded into place.

And now to some pictures, I remembered to start taking them after the above.. You can just see the area of the join.

IMG_20180831_140024.jpg
For some reason it's picked up a picture of one section of my N gauge model railway, but that's another story.

[The Q]

Hopefully a picture of the bow with about 15 years of sitting under covers damage
Attachment 65032
And a look down the deck.. Attachment 65033

[The Q]

So here, I hope, we have a sketch of the overall look of the boat as per it's latest design,
bluemoon_2.jpg

[The Q]

Mast, boom, and Jib Vang..

About two years ago My injured sailing compatriot, gave me an Old Kestrel dinghy Mast and boom, his parents were wanting it out of their garden, He hadn't sailed a kestrel in over 20 years.... This being about the right size for the boat and vastly lighter, It was welcomed as an improvement to the boat..
Shortly after I bought a.very old set of sails for a kestrel from the bay of E..very cheaply.. These are to use for the trials before commissioning a full new set..

So I removed the old sloping foot from inside the tabernacle, screwed on a dinghy mast holder to the hog and placed the mast in the tabernacle loosely tying the stays to the stay plates. The boom hung on the main halyard. I stood back and.. it looked right.. So...


The new mast is only about 2.5 inches wide, whereas the old tabernacle hole was 4 inches square, so an adaptor was made to fit.
The height of the old tabernacle was cut off and then the adaptor bonded into place.

The side stays were 6 inches too long, so I cut them shorter, rescued the old Eyes, put a new crimp in place and used my electrical crimp tool (capable of up to 16mm crimps and several tons pressure) to fix it all..

The Boom was strange, which was why he had replaced it ( and by necessity the mast ) someone had years ago screwed a X shaped 4ft length of keelboat traveller track to the under side in the middle . Onto that someone had screwed a length of dinghy track.
I believe the above was an attempt to convert the old end sheeted boom, to a centre sheeted boom.

The Dinghy track I removed, after much measurement and sitting inside with ropes tied on to try various positions. I then drilled a couple of holes into the X track acrossways. Each about 3 inches in from the opposite ends. The rear one will hold the mainsheet block above it's attachment in the boat.
The front one will, hold the kicking trap and be where the block for the mainsheet will attach to bring the main sheet to me..
All sorts of arrangements were looked at for the kicking strap, gnavs, levers etc in order to clear me and get the tension right, but eventually the old fashioned conventional block and tackle worked out best.

Then came working out the jib arrangements, I knew I needed a self tacking jib so much research was carried out on the net looking at various systems.

The solution is..

A jib club that extends forward of the bow by about a foot, where the forestay will be mounted as normal at the bow. , but on top of the jib club. A line from the front edge of the jib club will go to the old spinnaker attachment point of the mast and via various blocks back to me.. By pulling on the line the amount of tension on the leach can be varied, thus keeping tension correct.

Using a track or rope horse across the deck would have been ineffectual due to the narrowness of the boat.

The windward sheet will be used to control jib position, not the usual leeward sheet. This means I can pull it across to goosewing when necessary.

Also mounted on the jib club, a swivel to the bow plate, a furler, two cheek blocks to feed the furler strings back to the cockpit, an attachment one side of the aft end of the club with another cheek block the other to attach the outhaul..

This weekend we laid out the jib on the grass and measured up to shorten the foot. A full size Kestrel jib is about 8 foot on the foot and 50 Sqft sail area. It turned out this one was 5 ft on the foot and about 35ft sqft sail area.
Luckily the club is only 50 inches from forestay to aft end, so the foot was marked at 48 inches and the aft end of the sail cut off to nothing at the head. While doing this I noticed the leech was only folded over and sown from the head down to the first seam and from the bottom up to the first seam.
Never seen that before, but there was no fraying so I'm keeping that idea it will save me sewing..
The sail was pinned up for the seams, As it is, sewing all this up, is a winter it's raining task .
A side effect of it being a shorter foot jib originally , is that it will be a better shape than had I shortened an 8ft footed jib..

The main will be used as is, but it's correctly made for the class at the time, which means it's about a foot short of the end of the boom. When a new sail is made some of that foot will be used and a will have reefing points added .
A picture of blue moon with the mast and boom temporarily rigged up.
IMG_20190908_092524.jpg


Right that enough rambling on for this posting.. any questions?

[AndanteEd]

The solution is..

A jib club that extends forward of the bow by about a foot, where the forestay will be mounted as normal at the bow. , but on top of the jib club. A line from the front edge of the jib club will go to the old spinnaker attachment point of the mast and via various blocks back to me.. By pulling on the line the amount of tension on the leach can be varied, thus keeping tension correct.

.. any questions?

Yes, I have one...

I'm trying to work out the forestay/jib arrangement.

If the forestay is attached to the upward facing eye at the front of your jib club then the forestay (and hence shroud) tension would change whenever the jib club moved. Going to windward, your windward shroud would be likely to loosen, which is probably not ideal.

If the forestay is attached to the jib club in line with the boat's bow fitting (i.e. to the top of the bolt sticking out) then you would largely maintain the shroud tension, but then where would the jib clew attach to? If its the front of the jib club then what happens when you tack - wouldn't the forestay get in the way of ther jib? If the jib attaches to the forestay then what is the point of the front of the jib club extending forward of the forestay?

I'm sure I'm missing something fairly obvious, but thought I'd ask nonetheless.

Thanks...

[The Q]

The bow end of the club will be attached to an adjustable stay that goes up to the old spinnaker hoist point ( second hand mast) thence by a couple of blocks back to the helm position and a jammer.
The jib will be attached in line with the bow.. (Eye nut is missing I haven't cut the bolts to size yet.)
Pulling on that stay adjusts the tension on the leach, a sort of reverse vang for the jib.
With such a narrow boat it was the only way to stop the jib club flying up when on a reach and you can put enough tension on to stop the leach easing out at the top, leaking air when close hauled

Just to add, not my idea, I copied it from International Canoes, I saw it when researching jib clubs and thought it a useful idea.

[The Q]

A delay for these catch ups of past events was caused by running out of memory on this tablet computer, now I've added 128Gb card, I now have 98% memory free, so here goes with ...

Further thoughts.
As I'm nearing the end of the rebuild except for painting / filling / sanding / painting / filling / sanding /

A little more of my design thinking.

If you've seen the International 2.4mR https://heikkae.kuvat.fi/kuvat/Purje...a/Friday+14.7/
and
the Illusion class
https://www.facebook.com/Illusion-Class-248612339896/

That was the basic philosophy on how I'll sit and control the boat. But I wanted something little bigger and to accomodate SWMBO in tandem as well, so instead of the 12ft for the illusion or around 14ft for the 2.4mR I've gone for 16ft ish or the design was to be two lengths of ply long. I didn't want the pregnant whale shape of the above two classes.

I spent many hours playing with shapes and drawings looking at the central cross section from a 3 ft nearly flat bottom with a sharp bend to the bilge, to a complete semi circle section. Eventually I settled on a 1 foot flat then 18 inch radius curve then a 9 inch vertical planked hull sides.. The shape of the hull also altered the overall weight of the boat each time as well, and I definitely wanted a keel boat not a ballasted dinghy.
Going wider also increases broads Tax, 18inches wider means £26 more a year...

Topping the hull a 1ft wide side deck with a slight slope up to a 3 inch high cockpit combing.. The comparatively wide side decks meaning she should take a near 90degree knock down without taking water on board.
In the foredeck a hatch to allow for a tabernacle and counter ballanced mast.

My eventual design comes out at 350kg+ me+ SWMBO, against 2.4mR of 260kg + crew or an Illusion of 160kg of lead+ boat + crew. Going up a bit, I currently sail a Yeoman in the winter, that's 20ft and weighs 750Kg ish..

As it is SWMBO is no longer able to sail, So I'm able to up the ballast..and turn it into a single hander..

Draft
There is no ifs or buts about this, maximum draft stays at 3 ft, I sail on the broads and anymore would be extremely limiting. As it is The first sailing on Black Horse broad each year leaves a brown trail of mud by all the other boats in the club..
A picture taken from the stern, inside the hull, the left bit of the picture is blocked by the rudder case.
IMG_20190901_091231.jpg

[The Q]

We are now up to September Last Year..

Well today's work was originally going to be cutting the keel to shape. But then realized that can be done anytime, while hull work requires good weather..
While uncovering the boat I managed to cut open my thumb on a old rivet on the boom not a good start..

The first thing was to lower the mast which had been left up since last week., I then measured up for the main halyard sheave and pin with some calipers. It's remarkably small.. 19mm with a 3mm pin. I'm going internet searching to look for a replacement shortly.
It took nearly an hour and a half before I got going..


So the grinder ( and drill With flap wheel ) was employed cutting and grinding the rudder case and the aft compartment and generally smoothing things. .
After three or so hours the grinder slipped from my grasp and eat it's own cable. The RCD and fuse did their stuff, I spent the next hour stripping the grinder and replacing the cable.. Once tested it was back to work, after a while I needed to change the disk.. It was jammed, bent the special spanner, so was the end of that for the day. A new spanner stronger has been ordered.


A final Bit of work was filing the old rivets on the boom...

The picture of the day, the Jib Club Vang propped up by a brick as it in its raw state today..

IMG_20190915_132205_1_compress51.thumb.jpg.20420a937c5116840d7150fd360fed02.jpg

[skuthorp]

You, and the boat seem to have an interesting if interrupted life, but she seems in the final stretch now.

[The Q]

Yes, hopefully she's not far from finished, The target Now is the end of March next year, the Start of Next years summer sailing season.

Interruptions have always been my life but I'm used to it, Granddad, Dad (and uncles) , me and probably generations before are Ex military.
I've moved many times,
Cyprus 2 places,
Wiltshire,
Somerset 2 places a total of places 4 times,
Norfolk 2 places a total of 4 times,
Lincolnshire twice at 2 places
The Outer Hebrides twice,
Inverness,
Northumberland,
Yorkshire (near Scarborough)
Buckinghamshire (Milton Keynes) twice one of them in Bletchley park.
West Lothian,
The Falklands (Twice as a civilian!!)
Saudi 2 places

Then working a week or two at a time about 10 places visited several times a year, from St Andrews to Salisbury. for 6 years.
Where I am now I'm on my 3rd Job but haven't moved for about 20 years, it's the most settled I've ever been...

[The Q]

January


I'd been calculating keel size and weight.. Excel helps a lot!!
it comes out as about 150KG, so when the power failed I went on the great lead hunt. I've been accumulating lead for many years, knowing I'd need it. So it turns out I've got 116Kg of lead sheet and 119Kg of odd shapes, no doubt a few pounds will be wastage once I start molding. No I've never been on a church roof!!

Originally I was going to use a steel framed T , the top if the T being where keel meets the hull. with ballast bolted on the sides.

Then I read this.. https://www.storerboatplans.com/boat...n-keel-design/

So that is how I built the keel

The maximum keel depth is 3ft, there is no question about that, as it is the boat I sail now, also of 3ft draft, touches bottom occasionally when approaching river banks before tacking and leaves a brown mud trail when we start sailing each season on Black Horse broad...

I've chosen a NACA0012 keel shape which just gives room for the keel bolts, while remaining fairly slim so as not to give too much drag..

During my research I came across the use of a dillet, what's that? its a protrusion of the keel forward along the bottom of the hull, it reduces vortexes. this may help you.. http://www.proboat-digital.com/proboat/200506/

So I've incorporated that into the keel shape as well


So the lead lump is 6 inches high, above that is 2ft of keel, a span 30 inches wide at the top and 22 inches at the bottom. Through which 7, 1/2 inch keel boats will be fed. (Only 5 all the way through)

I made shape a male mold from extruded polystyrene, the shape is just a thickened profile of the main keel out to 6 inches wide which turned out to be about a NACA 0015 ish aero foil to give enough volume to get the lead in, but still remain the same length as the bottom of the keel.

The male mould then had 3 layers of glass fibre covering it but not the top..

[The Q]

The next three months were spent grinding cutting and removing various bits of wood from the inside of the boat, especially around the rudder box as she's going to a fixed rudder instead of an internat cassette system. much effort went into reducing the weight of the boat..

The Christmas New Year break allowed more work to be done on the boat, but not as much as I would have liked ..
More grinding /sanding of the internals, plus 16 2.5 inch holes were cut into the tabernackle.
From that I'm now suffering, as to do it, I was lying in the boat across three frames, arms above my head , squeezing a drill with holesaw into the small space. That isn't quite finished yet as they need sanding and the bottom pair of holes need squaring off a bit to give access to the mast step adjustment pins.

I was doing a good imitation of a snow man each of the two days of sanding. Full gloves, overalls, respirator, goggles and hat were worn!! the boat has been hoovered out , which took several cleanings of the filters the dust was that light it wasn't settling in the bin..

Also two days were spent sewing, the Kestral secondhand jib I bought, needed six inches cut off the luff at the bottom, going up to no removal at the peak. This was done some time ago and it was pinned up at the time.

The orginal jib was only seamed up to the first panel join, above that it was a bare cut edge, it didn't appear to be heat sealed, So I've done the same.
The old corner reinforcing was unstitched off the piece that had been cut off, and sewn back on the jib.
Then instead of buying a hole punch and cringle insertion tools, I had some spare webbing so I've sewn on two loops .. Sewing through 5 layers of sailcloth and 4 of webbing where they meet at the bottom corner was difficult and definately required the use of an Awl first..
This sail is only temporary, and will be used for the sea trials inland waterway trials, and possibly the first season while the basic setting up is done.
By coincidence this sail was originally made by a partnership that used to be about 100 miles away, one of those partners now lives about 5 miles from my house on the way to the sailing club. He may well get the commission for the new sails.

[The Q]

I forgot to mention, that come January, there were a succession of gales, we had to remove the cover of the marquee, wrap the boat in plastic and that was that Till mid April.

I spent hours and hours reading up on keels, particularly keel bulbs, many learned articles, loosing me in the maths. But eventually they all said the longer the aerofoil the better, but a bulb was there to carry weight for a reduction in draft.
So that's why I settled for just a thickening of the keel aerofoil to get the lead in.. I don't have the hours of computer and tank testing to do anything else..

So I retired the the garage workshop to build the wooden stub keel 2ft deep, and a span of 30 inches, to the design used by Storer. Using a ply skin, as he say provides a nice fair surface, the fun being getting the the leading and trailing edges fair.
Through keel bolts, at the moment 1 Metre long, were fed through the assembly during construction, there are nuts and washes each side of each horizontal beam, so the loading is spread through out and they were an handy clamp during gluing.

The keel was glued with polyurethane glue, the vacant spaces inside were filled with a closed cell polyurethane foam sheeting .

We get pre cut 3ft by 3ft polyurethane sheets at work for packing electronic equipment , But there are push out sections of about a foot square, which normally go in the recycling bin. I took a smaller bit home just to check, put it in a bucket of water for a week with a brick on it.. I took the brick off, and it immediately floated to the surface, and a squeeze revealed no water take up.. I've now been collecting these sheets for some time, they will be bagged and secured inside for buoyancy.

Having scraped all the foam from inside the fibreglass, it was placed over the end of the keel bolts they were marked up and the holes drilled. A piece of lead was cut to size and inserted into the base of the fibreglass shape covering the holes.
Then the lead was poured in, in 3 kg lumps at a time. So the lead is not one homogeneous mass, but will be held together by the fibreglass.

Many pourings later and the shape was filled to the top and weighed.... 150Kg..

Then I rolled the lump over to drill the holes through. That was fun, you had to go slowly repeatedly removing the drill to remove swarf, with little pressure plenty of oil. I found a wood drill bit worked best. Too fast and the drill bit melted itself in and broke, that required drilling around with a small bit to extract the pieces. Luckily it was an undersized pilot hole I was drilling at the time...

The lump was then offered up and gently tightened up to the keel wooden stub, and there it sits. April came, the weather improved, the cover went on the marquee, so I've been working on the hull.. Which will be the next installment along with a picture of the Keel, if I can find it..

[The Q]

IMG_20200408_133051_1.jpgwell I finally found the picture of the wooden part of the keel for your delectation .
Another thing I did while we were hiding from gales was play with various sailing boat metrics calculators, that came up. With..
LOA = 16ft
LWL = 16ft
Beam = 4ft
Displacement = 1100lbs
Ballast = 385lbs
Sail Area =130sqft

Which gives.

SA/Disp = 19.5 12 is regarded as low, >20 Generous,
Disp / LWL = 122.1 <100 ultra light < 140 Light< 175 Medium
Max hull Speed= 5.4 kts
Motion = 15.7
Ballast / disp = 35 33 = average 40 = stiff
Capsize resistance = 1.5 < anything less than 2 is good..

A few more words on that keel. Design.

Much further research was done into fixed keels, I happend into a couple of articles by Eric Sponberg and David Vacanti. They talk about the interface of the Keel root with the hull amongst other things.

The water is happily with it's existance when along comes a boat first hitting it with the hull then the leading edge of the keel, at the interface of the keel / Hull the water responds by going into horseshoe vortex around the front of the keel and spiralling along either side. This effectively shortens the draft of the keel by making the top bit ineffective.

They report that they with others, after much tank testing came up with a solution, extend the top of the hydrodynamic shape of the keel forward at the top gently sloping back to the keel. This "ramp" ( called a Dillet) allows the water to split gently and flow around the keel..

It's not needed on fast dinghies or those fast yachts with a torpeedo on a stick for a keel, as their excess power to weight ratio overcomes the horseshoe effect. But for a slower shallow draft displacement boat like mine it's important..

https://www.ericwsponberg.com/wp-con...der-design.pdf

Futher to that a beaver tail keel or any other torpedo shape shortens the effective keel span as well , so the Beaver tail L keel shape has gone from the plans, to be replaced by a Naca shaped, long horizontally, lump of lead .

[andrelvas]

This is very inspiring. I an thinking about building in concrete my keel, its an sztrandek 495. Your project is looking sharp! Congrats sir!

[The Q]

Thanks, I'd recommend you start collecting lead, as I did over some years, it's a much better weight to size ratio than concrete. Even if you only get enough to include in the concrete it will reduce the volume a lot..

A friend once ballasted a 10M yacht just with recovered wheel weights he scrounged from garages..

I've just looked at your build page it looks a modern interpretation of the type of boat I had in the past, a 5.18M Lysander.

[andrelvas]

Thanks, I'd recommend you start collecting lead, as I did over some years, it's a much better weight to size ratio than concrete. Even if you only get enough to include in the concrete it will reduce the volume a lot..

A friend once ballasted a 10M yacht just with recovered wheel weights he scrounged from garages..

I've just looked at your build page it looks a modern interpretation of the type of boat I had in the past, a 5.18M Lysander.

Took a look at this boat, it looks amazing! The keel was made of what? Did you build yours? Its really very similar to Sztrandek, and to be sincere, i would rather Lysanders desing! lol!

Best regards

[The Q]

Took a look at this boat, it looks amazing! The keel was made of what? Did you build yours? Its really very similar to Sztrandek, and to be sincere, i would rather Lysanders desing! lol!

Best regards

The Standard Keels are welded Steel plate, just a T shape, though a curved top to the keel to match the hull, mine had additional steel plates bolted to the sides to increase their ballast. People have had fin keels and drop keels designed for the Lysander, but they are really meant as a bilge keel boat.

Sadly I didn't build mine, as at the time I bought her, I was living in the Outer Hebridies, in Military accommodation. No facilities available, and the transport costs for materials to the Hebridies are expensive.

[The Q]

Well Doris has spoken,
Outdoor sports allowed from March 29th, the rule of six should go May 17th, So all is Go for the 60th 3 Rivers Race on Jun 5/6th 2021 (unless Doris Changes his mind).

Entry Forms on www.3rr.uk

100-150 boats, 50 miles to be sailed on Norfolk Broads, under 3 bridges requiring the dropping of the mast 4 times, the record about 8 hours(Thames A rater) the worst.. only 13 boats finished.

Reckoned to be the toughest Inland waterways event in Europe, the 3 toughest mass participation event in the UK.

As an aside to this Racing at Horning Sailing club was due to Start 28th March.
But now of course can't start in a limited fashion until April 4th on Black Horse Broad and then programmed Down river to Acle or Thurne on the 5th

[The Q]

The boat is named after Baron Blue Moon, one of our rough collies of the time. As such SWMBO has made little Baron who will ride on the back of the boat.
Here's a picture of him, as a trial, on his blank plinth, on the back of the boat..
IMG_20200704_093016.jpg

[The Q]

And so, Since April I realised I need to get the hull done before I have to take the covers off of the marquee for the winter again.

So the deck and stern were sanded clean of anything previously on them, some minor repairs have been made to the deck.

The stern has had 5 coats of La Tonkinois varnish applied,
it now awaits me marking up for her name, Blue Moon.
Beneath that ......................................... القمر ال,أزرق .......which is Moon Blue in Arabic, since she was originally built in Saudi.
Beneath that ............................................ 1260A, ......... which is her registration Number required for the Norfolk Broads.
Once that's painted up there will be a couple of more coats of Varnish applied.

The Deck has had 3 coats of varnish, then I realised I'd better finish the cockpit combing and a quarter circle fillet between the combing and deck, before I finish the rest of the varnish work.. So they were bonded on last weekend, Blue Moon looks like a porcupine at the moment with all the clamps sticking up and out..

Ah... just remembered I spent some time measuring and sitting in the cockpit, for two internal stainless cross tubes, that were inserted through the combing. The aft one was easy that's immediately beneath the boom mainsheet fitting, and is for the boat mainsheet acting as the traveller, it turned out to be 4 inches forward of that bulkhead.

The front one also has a vertical in the middle from the hog to the cross tube. There will be a wooden "block" shaped to fit over the junction.
That will also be the mounting for some controls.. Main Inhaul , outhaul, Cuningham.
The main halyards are at the base of the mast.
The port and starboard jib sheets will be on the cockpit combing insides as will be the jib furler controls.
The mainsheet just drops down from the boom, in front of the helm

Beneath the block is the whipstaff / tiller, so the handle faces the helm sat in the chair, but it will tilt upwards for the helm to get out and also give me some steering if the helm is sat on a side deck coming into a staithe.
It was the tiller position that caused me problems, too long and it hit the sides of the cockpit, to short and there won't be enough leverage on the rudder. I settled of 17 inches aft of the forward bulkhead giving a tiller length of about 12-14 inches. The Position of the cross tube and vertical also allows the vang to come down in front of it with some clearance.


The top foot ish of the hull has been sanded to a certain extent, then dints, paint losses etc were filled and sanded.
a coat of paint, then more sanding and filling, then a coat of paint again.. I tried to mix a white with a hint of blue colour, however it came out baby blue when dried on the hull, not what I wanted at all. So the amount of white in the mix was doubled , stirred in, and has been left in the tin for the paints to really mix. There will be another sand of the hull, and stir before the paint is used next weekend.

In the odd few minutes I've sanded and varnished the plinth for Little Blue Moon, made a number plate board to put the front registration numbers on.. It's quite common for a broads boat to hang a small board for the registration number from the Bowsprit, so I've made one from a piece of not quite Mahogany, it's sanded, but needs a couple of holes drilling, then Needs Varnishing, then the numbers stuck on before it hangs beneath the forward extension of the jib club .

Right... You are now just about up to date, Some pictures will appear, hopefully this evening, of the state of play immediately before the cockpit combing was fitted. Photos are taken at the start of play each time, I've no wish to get the tablet computer camera coated in goo by not having clean hands at the end of a working day.

After the next pictures it should just be weekly progress updates..

[The Q]

No new pictures .. I forgot, only had Sunday to work on the boat, and the first thing I did was to complete the shaping of the corner fillets to the cockpit combing, then glue on another bit. I then intended sanding the hull prior to the next coat .. but the vibration of the sander caused the clamps on the corner fillet to fall off..
So I gave up that Idea and went out to the BBQ area and cleaned the tiles I laid Saturday then put a second coat of paint on the associated woodwork..

[AndanteEd]

Ah, thanks for the explanation, I think I've got it now...

Greatly looking forward to seeing the finished product.

[The Q]

Everything was glued solidly, by this weekend,
Deck, cockpit combing, and hull sanded.

I varnished the cockpit combing, but I'm not happy with it. It will need another sanding then dyeing to tone the "whiteness" down, the mouldings I used, are just too bright.

The hull was painted with the new mix, it looks OK wet, I'll see what it looks like next weekend when fully dry, I think it will need one more coat anyway..

The deck was varnished OK.

Attempts to pencil on the name on the stern were a failure, the tape I was using looped round and attached itself to another bit of the stencil I'd made and in trying to remove it it was destroyed... Another (two ) copies of the name will be printed out today..

[Rich Jones]

A fascinating journey!

[The Q]

No boat work will happen this weekend, we're in a major storm 70mph + winds, we've more damage than in any time in the last 20years.. Power has been off several times for extended periods. A month's rain in 24 hours.

The marquee has been damaged, recovery of that and trying to get some sort of cover over the boat will occur later wind permitting.
We have several branches of oak tree on the powerline to next door which has dropped to almost ground level luckily it was replaced a couple of years ago with insulated triple twisted cable and hasn't broken. Although their telephone cable has.

We've lost a couple of leading edge clay tiles off the leading edge of the roof, that has taken the guttering off the front of the house.
The power has tripped and restored twice in the typing of this.

A couple of trees are down in the garden, I'll check for further damage when we get some daylight.

Off to make breakfast while we still have power..