Melitele - my Campion Apple 16 Cutter

[jamieduff1981]

I've also started on the ballast tank. The top of the tank needs trimmed shorter at the forward end, and it will need to be split down the middle to allow it to be fitted after the daggerboard case is in but I found it easier to make it in one piece initially.











This sticky mess is going to be the mast step once the epoxy has cured and I've trimmed it to final dimensions.

[jamieduff1981]

The abomination in the previous post became safe to handle without getting covered in wet epoxy.


Tonight, I carefully sneaked up on it first finding some clean square edges amongst the mess, then triple checking my measurements and angles. The hull bottom is obviously changing shape in various ways along its length.





It turned out neat enough by being patient and taking it slowing and steadily.








Perhaps none could be so surprised as I that I appear to have got the measurements, angles and the actual woodwork right because it actually fits properly where it's supposed to go. The plans call for a belt and braces glue and screw fitting - the latter being right through the bottom hull planks.

[dbp1]

Looking good!

You may want some drainage holes out of the bottom of the mast step (can't see any from the photos)... seems like a likely place for water to accumulate unseen!

[jamieduff1981]

That's probably a good call, and easily dealt with too since it's not permanently fitted yet. I'll thin some epoxy a touch with acetone and make sure the drain holes are thoroughly soaked. The inside of the box there is fully epoxy coated so it wont rot, but yeah, any water in it can't get out except by evaporation.

[biglad]

On my CY I used some 8mm copper pipe to line the hole through the step with. Well abraded, epoxy stuck fine.

[jamieduff1981]

I've added a short 8mm OD x 6mm ID stainless steel tube to the stem where the bobstay will fasten via a through-bolt. The bobstay will attach to the bowsprit. I used some of the excess tube to make a couple of drains for the mast step, which are drilled in at angles from the corners of the box where water may otherwise collect.


I wanted to do it, so I've inverted the boat again and added the false keel and skeg. These have been filleted with thickened epoxy. There are two more strakes to go on either side of the daggerboard case, and there are two blocks to go on the transom which mount the rudder hinges. Besides that, there are not many more bits to be added outside of the hull. Plenty more work inside, of course, plus the decking and, obviously the rig!

[jamieduff1981]

I've got that skeg and false keel faired in better now, then my daughter made my wife ill, who in turn made me ill. On the mend now, so hopefully there will be progress again soon.

[jamieduff1981]

I've made some progress the last two days.


First of all, the interior of the boat is now fibreglassed. It's a messy job and involves very floppy fabric, so it's something I'd been putting off although I wanted it out of the way before moving on further with the internal bits and pieces.


Fibreglass is optional on the Campion Apple design. You do have to tape the seams, but actual glassing is discretionary. It's popular to glass the outside for abrasion resistance. It's going to be scraped on things - that's just a fact - so fibreglass on the outside helps protect the wood. It's often thought that fibreglassing the outside adds strength to the boat, which is partially true but is only really relevant if the plywood is whacked from the inside e.g. a heavy adult thumping down trying to avoid falling over. If we want to improve the hull's resistance to being punctured or stove in by hitting a stone for instance, the plywood will almost always fracture on the inside as the inner plies fail under tensile load. Therefore to improve puncture resistance from striking something outside the boat, it's actually the inside surface you need to fibreglass. So I have done both inside and outside. FYI, with the pound slumped against the US dollar, a 6kg pack of West Systems 105/205 or 206 epoxy is now up to £148 once the VAT is added...


Anyway, with the inside glassed, I was able to glue in the daggerboard case at last.





I left the epoxy fillets on the inside overnight to cure, then flipped the hull upside down on the grass to fair the case into the hull before squeezing epoxy thickened with milled fibres again into any gaps remaining.








That had all day to cure and last night my daughter came to help me get the trolley back under the boat. Before doing that though, I wanted to build her confidence a bit. She was there at the beginning helping drill holes and fish tie-wraps through while I held big long wobbly plywood boards in place. Both she and her younger sister have had an impression that this thing is very flimsy, since it definitely was at the beginning. To show her how robust it was now it was fully glassed inside and out and had the gunwales on, I encouraged her to jump up and down in it. She's a careful child and not one to wreck everything they touch. Neither of my daughters break things. She's also been a ballet dancer for the last 7 years so even her jumping is lightly landing on the balls of her feet rather than crashing down on heels. The way I look at this is that a) if I didn't have total confidence in what I've built I wouldn't have told her to jump in it and b) if somehow I got that totally wrong and a small-for-her-age lightly-footed kid went through the bottom of it, then I don't want to go out on the water in it!





With the hull now approved by the daughter as adequate (to quote her "Ok, I'll come sailing, but I still don't really want to help much with the building") I can start filling in the missing frames inside the cockpit area. Sometimes it's easier to just cheat, and I like easy, so I made more templates for the frames from wooden spatulas tacked together with superglue.

[jamieduff1981]

The frames I'm adding now will be in storage areas under the thwarts which I plan to hinge and make splash-proof with rubber strip seals. To make these spaces useful, the intermediate frames here are hollowed out. Strip wood will be added for gluing surface area where appropriate in due course.








The ballast tank still needs sides as well as coated fully with epoxy on the inside to protect the wood from rot, but just in case I forget I cut out the holes to help them flood and drain better. There are mouseholes at the bottom but I'll add some vent holes to let the air out at the tops of these frames after the gluing surface area strips are in place.





Obviously I'm not using grotty old 2x4s for thwarts, but these are actually straight so I've used them to help mock up the interior.

[dbp1]

Looking nice! Jump test sounds fun. My son asks to go out to sit in the boat often, but he’s just over two, so not up to helping yet

Do you know how much weight the ballast tanks are going to add?

[Benny]

Just come across this thread, looking good ��

[jamieduff1981]

Looking nice! Jump test sounds fun. My son asks to go out to sit in the boat often, but he’s just over two, so not up to helping yet

Do you know how much weight the ballast tanks are going to add?

Hi Daniel, if I've got my dimensions right, the tank should hold a maximum of 125 litres of water which obviously is 125kg for fresh water, fractionally less for salt water and equivalent to about 275lbs.

Just come across this thread, looking good ��

Thank you very much

[WI-Tom]

Hi Daniel, if I've got my dimensions right, the tank should hold a maximum of 125 litres of water which obviously is 125kg for fresh water, fractionally less for salt water and equivalent to about 275lbs.

Salt water weighs more than fresh water, not less. About 1.025 kg/liter compared to 1 kg/liter for fresh.

Tom

[jamieduff1981]

Salt water weighs more than fresh water, not less. About 1.025 kg/liter compared to 1 kg/liter for fresh.

Tom

Yes of course - more buoyancy Oops!

[biglad]

Looks good Jamie- coming on nicely.
I totally get the advantage of water ballast- What about using part lead and part water? The aft section of the tank could have a hatch in it and be left as buoyancy or storage.

[jamieduff1981]

I have an update


The really short version would be "I've been working with sticks again" but it's actually been a good 6 hours work milling down softwood (and replacing the blunt knives on my planer thicknesser), clamping things up, marking out lines and measurements, cutting notches out of all the frames etc but I feel like I've made some worthwhile progress even if it doesn't look like much.




I deliberated/procrastinated over these as they need bevelled one way or another. I decided to fit them as square sections and bevel the top off horizontal. I haven't done the last part yet...



Some time later I'd cut out notches in each of the frames for a 20mm x 20mm strip along the outboard edge to support the thwarts and a 30mm x 20mm strip along the inside edge. Likewise, a 20mm x 20mm strip was laid in along the edges of the ballast tank. None of these parts are glued in yet, and the outboard strip is only very approximately clamped so the chasms visible will go when it's time to fit them permanently.





I need to box in the ballast tank but everything was moving just a little too much for my liking.





Crossing fingers that I remembered the essentials (actually I can still chain drill and rasp out anything I might have forgotten) I decided to just go for it and have glued in all the frames properly. Once this has cured I can measure up the gaps between to close in the ballast tank and the thwarts which are going to have dry(relatively) storage underneath them.

[jamieduff1981]

Our 17th wedding anniversary happened the other day, and as a surprise gift my wife had these made for me







Thanks for looking in!

[dbp1]

Looking very nice -- and wonderful gift!

Are you planning on putting in a rowing thwart? The side thwart (framing) looks nice -- running all the way to the forward bulkhead should give plenty of room for seating.

[jamieduff1981]

Hi Daniel,

Thanks for looking in again. About the rowing thwart - I know I definitely don't want one truncating the cockpit with this layout but I'd equally like to able to row it. I'll almost certainly give myself the option to have a sculling oar over the transom, but I have been thinking seriously about making a detachable rowing thwart that I can peg in over the back end of the daggerboard case and stowed in one of the many compartments I'm including when not in use. Any thoughts on that? Is it a terrible idea?

[dbp1]

Hi Daniel,

Thanks for looking in again. About the rowing thwart - I know I definitely don't want one truncating the cockpit with this layout but I'd equally like to able to row it. I'll almost certainly give myself the option to have a sculling oar over the transom, but I have been thinking seriously about making a detachable rowing thwart that I can peg in over the back end of the daggerboard case and stowed in one of the many compartments I'm including when not in use. Any thoughts on that? Is it a terrible idea?

It sounds like a nice idea. Are the side thwart higher than the centercase? (hard to see). If they are, you could add a rail on the inboard edge, set down just a little, and have the thwart board rest on that. When the board is out of the way, they would be pretty innocuous. One nice thing about that is since the thwarts run parallel, you could move the thwart forward or backward to trim (i.e., if you passengers in the stern, you probably want to be rowing sitting on top of the daggerboard case, but on your own, probably want to be seated at the rear). You could add some holes or notches in the rail and match that in the thwart so it doesn't slide around -- then the only question is where to rest your feet, but there are lots of solutions (simpler or more complex) for that, including doing nothing at all!

[jamieduff1981]

I was about to just write "Yes" to your question about the thwart height relative to the daggerboard case, then had a moment of humility and decided to go and actually check



Fortunately my dimensions are within tolerance, at least for me. The supports for the thwarts are a 6mm plywood shim lower than the top of the case That should be workable, even if I make the thwarts from iroko planks instead; something I haven't quite decided upon. I've realized I've only got one sheet of 6mm plywood left which isn't the end of the world, but delivery costs would be disproportionately high to a Scotsman for just one extra sheet. I did, luckily, screw up my timber order though and have two full length rough sawn iroko boards left unused. I could use them for the half decks and thwarts which would be nice.

[John Meachen]

Our 17th wedding anniversary happened the other day, and as a surprise gift my wife had these made for me







Thanks for looking in!

You married well!

[jamieduff1981]

You married well!

Thank you, and I quite agree. I have a wonderful wife who is truly my best friend and who is very supportive of all the things I want or need to do.


Today I made the sides of the ballast tanks and glued them in.

[WI-Tom]

Our 17th wedding anniversary happened the other day, and as a surprise gift my wife had these made for me







Thanks for looking in!

Well, THAT is cool! Not many people can claim to sail a 16' cutter, much less one they built themselves. Can't wait to see more.

I think a removable rowing thwart is well worth the trouble. Unless you're a good sculler--I've never tried it myself, but it looks cool.

Tom

[Powerwagon]

Thank you for sharing your build. It’s a great looking little vessel!

[jamieduff1981]

Thank you for sharing your build. It’s a great looking little vessel!

Thanks for looking in!

The fill/drain plug is fitted, the cutout for the watertight access panel is done and doubler fitted, the tank has been coated in epoxy on all as-yet unprotected wooden surfaces and the top has been glued on.

[dbp1]

Thanks for looking in!

The fill/drain plug is fitted, the cutout for the watertight access panel is done and doubler fitted, the tank has been coated in epoxy on all as-yet unprotected wooden surfaces and the top has been glued on.

Are you planning on putting a pump to empty the tank when on the water? Is the height of the tank such that it’ll fill completely from just the drain plug, or will you have to add some from up top?

[jamieduff1981]

Are you planning on putting a pump to empty the tank when on the water? Is the height of the tank such that it’ll fill completely from just the drain plug, or will you have to add some from up top?

Hi,

I am planning on fitting a battery in one of these compartments and that will allow me to use a 12v bilge pump. I was going to buy one of those which looks like a singer's microphone but upside down where the foamy mic bit is the slatted intake, the hand grip is still the handgrip and where the cable would come out is a hose a few feet long. I could use that either to empty the tank through the access hatch if I'm pulling up on a beach, or empty the boat out if I should capsize

Tom Dunderdale's notes for the cutter version say that if you open up the drain plug on the bottom when afloat it will mostly fill the tank but the boat will still float higher than the top of the tank and that it will need to be topped off with a bucket. In that regard I could use the same hand held bilge pump over the side and direct the hose into the tank. He also says you should only need the ballast tank full when sailing alone / lightly loaded. I'll have to experiment a bit I think!

About the tank though - I goofed. I didn't try the tank fill test as it became obvious straight away that I'd missed a seam on top, so today between other household responsibilities which have dominated, I faffed about for a while squeezing glue into the bit I'd missed and filleted it from the inside with my arm inside the access hatch. I did some power sanding of the lower rubbing strips too. They've needed attention for weeks now but it's a very messy job so I moved it outside to do it.


Today's photo shows no obvious progress and a rather dirty Jag that needs a good clean. It's been outside for the past few days since the weather has been nice, but it's ended up covered in crap anyway and may as well have stayed in the big shed where I was industriously hacking marine ply, iroko and softwoods to pieces inside. It wouldn't have ended up much dustier!

[jamieduff1981]

I cut out the vertical bulkheads under the thwarts which will box in the lockers. They haven't been glued in yet.








I also cut the bevel on the stringers which will support each thwart. My more experienced betters will notice that I failed to allow for this properly when I cut the notches in the frames, and because of this I'll need to add little wedges to push the stringer outboard against the hull properly.

[dbp1]

Looking good!

So -- again re: ballast tank -- so you aren't going to have any thru-hulls? Just fill & empty from the outside through the inspection port?

Side benches are coming together! It looks like there is plenty of pressure from the frames, but something that I did was use screws (drywall screws through pads of plywood) from the outside to pull the stringers out against the hull. Obviously it leaves screw holes to fill, but assuming you aren't trying to finish it bright, doesn't really matter.

[jamieduff1981]

Hi Daniel,

There's a small fill-drain plug in the bottom which I can access through the access hatch. Tom Dunderdale describes a bung in the Cutter construction notes file or self bailers as the builder wishes. A bung would be just as easy but these little screw-in plugs (sold for kayaks) looked like they'd do the job and there's a self-retainer on the plug and a little hole in the part you grip so I can tie a lanyard through it so it can't slip out of cold wet hands and disappear off into the ballast tank - which is exactly the sort of thing I could see myself doing.

[dbp1]

Hi Daniel,

There's a small fill-drain plug in the bottom which I can access through the access hatch. Tom Dunderdale describes a bung in the Cutter construction notes file or self bailers as the builder wishes. A bung would be just as easy but these little screw-in plugs (sold for kayaks) looked like they'd do the job and there's a self-retainer on the plug and a little hole in the part you grip so I can tie a lanyard through it so it can't slip out of cold wet hands and disappear off into the ballast tank - which is exactly the sort of thing I could see myself doing.

Thanks for the details!

I'm pretty sure at this point I'm going to add water ballast to my Apple. I thought that I'd be happy putting in and removing lead bars, but they are annoying, and that's without even figuring out good attachment for them (and, I'd need many more than the two that I have now to make it count). I already have a flat sole at the level of chine 2, so the space that the tanks take up is wasted _anyway_.

I'm planning on using bailers to do the bulk of the work (reversed to fill, normal to drain), with a bucket to top off as needed. We'll see how it goes!

[jamieduff1981]

Tangentially related is that I've acquired a decent combination road trailer and launching dolly. It appeared on Facebook market place 3 hours away. The seller was very nice and offered to arrange a family visit to a relative part-way and towed it there to meet me. I'm between cars with a towbar at the moment so my dad loaned me his car to collect it.





It's been a while since I've towed anything but it comes back quickly enough. We made the trip back without event and tried the boat on. As expected, the length suits the Campion Apple 16 well, and also as expected I have some cutting and welding to customise the hull supports to the boat. The designer recommends longer boards with carpet on top under the chines to support the hull over a larger area.

[jamieduff1981]

I'm ashamed to say I haven't touched the boat since my wife was in hospital in July. I've actually done nothing at all other than work and tile a friend's bathroom since summer - I just haven't had, well, I'm not sure what.

Anyway. I had had to defer a lot of leave from work and this meant I finished up on the 19th December. It's taken until yesterday to feel sufficiently motivated to do something practical, although my wife and I have booked ourselves onto a sail making course in Orkney this coming April which is a formal course with an online learning element to do before the practical week there in person. There will be 8 people on the course including us, and we're going to be constructing my two headsails there as the subject. The teacher says that providing I am happy with the odd wonky seam they will be perfectly serviceable, and it'll cost only the materials - about £250. I'm happy with that (and if I'm really not happy to take them I don't have to).

I have started the online learning on Boxing Day, because I really don't enjoy Christmas/New Year and I wanted to do something useful. I've been learning how to calculate my Centre(s) of Lateral Effort and, approximately, Resistance. The designer of the boat obviously already did this but I'm enjoying learning stuff I expect most reading already know.





Practical progress at last though! Yesterday my daughter helped me assess the Douglas Fir I bought some time ago and we were very pleasantly surprised to find it 100mm longer than Melitele's mast. I must have been thinking clearly when I ordered it but since forgot - I had assumed the mast would need scarphed. Happily not. The mast dimensions are 4200mm tall for the keel stepped option and 70mm diameter. There's a taper down to 50 or 55mm along the top 1000 mm. The Fir board was 38~39mm thick, so we sawed it down to two boards 74mm wide. Today she helped me thickness plane them down to 35mm. Melitele has been relegated back to the big unheated shed whence it came as we need the heated garage for some equipment we bought for our business which needs a stable temperature.

All of this has resulted in us gluing Melitele's mast in our living room ��

[dbp1]

I think that these kinds of delays are inevitable in these kind of at-home projects. It's what makes it a hobby rather than a job -- other things can (and will) take priority. The sailwork (and workshop) sounds like it'll be a lot of fun!