Mini Simmons experiment

Sister craft. After a year of on and off work I finally finished my two Mini Simmons twin fins. These boards are both 5'3" by 23 and around 2 7/8 thick. The swallow tail with the marine ply skins was made for the Slinn family and the paulownia board with the athwartship planks and redwood bat tail was made for Eric Rindal. Both of these boards are hollow, all wood and have no outer fiberglass reinforcement - just an oiled finish. The swallow has no glass at all due to the strength of the plywood.   It is also a bit heavier and flatter due to the plywood's weight and desire to stay flat rather than bend in two directions. The bat tail is lighter and curvier. The ship lap planking technique proved super functional in forming compound curves but was insanely labor intensive. Each deck  plank was rabbeted with the router and each lap joint was lined up with a curved rib for addition support and joint water tightness. The bottom planks have no ribs but I did put one layer of 4 oz glass on the inside after planking. Both boards are vented with brass plugs and, despite my best joinery efforts, will likely leak a little. I getting closer but still haven't quite cracked the code for the ultimate wood board - lightweight enough where you'd want to ride it, strong without glass and water tight. Here's a full set of photos.

wing pin single!

Here's board number three. This was supposed to be a 6'7 wingpin single but somehow it grew to 6.9". I experimented with no-glass construction by using marine grade ply for the skins and a bunch of corks to strengthen the inside structure. I almost crushed it vac bagging the top skin on and had to perform some speedy repairs as my glue was setting up. In the end I put in three corks per crossbeam. Its a bit heavier but a lot stronger. The board turned out nearly as light as a fiberglass equivalent. We'll see if it's strong enough. I hand shaped the cedar fin and glued it directly into the board. Still contemplating what oil to use for finishing and my traction options. Here's a link to few more photos.

Ocean Beach short board

Here's board number two. I used a different construction method for this one in hopes of further bringing down the weight. This board is 6'1, 19 1/2, 2 3/8. It should come in around six pounds after a very light glass job. I used 3mm paulownia ply for the skins rather than resawn planks and I hollowed out the rails. Instead of building the inside first and then warping on the rails, this time, I laminated the rails and fit the inside second. Better but not perfect. Here's a link to a photo set.

Hollow Wood Surfboard

Here's a photo set of my latest project - a hollow Paulownia wood surfboard. Its 5.'9" by 20" wide and 2.25" thick. I took initial lines off of a Hayden Shapes Hypto Crypto but ultimately made some changes to the dimensions (some on purpose and some by mistake!) The board is unique in that I used light weight bent struts to support the deck rather than the typical plywood fishbone approach. I also slipped in a light layer of fiberglass under the deck for additional strength and fiberglass tape on the inside seems of the bottom skin. Both top and bottom skins are 1/4 inch so I would have enough material to shape bottom contours. Once glassed this board should still be relatively light. Check out a full photo set here

Fun in Catalina

The Otter is for sale!

After all of the restoration work and new paint job, I'm putting the Otter up for sale. My boat storage plan fell through and the boat is a little too hard to get on top of the car. So I'm looking for a good home for this sweet little boat. Here are some recent photos of the Otter.

Fairy Housing

Maybe someday I'll get back to boat building with kids, but for now its fairy houses! Six fairies will be sleeping in style tonight. I must say that the re-sawn almond firewood made for good roofing material.

Floorboards and Crabs

I made some floorboards out of the old Douglass Fir pola beams from the outrigger canoe that I replaced with the new hollow Sitka Spruce ones. I really just wanted to build something on which to test my old fashioned finishing recipe of pine tar, linseed oil, turpentine and japan drier. It turned out pretty well (and stinky). Last weekend my friend Wen and I took the Otter out for another successful crabbing mission. Our beach launch and landing was quite a bit smoother than last time! Here's a photo set of the floorboards and crabs.

New Decks for the Otter

The old rotten teak decks are gone and the new western red cedar decks are on. I used the off-cuts from the 10'8 cedar longboard I made two years ago. I bedded the decks in 3M 4200 and fastened it down with SS screws. Here are few more photos.

Otter update

My brother and I took out the almost-finished Otter a few weeks ago for opening day of crab season. Luckily there are no photos because our surf launch was far from smooth! Some valuable lessons were learned. All in all we landed our Dungeness limit and had a great feast. The real fun, however, was the midinight crabbing session in the canoe the night before. Four of us paddled from Crissy field under the bridge to Baker Beach and back between 10:00PM and 1:00AM. Very cool experience. Here's a gallery of recent Otter pics.

Progress on the Otter

Gary, Ted and Jonny lent a hand this weekend to bring the Otter back to life in time for the Dungeness Crab season opener in November. After pulling out the old rotten inwales and busted breasthook and transom knees, it was clear that the mahogany outwales were serviceable and actually really nice. So, I decided to "restore" the boat rather than convert it to a work boat. Here are some photos of the progress.

Gaviota Coast Adventure

Bart, Kyle and I just returned home from an amazing three-day surf adventure along the Gaviota Coast. Truly spectacular. We paddled in twelve miles with minimal help from the wind, camped two nights on the boat and and then sailed downwind most of the way home before the wind died. I used the small fortress anchor with success and the new Iakos and Pola supported all three tramps perfectly. I've never slept so well.

15 minutes of fame

Here are the rest of David Fenton's photos from the Sunset Mag photoshoot

Shark Karma

Over the weekend my good friend Marco Seandel caught then released this huge shark from his kayak with a broken rod!

Blasting out of Bolinas

It all fits!

With the new ialkos and pola roughed out I slapped on some sealer and rigged the canoe this weekend in Stinson Beach. It all looked and performed beautifully. I need to make some minor adjustments but nothing major. A keen eye will notice that I've moved away from flexible lashings in favor of stainless steal bolts and 2000lb test webbing. Yikes! It certainly stiffened up the ride. I'm a bit worried about the consequences in the event of a massive load event (i.e. a huge broach or pitch pole). More photos here

Hollow Pola Construction

I made six new Pola. All are hollow and carbon reinforced. The goal is maximum stiffness and minimum weight. The idea is to be able to rig three tramps for sleeping out at anchor. More construction photos here.

Whoops... bought another boat!

Got an outstanding deal on this fiberglass 13'4" Chamberlain Dory Skiff today in Sausalito. Its missing the thwarts and needs some repair to the wood gunwales - both easy jobs. Otherwise, the hull is in great shape. This is a perfect vessel for off-the-beach crabbing and fishing trips.

Iakos set in rough form

The broken wing iako nests nicely with the main iako. I'll probably cut away some of the lower laminates to  lighten the outboard end of the broken wing iako, which has CF cloth between the top two laminates for additional stiffness.

Videos

Check out some videos of the canoe in action here: http://www.youtube.com/user/litterfilms