Boat Plans And Patterns | Shallow minded sailing

Boat Plans And Patterns

The past few days Lillian my daughter and I went out for a few days exploring with our sea dog Bequia on the Hogfish Maximus . The island that we live on is one of 18 in a small bay on the north coast of Eleuthera Island in the Bahamas. From our house we can see about half of these with the farthest one away being 7 miles. All have good anchorages in their lees depending on the wind direction. The best all weather anchorage being the landlocked harbor on Royal Island. The entrance to Royal Island has a small rock island almost in the third middle of the channel. The entrance for deep draft is to the west side of this rock. But when entering the east third looks so logical that lots of competent and lesser seaman think this is the way to go forgoing the pilot books and guides. Unfortunately just under the water in this part is a nice big shoal that has enough keel grooves in that the guest book it must have is in volumes. I love sailing in and out of here when the harbor is full of newbies at anchor on Hogfish Maximus she looks to have a deep draft which most times is drawing a bit over 7 with her board down. We know the bottom by heart so always go in and out the wrong way with all the crowd giving good advice as to the danger ahead via VHF radio . Reading old sailing yarns like Peter Pyes Moonrakers cruises , it is neat to know that he made the mistake and ran Moonraker up on this ledge too. I like diving along its length feeling the limestone ledge, with its multiple colored scrapes along it and think of old Moonraker here in the 40s stuck with no one to see her embarrassment.

I being a very cautious navigator have never run aground, but there has been multiple times when there has not been enough water to go where I am headed. This is only a temporary setback which we are used to being in the mode of calling out water depths in inches . An inch under our bottom is plenty but it can be slow going as the mass of displacement sucks the water away and we kind of inch worm along stopping and filling back in and going and sucking and stopping with a messing dusty underwater wake. This is not running aground its just not having enough water. When we do run out of water its really no big deal as the HFM just sits upright as solid as a concreat parking lot. With a 9 wide bottom you dont  lean her over you just climb down aft into the water hopefully with a Sandy bottom with only your shorts gettin wet. If in mud then its a bit deeper . My usual thing is to wade to the bow squatting  down with my back to the boat grabbing the chine with both hands behind me and lifting a bit. By lifting up just a couple of inches the boat rocks aft and with the added displacement of the stern sections an inch of draft is gotten and so with the 32,000 lb boat now floating I spin her around and push her back into deeper water, something like 28". This is why I say we never run aground. The times we are being inconvenienced by not having enough water to go when and where we want I just blame on the moon as not keeping in sync with us.

Dont ever follow us as we take a lot of short cuts . We have found that in a simple breeze pif the seas are not breaking a bit or the swell is not giving a slight hump then there is enough water for us to go. So on we press but only in daylight and not over coral reefs or steel ship wrecks.

When we are sailing with the daggerboard down fully the HFMs draws 710"s. We have hit many unmarked sunken boats in far off harbors when tacking into them. This usually stops us dead in our tack- tracks... But only for a moment as we quickly let go the floating daggerboard down line and up pops the board and away we go with one of us quickly cranking the board back down. Most times nobody notices us in our impromptu bottom surveying of this new harbor. 

When racing and cutting corners on shoals , cruising and thinking we can make it over some shoal the same drill happens with only a little less glass on the tip of the board, a shagrinned skipper and off we go. That is another reason why we never run aground.

Anchored off of Egg Island in 7 

Looks shallow but at least 7 here

Nothing like clear water

This is actually 4 of water.

Our friends the Underwoods summer camp house on Egg Island

When the tide goes out we would be on the bottom. No big deal if the wind stays this way. If not when the water comes back we would have about a half an hour of bumping before lift off. This we have done with both Hogfishes at least a thousand times. These boats were designed and built for this.

One of many small islands in our bay. Water is 3 deep here now . As they say in the Bahamas  

  " We have lots of water here, its just spread out very thin."

Beach coaming treasure ! A free cleat from a wreck.

It sure is nice having a shoal draft vessel but if your draws a bit more then you will be anchored out a bit farther than us. The fun difference between keel and non keel boats is that when you run aground you are aground, no lifting your skirts and moving on. Sorry

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Boat Plans Aluminum | No water for a bit

Boat Plans Aluminum

When the tide goes out from under your boat you want a nice soft spot for your boat to sit on for the next 10 hours or so. Sand is great, mud is nice but muddy. Round rocks ok , but move the conchs out of the way if you can. Not for the boat but for them as 16 tons is a lot to bear for the duration of the tide.

This is our latest project boat. Its an Irwin 31 built in1968 of solid fiberglass. Nice lines , shallow draft, good sails, 800 hrs on the engine, and bought for less than the price of a used 6 hp outboard. Here she is saving us $ 400.00 on a one day haul out to put in a new stuffing box. Sheer legs made from beach wood and line straps to aft chain plate. She draws 36" . As she sits she is solid as a rock.

This boat will be our Bahamas boat to keep at our place so we will always have a boat to use when here even if we are off somewhere on Hogfish M.

A day at the beach in Abaco at Bill and Leslies on Manjack Cay.

In shallow water so we dont have to use the dinghy. This is Saddle Back Cay in the Exumas. We were caretakers there for 3 years 20 years ago. Have gone up and down on this spot twice a day ....a lot .

Kinda shallow

 

Looks like a big Heron from this angle sitting on brown sand.

Sitting on the beach in cold water to scrub the prop and bottom. 

Nothing like a nice sand beach to let the boat have a rest on. Kinda like looking at a big ole square Elephant Seal here resting from all that time at sea.

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Wooden Boat Plans And Kits | Guest cabin update 1

Wooden Boat Plans And Kits

Ive found that one of the problems with my plan is that I really have no plan other than making the boat look like the picture ( for the most part). It seems that every time I get going on finishing a wood project, I have to stop and attend to a metal project Ive been blowing off. One of my biggest goals has been to build the boat so I can always easily get back to critical systems for future maintenance. Since I dont want to bury some things behind wood work, I wait until Im doing the wood work before I finalize some of the metal work decisions.

The bow thruster resides under the sole of the guest cabin in the bow of the boat. Because of the extreme hull shape in the bow and me wanting to get the most space out of this area, I waited until now to install the bow thruster and finalize how the sole interacts with the bow thruster compartment. Im using a hydraulic thruster ( Key Power Inc. ) and from the start of the build, I knew I wanted the thruster in a water tight compartment so that is what I framed. I cut the hole int the thruster tube to accept the thruster saddle, and once I saw the saddle installed I felt the water tight compartment I had framed was too large for the hydraulic thruster. This are of the boat is where my ballast gets installed so I decided to re work this water tight box and give some of the box area back to its original purpose of holding ballast. I cut the box lid in half, and welded in a bulkhead to create a bow thruster box alongside the ballast box. This ballast compartment is one of seven ballast compartments ( the bow thruster occupies the eight ballast compartment). I have a gut feeling that the boat is going to trim heavy on the port side, so I decided to put the thruster on the port side and re activate the starboard side ballast compartment.

The boat designer calls for about 5200 lbs of ballast ( increased by 900 lbs due to increased fuel tank size). The cubic footage in my seven compartments is more than enough to accommodate all of my ballast.

I welded a tab on to the bow thruster lid and ballast compartment lid so I could bolt on cleats for attachment points for the sole. I also held the hull liner up off of the sole by 1.25" in this area to allow me to remove the sole in this area to access the bow thruster. This was a tricky part of the boat in regard to having a removable sole, but it did work out nicely. Ive been holding all the wood 1/2" off of the sole so I can have a place to tuck the carpet vs having to add base board later.

Ill install the thruster later this summer once Im back into the mechanical systems mode. All the cutting and welding is finished regarding this area so I re painted the compartments and lids before I screwed down the plywood sole.

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Boat Building Plans And Kits | Guest Cabin update 2

Boat Building Plans And Kits

There are a few things that could be changed in the guest cabins wood work; some things that I can change, somethings that are not worth changing. One thing that has bothered me and that I was able to change without too much difficulty was the shape of the lower cubby. Just to keep readers oriented, these cubby bins are under the two lower bunks.

The lower center cubby was the first cubby I built, and I was never happy with how it looked, but I pushed on. I had an idea to give the cubby a cover, and I was intending on the cover dropping in to place and being held fast by a wedge screwed on the back of the cover, hence the shape. The more I looked at it the more it bothered me. The shape was wrong, and the wood grain was running the wrong way. With the shape of the drawers, the race track shaped cubbies, and the trapezoid cubby, the room was beginning to look like a pre-school "guess the shape game".

Changing the shape required building another panel. After consulting with the design team, I fired off a memo to the design team and their response was immediate and firm. The design team felt since the length of the new cubby was shorter than the other two cubbies, the design team insisted that us minions here in the fabricating department should use a coffee can to shape the radius corners vs the five gallon bucket we used for the longer cubby. Not any old coffee can mind you, rather we should use the jumbo size favored by large families and insomniacs.

The cubbies are actually pretty large in regard to how much a person could stow in them. The port and starboard cubbies each have a shelf with a two inch fiddle to help keep things in place, and the space goes back under the bunk a good arms length. The cubby is not as convenient as a drawer, but it was a sensible solution to the space needed. The cubbies were also fast and economical to build, and they look damn good from the view of my well equipped, palatial cabin.

I find it easier to move forward once I get the nagging problems off of my plate.

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Boat Plans Stitch And Glue | Whipray hull 2 but really 1 production skiff

Boat Plans Stitch And Glue

This is the first production Whipray hull # 2 built with the side console and the Yamaha that I asked for. Hull # 1 being the one that I built with the rough deck with the first hull out of the mold. This engine had no where near the power for hole shots and speed that the Mercury 25 had. Of all the Mercury engines the 25, 40 and 60 were the best. But! Sheesh could they be a pain in the butt to start at times. I always cringed when doing a test ride with them as it could sometimes take a bit to get one going. I have in my dighys always used Yamaha 15 two strokes which always start on the first pull. By the time I have around 3,000 plus hours on them I give to a friend and get a new one.
In this picture I am poling Rachel around in the new skiff with Flips push pole that has a natural wood crook in it for the foot.
I gave to Chris Petterson owner of HBBWs all the original photos of building the molds and skiff # 1
That was done in St. Augustine Florida under a simple plastic visqueen shed. It would be nice if he posts them some day on his site. More to come.....

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