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 Wooden | Shallow water skiff shapes ideas

Boat Plans Wooden

Here are some of my old musings of developing skiff shapes to bring to reality. As I described earlier in my blog of how I like to make a half hull of my vision - idea . I do this after I have done all my weight calculations in advance. Shown are a few past ideas in their growth stages. Sorry but I would love to be able to do this all properly but all I have is the iPad that I got for Christmas this year from my daughters. With out this contraption I probably would not take the time to do all this. Right now it is flat calm with lots of light rain about so Im inside with a fan on doing something. The iPad is great as I can do this stuff with a simple inverter on our sailboat as we move about and post it later. No TV time in my life so have extra time to fiddle here.

So look at the wood half hull against the mirror. The sections are glued to a 1/4" piece of wood,without this it would sit flush against the mirror with the thickness of the mirror being the center line. This is how it was done before 3 D programs . It does make you feel like a peeping Tom though as you stretch around trying to see the whole thing. Each section is drawn out from the center line to scale. Here you can calculate how many cubic inches are in each section. I do not have the side views showing which would tell and show you the distance between each section. It would not show up here very well.

What I will do this summer is draw up 3-4 new skiff shapes from past knowledge with all dimensions easy to draw up to full size hull sections. These you will be able to cut out and install on a simple building jig and from there you will be able to plank up in light cedar strips, Baltec balsa core strips or Core Cell brand planking strips. From this you fair and then glass the outside. When fair, flip over,

remove the forms and glass the insides. Then you finish the inside. To build a deck I will explain all the ways it can be done simply later. I will put this here for free. In the mean time anyone planning on building a skiff needs to read up a bit on strip plank boat building. This is the same as building a canoe; just a little more odd shape and it has a transom. I will get a list of books or pamphlets to look up.

In looking at these shapes it is easy to start to see how many ways and directions you could now reshape and go. Ha, it can be daunting if you do not have a weight list and a clue as to what the finished hull will weigh. Here I come back to having the vision, idea, whatever. Details. 

Of course if you are going to start a new company and you want to follow in the foot steps of something that is already well proven and established then all you really have to do is make a facsimile of it as all the thinking has already been done for you. If you do make it better, and at a better price good for you. 

Now with all the shapes here you still have to decide on which side of the half section line you will put your hull thickness. Makes a difference . Take your numbers from the center line out wards and up to the LWL. This is the quickest way. This method shown here has been used for centuries with the creations of some of the most beautiful boats in the world. Go to see the Herreshoff museum in New port RI. He did all his boats this way. There is not a Yankee boat builder up north that does not know this system nor a Carolina one either. The computer today is the way to go though if you have one.

  Another idea; this shows how you can take an existing boat today and measure or take its lines sections. Without knowing its length between perpendiculars you could stretch this boat out to ......

In this shape here I wanted a good sea boat at rest that would not be as they say here too "cranky" .

It has good freeboard and was a good all round skiff. I lowered the spray rail on this a bit in the bow area when built. Today I would change the stern section aft so this is obsolete in my mind.

 You can see the half sections above and the half hull below. 

Cheap 3 - D rendering 

You can see here how Im drawing in a bit of crown. I like crown a lot. It adds tremendous strength over a flat surface. Also you can gain some Disp. But then you have to be careful where its going to direct the water flow. I do not want crown in my skiff decks as it is a pain in the butt to fit the hatches so the will not squeak and lay flush. 

On this sheet you can see the displacement calculation that I wrote down from a simple lines program that I found on the Internet at the time. I put in all my half section numbers and in a second it spit out all these numbers. I had already done it my old way and every thing was pretty close. In the upper left corner you can see the displacement numbers for three different water lines. This you have to think about a lot as the guys, people that will be in the boat, are most likely going to weigh over 200 lbs.

The rest of the numbers there are just adding up Disp. If I posted all my calculation sheets it would be so boring. But I keep em for reference. This is a heavy skiff at close to 2,000 lbs with all the sports in it.

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Pontoon Boat Plans | Presto ! And Hogfish Maximus

Pontoon Boat Plans

The yacht designer Rodger Martin and his wife Patty have stopped by our place in the Bahamas a couple of times on their way south and going north. They trailer the Presto down from New Port RI and  launch her in Florida were they start their winter cruise .The Presto is a magnificent sailing machine. She sails like a dream and is very comfortable to be on. I thought she would be very jumpy because of the light weight of her concept. She does move about for her weight but is still very pleasent to be on at anchor. Under sail she is fast and fun. 

This boat is perfect for short term cruising with minimal stuff aboard. By this I mean a few months and to not bring your hard back book collection , and every tool for every occasion with you. Add weight ,loose speed. To make this boat go as fast as she does she has to be built very strong and light. To do this Rodger has engineered a very high tech light weight hull and spars. This boat is not cheap to build.

$185,000.00 and upwards are what they go for. To build in strip plank with aluminum spars and a simpler interior going lower tech will still cost to build by an amature at around $80,000.00 plus at best for materials. I was asked to build 2 similar boats and did the cost analysis  .

The wood boats will not be as fast as the cored boats with the god awfull expensive carbon masts.

I would love to race a Presto in the Carribean regattas for a season with a bunch of heavy mates for rail meat. This boat would kick butt.

Here we are rafted together behind our place.

 

Notice the size of Prestos spars, very small. Aluminum ones would be twice a big around. Also look at the freeboard of both boats. Hogfish Maximuses cabin top- deck is almost as low as Prestos. The spars and booms built by Hall Spars cost as much as what I built the HFM for originally.

The front dinghy is the one we carry on deck and use as our life boat and all around truckster. It weighs 130 lbs. 

Rodger and Patty Martin at our house.

Sailing south... See you you guys out there!

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Boat Plans Skiff | Whats with all the fart signs

Boat Plans Skiff

Rachel and I last month went to Sweden to visit my mom. I dont know why but we just cant pass.... Up a good fart sign.

Not a fart sign, just wanted to show you we not all about fart jokes.

I think it means exit in Swedish, Danish 

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Boat Plans At Mystic Seaport | Latest on new skiff builds going on

Boat Plans At Mystic Seaport

Here are some updates on one of the past skiffs being built and some new skiffs being designed and built. I get these photos via emails and on Facebook.

 The first skiff is Jon Conners from Vermont.

In the last blog post Jon was building his skiff. He has since launched her and has been doing sea trails in a river near his place. I dont know if this is salt water or not. I dont think so because the trees are so close to the waters edge.

Jon and I first met when he emailed me asking if I would email him a clear set of drawings for my Ian Scott Devlin skiff proposal. Sure. He liked the idea of a slightly rockered bottom and some of my chine details. He wanted to design his own hull to be built in plywood using the stitch and glue method.

During sea trails we have talked back and forth via email about her performance.

Here she sits. I say she looks "right". By that I mean that everything flows well in this hull and shape.

Jon wanted a simple light weight skiff that would pole well with him alone and for small hp. 25 hp is his goal to have on the stern. This boat weighs under 300 lbs as built.

On the first few runs Jon used a very small trim plate on the engines cavitation plate. Here you can see her bow up attitude with the engine level. Jon had added a long wedge to the outside of the lower Chines to help the bow come down. I sent him the measurements of my outboards trim plate.

He removed the wedges which were slowing down the skiff a bit and making it very stable in turns.

Bow up quite a ways.

See all the leaves and flat water. This kind of bow up is really only good for very flat water running.

The engine with the right sized trim plate will lift the stern and the bow will still be out but the angle will not be like this. A more level angle.

Now a few weeks later! New trim plate, cold weather has set in and all the leaves are on their way out.

See the difference in the trim with a bigger trim plate. The skiff now does not have the above mushing along look.

Jon and a friend went up and down here and never got wet. It was a wet windy day. The ride was fine for all.

Bows trimmed right down now. All you have to do to lift the bow is tilt the engine a bit up by using the trim pin or you can build one of Jons simple trim plates.

You get this kind of prop wash when trimmed all the way down.

Look at the bow and you can see the seas - chop that hes going through. Are they called seas in a river? 

All in all Jon reports that he is very happy with his new skiff. I hope Jon comes to visit me when I get back to our place in the Bahamas. It will be fun to talk building and designing your own skiff.

Well done Jon.

This is Alexyz Milians skiff vison.

 Alexyz emailed me asking a few things about design. He has built a beautiful strip plank wood canoe and wants to build himself a no motor zone poling skiff that is very light in the same manner. This skiff is 4x14 long. It will draw very little.

He had several questions.

The first was why was his bow so down when he placed his hull in the water.

Why did on my bow on lines drawings of skiffs look like the decks of the skiffs were curved?

How to get the bow up look?

Simple answers. Its good for me to get questions like these as I need feedback to see if people are understanding my drawings and thought process.

Heres Alexyzs hull sections.

 

From this angle you get a real good view of his shape. Lots of firm displacment aft going foreward.

This will make the boat stable. The 4 of beam is not too narrow. The wide stern will do its job keeping the boat steady. I would place what ever weight I was going to bring along back there to replace the engine.

Here I explain in my email drawings how to add or subtract displacement-bouancy. What the skiff needed was 2-3" of freeboard added to the bow tapering aft. The design is fine at the waterline as it is.

The curved line you see in bow on hull lines drawings is the sheer. Because all the stations are laying one on top of each other the sheer line gets exaggerated.

This sketch explains how his skiff will sit with different loads.

Now a new sheer with no weight in the stern. Perfect.

The new hull stations ready to take all the measurements off of.

A nice shape. This shape will be easy to strip plank. With a 5 hp two stroke it will plane out doing most likely 12-15 knts with one person on board.

Nice job Alexyz, I look forward to seeing the hull being planked.

I saw this hull on Facebook the other day. I think its coming from a shop called Glasser Boatworks.

This is a very well proportioned skiff. Really looks nice.

Same skiff I believe inside the shop. I can see they have station molds in the background so its a one off. Nice to see new skiffs out there. Nice rounded transoms edge. I dont know who you guys are but youre doing a nice job.

Heres an email acquaintance that is building a Carolina type small skiff in epoxy and core.

This will be a nice all round skiff. But not a quiet skiff with that chine setup. But she will be the best looking skiff out there. Classic

Thats it for now. 

In a few days I will post all the latest on the Tom Gordon- Islamorada Boatworks skiff that I have played a small part in. They will be doing sea trials this week so will then post all the pictures and give you all the details.

Send me your skiff ideas and builds and I will post here. Over 95,000 viewers this year.

3/4s though read my sailing stuff though.

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