Happy September!

Late Summer Update and Announcement

The KDI project is fully funded thanks to a group of enthusiastic sponsors. Thank you! I now have a lot of work to do through October!

Drake Raceboat in perspective (more screenshots below)

In November and December I hope to have funding to further develop the Drake Raceboat. A campaign to get this crowdfunded begins. Three sponsors at $600 each (or six at $300) will get the project funded and you will get a full suite of plans, and preferred status for first kit cutting with a 10% discount. Please contact me at boatkits@gmail.com if interested. The final design brief for the DRB is as follows:

• A fast rowboat in the Drake spirit optimized for single, fixed- or sliding-seat rowing
• Ideal for fitness rowing and the open water racing curcuit 
• 18'3" LOA (kit) stretchable up to 20' by spacing out molds (plans)
• Waterline length almost 17', 27 1/2" waterline beam
• Max beam is set at 4' so boat can be rowed in fixed seat class with 8 1/2' oars
• Sliding seat is an equal option in this boat, the Poseidon rig being the ideal, using sculling length oars
• Oarlocks for sliding seat can be mounted using Shaw and Tenney oarlock brackets or a custom made outrigger that fastens to gunwales (TBD)
• 5 kts speed potential race pace with 6kts in sprints
• Flotation tanks optional in sides or ends, but more likely flotation bags will be used and canvas decks to shed water
• Glued lapstrake construction, 4 strakes per side (4mm), no fiberglass 
• Estimated weight below 75 lbs at kit length
• Numbers from computer model"

Cp = 0.58
Volume Displacement = 306 lbs
Center of Buoyancy = 53.9% aft
Wetted Surface Area = 27.74 sf
Waterline Length = 16' 11 1/2"
Maximum Waterline Beam = 27.6781"
Water Plane Area = 24.5 sf
Center of Floatation = 53% aft
MSA 70.1711896 (+/- 1e-08) square inches

More screenshots from the computer model of the DRB

Design Projects

Sponsorship and Commission Opportunities

2015-16

A new approach to getting projects funded and delivered is through a model sort of like crowdfunding. A design project is any boat design that is either started from scratch or a project where an existing design (that has been built) is reworked or it may be a boat that has been design but not built which needs further development.

The KDI has been crowdfunded for this Fall...a number of sponsors pay into the project and receive the plans for free and a discounted kit. I benefit from having paying work, We all benefit by having the work get done! 

The hull lines for the new KDI sketched out.

Another design project is the Drake Raceboat. It has never been built, but needs sponsorship or a commission to finish the speculative work that I have started...a 3D hull model. Further work to do is to build a hull model,  finish designing the interior, create cutting files and draft the plans. The Drake Race is all about speed and efficiency but retains the seaworthy faering-esque hull.

The Drake Raceboat has been modeled in the computer but that is it until sponsorship comes along.

Another design project is the Caravelle Skiff. It has been built a few times now, but soon a sailing model will be launched and from those sea trials a set of revisions will me made (I will call it a mk2 model) and the plans and kits will be delivered to those who preorder kits. I am looking for a few more preorders. A gent in NYC will cartop his skiff to all sorts of places around LI Sound for sailing and rowing.

Lastly, an example of a scratch design project is my brief detailing what I will likely call the Calendar Daysailer, which is actually the precursor for the sail-and-oar boat the Calendar Islands Yawl. This new boat model will be 90% daysailer with water ballast and a motor well and a lot of space for 4 people to go out sailing. 

Contact me at boatkits@gmail.com

Developing the Calendar Islands Yawl Daysailer

Be part of the Calendar Islands Yawl project this winter

Calendar Islands Yawl daysailer

New design

the brief:

      Hull above will be modified to create more of a daysailer hull form with ample freeboard and some deadrise for choppy water. Narrow flat bottom will be retained for beaching.

·         Capacity will be up to 4 people maybe 5

·         Loa ~18’8” x ~6’6’

·         Weight estimate ~200lbs

·         Plywood stitch and glue bottom and lapstrake topsides 9mm ply

·         Large foredeck with coaming and high bow make it a dry boat

·         Lug-awl rig or gunter-sloop configurations w/ centerboard

·         Auxiliary power by oars or small OB motor

·         Interior layout with side benching and a thwart across to stabilize cb trunk and provide a spot to row from

·         Motor well aft, 2.5-4hp

·         Side benches aft and forward compartment provide positive flotation

      The idea is to find an interested group of people to help fund this work. If you are interested in having a fantastic daysailer that you can have an influence in the design, please email me at boatkits@gmail.com

Early Summer 2015

Early Summer Activities and Updates

Prep, prep, prep!

Mostly my work focuses on watching four Deblois Street Dories getting finished, one of which has hit the water. Compass Project's Dory launched successfully with a a bunch of excited students who helped build her. Compass is looking for another big project commission to use in their work with at-risk youth.

2015 Compass Project launch of the DSD.

I am busily preparing the cutting of more Echo Bay Dory Skiff kits which will be built in Maine. This is the very latest version of the Skiff and any tweaks in the design demand a lot of attention to make sure all the details get done correctly. Those files are done and ready for more customers. It is hard to believe over 30 Echo Bay's have been built now!

Also in the works are the files for cutting the first ever St Lawrence River Skiff kit for the Bain & Co. Annie model. I am back in the computer model after quarter scale modeling the hull.

Quarter Scale Model of the St. Lawrence River Skiff,

Annie

to be built at ABM in an August 10th workshop.

Here is the information for my workshop in August. Spread the word! Contact me for more info.

NEW! St. Lawrence River Skiff Building

Clint Chase, an instructor at the WoodenBoat School, The Landing School, and The Compass Project, will teach how to build a St. Lawrence River Skiff. 

This boat is plywood and strip-composite constructed.

 One kit will be built in the class and raffled off to one student on Saturday. The boat will have some finish work to still be completed by the raffle winner.  Participants must register by July 27 to make sure the class will run.  

For more information about the boat visit the webpage about the Skiffs.

Instructor: Clint Chase

Session 1: August 10– 15, 9 AM- 5 PM

Tuition: $1000

Works in Progress

16' Calendar Islands Yawl

project complete

CIY hull #1 on Lake Superior, May 2015.

The lines plan for this lug-yawl have been done for a few years now, drawn as a 19 foot daysailer. A fellow Goat Island Skiff nut and I began talking in 2012-13 about a Maine-waters-friendly version of the GIS, one that can better handle choppy water especially beating to windward and one that is more oriented towards dinghy cruising. I took the CIY lines, scaled it down to 15 1/2' -- the longest boat that can be gotten out of two sheets of scarfed plywood. The hull form has been tweaked to maximize sailing potential without losing the joy of rowing the boat when the wind dies. The CIY 16 will be ideal for daysailing or sail-and-oar boating where sailing will be the primary focus. Yet, with the transom clear of the water, the clean underbody, and the lightweight of the boat, she'll row like a feather and the skeg will allow for good tracking. The 10" wide, reinforced keel-bottom will take repeated beachings for years. This boat is as much about sailing as it is about sailing or rowing to explore the local islands.

CIY hull #1 on Lake Superior, May 2015

Drake 19 Expedition Rowboat 

Project complete

Modeled on the very successful Drake 17, the general hull form was stretched and then the hull lines tweaked to favor tandem rowing and camp-cruising. Hull #1 has been built by professional boatbuilder, Walter Baron of Old Wharf Dory Company. 

Drake 19 hull #1 in the shop of Old Wharf Dory Co.

See the Drake 19 photo album

Echo Bay Dory Skiff mkIV version 

Project complete.

The EBDS launched by students at Boothbay Regional High School in late Spring, 2014. They build from plans and full size patterns and are currently (May 2015) building the second of two from those plans.

When I began my boatbuilding business, the idea of doing kits had not fully formed and I had not fully accpeted or understood the power of computer modeling the boats and cutting kits from these models. I had built over a dozen EBDSs with proven shop patterns that I labored over. No model could rival those shop patterns, or so I thought. I digitized the patterns and never 3D modeled the boat. The kit is great, I love my own boat, but it remains the one boat not modeled in CAD. There are many advantages to doing so, including ease of making modifications, calculating weights and volumes, and visualizing the boat. With years of EBDS experience under our belts, Eric and I will be modeling mkIV and making some changes that include:

• establish a max length of 11'10", the longest one can go with only one scarf per side plank
• Improved skeg and sheer
• calculate flotation and include precut tank or flotation compartments as an option
• optimized thwart locations, mast partner configuration
• fine tune the sailing balance of the boat with both a sprit and lug rig option
• make a set of more detailed construction plans for "scratch" building with a new lug rig option
• make full size patterns that a builder can have printed on paper
• kit version will be quicker and easier to build employing CNC mortise &* tenon joinery

The original EBDS (left) built 26 years ago and the current mkIII kit version.

Fast coastal racing rowboat

Updates here

Mocking up the rowing station in the new boat.

I am in the early stages of conceptualizing a new design for fixed seat rowboat racing in the Essex, Blackburn, and other open water races. The design brief is:

·

~18 LOA, 17 lwl minimum…would look at more if drag is really low

·

Fixed seat rowing, single rowing station, little gear capacity needed

·

Oars must be 8 ½’

·

Oars need to be on gunwale (no outriggers)

·

Undecided RE: pinned, horns, or feathering locks

·

Cartoppable solo and launchable at hand launch sites

·

Speed important want to be able to cruise at 5kts, hold 6 kts for a stretches

·

Able to safely navigate through lobster boat wakes, and wind driven chop on the harbor

·

Tracking is excellent, but need to be able to turn around up river,

·

No tripping over forefoot in following seas

·

Flotation tanks F & A in 4mm ply or places for bags to tie in

·

Double ended or narrow y-shape transom

·

Low WSA and high prismatic, speed important, but not as risk of being unsafe for open water races such as Blackburn

·

Narrow on waterline but some flare for secondary stability, dryness

Cedar-strip construction or 4mm plywood, possible composite tooling

Screenshots of the Drake Raceboat, a narrow, fast 18-footer inspired by the Drake 17 and 19.

8' Gardner Pram

Update May 2015: On the backburner, need to eat and sleep!

This is the same 8' pram that Gardner has in his books. I modeled and cut a kit for a student who needed a tender for his livaboard sloop. I'd like to finish this soon with the feedback from the first boat.

Gardner pram prototype off the CNC cut mold set up.