Its SPRING!!! Repairs finishing and the Maine Boatbuilders Show!

This is a for-real AHOY MATEYS because IT. IS. SPRING.  (Insert cymbals here!)  Spring means:  Awesome.  Boats.  Sailing in my Goat Island Skiff.  More Awesome.  I am freaking out.

I ended winter with a bang-- and I drove all the way up to Portland Maine to attend the Maine Boatbuilders Show with one of my enabling buddies who helps convince me that boat related purchases will be beneficial to my life.  He is currently building a Ross Lillistone Phoenix III.  The boat show was awesome, with lots of boats, boat supplies, tools, and other sundries in multiple warehouses.  It was sweet.

What was totally sweet, however, was Clint Chase Boat Builder who was an exhibitor in residence showing off one of his Goat Island Skiff kits!  Clint presciently brought in an unfinished kit because it was, after all, a boatbuilder show, so the Goat was in unfinished conditions-- demonstrating that the Goat is a realistic build for the amateur and is really not a very complicated boat after all.  The passer-by could actually see themselves building such a vessel, as opposed to some of the other boats that were in museum-quality finish.  In short, the Goat is an attainable boat for almost everybody!

Clint Chase and myself with Goat

Clint Chase was the designer of the very sexy mizzen/yawl retrofit/plan for the Goat Island Skiff.  Clint works magic with birdsmouth masts, mizzen masts, oars, whatever you want, and he dutifully provided some of his wares, including bringing the mizzen for this boat:

Nice!

Gawkers, gawking.

Apparently, Clint said the Goat was a hit.  Again, this is an affordable, attainable project for most people with/without experience, and out of the project, the builder gets a most capable boat.  What are you waiting for?!

I also must plug my homeys over at Maine Island Trail Association.  

That is Ted, who is awesome and posed in a picture with me, at the MITA booth.  The intreprid reader will remember that the MITA helps maintain the Maine Island Trail, and the author of this blog (me) uses this trail for adventures on the high seas!  I highly recommend anyone interested in cruising the Maine coast in small boats (or big) to become a member of this most worthwhile organization.  Go MITA, GO!  (I want that beard...)

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In other news pertaining to my vessel, I have dragged her out into the sunlight on this first day of Spring!

Yes, it is Spring!  I have jumped into the boat repairs, and lemme tell you, dear intrepid reader, there is almost nothing like a sharp plane skinning away pieces of wood to bring a smile to this sailors face!  Clint Chases boat at the show is going to be a fine piece of vessel when she is finished, and I admired the small touches that he has gone through the trouble of doing to make her classy.  I was duly inspired, and have undertaken the task to clean my boat up and make her even more worthy of my pride!  I will admit, when I built her I didnt know what I was doing, and I also used her as an aggression sink, and I directed much work-related stress into her construction.  I rushed her finishing to get her on the water, and the entire season last year I made excuses for her rough fillets and unfinished edges.  Today, that ends.

I am rounding her off, literally taking off her sharp edges, softening her up, and getting her pretty so that this year, we will cruise with a new temperament, based on relaxation and fun.  Clint showed me how to shape fillets, and I dont know why I didnt try it earlier.  Thank you Clint for the inspiration!

Happy Spring, readers!

Small Reach Regatta 2011!

Hello Intrepid Readers!  Me, myself, and I, along with my wife and my Goat Island Skiff have just returned from a long weekend at Lamoine State Park in Down East Maine, just across Frenchman Bay from Acadia National Park!

Not only was the location spectacular, but we sailed in company with dozens upon dozens of other small sail and oar boats!  Yes Reader, I can feel the perspiration on your brow already, for I am referring to the legendary Small Reach Regatta!  WOOT WOOT!

Due to constraints on my end I made it to Lamoine on Thursday morning as opposed to Wednesday night so I missed the meet+greet, but thats OK.  I enjoyed three days of sailing and camping and am already looking forward to the next SRR.

Remember:  You can click on any picture and then enlarge it to get a bigger one if you want bigger pictures.  I can also email you the original huge pictures if you would like a copy.  Just leave a comment and well get in touch.

Day One:  Lamoine State Park to Bean Island.  Winds were light.  I was the last boat off the beach and made good time but made a strategic error and stayed out to sea in hopes of better airs.  There was some venturi effect around the last point (Hancock Pt) and I was promptly passed by several of my peers as they blasted around the point.  Oh well!  We got to the backside of Bean Island, beached, and ate lunch!

This is the SRR:

The beach.  Find the Goat!

Goat Island Skiff surrounded by awesome.

Some Caledonia Yawls on the left and a Pacific Pelican on the right!

After lunch I meandered around the island and relaxed, and was one of the last sailboats off the island.  I didnt feel like rushing, but watched some of the fleet head out.

Oughtred JII (2)

A Superseed which supersedes the Melonseed.

Free Parking for Intrepid Reader of the Month if you can tell me where we saw this one before...

 Then I busted off of Bean Island and did a circumnavigation only to get becalmed on the way back.  No big deal.  A little bit of rowing and I made it to some wind and we were off again!

Clint Chase Boatbuilder and Better Half in Drake with downwind sailing rig up

CCBB and Co.  Notice patriotism.

Just awesome.  

Day Two was a sail down to some geological formations called the "Ovens" which are caves in the cliffs.  Allison and I ventured down to see and promptly ended up getting sucked into an oven, which meant down came the sail and out came the oars, toute suite.  Afterwards, a spirited upwind slog to Thomas Island for lunch!

More Awesome. A Don Kurylko Myst.

Fog rolling in over Frenchman Bay

Hooray Lunch!  Pathfinder, center.

The Fleet.

Goat Island Skiff heading back.  Me.  So I get a big picture. (Photo by Steven B)

Goat Island Skiff back at Lamoine on the Beach.  Acadia in background.  YEAH!

Day Three was an upwind slog up the Skillings River.  The final destination was going to be a small cove all the way up at the top.  It was a double whammy, we had the current with us initially but it turned about half-way up for us.  Allison and I doubled down and made it happen, slipping into the cove, rafting up with some others, stuffing PB+J into our mouths before setting back down river before we got caught in the mud.

On the way upriver, there was one portion of the fleet ahead of us, a small pack of three, and everyone else behind us.

Acadia in the clouds with the rest of the fleet behind us.

The pack of three consisted of a Coquina, a Core Sound 17, and our Goat Island Skiff.  The three of us tacked and tacked all on top of each other but keeping company, until the skipper of the Coquina decided to use the traveler on his rig, and he just blasted out of there.  I mean, he took off. 

Coquina

Coquina Again

So gorgeous.  This is about where she took off once the Skipper started using the traveler.  BOOM!  Gone.

That left us and Joe, who was skippering his sons Core Sound 17, which was a High School project.  Note cannibalized sails off other boats.  Love it!  The slog was a slog, but made bearable with the Coquina and Joe to share most of it with.

CS17 and Joe

Joe is a 4 realz Pirate!

Our constant shadow.

Up at the top of the river, we rafted up!

To my Port.

To my Starboard

The way back was better.  Current and wind at our backs we speedily made it out of the river and back to Lamoine where we frolicked some more with the good wind and rapidly clearing skies.

Goat Island Skiff heading downriver. (photo by Steven B)

Heading downriver.  The boom is a little high the downhaul slipped forward.  This was rectified. (Photo by Steven B)

Crotch Island Pinky-- A Dutch family borrowed this from The Apprenticeshop and proceeded to sailed the Living Baloney out of it!  So awesome!

Acadia and the fleet that didnt make it ahead of us now.

The Author of this blog

Superseed that supersedes the Melonseed with Acadia

The Fleet is spreading out

Sea Pearl Scout

Dragging my fingertips in the water hiking out like a hero.

Well, it was an awesome weekend, for sure!  I cant wait to get back next year and do some more sailing with other boats!  I sail alone all the time, and for one weekend, I can sail in a huge fleet of sail and oar boats and dominate the waves!

Crotch Island Pinky at sunset

Sunset over the harbor.

For some more incidental pictures, and the ones above, please see my album with my entire collection.

Until next time Intrepid Readers!

Winter repairs and hibernation

AHOY MATEYS!

It has been a few months since youve had a tasty morsel of an update from the world of my Goat Island Skiff, and this almost mid-winter update will focus on the damage incurred over the past 30 day (or so) season last year, and what needs to be fixed.  I took many of these pictures last fall for this post specifically, but decided to hold off posting until I got into a mood.  Today, while perusing some photos, I got in that mood.

To recap:  Last fall I needed to pull the plug on sailing, and I did that at Clint Chases messabout.  There were a few more good days of sailing that season in early November, but the water was cold, and I had to draw the line somewhere.  Additionally, I wanted a warm day to wash the boat so I didnt have to do it in freezing temperatures, so when that day swung through with heavy fog, I took advantage of the opportunity and washed and stored my GIS.

As you can see in these following photographs, the hull fared quite well over the past season with minimal damage to her underside.  The intrepid reader will remember that she is not glassed out or in, only some tape along the chines.  I added a bow skid (not in plans) to take the brunt of grounding her on rocky New England coasts, and Im glad I did.  In retrospect, I should have laid down some fiberglass cloth for abrasion/puncture resistance and skipped the bow skid, because rocks still punched through the ply-- indicated by the little spots speckled around the bow.  Those are not dirt marks, the hull has been washed, those are holes that punched through the outer veneers of the plywood and were quickly patched with epoxy during my busy season.  There are also many scrapes along the chines, which take a good beating.  Heavy fiberglass tape is essential here if you plan on adventure cruising your Goat Island Skiff along rocky shores.

Interestingly enough, the stern, even though it was repeatedly dragged around miscellaneous beaches, suffered almost no ill, it is shiny and smooth and in wonderfully good shape.

The daggerboard trunk took some hits with the daggerboard, everytime I hit something the board would slam against the aft end of the slot, and the plywood really got beaten up here.  I kept adding epoxy as the season went on to keep it sealed.  This winter I would like to add a heavy rubber or foam strip to cushion the board from doing such damage to the boat.  Apologies about the focus.

In the interior of the hull on bulkhead 3, there is this crack that runs up the port side to the seat, and stops were the plywood is backed by the seat cleat on the opposite side:

If you look carefully, its that thin black crack that extends up from the corner.  I have no idea how that occurred, but my hunch is when I collided with rocks in the middle of the night in Casco Bay during the VisionQuest/ManQuest 2010.  My shipmate Jason detailed the accident here.  I was tossed over the center thwart, and my shin hit the bulkhead pretty hard during the collision-- so that is my hypothesis.

The floor of the boat has multiple dark stains throughout where objects were dropped and bailing buckets were scraped-- Storer does not recommend fiberglassing the interior of the boat either, but even with three coats of epoxy and 5 coats of varnish, I still was able to wear or puncture down to the plywood in multiple areas, which introduced water and stained the Okoume.

Notice the dark spot to the left of the yogurt container (dropped the anchor) and the multiple scrapes next to the chinelog in front of the sail (scraping from the bailer).  This is just an example, almost all quadrants of the floor exhibit these marks from wear and tear.  Unfortunately, I have non-skid down and sanding this down to get a good nice epoxy layer to cover this will be difficult.

Otherwise, things came through in decent shape over the season.  There is definite wear on all surfaces that rub, such as the inside of the daggerboard trunk, the mast partner and step, the inside of the rudder stock, bulkhead arms, gunwales, etc., but nothing that a touch of epoxy and varnish wont take care of.

The last item is the daggerboard itself, which took multiple hard hits over the season, and the trailing edge took a beating.  I had filled some of the beatings with thickened epoxy, but these end up harder than the wood around the filling, and when the trailing edge is smacked against the daggerboard case, it wipes out even larger areas of wood.

The crunch on the right was filled like the one on the left, but another grounding wreaked considerable havoc on the edge as you can see-- bummer.

Finally, I have a cosmetic issue that bugs the living crap out of me, and I would like to fix it if I can.  When I built the boat, I screwed up with the buttstraps that glue the two panels for the sides together.  I did it in a cold garage, I didnt use enough glue, and I didnt apply enough weight to the buttstrap.  My port side buckled outward a little bit and I faired it somewhat with a sander and called it good.  The starboard side was smooth and fair, but over the season it began to buckle a bit too.  This picture with my Goat Island Skiff friend Al from Brooklyn and me in Casco Bay shows the seam:

This clearly shows what Im talking about.  Its actually quite minor, and barely noticeable unless the sun is at a low angle, and it doesnt affect performance, but it bugs me to no end!  ARGH I hate it!  So it must go.  Some sanding, some epoxy, some Quick Fair, and I hope its good to go.

But, lets finish this post with a pretty picture of "I Am Zinea, Pterodactylus" ship shape and Bristol fashion for the winter season:

It was a pretty fall, and now its winter.

Im going for a schuss!