Hi all.
My name is Aaron Morgan and I have built a Mini-Cup!
I now have pictures uploaded! The path is User Galleries>Aaron_Morgan>Peseta Album. Follow this link:
http://byyb.org/cpg143/thumbnails.php?album=74
I started in April 2007 and the maiden voyage was in October 2007. She is called "Peseta". I downloaded the plans in 2001 or so and spent the next six years reading them. Apparently I am a slow reader. I have a background in scenic carpentry for the theater so the build process, although long, was not difficult. I stuck to the plans for the most part, although with grateful help from Andrew Butchart I used PL construction adhesive for the joints, epoxy with sawdust and bondo for filler, polyester resin as a water resistant first coat and Rustoleum-type paint for paint. I added extra walls to the mast box to keep water out and inspection ports to the two bow and one stern bulkheads in the cockpit. I found aluminum tubes for the mast and spars and made my own sail with a green polytarp. I've been out in the Newport Dunes, Newport Harbor and Long Beach Harbor. I plan to post pictures soon. I had tried to subscribe to the "old" board earlier and only recently got registered to this one.
I want to thank all the members of this forum for the help I got during building from all the posts.
Nice to meet you all!
~Aaron
Welcome Aboard Aaron, glad to meet you.
I plan on building a Mini Cup when I am done with my Vacationer. They look like they are alot of fun to build and sail.
I am glad that you found us and cannot wait to see your pictures.
again welcome.
Brian.
Welcome aboard Aaron, we're glad you're here and hope enjoy our site. Sorry about the mix up on signing up, it's something we are about to work on. Now lets see some of those pictures!
Keith
Aaron - That's super that you've finally had your launch. Congratulations.
I knew you must have been close to launch from your last message. The boat worked well for you I hope?
Great photos Aaron she looks great good job. I like the coin at the bottom of the mastbox I plan to do the same. again thanks for sharing.
Brian.
congrats on the boat and welcome! i have never met an aaron that i did not like.
i too am thinking about building a mini cup. please be sure to give a full report on how it handles and what you would do different if anything. i will be watching with great interest.... now to check out those photos....
Welcome to the madness Aaron. That's a fine looking Mini Cup, it's a great feeling to sail a craft that you made yourself. It also puts some of the naysayers we sometimes encounter during construction in there place.
What coin is that under the mast?
Greg
Quote:What coin is that under the mast?
That is a Spanish peseta saved from my honeymoon; it's also the name of the boat. My wife Andrea and I went to Madrid, Seville and Rhonda on a wonderful trip for our honeymoon. To mount the coin, I drilled a shallow hole in the bottom of the mast box of the same diameter and depth of the coin, epoxied the coin in place, and then covered the coin with a disc of aluminum sheet which was also epoxied down. The ends of my mast are plugged with poplar wooden inserts which stick out 1/8" beyond the metal edge of the tube; this is meant to hopefully cut down on abrasion from a heavy metal mast grinding into the base of the wooden mast box. If I had a larger coin I could have done away with the aluminum disc, but the peseta is only about as big as an American quarter. Legend has it that it's good luck to have a "mast coin" located under the mast of a ship: sometimes a coin was nailed directly to the mast on deck for all to see. One final thought: if you are planning to do this put the coin in
before you put the box together! It's a lot easier than waiting until the boat is finished ... like I did.
Quote:please be sure to give a full report on how it handles and what you would do different if anything.
I'll probably come back to this, but here's a few thoughts so far:
- 1. She's moves well in the water, but needs a bit of wind to get her really going. She tacks well, and points reasonably. She loves the broad reach (who doesn't?) I have not been even close to capsizing her, even with two adults slightly off-balance in a gust. One of these days I need to force a capsize under controlled conditions to see how tough righting her is. When I cut my sail I was worried about headroom under the boom while tacking, so I angled the boom up into a sharper angle relative to the boat, which made slightly less sail area. On my next sail I'll lower the boom as low as it can go and see if the increased sail area makes a difference.
2. I added a secondary support strip of 1/4" plywood under the rim of the cockpit and I'm glad I did. My strip is approximately 1" wide and follows the inner curve of the cockpit. It is epoxied in place for strength with no screws. I can sit anywhere on the cockpit rim with no fear of cracking.
3. Although two people can carry her, she's unwieldy and not light. I rigged up a frame to carry her in the back of my truck and got too fancy trying to design fold-up legs with wheels for rolling her about, but it doesn't work in sand and you've still got to lift it up and down. I would not enjoy cartopping her with only two people. Although it's nice to have the option of using the back of the truck, I am starting to think that a nice mini aluminum trailer might be just the thing.
4. I am going to cut another, slightly longer oversize tiller with a more extreme angle coming out of the box. Perhaps it's because of the placement of my tiller box hinges, but the tiller barely clears the top edge of the hull, leaving little room for fingers. And it's too short.
5. Instead of the barrel bolt mechanism described in the plans, I used stainless steel eye bolts on both the rudder box and transom with a 1/2" aluminum rod up the eye bolts to act as the pivot point. To keep the rod from slipping down into the drink, I drilled two small holes through the top of the rod and insert small cotter pins when sailing. I have to bend the ends of the pins keep them from backing out, which is not the easiest solution in that tight space, but it's the best idea I've had so far. A picture would definitely help illustrate this.
6. My wife and I found that we were able to partially lower the upper spar while under sail to clear a bridge we were passing under in Newport Harbor. Neat! Good thing, otherwise we'd have been trapped on the wrong side of the bridge.
7. The saga of the spars. I was able to find a boom, possibly from a Sunfish, that was 12" short of the design specs but cheap. I also found a second-hand mast of exactly the right size, also pretty cheap. But I had to turn to local metal dealers for aluminum tubing for the upper boom. I was loath to pay the price for a "new" piece of tubing for the full length, so instead I paid about half the price for two "used" smaller lengths. To join the two, I made a 36" long insert of poplar. I took three 3/4" x 3" strips of poplar, epoxied them together and milled them to the inner diameter of the tube with table saw and belt sander. I wanted it to have the potential to be detachable, and it was nice to hear the vacuum "pop" when I got the insert exactly right and slid it in and out of the tube. One end of the insert got epoxied and screwed into the tube, and the other was through-bolted but not epoxied. I also had to add a similar extension to the boom to make up for the missing 12", and put "caps" on the tips of everything to keep water from filling them up.
One last question: does anyone hail from Los Angeles or Long Beach and want to get together for a sail? I'd love to see another 'Cup personally. My wife tells me that many people like the look of the Mini Cup in the water. Sure feels good to hear that!
~Aaron
if you are near la, then you are in the south west fleet boundries. i believe there are several stephens boats in that general area. you might want to say hello in the sw fleet board to see who answers your hail. there are a few messabouts coming up this year and it would be great if we were to see you there. i personally would love to find a good body of water with consistant wind on the west coast and have a messabout. where are you located?