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No new posts for awhile must mean everyone is out sailing or making sawdust.

Hi Richard!  Just finished the keel for my new Vacationer.  On Saturday I tried out my new scarfing jig and cut the scarfs to joinn the 5 panels that will form the bottom of the hull.  The scarfs were 6'2" long and the jig worked perfectly!  Next step in to glue the bottom together and then cut it out.

Dave

Great work Dave.  Just keep working and it will turn into a boat in less time than you think.

i'm waiting for a couple more weeks till its warm enough out that i can continue painting, build my mast and get the boat in the water hopefully early june

Just keep working at it - we made our first cut on March 10, 2001 and launched on July 4, 2001.  Another couple of months work on details and she was pretty much as done as a home built boat ever gets. 

The key is to just keep on working, a little everyh day and you'll have a boat before you know it.

(04-14-2012, 11:07 AM)Richard_Norman link Wrote: [ -> ]. . . The key is to just keep on working, a little every day and you'll have a boat before you know it . . .

Plugging along is good, but I think the real key to home built success stories is, the ability to accept the words "it's good enough" and move on to the next set of issues and processes. Don't be so picky, no one except you and those you point things out to, will ever know where the pilot bearing on the router bit fell off. Trust me on this, just do it and you can fix stuff later when you've gotten her wet.

Great advice, Paul.  I'm a woodworker, so I obsess over every little detail.  That's why "Molly" took almost 18 months to complete!..  I've learned my lesson.  Work steadily and stop obsessing over details only I know exist!

Dave

Good advice Paul.  That part cut lots of time off of my build time.

I purposefully did not finish my weekender so that I would have something interesting to do later.  For example, I left off the port holes because they wouldn't affect her sailing abilities, but when I felt the urge to work on her again, that would be something interesting to do.  I also left off doing a really nice finish on the hull.  Mostly because I was sick of trying to get it right, but later I realized that I could take my time and design a plan to get it right with the least effort.  That's not going to be any time soon.  During the last winter I took my time and accomplished a laundry list of improvements which was both satisfying and not a hassle at all. 

Al

The last boat I built was a test bed for ideas. It had all sorts of go fast goodies, including a wing, rotating mast, triple sheets (jib, main and spinnaker all with one line control), etc. I intentionally built her without a drop of paint, anywhere. I knew she would get sold as a home built hotrod and I wanted the buyer to know what he had, the good, bad and ugly all plainly visible. When I did sell her, the guy admitted he wasn't keen on home builts, but since the boat was literally raw, with epoxy and pencil marks showing, he had no trouble giving me what I asked. He said this was what put him over the top for the sale, he could see what he had, how it was done and where he might make changes if he wanted. It wasn't perfect, as it was just a test bed for ideas, but it was built well and carefully thought out, which he could see, so he's now racing her down in west central Florida.

The biggest goal of a home build, is to get it splashed, nothing else is as important. The pretty stuff can come in winter months, when your water is less then liquid and you're sitting around with your thumb up your butt, wondering what to do. Remember it's a continuous process, you're never really finished. There's always something to fix, modify, hack out and do over again, maintain or repair, so keep your eye on the actual goal, to wet her bottom, with hopes she'll stay like that, under way.

I received an email from the fellow that bought the test bed and he'd finally won his first regatta.  He'd always done well, but his handicap rating wasn't very good and he was getting killed on corrected time. He pulled the wing and made some other minor adjustments, granting him a better PHRF number. He went from back of the front pack to front of the front pack. A couple weeks back he'd finally finished first across the line, first on corrected time and averaged first across the 5 race event. Naturally, his good sailing skills had more to do with this than my boat, but he's happy as a fly on fresh crap so . . .