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Afternoon all! My name is Drew and Ive been plotting and planning my weekender build, getting all the details ironed out before I start ruining  plywood. A few hours perusing old threads cleared up a lot of my questions about the plans but now I have some ideas for some modifications and I wanted to see how crazy y'all thought they were.

When you read about the Weekender on other (snooty-er) boat building forums the two main complaints are that that flat bottom slaps around in any amount of chop and that the boat is not self righting. And I am in fact a crazy person, so I want to make this the most weatherly Weekender we can manage.

So I was thinking, to manage the chop and maybe help it right a little better, how crazy would it be to make a 3 chine bottom? The idea would be to build a set of ribs that attach to the keel, cladding them and then attaching this portion to the normal flat bottom detailed in the Weekenders plans.

Obviously I would have to scale up the stem to suit his new height and adjust a few other dimensions but are there any major downsides to this plan? Or any major upside? Im no naval architect.
I was also thinking that this new bilge area would be the prefect place for some foam floatation. My plan would be to make casts of the voids with expanding foam in plastic bags, then cut weepers in the foam and along the ribs allowing for water to be pumped out. Similarly id have a copper pipe with a 45 on it pointing downwind so as to help pull moisture from that area. Obviously once the flat bottom goes on I will not be able to access this interior area so I need to be sure i can adequately manage the moisture.

My other thought was, to help hold her down in the surf, maybe get a bit more range and make her easier to right, Id like to modify the keel. My knee-jerk know-nothing plan was to deepen the keel by using a wider stock in the center of our three board sandwich (say 2x16 instead of 2x12, or some such)and plane the outside two down so they met smoothly. Additionally i thought, because of the extra flotation I can afford to have a little ballast in this keel, so I was contemplating 100 or 200lbs of lead right below the mast. That and a metal shoe for good luck.

Any insight? Am i on the right track or am I just mucking up a perfectly decent set of boat plans? Id love to hear from our resident NA on this one. Anyone done this before?

Well I can't say these thoughts didn't cross my mind at one point. I think you could make some ribs if you wanted to fill in the bottom a bit, but it would be a strange thing to do... just because I think you can buy plans for boats like this without building it onto a weekender. But if it's a weird project you're after, I guess you could do it. If you followed the profile of the keel you'd end up with a pretty funny-looking hull with the maximum buoyancy way forward. You'd have to figure out what kind of hull shape would work to keep the resulting boat floating level. You'd probably want to shave the keel itself down to almost nothing, just basically to act as an interior, well, "keel" to support your little ribs. Then of course since the boat would float way higher in the water and be even more tippy, you'd probably need some kind of ballast.

It seems like the kind of thing that is theoretically possible but would be so much bother that it would end up being more rewarding to just build some other kind of boat.

Now, one thing I have become increasingly intrigued by is a modification designed by Paul Ricelli, of this parish, who actually IS a designer for real, he has a way to shave the keel down so it basically does its structural job but doesn't protrude at the front like the stock one. Then he builds up the centre to make something like a little fixed centreboard or fin. It ends up looking more like a conventional skiff or dory under the water.

Ryerson Clark built his Weekender in the same town as me, and in his second year of sailing it, he shaved down the keel and built up that little fin in the middle like Paul suggested, while I was too skeptical to try it. Well, too lazy and reluctant to screw up my boat was more like it. Anyway, Ryerson was very pleased with the added performance of his boat and he says it makes less leeway and goes faster with less weather-helm. I am, twelve years after building my boat, starting to find the weather-helm and leeway a bit outrageous myself, and am almost ready to take a sabre-saw to the bottom of my boat too... I can't see that there would be any harm. I mean Ryerson's boat certainly didn't suffer for it.

Anyway, I think you might do something like that if you really want to build a weekender. there are plenty of other stitch-and-glue kits out there that will give you a weekender-like boat without taking the risk of really buggering up an existing flat-bottomed design.

If you DO decide for some mad reason to go forward with this however, I will be very interested in how it turns out. I wonder, if you were to build a bilge onto the thing, whether it might be a decent idea to use thinner wood on the sole, so that once your "bottom" is built onto it you can cut big inspection holes in it and create some useful bilge space.

I suspect if you did modify the hull this way, you'd need a few hundred pounds of weight in a fin sort of arrangement. I betcha Paul will come along in a little while and tell us what he thinks.

Drew,
First of all, welcome to the forum.

I agree with Keith...what you seem to be proposing is a completely different boat.  If you aren't trained in naval architecture then I recommend you find a different design more to your liking.  Pick up a copy of Backyard Boatbuilding by George Buehler.  Your public library may have a copy.  Some of his designs are multi-chined and can be built of plywood.  The Glen-L site has several designs you might like as well.

Think carefully about placement of your flotation.  What would it tend to do if your boat is capsized 180 degrees?  Would it try to right the boat or to keep it upside down?  I think if you put the flotation down low, then it would tend to keep the boat upside down once capsized.  However, if you place the flotation higher up, perhaps it will help you right the boat after a capsize.  You also want to distribute the flotation in such a way that the boat will want to float level in the water when swamped, rather than one end sticking up or listing to one side.  In my Skipjack build this is one of the reasons I placed the the foam behind the seat backs and in the foreward two feet of the bow.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

here is a quick sketch of how I was thinking this would go together. I guess this would be in the middle section. The ribs would taper to follow the curve of the bottom.

Im also open to suggestions for other boat plans. The CLC Pocketship seems damned similar to the Weekender, but with some changes similar to the ones I've proposed

Sam Devlin's Nancy's China is very like a Weekender but with a Vee bottom and moderate ballast.  I have heard from a friend who has sailed my Duckie that they don't sail as well, but I would like to try one out and see for myself. I would think that the construction would be comparable to weekender's with a few variations. 

It's worth a look.

Al Stead
Weekender Jumping Duck

Your sketch didn't come through, at least on my machine, can you repost it? It sounds like you have too little of everything, no insult intended. Not enough sailing experience, ditto building experience and especially design or engineering experience.

If you do as I think you're suggesting, you'll change all the fundamental "centers" for the boat, which will throw her way out of balance. She will not float where she should, her CG, CB and CLP will change, probably dramatically, so without some major math skills, this wouldn't be a good idea for the novice, sailor, builder and budding designer.

This said, every boat ever designed can stand some modifications, improvements and changes. All boats are designed to a SOR (Statement of Requirements), which is the set of goals the design is supposed to address. Weekender can tolerate a lot of changes and Lord knows, I've suggested plenty over the years. At this point you need to develop your SOR, so you can prioritize your needs and concerns, which will guide the design changes necessary to satisfy these goals.

For what it's worth, damn near all unballasted, small sailboats of this general size and configuration aren't self righting. Some boats a little smaller or those light enough, can be righted if capsized, but these too aren't "self righting". A soggy, scared skipper dangling off the keel or centerboard, can usually get it done on most boats this size.

Making Weekender more "weatherly" will be difficult without major changes. She has many things against her windward abilities, but improvements can be made. If by weatherly you meant seaworthy, well this isn't possible in a Weekender, for several reasons, but mostly because she's just too small. Seaworthiness is a state of mind as much as boat design. Plenty of very seaworthy vessels have been lost at sea in spite of the vessel's suggested abilities. In the same vain, plenty of nut jobs have make incredible passages in boat not very well suited. I say nut jobs because crossing the Atlantic ocean in a 9' boat is nuts.

Flat bottom boats do pound in some conditions, but this really isn't a problem, just an annoying noise. Most folks trim the Weekender slightly bow down, which solves this issue to a large degree.

Sealing in the bottom, with a false bottom is a really bad idea and will just provide a place for rot, mildew, moisture and mold to live. If you want a V bottom or a multi chine, say a 5 or 6 panel hull, instead of the 3 panel (single chine) hull Weekender has, you'll need to look for a suitable hull form. Simply put, it's not easily possible or practical to make a 3 panel design into a multiple panel hull form, without some serious boat design skills. Nancy's China is a good design, but there are literally hundreds of small cruiser designs available, so look around. The first place to start would be the Glen-L.com and Bateau.com sites. Look around and see what's available and you'll quickly see lots of V bottom and multi chine offerings.

Thanks all, for the completeness of your answers. And no offense taken Paul, you wouldnt be to far off the mark as categorizing my "experience" e as no experience at all. Im a welder/fabricator so I have a little design experience, but not nearly enough to engineer a new boat hull, eh?

Well Im not too surprised to find myself in the over ambitious newb category. Damned boat dreams ran away with me.

Ive also never sailed a day in my life. I was a merchant marine, but theres a big difference.


So here is my question now. It looks like to build a boat that will do all the things I want it to Ill have to build a larger, much more expensive boat. Ive been building little one sheet plywood dingys to practice some of the techniques to build the weekender, Should I build the weekender A) to learn to sail (at all) and B) get a little more practice boat building before I tackle the er' elusive dream boat?
Or should I just take my time and look at a bunch  oh different plans and try to come up with something a little more rounded?

I like the weekender aesthetic, I like that its not too big. Im not crazy about the part that keeps me in protected waters and I could use a smidge more cabin space (Im 6'4") I dont need to go round the horn, but Id love to go harbor hopping round Jersey.

In the meantime I bought some books to help me sort this out. I got the "Seaworthy Oceangoing Sailboat" by John Vigor, two Edwin Monk books and the "Boatbuilding Manual" by Robert Steward. Any other recommendations?

Also, does this lovely community have any members in the Philadelphia area? Maybe we could meet up so I can ogle your boat!

thanks so much guys, your feedback is invaluable

Oh,in case anyone is wondering here's where Ive been getting plans for the one sheet plywood boats http://koti.kapsi.fi/hvartial/#XX15

Theres all kinds of designs for little dinghys and dorys and punts and the like. makes for a great weekend experience and it ends in a boat!

Al, the Nancy'sChina looks like it might be a good option, Im going to investigate further

Paul, I took a look at your website and if I were a little better heeled and a little more skilled (lot) Id be tempted to build the Discrete. Man, thats a good looking boat

Another designer you might want to look into is Jay Benford.

http://www.benford.us/index.html

He has some small sailboat designs that can be built "relatively" quickly and economically, but are much more seaworthy than any of the Stevenson designs.

Case in point, albeit much larger than what you're considering, is Annie and Pete Hill's 34-FT Badger.  They built this over a three year period back around 1980 or so for 11,000 British pounds, then sailed it all over the world for many years and over 100,000 miles.  Another guy in inland Canada, with no prior boat building experience, built a similar Benford design in a year.

At the other extreme, a young fellow wanting to set a new smallest boat solo circumnavigation record had Jay Benford design a 14-Ft sailboat dubbed "Happy."  He sailed it out from Florida, through the Panama Canal and made it nearly to Australia before losing it to an unfortunate reef grounding.

Benford has many designs between these extremes, some more easily built than others.  Badger is a plywood dory design, while Happy is a cold molded design.  The point is that there's probably a Benford design that will work for you and it will be relatively seaworthy.  It's just a matter of whether you want to spend the time and money for the extra capability.  But I don't think there's much out there that can compare with some of the Benford designs as for cost vs. build time vs. seaworthiness.  Maybe a couple of George Buehler's designs, but his designs are even more heavily built so they will probably cost more.

Here's a book you can buy with several complete Benford plans (albeit smaller print than the full plan sets), including Happy:

http://www.tillerbooks.com/Pocket_Cruise...Yachts.php

And here's a description of Happy from the Benford site:

http://www.benford.us/index.html?pcty/

And finally, a photo of Happy:

Here's another thought.  How about a Thunderbird?  These are a little larger, 26 Ft I think.  There's a One Design rating for these and there are races you can participate in if you have one.  Relatively simple chined plywood construction and the plans are cheap, about sixty bucks.

http://thunderbirdsailing.org/

There are lots of these boats "out there," mostly along the west coast, so you might be able to just buy one in good condition for maybe $4000 or $5000.  Cheaper than building a new one.