Expect the unexpected

I went out for what I thought would be a low key sail for a couple of hours in my Skerry from the local beach yesterday. I remember looking the box I made to fit under the port thwart, which contains radio, first aid kit, and space blanket, and thinking "Nah, won't need that today." {Cue ominous music}

The forecast was for a warm sunny day, with 10 knots till much later in the afternoon. {Cue more ominous music}

Coming back, the wind suddenly kicked up round midday, 20 knot gusts recorded over at nearby weather station.  It was quite frisky out there.  The green arrows are the prediction, red line the recorded wind gusts. Oliver, who was out in his dad's Laser nearby, capsized three times.

I could see two dark shapes way out, and thought "those guys are brave, that's a long way out for a sit on top fishing kayak".

My tack back to my launch spot took me near the fishing kayaks, and as I got closer, I realised one guy was in the water. I dropped sail, and rowed over towards him. The guy on other kayak headed in front of me, and said something like "I've got this". He looked like he knew what he was doing, so I rowed round, pickingup shoes, water bottle, and paddle from the first kayak. When I turned round again, both kayakers were in the water. 

I rowed the Skerry up beside the second kayak, and tried to hold that steady while the second guy climbed in, but the kayak was too unstable thanks to the amount of water in it.  The good news was, holding that kayak next to the Skerry provided significant extra bouyancy on that side, and after a couple of failed attempts the second kayaker was able to slither into the Skerry without putting us both in the drink.

The water here is still mighty cold, and the kayaker now in my boat did not seem to be in a good way.  I had no way to warm him up. The other kayaker was still in the water.  No other boats were anywhere near. This was not a good situation.

Luckily the kayaker now in my boat had a radio, and I suggested he put out a Mayday, as I had no good plan for what to do for the other chap in the water. 

Luckily, and I don't know how, shortly after this the first kayaker managed to get himself back in his kayak, though it was swamped and he was putting all his energy into not tipping over again. 

Luckily there was a Fisheries boat not too far away who responded to the Mayday and who were on the scene in minutes.

Fisheries picked up the kayakers, took the kayaks in tow, and what could have been a serious incident had a happy ending.  I raised sail and headed on back to the beach, hopefully a wiser sailor. 

I learned a few things.  The obvious one is, always always take radio and first aid and emergency blanket.  If the kayaker had not had a radio, the situation would all have been much more fraught.   Second was that people are more important than boats - I tied a line onto the second guy's kayak after he got in the boat - it was there, and that seemed like a good idea at the time - but towing it slowed me right down and made it much harder to manoeuvre.  Let the boat go, don't worry about stuff, worry about the people. 

The good news is that you can rescue a kayaker in a Skerry if you get their kayak beside you on the side the person is going to be coming over. 

The other thing I might add to my boat gear is some sort of net for collecting stuff from the water - not that easy from a Skerry I found.

But Skerry's certainly are fantastic little boats, mine proved itself again yesterday!

Here's a rough video of the events. I was filming before the wind kicked up and forgot to turn the camera off. Footage was largely accidental. But interesting.

Meanwhile the glacial progress on the SCAMP continues. I got the deck carlins on, now trying to finish up jobs that need doing before the deck is glued down, like cleat doublers. Cut out the port holes at last and had a trial fit of front deck and cabin sides.  It is starting to look like a boat, and I am still enjoying the build. But by golly I will be glad when it is in the water! Now if I had been in the SCAMP I could have picked both kayakers up, no worries.

Be seated

 One of nice things about building your own boat is you can imagine little features and wiith luck make them happen. I thought the footwell was a good candidate for a foot grate, as is is sure to accumulate an inch or two of water somewhere along the line, and that water in your shoe does have a demoralising effect. 

I made a trial grate out of some Tasmanian Ash that Harald up the road gave me. One of this month's jobs has been adding cleats on the side seat faces, and with a bit of judicious sanding and rasping, the grate sits snugly at cockpit sole level, which will be handy for sleeping. 

And it also works as a rowing seat.  

I am ridiculously pleased with this very basic bit of carpentry. And heaven knows I need some morale boosting on the boat building front, as the build is going more slowly than I anticipated. I am about a month behind where I thought I might be a month ago. I expected to have the seats and sole down two weeks ago. Instead I just finished filleting port side seat today, starboard side and lazarette still to go.

Partly this slow progress is due to me routinely underestimating the tasks and how long they will take. Partly it is because I slope off and do other things. Like going sailing. Now the weather is getting warmer at last, I gratefully accepted Chris's suggestion to go for a sail last Tuesday.

We had an energetic sail over to Point Cook, lunch on the beach, and a lovely sail back. And then I could spend the next day fiddling round making a video of it all.  Which doesn't get the SCAMP built any faster. 

But it does remind me why I am building. I am very glad I am building this boat. I have big plans for it.

Lazaretting

 

In boat building, as in most activities I guess, there are lots of inter dependencies. You can't put the rear cockpit sole down till the outboard doubler is in, which might interfere with the lazarette support which needs the seats in but they can't go in till you put the side cleats in which requires you to know where the lazarette goes. I dry fitted what I could, and decided arbitrarily on a location for the forward lazarette cleat, based in the size of my fisherman's anchor which I hope to store in there. The crunch will be whether I can get a hatch small enough not to interfere with the tiller but big enough to get the anchor in and out.

Funny word "lazarette", lots of dodgy etymological theories out there on the internet about the origin of the word, but Lazarus clearly is in the chain somewhere there.

I am slowly  chipping away. Maggie is appalled at my slow progress, but should have the soles and the seats down in the next week or so.  Maybe ready to turn over by the end of next month.  

Stephen who has bought plans for #667 came to have a look at progress and try out the cuddy for size. It will be really nice to have another SCAMP in progress.  I better get cracking or he will be on the water before me!

Steaming along

 After a lot of shilly shallying, I cut and scarfed  new pieces for the gunnels. I can use the other bits for the deck carlins.

When I came to clamp a new piece, it was clear it was not quite going to fit.

Clamped as hard as I dared, it was close but no cigar. So I tried a method both Gerard Van Drempt and  Chris Hurren suggested ... clamp one end and steam and fix small sections as you go. 

Anne has a nifty little hand held clothes steamer. Using a bit of plastic bag about a metre long, I steamed progressive sections for about 5 minutes each, then clamped that bit in place, then moved on to the next bit.  Slow but it worked nicely.  I have 9 gunnel and carlin pieces to fit so I hope I get a bit faster.

I can work on the gunnels while I wait for the epoxy and then the undercoat and paint on the cockpit sole sections to dry. After much indecision, I finally cut the circular holes for the Armstrong hatches in the sole pieces. I am not sure that having the large hatch into the water-ballast tank is such a great idea. 

I have put my centreboard pin on the water-ballast tank side, and if ever I need to get access to it I will be glad of that big hatch. That damm centreboard pin has consumed a disproportionate amount of time. I suspect the bushings are ever so slightly out of alignment. I could jiggle it home before but now thanks to my over cunning bolt system,  the darn thing is a few mill off sitting fflush. The good news is I managed to not epoxy the plug into the garboard drain fitting.

So, the project is still moving, and if I keep moving it has to get somewhere. There have been some lovely if chilly days this week, it would be really nice to get back on the water. 

I have finally settled on a name for the SCAMP: "Anjevi". In good Welsfordian tradition (look up "Joansa") it is an amalgam of my family's names: Anne, Jess and Vincent.  And it sounds a bit like Anchovy, which Wikipedia tells me is a small, blunt nosed fish, sort of appropriate for a small, blunt nosed boat.

Now, I have to decide on a colour scheme ....

Whisky plank and Welsfordian curves

 I finally got to glue on the whisky plank on the weekend. I tried to get Oz to pose for a shot to record the occasion. He was deeply disapproving.

The odd bit of wood is a brace, to hold the ply in place firmly till the epoxy sets. 

Anne is in the Epworth hospital in Richmond after knee surgery. I have been catching the train over to visit most mornings. Hopefully another week or so and she will be home.  

I can get an hour or two of work done on the boat most days, but somehowI am a bit inefficient and muddled at the moment.  EG I mixed a batch of epoxy yesterday then could not for the life of me find the handle I needed for the roller to spread it.

One looming challenge is to get the 10 by 30 mm stips of Oregon to conform to the graceful but quite steep curve of the gunnels. Gerard kindly bought me some long plastic bags for steaming. We tried it, but, silly me, I put the start of the bag and the steam pipe input right at the point where I had epoxied the scarf joint. Which of couse melted the glue and the joint failed.

Today I tried carefully clamping on a gunnel strip, little bit at a time. And it seemed to work. Tomorrow I will screw it on, and try my luck with the next strip. 

Jim at the Dinghy Shop is back temporarily from his cruise up north. He hit a large solid object which should bot have been in a marked channel, and damaged the keel of his boat. Proving the maxim it is an ill wind etc I was able to stock up on screws and order some more epoxy and various fittings. And the 2 x 250mm  Armstrong hatches I ordered moths ago finally arrived, just in time to do the cockpit sole.

So, not great progress but at least still moving forward. Beautiful day today, would have been lovely on the water!

Ark etype

 

Doreen, a lovely lady from the Mauritius, told me "your boat looks like a little ark".  And by golly, she is right, I can't stop seeing it that way now. And I do feel like a sort of Noah.

I should really be sanding and painting the inner compartments, but I couldn't resist trying the 3rd planks. The good news is they fit pretty well. The bad news is I really can't reach the forward compartments that need sanding, epoxying and painting, so I will have to take the planks off again. Oh well, it was a good morale boost.

I temporarily put the seats and the cockpit sole in as well, and proped the cabin sides up, and had a good sit and a think about tasks to be done. Much easier than actually doing them. The challenge of getting the carlins fitted is looming on the horizon. I bought a more powerful table saw, which ripped the pieces ok, but generated a huge amount of sawdust. I am very envious of Campbell's dust extraction machine.  The charred bannister that Harald up the road gave me is a lovely bit of Oregon under the burned bits. I am thinking I will try my hand at making a birdsmouth mast, now I have the machine to cut the staves.

Chris suggested a sail on Monday, which turned out to be a great idea. It was a fantastic Winter's day sail, complete with a fantastic dolphin encounter. I know it will take longer to build the boat if I keep goofing off, but there will be plenty of days when I can't sail, so I am resolved to seize every opportunity.

Chris made a really nice video of the day:

Learning

 Gerard kindly helped me get plank 2 on last week. I had been fiddling round not making much forward progress, so his help getting over the plank 2 hurdle was much appreciated. 

It's great to see the structure taking on a more SCAMP-like appearance. I dare to hope that this might turn into an actual boat one day.

It sure is a beamy little thing, almost half as wide as it is long.

 I am pretty much finished this round of filleting and cleating. It has been a salutory learning experience and I hope I have learned something approaching patience. The effort today sanding the dodgy fillets that I put on yesterday when the light was fading and I was tired is a good reminder that it's just not worth it. Speaking of light fading, the quality of my late afternoon fillets has improved considerably now I am using a camping lantern and can sort of see what I am doing.

The precision of the cnc kit has really helped with the planks. Even Maggie the Quality Control Officer is impressed. She really likes the boat, something about all the compartments appeals to her cat brain. And on good days we get lovely afternoon sunshine in the carport and she can snooze contentedly curled up in front of the jig.Very companionable. Ozzie is now shut inside while I work, after a couple of incidents where he has taken himself off for a walk round the neighbourhood while I have been distracted with the boat.

Next tasks to finish off the compartments with a few more coats of epoxy and some paint, before they get too hard to access. And put hatches in the cabin sole and side seats.

Works will slow down for a while too, as a trip away and other commitments will soak up SCAMP time, but the project will take as long as it takes, and I am enjoying it.