Finally I got it in the Water in June 2021 - after weeks of sanding, painting, mounting and working on an endless list of things to do. The first sail on a sunny day in moderate winds was great. The smile in my face didn't fade. Seems she is a "head-turner" ...

"Lagom" is not just a word in swedish language, but a way of life: To have just the right amount; not too much, not too little.

The Sailrite-Kit does a fine job - some fine tuning of Block-positions was done after these fotos.

To be continued...

Steam Bending Gunwhales, Cranse Iron and masthead fitting

 

After successful steambending small parts I tried bigger ones: The outer gunwhales (is there anything like outwhales??). The plastic bag did not lead the heat over the full length of the boat - even when applied in the middle. So I did it step by step in about 1.5 - 2m distances. Duct-Tape closed the holes in the plastic when moving forward. Both sides took the whole day.

From time to time I did some searching round on boat supply pages for all the small parts needed and while checking the prices I asked myself if these parts were made of pure gold and diamonds. I decided to make some "boat jewellery" myself: A mainsheet block (from old parts I had saved from a wrecked dingy), Bowsprit and masthead fittings. Just if anybody asks - No, I never welded before.." Joel's navigator - blog has a bucket full of suggestions for things like this.

This blog was not continued for a long time - but between building a new family house, a new business, moving the boat shop twice I finished at least some important steps.

After moving the first time I worked in a winter storage for caravans and boats. There I faired the inside with a simple selfmade "boat-plane" - just bought a cheap wooden plane and radiused the sole and the iron. It worked perfect. 

The temporary chip-board bulkheads were changed into the real plywood ones, using the first as molds to trace the pencil around. The bulkheads were glued in and the inside was glassed in one step.

Working in an unheated hall, without a place to leave tools and things showed to be not ideal. Further it was always a 30min drive to go there and 30 min back - I haven't been there as often as expected.....

While planning our new family home in 2015 I finally got the chance to build my own shop near the house. The max. allowed 50sqm are not generous but enough. The boat on its trailer snugly fits, and after our bikes, garden stuff and all the other things are inside, I can still move around.

The space between stem and bulkhead 0 wouldn't add much comfort to the cabin. I made the bulhead watertight and build a drained storage for fenders, lines, anchor.....

Next step was to frame the cabin, and glue deck, cabin sides and roof.

Starts looking like a boat...

I thought about the possibbility for a self draining cockpit for a long time. After a lot of measuring, thinking, imagining I lifted the cockpit floor about 20 cm (8 inches), filled the space with foam (after sealing with epoxy and glass) and installed 2 pieces of copper-tube in both forward corners as drains through the bottom. Seat hight is 42 cm - about 9inches now.

After seeing this Youtube Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--iPQIwSEJM

I made my first experiences with steam bending in plastic sleeves. Just small sized battens for cabin roof edges. I used the stuff for vacuum-packing food - easy work and surprisingly good results. Next I'm going to bend gunwhales...

The main mast ist glued of 4 larch boards 25mm (1inch) thick - 10x10cm (4x4 inch) at the bottom. Here are my efforts to get it round... For the mizzen I found a nice little quite straight larch sapling in ideal size....just found a stick in the woods....

Havn't posted for a long time. First the process of sanding, fairing, glassing will not bring many presentable pics cause you won't see much of progress from far. Second writing into my PC is not my favourite.

But nevertheless there are a few things to report:

During our summer holidays at the baltic we saw the Hansekogge "Wisemara" passing by. (http://www.poeler-kogge.de/)
Unfortunately I had only my mobile with me - sorry for the quality of the photo.

My son varnished his spars and started sewing sails

 I attached stem and stern using epoxy and 8'' long stainless steel screws

 After glassing and sanding we came to the next interesting part of the job. I have been building upstairs until now. My carpenter-friend has been very patient with me but he needs the space now. Second the height of the room was not enough to turn the hull there so I had to move it.
Last weekend I rented a "telescope fork-lifter", asked several friends and went for the adventure.
We used the fork-lifter like crane with help of my rock-climbing equipment and got the hull down without damage. Just my strongback (rubbish-made) was obviously not strong enough for this kind of force and fell apart. Saved a bit time of demounting.
I expected the hull beeing about 300 kg (something like 600 lbs) but turning it over was easily made by 4 of us without any effort. Now it is sitting on it's trailer, waiting for the new home..

 

Been off for circumnavigation of Ruegen-island

While the fairing process needs longer than I expected, I went off for sailing.

On a rented folkboat we started in Altefähr for circumnavigation of the island of Ruegen (german Rügen). Had a great time sailing, gunkholing, fishing and seeing all the nice places from the water where I have been walking and biking many times before. 

Further I used the time to study several construction details at the wooden folkboat. Maybe something is worth copying? E.g. the builder used Tufnol-strips for protection of mechanically stressed wooden edges (cockpit-coaming, parts of the footrail near the clamps etc.) - looks good and works well.

After all I made a strange experience: When I had the same boat 6 or 7 years ago, sailing in a similar area, it was quite normal to sail a 24 ft-boat. But times they are a changing and boats seem to grow. We've been asked several times by other sailers if it isn't dangerous beeing on a small boat like this on the open sea??? But the boat has not been shrinked? And wasn't there a Blondy Hasler crossing the Atlantic in a folkboat?

But maybe the ability (read money) to by a big boat has no good influence on sagacity?

Nevertheless we've had a very good time, lots of sun, wind 3-6 bft, just ideal conditions.

Stripping complete

Last week I finished stripping. The last maybe 15 strips had very much twist and took their time. Started sanding and fairing yesterday. Removing all the screws took several hours. After that my belt sander, 60grit paper and a vacuum cleaner did a fine job. This will be the task for the next days.

Centerboard case and skeg glued. Stripping about half complete.