Winter Stuff, WIndow Shopping and Sticker Shock

 

It' January.... It's kind of frickin cold.  It was -15 F this AM but its usually not THAT cold.  The boat was shrink wrapped for the winter and some lumber  tarps were hung off the sides to help keep run off from dribbling down the side of the project all Winter and Spring.

Though there is plenty to do, I am taking a little time during the winter to collect my thoughts,  think about interior design, systems and getting priorities straight for the next construction season.  I hired Chip F. to help me get things jump started last Summer and Chip didn't disappoint.  We got a lot done and there's a boat load of stuff to do in 2015 too.

My goals for this year are to get two layers of 1/2" ply on the hull over the planking, 3 layers of 1/2" ply on the deck, coat the hull and deck and move the project to Yarmouth this Summer to put the pilot house on.  I can't put the pilot house on in Falmouth because the project won't fit under the utility wires between here and the water with the pilot house on.  Any other significant interior bulkheads will need to be addressed now too as once the deck goes on getting big anything into the ship is problematic.

I have started sketching the interior lay out for Pile of Wood and find that I have lots of great ideas on paper but when I get the plans down to the interior (2nd picture) I find I have to scratch out about 30% of what I draw to get it to actually fit the stuff that looked so good when I drew it up at the house.

I also have had to do a lot of window shopping for systems as the physical implications for the interior build out are driven by what I put in the boat from water tanks to anchor lockers.  This has led to a lot of New Year's anxiety as I slowly tally the "tab" for all this stuff.  On the one hand its kind of exciting and fun.  It also is very sobering and has had me really rethink my strategy around what "I need".

On the one hand, this will be my home and I don't want to feel like I am camping each and every day.  I want my beer cold, a real stove and a few other modest trappings of civilized life.  But I don't need a lot and finding that balance around what's really important and what isn't is definitely part of this journey.

I almost pooped my pants when I realized that a good windlass and anchoring stuff could run me well over $10K.  That's just stuff to anchor.  Yikes.  I'm both excited and mortified.  Its all good, but this window shopping stuff has my heart skipping a few beats now and then.

Though there is still so much to do, its really important to have this natural break in the cycle to get focused and set yourself up for good decisions that will be the underpinnings for next year's construction.  I found I needed this break to think things through, and I am!

Planking

There is one last detail before we get to the planking.  Anywhere  there is a keel joint that intersects the Rabbet, the notch that receives the boat planking in the keel, there needs to be a "stop water" which does just that.  It stops any water that might get into the Rabbet from  outside  from traveling along the junction of the keel piece into the inside of the boat.  Here the junction is the intersection of the knee which backs the Stem (front piece of the ship) and the top of the keel.  Stop waters are typically soft wood dowels pounded into the hole you drill at the junction of the keel pieces and the rabbet.

At the bow of the ship the planking requires a bit of twist to hit the Chine, the Rabbet and lay flat on the stringers.  Here we have steamed the bottom planking (5/4 SYP) and are imparting the necessary twist into the planks by clamping them with some wedges.

As mentioned previously, unlike the upper planking, the bottom planking is both thicker (5/4 vs 1X) and is vertical vs horizontal (Maryland style bottom planking).  The planks are attached with deck screws, galvanized screws and galvanized ring nails.  Although probably overkill, I also used 3M 5200 to bed the entire Rabbet and to the Chine for the first dozen planks or so forward.  The remainder of the Chine was bedded with just tar aft.

clamping and screwing

5200 and galvanized screws into Rabbet

Tar bedding at frame and stringer

Fully planked

horizontal planking fore and aft

Stringers

Above the Chine the boat is planked length wise, horizontally.  Below the Chine the boat is planked "Maryland style" with the planks running vertically from Chine to Rabbet.  To support the span from Chine to Rabbet, Stringers are installed by notching the frames and nailing/glueing support pieces- Stringers, to which the vertical planking will be attached.  

The Stringers are comprised of two layers of 1X4 SYP glued and screwed to the notched frames.  The first pic shows the first layer in place and the second pic shows the full 2 layers of SYP comprising the stringer. Where the bottom of the hull is at its fullest there are 4 rows of stringers between Chine and Rabbet.

Before we plank....

 So the frames are standing, the engine and fuel tanks are in, the Transom and stem are up, there are still a few things that need to happen before we start planking (and remember, there will be two layers of plywood that goes over the planking later on).

First, before the cross bracing can come off the standing frames, we need a little more infrastructure to the framework of the ship.  Where the sharp angle or Chine of the hull turns up, there needs to be some solid wood built into that angle that gets notched into the frames.  In the photo to the left you can see the Chine which we have laminated out of SYP and Doug Fir (3 layers of 1X stock).  The laminated chine was easier to fit to the curves and mitigated issues around butt joints (because planks don't come in 44 foot lengths ;-0 ).  Later, the planking will be fastened to the frames, chine and stringers (on the bottom part of the hull).

Next we needed to make and install Deck Beams to the frames.  The Deck Beams become the frame work for the deck which is also the cabin ceiling depending....

The Deck Beams were cut from whole pieces of 3 X 8 Douglas fir with a 3.5 inch crown.  Many builders laminate the deck beams on a form but I chose to cut mine out of whole timbers.  They were sanded and then oiled with Tung oil.  You can see the curve (or crown) which sheds water that hits the deck and the difference in finish between a coated and uncoated beam from photo above. 

After a final fairing of the frames, the last step before planking is to put in the Stringers on the bottom (next blog topic).

A Nice Ass

Who doesn't admire a nice rump.  Well, its true for ships too.  Here we are putting up the transom of "pile of wood".  The transom actually tips backwards about 15 degrees and with planking added would be very heavy and awkward to lift into place.  We start by making the framework much like the other frames. The "horn timber" or center piece of the transom is through bolted to a big Angelique knee that is bolted to the very back of the keel.  Even without any ply attached, the framework probably weighs several hundred pounds.  After it has been bolted in place we add on two layers of overlapping plywood and coat with a material that creates a waterproof membrane (the blue stuff) and then attach 2X8 doug fir planking for the nice planked look and attach with more goop and big galvanized screws. The screw holes are filled with wooden bungs that are cut flush and sanded.  In the end, the transom will be painted to keep the "bright work" maintenance manageable.

Dropping in the Tanks

The fuel tank logistics were interesting.  The first thing I did was to make my tankage as two large tanks rather than four tanks which were suggested in the design.  I needed to move the engine room bulkhead forward one station to accommodate the larger tanks but I think it was a good swap of space to have a larger engine room and drop down to two tanks from four.  They are 420 gallons apiece and constructed of 1/4 inch aluminum with baffles and inspection ports for a total tankage of about 840 gallons of fuel.  Though I try to do as much business here in Maine, the best deal I found was a welder in NJ who had also done the tanks for my friend Joe who is building the 44 foot Duck.  To make the deal sweeter, Joe's brother in law has a place here in Maine and brought the tanks up from NJ.  With a little finessing of some lifting chain we were able to get the tanks out of the truck  with the neybah's Kabota, but dropping them in would require a visit from a big boy toy.  Empty,  the tanks weigh in at 750 lbs each.  Full they will weigh close to 3000 lbs each so having them snug and secure is a top priority.  I designed a wood cradle that is tied into the boat frames.  The tanks are mounted on neoprene strips to keep water from getting trapped between the wood and the tanks.  I had contemplated a day of dragging these bad boys up ramps with come alongs and such but ultimately wrote a modest check and had a crane company place them on the cradles in a little more than an hour with no scuffs, crushed fingers or other potentially disfiguring mishaps.

Raising the Frames

 As mentioned in a prior post, the frames were constructed over several winters in the cellar.  When the time finally came this summer, they were dragged down to the building site and laid out on the full sized framing table we constructed next to the keel.  The two frame halves were "mated" and cross pawls were added to stabilize the frame shape as the were attached to their respective floor timbers.  We started at the engine room where the engine had already been mounted and in anticipation of the fuel tanks which had just been ordered from an aluminum fabricator in NJ.

In addition to raising the frames here, this was also the right time to put in the fore and aft engine room bulk heads.  The bulk heads were to layers of screwed and glued 1/2 in MDO.  The aft bulkhead was left off until the tanks were installed to facilitate their placement (next post).  After the glue kicked screws were removed leaving us with a 1 inch final thickness laminated plywood bulk head.    Then the remaining frames were put in place you can see the floor timbers primed for the forthcoming frames and then finally almost all frames standing.  Frames were bolted to the the floor timbers with four 1/2 inch bolts (2 per side) and then strapping was screwed to the outside of the frames to stabilize them until the chine was attached.

Stem

 

The stem or forward timber of this ship was cut from a solid piece of Angeilique.  Again, very tough stuff to cut, heavy but very sturdy and rot resistant..  The stem rests on the very forward part of the fore foot and is backed by a "knee".  In the first photo I am taking another piece of solid angelique down to the proper width by cutting a number of cuts that  after I have chiseled away will leave me with an rough approximation of the width of the keel to which it will be mounted with 3/4 inch thru bolts.  It is trimmed up with a power planer and cut to the proper angles with the big 16" Makita.

So once again, the stem is not one of the boat parts you just throw over your shoulder and slap onto the boat.  Its 8.5" wide by 10" deep and 10' long weighing in at probably three or four hundred pounds.  So the trick is to get into place vertically and have it be perfectly straight on either side and with a slight forward angle.  My weapons of choice are stacked scaffolding and a chain fall.

After putting the stem in "ready" position, the knee is mounted first.  Then, even though positioning everything is some thing you only want to do once, you have to dry fit the stem to the keel and the knee   and make "fit" adjustments to everything so that it all looks like it should fit together.  Then you take it down and slap a liberal portion of epoxy/saw dust wood dough in all the joints, hoist her up again, position her till she sits just right, clamp the whole works up, put in bracing and wait overnight for the filler to set.  Then go back the next day and put in all the through bolts through the knee and tighten everything up.   There's a little more to it than that-  as a quick aside, this is one of the places that I cross checked my angle measurements off the plans with the digital level.

We are now getting to the end of muscling up the really big stuff.  There are still fuel tanks, frames and the Transom, but the big stuff is finding its way on the boat.

What moves you!

With a power boat, what moves you becomes very important as do the decisions about placement, mounting and a host of related topics like gear reduction for the transmission, prop and shaft analysis and material choice for their construction...

There is also a "Goldilocks" principle in play around size.  Yes size matters, but you don't want one too big because diesel engines don't like to just coast along and you don't want one too small or you may find yourself wishing for more and/or asking your engine to deliver more than it can.  So, you have to select one that's just the right size.  There are a couple of ways to do this.  The design includes HP and speed charts that give you a sense of how much you need to keep the boat moving at different speeds under calm (no wave/no wind/no current) conditions.  Then you need to add a magical number of horse power to acknowledge how it will really be on the open ocean and then, reality check it with the experiences of people who are out there cruising in ships similar to yours.

In the end, I selected a 135 HP IVECCO 6 cylinder diesel that is B-rated.  I was particularly fond of this model because it was one of the last naturally aspirated 6 cylinders out there AND its mechanically governed (vs electronically governed).  Having some tendencies toward being a luddite, I was averse to being out in the middle of it and having the engine error code E6 come up.  This is a simple and basic engine design very similar to a Cummins engine block with a good track record for reliability.  It should burn about 1.8 gallons of fuel per hour at a cruising speed of 6-8 knots depending on conditions.

Another interesting decision is when to put the engine on the boat.  Many builders say put the engine on first and then build the boat around it- which is what I did.  Many put it in later.  There are pros and cons to both approaches but I will tell you that even with blue sky it was a little tense getting the engine to sit just right on the flexible motor mounts.  I couldn't imagine trying to position 1200 lbs of steel through a little opening and then position it (the Goldilocks way) just right.   The engine bed is a hybrid of Doug Fir cut to the shaft angle (the prop shaft runs at a shallow angle through the keel) and welded steel flat bar so that the motor mounts could be through bolted.  At the suggestion of another builder I notched the wooden bed to tie into the underlying floor timbers which will help disperse the thrust across four floor timbers.  Engine Room frames and fuel tanks next!

Friends And Motivation

They say it takes a community to raise a kid, and honestly it takes one to build a boat too.  I met my friend Joe through the a web forum called "Backyard Boat Builders" which is populated by a number of builders building Buehler designed vessels as well as as an assortment of other home builders.  I have found much solace and a modicum of good advice here when I have been on the fence on any of a number of building "mother may I" questions.

Joe, to his credit is fond of Maine and usually makes an annual foray up north from his home state of NJ.   We met several years ago through the forum and have gotten together several times in Maine and in one visit down to NJ to see his undertaking- an awesome 44 foot Diesel Duck.

I had seen lots pictures of both the commercial built steel versions of the Duck as well as photos of Dan Gill's Duck and pictures of Joe's Duck in various stages of construction.  I have to state the obvious that there is nothing like being there and when I went down to NJ for a visit to see Joe and his project, I was  awestruck by what he had already done, what I aspired to accomplish and actually stand and walk around on and in the hull very similar to the ship I was building.

Honestly, physically seeing what Joe had accomplished was the ultimate kick in the pants.  Seeing what he had done was such an inspiration AND he has been such an invaluable source of advice and encouragement... Period.  Not only do I feel like I have a colleague, I have found a good friend.  This boat building stuff is tricky, but it does have its rewards.

Indoor things when there's snow outside

So building out doors in Maine does have its limits, especially after a snow storm or when it is 0 degrees outside or both.  How ever there are a bunch of things that can be done indoors to set your self up for the next construction weather window.  Building your frame halfs for example is a great way to spend your winter evenings ;-o.

I built a frame table half sized in my cellar that would allow me to lay out and construct each half of a "frame".  In the top picture I have the start of a frame half  laid out on the table with the shape derived from the table of offsets that come with the plans and drawn out full sized on the frame table.  These are sawn frames made of Doug Fir with 1" plywood gussets on both sides of the chine joint which is later notched for the chine log.  I prime any mating surface where wood meets wood- this case the plywood gussets will get mounted onto the primed area and fastened with 5/16 galvanized bolts to stabilize the joint.  The frames are later assembled on a full sized frame table out by the keel (to be described in another post).

In the second picture the Frame Storage Area takes shape and the family ping pong table is taken by eminent domain as a place to review blue prints.  The ping pong table has now been relinquished back to its intended recreational use now that all frames are standing- but I am getting ahead of the blog.

Keel Grounding Shoe

 In the olden days, ships had sacrificial wooden "shoes" on the bottom of the keels for the worms to eat instead of the keel and to bounce off of rocks and other immovable objects and protect the keel (worm shoes).  Buehler calls for a metal grounding shoe for the bottom of the keel that is 3/8" steel flat bar.

I made one futile attempt at drilling the steel free hand then went out and bought an inexpensive drill press.  Typically I try and buy good quality tools, but this was going to be a limited use tool so I bought a cheapo and honestly it has served me well for what I needed.

The aft part of the shoe also serves as the attachment point for the rudder.  This is thicker stock- 1/2" with sides to create a stronger attachment to the keel where the rudder will attach.  This required welding.  I don't weld, but my friend Brad is a renaissance man and does many things including welding.  Being the good friend that he is, he dropped what he was doing to help me get this keel piece welded up.

This also required putting the keel on its side (then putting it back up) one of the many times I went through this little dance.  I hit the mild steel with cold galvanizing spray (hence the gray tint).

The Keel

At this point the backbone of the Duck is largely complete.  The "dead wood" is  comprised of two stacked timbers of Angelique- the bottom most was a whole timber and the 2nd piece was laminated from Angelique boards I had milled from the whole timber into which I "sprang" a 3" curve by misjudging the grain when I was trimming it up.  It was a tremendous amount of work to cut the "sprung" timber into boards then laminate back into a straight whole timber but the Yankee in me couldn't see just tossing this hugely expensive timber aside even though I reinvested a week's work and $600 in epoxy for lamination.  I did end up with a straight timber however- which I didn't have before I sawed and laminated.

There are 10 individual keel pieces that comprise what you see here.  The keel components above the dead wood were built up with laminated Doug Fir and then each piece stacked and bedded in Sanitred LRB (more on this in a minute) and then tied together with 3/4" galvanized keel bolts at each station (2' spacing).  Then an  8" wide grounding shoe of mild steel flat bar was lagged onto the bottom of the keel.

Finally the whole assembly was coated with a combination of Sanitred Permaflex and LRB.  Building out doors, I needed to seal and protect the keel from the elements and this is how I chose to do it.  I later found it beneficial to add covering tarps over the whole assembly, especially over the winter.  I will discuss the strategy of Sanitred coatings for this project in upcoming posts.

* Sanitred products are single component polyurethane coatings.  Permaflex is a primer/sealer and LRB (Liquid Rubber Base) creates a water proof, gap filling membrane.  Typically the two products are used together to create a water proof barrier system used for many applications such as waterproofing basements, swimming pools liners and now, marine applications too-   http://www.sanitred.com/

Help

Honestly, when it comes down to it I don't know squat about building boats.  I do have friends that know poop loads about all of sorts of stuff that needs to get done- welding for instance.  Whether its neighbors with a wood mizer, friends with welding stuff, friends with boat building experience and yes, even hired help it all comes into play.

Lest anyone mistake this as a self contained effort, let me correct the record.  My real strength is in finding and enlisting people who know what I do not in order to move this project forward in a productive way.

I suspect there is a small hand full of folk who are blessed with all the skills and perspective to throw a 30 ton trawler together on their own.  Honestly, I am not one of those.

I have been fortunate to tap into other boat builders, circumnavigators, forums (important if true) and a really responsive boat designer ready to chime in with an answer to my latest crisis.

Pile of wood will ultimately reflect the input and perspective of lots of smart and generous folk.  So to my support network, and you know who you are (or will soon).  Thank you.

Catching us up

 The deadwood for the keel is two large pieces of Angelique (35 feet X 12" X 8") with laminated pieces of douglas fir creating the upper pieces of the keel from the shaft log forward.

The first picture is a couple of holes ready to receive the 3/4" galvanized keel bolts.  Some of these holes were quite deep 6' or more requiring some custom made drill bits and a really big drill.  The other challenge with these deep holes on either side of the shaft log (the hole through the keel that the propeller shaft runs through) is that you have to be nut on!  You do not want to drill into the shaft
log and you don't want to drill through the outside of the keel- or what is called a "drill out".  I had one.  You fill it with a  wooden dowel and try again.  Its very hard work and very stressful.

The next sequence of pictures shows the set up I used with scaffolding and chain falls to flip the keel on its side for various things like bolting flat bar onto the bottom for a grounding shoe.

 This is also the set up that I mentioned as a near death experience in my "safety" post.