..and then?
..and then?
Friday, July 2, 2010
The plan was to write an epilogue to all this. But that never seemed to work out. The story didn’t end at the launch, it goes on. So, we’ll go along and see where it leads us.
We’d launched the boat, sailed it some, pulled it out to fix up the first set of “bugs” we’d run into.
One bit was to get a marina slip to keep the machine in and in order to make this workable, we needed bottom paint. Ian of Counter Current Marine did the bottom job. He’s the only one in Anacortes that we know of that will do spray on bottom paint.
Interior. I’d fought tooth and nail for my big fluffy boat cushions. It was now time to get them installed. We’d left the Dart in the shop over Christmas break and I spent some time making up floor plates, fiddles for the bunks, mounting an ice chest. General interior bits that needed doing.
While this is going on we’re taking the Dart out and seeing how it works.
Winter sailing, brrr!
More importantly, during this time, Ian & Joy are also taking the boat out and seeing how it works. And what needs changing.
Early chute..
The hull mold was pretty torn up when we pulled out the first boat. Again due to our ignorance and my not keeping a close enough eye on what was going on. Live and learn, but these lessons are pretty expensive.
Half the mold all fixed up and ready to put back to work. SteveK did the rebuild job for us. It turned out wonderful!
Then things change again..
Remember this picture showing what cool kinds of boats were being built here in town? Sure you do..
The company that built these monster machines went bankrupt. Actually, a lot of boat builders did last fall.
So, seeing that the guy that was in charge of building them monster luxury yachts was a buddy of SteveK’s. Who, when he’s not busy does work for us.. We hired him and now he is in charge of building Darts. In fact. that’s him helping pull the hull mold out of the shop in the picture above.
Why hire a shop forman? The plan is to build up the second boat using what we learned building the prototype. Also, while this is being done, template everything so doing subsequent boats would be much more reasonable. Tom’s experience building mega luxury yachts, along with him being buddies with the people that have helped us in the past, made him a shoe-in for the job. This allows me to work on getting the bugs worked out of the original Dart as well as finish development on the nifty bits that are going into them.
Also we now have and unending source of boat building knowledge right here in the shop. That and when we need different kinds of work done, Tom must know every worker and workshop in the county.
Very handy!
New things we’ve come up with.
For example..
Looks like wood.
But its not..
Its not wood. Or at least that’s what we call it. Its infused fiberglas panel that uses wood veneer instead of gelcoat.
Infusing an interior panel.
An offshoot of this project was aluminum infusion molds. The boat builders are a bit suspicious of this idea. But the fact that I can have a ‘mold’ made up in one afternoon by the local farm tool repair shop outweighed their nay saying.
Works great!
Fitting the bare panel into the Dart.
Steve making up the interior panel..
Ta dah! The finished panel all installed. Its actually held in place with velcro. An ingenious mounting method that Tom came up with.
The little silver plate inside the cubby hole is the plugin plate for the boat’s Simple Stereo.
This also included adding a battery and wiring harness.
Graphics..
We showed the boat off in the local in-the-water boat show. We were off to the side and mostly the people were looking for powerboats. But it was free, and it was very good to get some experience showing off the boat to the public.
Then we did a trip to Santa Cruz CA. Birthplace of the ultra light sailboat. Also one of the places where I learned to sail back in the day.
The trip was a fiasco. The boat wasn’t ready, I wasn’t ready, the weather wasn’t ready, Leif didn’t show, piles of friends & family did..
The boat turned a lot of heads ( In the 6.2 minutes we were able to sail it ) but pretty much the trip was a lot of stress for very little payback.
Oh well, next time..
Meanwhile back at the ranch..
Tom & crew have been turning out all the bits that go into Darts. Not only that but documenting time & materials along with creating templates for all the glass and core bits that go in ‘em.
Keels skins..
Chains of hatch plates..
Mike & Tom building..
And popping bunk liners..
All trimmed up and ready to install.
While this is going on I’m buried stepping up the stereo building project. This is a far larger nightmare than I planned on. Fighting with machine shops bla bla bla.. What a pain. But they are selling and we need to get them shipped.
About half way through this I take a week off to, well.. Sleep. I’m just that cooked.
Tom takes on the casting step, I do the final soldering. Dr-T assembles the PC boards. It ends up working out rather well. We’re still, as of this writing, doing the machine shop tooling experiments. But I think, fingers crossed, that we have a handle on that now.
The LED Touchlight.
Oh boy..
Not liking what we could find on the market we decided to make up our own reading lights. We wanted the most efficient, longest lasting light possible and hang the cost.
Well.. In the end we got what I asked for. But wow! It took some engineering to get there. And we found out, if you want the best LEDs, they cost a bundle!
This project has been on and off for about seven months.
The result?
They are so cool!
Touch ‘em to get light, touch ‘em to turn ‘em off.
Flush mounted and encapsulated in solid Urethane.
Whereas most LED lights on the market today give you kinda’ a cold blue spotlight effect, this one gives a more golden colored floodlight effect.
Link : Left Coast LED Touchlight
Meanwhile back on the water..
Ian’s been racing the Dart in the local Wed. night beer can races. This is so we can get a handle on what changes we want to do to the Dart before offering them for sale.
The main trouble is that it seems like the Center of Gravity is just too high. At least to me. Leif says that If I add as much as one lb. more ballast to the boat he’s never speaking to me again. Ei yi yi..
Ian, Jim Betts and I talk over our options. One thing we can do right now is to loose the absurdly complicated and way oversized standing rigging. Jim re-fabricates the spreader tips, Ian orders some PBO rigging to be made up.
The PBO project winds up, of course, Wed. evening. We hear the start of our race class as we are still putting the rig back together at the dock. Boom on, vang on, mainsail.. Ok lets go! Guy and I with a pickup crewman go out to chase down our class. No we don’t win, but the scary part is.. We don’t come in last either.
The boat handles great! I’m getting hooked on this lighter rig thing really quick.
Talking to Leif, he tells me that removing the roller furler will have the same effect as the rig swap all over. “Fine.. I’ll try it without.” Ian gets one of the jibs redone with hanks and makes up a new headstay.
Another offshoot of the race course testing is an asymmetrical chute. Both Leif & Ian have been beating me over the head with these. I’ve been dragging my feet about these newfangled things.
This chute is so bloody easy to use, anyone can fly it. It uses no sprit or pole at all. You gybe it like a big genny. Its great! I’m sold!
I call it the “Family Chute”
So we swap out the roller furler just in the nick of time for the local Ullman sails rep, Chris Winnard to try his hand at doing the Wed. night race. We’re talking within minutes here. He shows up, bringing his own crew and does the race. I do the rail meat thing and do my best to keep my mouth shut.
He doesn’t just beat “B” fleet. He destroys every boat out there. Starting in “B” fleet, finishing somewhere in “A” fleet.. ( They are “faster” and have 5 minute head start on us. ) Manages to get the fastest elapsed time around the course for any boat for any fleet including the multihulls..
Yeah, I’m kinda’ pleased. With someone that knows what they are doing, this thing flies!
As we’re pulling into the marina I ask him how the boat felt. Did it handle ok? Was it, maybe too tender? I got one of those “Why is he asking stupid questions” looks. “I like the boat, it works fine.”
Finally! We’ve arrived!