Jeffs FS14 LS

[Dan_Smullen]

Blue Sky Boatworks definitely has ring to it!

Someone should register trademark that one!

Yeah, unfortunately, our mutual friend, EJ, already has, though Elaine thought they had stopped production on those.

Ahhhh. Forgot about that one.

[VT_Jeff]

'Bow manning the nav station on our first excursion after splash. I didnt get a chance to get the rig re-tuned so we just motored around a bit in the bay, did some casting, and 'Bow took his first ever swim, which was amazeballs. Pup loves the sailboat as much as the driftboats, really great news!

[Jeff]

Good looking pup!!! Jeff

[VT_Jeff]

Here's the Rub(rail)

I spent friday night, sat morning and much of today getting my bright fir verrtical rub rails attached. What a chore! The first thing I needed to do was to cut, per side, 73 different shims to get the existing rub rails vertical. I think Dan S. used a similar approach for his strakes and I think Trent used a few similar shims to get his rub rails vertical. I put them on continuously from bow to stern, it was a fair amount of work. Once I got them all cut and lined up I pre-coated the existing rail and the shims with neat epoxy, held each in place and checked for fit with a square, then drove a staple through the shim to hold it in place. Very tedious but the best I could come up with.

Once all the shims were cured in place I went back over with a chisel to remove any high spots that would prevent the rub rail from sitting flush against the deck. Next I applied neat epoxy to the shims and the mating face of the fir rib rail, let that setup bit, then laid a pretty good bead of thickened epoxy along the length of the fir rubrail mating face, and then used my 6 hands to clamp it in place. The port side went pretty smoothly as I could start at midship and then work fore and aft, letting it extaden past the bow and transom. ON the starboard side, I needed to get it up flush at the bow, which meant I needed to clamp from the bow to the stern, and that was a LOT more difficult. Took hours today to just get that one rubrail into place and there were defintiely more gaps than on the poret side. I'll fill the gaps with goo so not a big issue but it was a frustrating job that didn't end with a lot of satisfaction due to those gaps.

I don't have greta photos but this is a shot of the 'staged" shims. I would cut them 2 at a time, measering the angle between the 2 next shim positions and assuming that that measurement would always be good enough for 2 shims. Once I got them staged I numberde them all so that when I inevitbaly knocked a bunch on the floor, I knew where they went.

This is the glue up: kind of pita to clamp and many times I considered saying "screw it!" quite literally and adding some screws, but in the end I never did.

this is the almost-finished port-side product, it needs a little planing and cleanup. Also need to be flush-cut at the bow and transom.

This is a shot of the starboard side shims staged up and ready to go and the overhang of the port bow.

There's probably a good chance that this wide piece of dog fir will move on me and crack or check and that I'll have to circular saw it off and replace it with painted plywood or an extrusion or something, time will tell. I can live with it, its cosmetic. After seeing the amount of time and effort it took to get them on, if I had to do it again, I probably would. Definitely worth the hassle.

[Dan_Smullen]

No question, 74 shims per side to coat and fit is extremely tedious, but as you said, worth the hassle.

Maybe I missed it in a previous post, but what bay are you in with the sail boat?

[VT_Jeff]

No question, 74 shims per side to coat and fit is extremely tedious, but as you said, worth the hassle.

Maybe I missed it in a previous post, but what bay are you in with the sail boat?

Henderson Bay, NY. The mooring is in Henderson Harbor, we rent a seasonal cottage at a marina at the end of the harbor(Harbors End Marina), this is like our 16th year there. The prevailing wind is SW so Henderson Bay is ideal: it can be blowing pretty good and the bay is still relatively quiet. It's about a 6 hour sail to Kingston, ON, 3.5 to the mouth of the St Lawrence on the US side.

There is also whitewater in the Black River in Watertown all summer long, which is the original reason we started going there. Originally there were 2 really good playspots; 1 (Route 3 wave) got wrecked in a flood a few years back but the city of Watertown has just approved like 75k to fix it, again. You have probably seen IG posts from the other spot, Hole brothers, which is more of a hole than a wave depending on levels. Between the sailing, fishing, whitewater, affordability, lack of crowds, it's a pretty amazing place, if you're into that sort of thing.

[VT_Jeff]

Plot point sat afternoon getting the FS out of the basement into the garage.

I had more than 1/2" of clearance on both sides and I lucked out on the trailer height matching perfectly to where I was able to effortlessly winch it off its cradle and onto the trailer. I had to relocate a deck post temporarily but it was a simple task. I had fretted about this for quite a while but in the end it was a nothingburger.



Still some meat on the bone but going to splash next weekend.

[TomW1]

Dang that boat looks good.

Tom

[Jeff]

Nice VT_Jeff!!! Jeff

[Mojosmantra]

Now that’s a milestone! Nice to see her from that angle and in the light of day. She looks great.

Congrats