At last a build thread: CR16 skiff

[cracked_ribs]

Yeah, it's not terrible. There are so few people on the island - i think it peaked at 13 last year - that it's an accidental migratory bird sanctuary of sorts. The only predators are hawks and owls, so we get inundated with whatever species is passing through. That's usually the loudest thing we hear. I can't quite see the place from my bedroom here on the big Island but if they hadn't left the Yellow Point peninsula in the way, I guess I could. It's only about 20-30 minutes away by water, which is nice...we used to burn a lot of fuel getting there from Vancouver.

I love Skookumchuck - this whole section of coast is pretty nice, if you can handle a bit of rain. Or, today, wet snow. I think I watched footage you might have shared of your wife in that wave, or else I just remember you describing it and I've seen people taking it on before so I could picture it and I've conflated the mental image with the description.

That's serious water. Which is fitting: as I'm sure you're aware, that's pretty much what "Skookumchuck" translates to. Big, strong water.

[VT_Jeff]

Serious water indeed!

You remember correctly, I posted some video of her in the wave 6 months ago or so. The paddler in this footage(Dave Fusili) is a good friend of ours. This took place a few years before we got there. I'll remove this in a few days to avoid clogging up your thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEfUblSDzww

[cracked_ribs]

Don't feel obligated to remove it at all...so far I'd say this is one of the least-derailed, most focused build threads I have seen. A bit of colour won't kill it!

[cracked_ribs]

It was only a matter of time before I screwed up something that couldn't be unscrewed, and today it happened. I was running a grinder on the surface of the hull, just taking off a little bit of epoxy to give the surface some grip, and that's when I did it. I snagged the power cord and stumbled a little bit and just from the sound, I knew I'd screwed up, bad.



That can was full, god damn it. The cord caught it and pulled it off the bench it was sitting on and by the time I grabbed it it was half gone, and the remainder was all foam. Anyway I'm soldiering on, and I did have another one in the fridge. Plus they're on sale right now at the local liquor store so the only real victim here is my pride. Still, though.


It's been busy with Christmas and all, but I have gotten a couple of things done. I shaped the end of the keel, or skeg or however you want to describe it:



It's not going to be a perfectly smooth transition from skeg to no skeg, but I want to have some durability there, while at the same time reducing the amount of cavitation on the trailing end, so I just gave it a bit of an ensmoothening.

And the keel is on:



Or at least the latter 3/4 is glued down; I wanted that to cure before I start hauling it down to follow the hull lines. I've extended the reverse chine forward, and am just letting things cure before I finish it out with a tapered forward section.

And I also stuck down the port reverse chine, or, again, since I'm doing it in sections, the rear 8'. I'll probably get the rest of it handled tomorrow.



The transition sections I slopped layers of glass and peanut butter into are shaped but need a skim coat of fairing mix; the side lighting makes them look really rough but they're not too bad and the hollows they've filled are now about right; I just need to handle the cosmetics there now. But I'm about to begin fairing the whole hull, so that's no big deal. I'll skim coat the whole thing in the next while, although I'm heading off to my cabin in a couple of days for some relaxation, so the next update might be a bit of a wait. I'm hoping to get all the trimmy bits glued on before I go, but hard to say. I only work on it an hour or two here and there, so progress is pretty slow. But the important part is that I keep moving ahead, a bit at a time.

[Jeff]

Good progress!!! Jeff

[cracked_ribs]

Thank you - given the amount of time I have to work on it I'm pretty happy with how it's moving along.

I had a couple of hours yesterday and a few more today so I continue to chip away at things.

Yesterday I got the stem glued on and the keel mostly sorted:



I needed to make a template to fill this little triangular section so I found a piece of paper I knew I couldn't possibly benefit from reading and scratched the inner lines with my thumbnail to get the dimensions, then cut it out and chopped up a bit of scrap fir to fill the space.





Then it was finishing off the reverse chines:



Which I have also begun to blend in with a bit of filler.







Seeing the hull with the trim bits on the bottom is pretty exciting. I am looking forward to rub and spray rails; then I'll really feel like it's a boat that needs to get smoother, not a half-built project in the garage.

[cracked_ribs]

Squaring off chines, blending surfaces, cutting rub rails.





I just cut some poster board into strips and mashed it up against the wall of epoxy to use as a dam. It's quick and easy and keeps the epoxy in place until it kicks. I know a lot of guys clamp boards with packing tape against the hull to achieve this effect but this is a quick and dirty version and it'll all be sanded so I don't bother with anything fancier.

Here's one after I peeled off most of the poster paper, which took about 15 seconds:



The rest will get sanded off at some point, which will take about a minute.

Here's my beloved Hitachi worm drive with a block clamped to it so I can make 1 3/4" strips off the hull ply remainder. More bedroom work, which always makes me smile.



And a stack of rubrails and inwales on the hull.



About the only other stuff going on is me blending in the chines and the stem to smooth that all out. Still a ways to go there and the pics don't really look like anything.

Off to the cabin on the island for a bit; may not be any updates for a little while. First trip there since my kid learned to walk; should be interesting. I will have to figure out a way to keep him away from the wood stove.

[VT_Jeff]

Squaring off chines, blending surfaces, cutting rub rails.





I just cut some poster board into strips and mashed it up against the wall of epoxy to use as a dam. It's quick and easy and keeps the epoxy in place until it kicks. I know a lot of guys clamp boards with packing tape against the hull to achieve this effect but this is a quick and dirty version and it'll all be sanded so I don't bother with anything fancier.

Here's one after I peeled off most of the poster paper, which took about 15 seconds:



The rest will get sanded off at some point, which will take about a minute.

Here's my beloved Hitachi worm drive with a block clamped to it so I can make 1 3/4" strips off the hull ply remainder. More bedroom work, which always makes me smile.



And a stack of rubrails and inwales on the hull.



About the only other stuff going on is me blending in the chines and the stem to smooth that all out. Still a ways to go there and the pics don't really look like anything.

Off to the cabin on the island for a bit; may not be any updates for a little while. First trip there since my kid learned to walk; should be interesting. I will have to figure out a way to keep him away from the wood stove.

"I dont always square my Chines. But when I do, I use poster board and drink Dos Equis!"

Looking good, per usual. Enjoy the new year on the island!

[cracked_ribs]

Funnily enough I was introduced at a work training event a couple of years ago as "the world's most interesting man" but I think they oversold me.

Enjoy your New year's as well!

[Jeff]

Happy New Year CR!!! Jeff