Woods Designs at the 2 day Edensaw Challenge

[Woods Designs]

The plans should be finalised by the Port Aransas WBF. But please note, this is a boat for athletic, experienced dinghy racers, not fat old men like me

Richard Woods

[Woods Designs]

Better late then never, here is my report on Day 2 of the Zest build

Once again I tried to take a short video clip of each of the 5 boats in build every hour. But as the day wore on the videoing took a back seat as the pressure to finish the Zest on time mounted. Wisely the coracle builders took their hull downwind of the show before boiling and pouring the pitch, so I missed that part of their build.

Our hull was glassed on the outside and was watertight after day 1. You can see Bob and Josh turning it over and it could have been launched. We then spent most of the day dry fitting the cockpit (Bob is marking and then cutting out it out - it fitted first time, no trimming needed), aft deck, rudder post and foredeck. And some more work on the wings, although we knew they would still be unfinished by the end of the build. The last three hours were spent epoxying it all together, we finished work at 8pm.

You can see my video of the second day's build here https://youtu.be/V905Y8qz8Sg

Richard Woods

[Woods Designs]

And here is my Day 3 report

We knew Sunday would be a manic time, so I took some video of each boat before the 9am start. Epoxy takes several days to cure properly and shouldn't be over painted in that time, while of course paint will never dry once immersed in sea water. So we decided on a radical approach to finishing the Zest - chrome finish sticky back vinyl!

Finish time was 1pm and Josh reckoned it would take an hour to fit the vinyl. So at 11am I began bolting on the wings and fitting the deck gear - shroud plates, rudder fittings, mast step, kicking strap, cunningham, toestraps (I had to do it as I was the only one in the team who had ever seen, never mind rigged and sailed a racing dinghy). Then outside at 11.30 to do a trial rig using a mast and sail from another boat. Amazingly it all fitted!

At 11.55 the hull went back inside and Josh got to work. He actually finished at 12.45, so we had time to add a purple stripe (encouraged by what was then a large crowd)

I videoed each boat at the 1pm tools down. We then had to carry each boat about 1/4 mile to the launching beach. Zest was last as we had the mast, boom, sail to carry plus a wide hull. So the other boats were long gone by the time we launched.

I wasn't looking forward to a downwind start through a very narrow marina full of expensive boats in a brand new design that had never been sailed before. But after a few wobbles I got away.

You can see my video of the final day's build here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMRrkYBdZrc

I sailed round to the beach and the prize giving. You can see the sail out of the marina in a video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxe6y-xsd0Q

Third place was the "girls" team from the Wooden Boat building school with their dory. Second was the all-hand-tools dory while we were very pleased to be awarded first place. Thank you Edensaw!!

But especially thank you to Josh Turner, Bob Lange and Dan Carver the three boatbuilders

Next year we plan an even more spectacular crowd pleasing design.

You can see more on the Zest here

http://sailingcatamarans.com/index.php/ ... -/436-zest

Richard Woods