diy boat

Saturday 4am - Siobhan my wife tells me go back to sleep - Santa hasn't come yet! I was like a kid waiting to launch my new boat!  We decided to have some sea trials on Saturday ahead of the formal launch party on Sunday - which was yesterday.

Here she is before heading from our home:-

All loaded up and ready for the road

We drove to Lough Ree YC which took around 90 minutes.  The trailer was rock steady and we arrived at the launch slip without incident.

We rigged the sails and everything seemed to fit!  Not too many onlookers which was good.
Here she is ready for splashing!  We had a lovely initial sail, once we cleared the marina.  Our plan to row with one oar and counter steer with the rudder was a nonsense!  Round we went in circles until a friendly rib pulled us out.  Once underway, she went like a dream - initially Siobhan, my son Harry, Brendan, Brian and myself!  The conditions were benign but she still sailed very well under full sail - unfortunately I don't have any photos of this because we were all in the boat!  I had not used any sealant under the removable centre board cap, so we had some ingress there, which we solved after we came in with a dob of sealant from the local hardware store.  The bilge pump however kept us dry!  Later on Siobhan and Harry had to go home, so the three of us sailed her again and despite a momentary grazing of an unmarked rock under our lead keel(!), we had a wonderful sail around the bay.

Onlookers from the club house commented on how well the sails set - we had full sails up and from my perspective they looked wonderful - thanks to Yannick Lemonnier of West Sails for doing such a wonderful job,




Next day we had our formal launch - the clouds had gathered over and the breeze had stiffened - with the forecast saying F6 to F7...

But first we had the matter of appeasing Neptune and naming our Somes Sound - PEG - the name of Siobhan's Mum who passed 2 years ago and was an avid support of the building project and sailed with us on our yacht in Greece as a first time sailor well in her eighties!

Traditional garland of greenery from our garden and some gorse bush

I'm sure some of the onlookers thought we were cracked as we rattled off some traditional rhyme and toasts to Neptune and placed greenery on her bows and of course, the mandatory champagne, a vintage bottle of Dom Perignon kindly gifted to us by Len & Rene, good friends who live overseas and couldn't be with us - thanks Len!

Yours truly - Launching Ceremony

Vintage Dom Perignon

By this stage we had the launch party standing by so I decided to ask a more experienced sailor to come out with me for the first run.  Philip Watson, Ireland's most experienced sail maker and rigger, kindly obliged and off we went.  Needn't have worried as she sailed like a dream - thanks Philip!  Philip also helped to make sure our rigging was properly set up so no dismasting would ensue.


Then Rob added some more magic to the afternoon by reciting a beautiful poem:

Rob Murphy - reciting Sea Fever by John Mansfield I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by, And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking, And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking. I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied; And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying, And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying. I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life, To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife; And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover, And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

Beautiful shot taken by Joan - was was press ganged as our photographer for the day

No wheels submerged and the boat is floating - thanks to extendable trailer!

Brian & Brendan acting as human fenders - due to an underwater ledge, the small fenders were useless.

With mounting excitement we boarded Peg and Brendan gave us a friendly push off and in an instant the reefed sails were filled and shot out of the harbour.  Plenty of wind meant she flew along.







































We had four more excursions with more experienced sailors - first Shannon One Design champion David Dixon took the helm with Siobhan's brother Brian and me as crew.  Then we had Rob Murphy, dinghy and yachtsman extraordinaire who was effusive about her stability in heavy airs and put her through her paces.   Finally John McDonald and wife Ursula, both dinghy and yacht sailors took her out.  John's not happy unless there's a F8+ blowing, so he was quite happy with the blustery conditions.  Still, we found that the jib sheet arrangement a bit hard to get used to - not normally sailing a self tacker, we were not setting it up quite right.  The horn cleats for the jib sheets are quite hard to reach under the coamings, but I think it just needs to be set up correctly - when you are bouncing along in strong winds, everything moves more quickly!

My fishing buddy - David O'Connor volunteers

Launching from our trailer

Here's Brendan - pushing her off the trailer.  Bren was lassoed into building the trailer with me - and we were very pleased at how well it worked.  Thanks Bren!

Away she flies!

The hollow mast worked beautifully - taking the strain without any protestation.

No - really there is no outboard on the back!!

Rob at the helm

Bren- always smiling - always helping!

Well the weather men (and ladies) said that this week we would have a nice high sitting over Ireland and temperatures touching 20 (that's 20C !)  Based on such balmy predictions, I thought I would charge ahead and finish out my little boat.

Alas the sun gods didn't want to play, so varnish coats are taking ages to dry and I'm finding more little jobs to finish.  Part of me perhaps doesn't want to the building process to end, I guess, but I am excited at the prospects of launching!

I played back and forth with the idea of mounting a bracket for my little electric trolling motor which I rarely use for my lough fishing.  But sense prevailed and so I spend a few days making an oar.  Just one.  I'm sure I mentioned here before how the traditional way of  "rowing" this boat is with one oar, while one counter-steers with the tiller.  Nice idea - hope it works!

The knot appeared out of nowhere!

So off to my local timer saw mill - Irish Timber Products.  David was as ever his cheery self and we reckoned that in fact larch would be suitable, and so we selected a nice straight grained example with as few knots as possible.  I brought it back home to realise that it wouldn't be wide enough, so a flurry of laminating resulted with various different species, which I thought might look well together.  I can hear the traditionalists already groan....but no matter.  Once I had the laminations made, using TiteBond 3 and about 60 clamps, I set about shaping the oar.  I had elected to make an 8' long oar and I had read that thin oars were most suited to a heavier style displacement boat, so I shaped a fairly narrow blade on my band-saw.


At that point, I realized that it would be a long day in the workshop armed solely with my spokeshave.  So I researched buying a draw-knife, but none were available at close quarters.  So I press-ganged an old lawnmower blade into service - welded two steel handles on it and used it to carve ash handles and then finally my oar. I was amazed at how controllable the draw knife was to use and sorry I hadn't built one years ago.
Very satisfying!

The oar is nearly finished except for a few more coats of varnish.  I found an old piece of leather lying around the workshop and made a rudimentary protection for the oar as it bears into the oar lock.  I have to figure out a way to make a button to stop the oar from sliding into the water.  I'm let to believe that a Turks head knot is the salty solution, but I have never made one before so no so sure how that will turn out.

I found this video on YouTube courtesy of SelfMadeSailor which might be worth emulating.

Home Made disk Sander

Mounting Pad for Oar Lock

Meanwhile, I went about building spacer blocks for my oar lock bronze mounts.  They have a slight indent on the mating surface, which had to be carved out.  I put my spindle sander to good use for this and indeed my home made 12" disk sander.

A more challenging task lay ahead.  I needed to drill holes ion the bottom of the hull to drain rainwater when on its trailer.  I had procrastinated over this task for many months, but eventually after a visit to my local chandler, I bought two drain plugs - bit the bullet and drilled two pilot holes from the inside of the hull.  Right up against the cross member steel beam of the trailer!  So I had to fiddle around with a variety of tools and small bobbin sander discs to get them to fit.   I had to cut off the points of the 3/4" bronze screws as they were protruding out of the bottom of the hull.  I simply withdrew them and clipped off their pointed ends and re-screwed them back in, then a final layer of epoxy on the hulls exterior.   I epoxied both in last night and today everything seems water tight and well sealed against rot.

When I was at the chandlers yesterday (nice folks at Marine Parts Direct), I bought two automatic bilge pumps - one for either side of the centre board - in much the same fashion as I positioned the drain plugs and a small battery.  Also a binnacle compass sneaked into the shopping list, along with a few other "necessities"!  I made a small housing out of Sapele today so that I can mount it on top of the centre board trunk cap.   It needs a sealing coast of epoxy and a few of varnish and that should make a nice elegant but useful addition to my Somes Sound.

Onwards!