Repost - 2000, Sea Trials of AF3 Cream Cheese

Time to relocate posts from my old website to this blog.

Sea Trials, Feb 21, 2000

It was a beautiful day for sea trials: 70 degrees F, 5 kt breeze, very few boats on the lake. Trailering: We made a good start at noon, but a few miles down the road I realized I had forgotten the oars. When we got back home I discovered I had forgotten about half of the boat, including oars, mast partner, rudder, tiller and tools. I guess I need to work on packaging the boat. She trailers wonderfully - very easy motion. I lashed the mast to the deck using fore and aft mooring cleats and some closed-cell packing foam pieces that the kids were playing with. Rigging: It took a long time to rig the boat for the first time. Lacing the sail was time consuming, so I will try to keep the sail on the mast in the future. I raised the sail and furled it to the mast before departing. Rowing: I had trouble with my rowing stroke, so next time I will experiment with seat positioning. I also discovered that I made the benches too high - on level with the oarlocks, so my oars can rub on the seats on the back stroke. I am going to add a slot for sculling on the starboard edge of the transom. While rowing, the unattached boom was generally in the way of everything. Next time, I'll stow the boom inside the furled sail. With kids in the bow compartment, we rowed past the marina, dropped anchor, unfurled the sail, rigged the boom, weighed anchor and were off. Sailing: Having never sailed a sharpie before, I was a little surprised at her initial stability (even though the all literature discusses this). She's a very stiff boat - as steady in the water as my 21' Drascombe Longboat, which has a very flat bottom for a lapstrake hull (also a shoal draft boat). The kids were very much at home and moved around easily - the toy dinosaurs didn't even get in the way. I didn't get a chance to check her windward abilities, but it seemed like we were sailing pretty close to the wind. Judging from her performance in light winds, I think she will be really fun! I put in a second row of reef points so I can go out in some of the heavy Chinook winds that we get here in Colorado. Lake Pueblo, ready to go! Upwind in a 5 kt breeze. 71 degrees in Feb.

Repost - 1999, Building Log of AF3, Cream Cheese

Time to relocate posts from my old website to this blog.  This is the building log of Cream Cheese, an AF3 16 foot sharpie designed by Jim Michalak that I built in 1999.

Materials and Costs

The cost: $2713 A note about my costs: I had absolutely nothing in the way of boating stuff beforehand except for some leftover line from my last boat. I used lumber yard materials, but I used clear redwood in places. I wound up buying more epoxy, polyurethane glues, paint and hardware than I needed. I could have probably cut $500 to $1000 out of the cost if I had really tried. Materials: Lumber: AC Fir plywood, pine 1x4, A-grade redwood for the mast, seats, hatch Fasteners: Silicon-Bronze nails, galvanized deck screws, brass wood screws, stainless steel deck screws, zinc coated bolts and nuts Glue: epoxy, PL premium, PL premium liquid, PL 400 construction, Elmers polyurethane Paint: Homebase brand oil based house paint and primer, Deckworks exterior varnish (I had a hard time getting this varnish to cure) Sail: I didn't have any sewing supplies at all. I calculated that I could have bought sailcloth and supplies for abound $250 (including things like sailor's palm and a gromet die). So Sailrite was maybe 30% more expensive than doing it all myself. I also bought some extra stuff like a bolt rope that never used.

lumber & misc hardware $1009 Raka epoxy & epoxy supplies $247 sails & sail tools (Sailrite - awsome folks) $365 oars (Barkely Sound - great spruce oars), oar leathers from Woodenboat $102 sail rig: lines, blocks, anchor, deck hdw, sunbrella cloth, cusions, compass, misc hdw... from Defender $440 trailer & traier supplies $550

Building total: 170 hours This was my first boat. I had no problems with Jim's plans or instructions other than my own goofs. The kids and I had fun the whole time, with no major do-overs. Thanks Jim!

1-30-99 buy wood & glue 2 hr 40 degrees 1-31-99 mark up bulkheads 1.5 hr 40 degrees 2-7-99 cut bulkheads, glue #12.8(w/kids) 4 hr 60 degrees 2-20-99 bulkhead 2 2 hr 2-27-99 bulkhead 7.5 3 hr 40 degrees 3-13-99 epoxy fill panel 2, botched transom (w/ kids) 1 hr 40 degrees 4-11-99 2nd transom 1 hr 45 degrees 4-18-99 transom & bulkhead 2 (w/ kids) 1.5 hr 45 degrees 4-24-99 loft & glue sides 2 hr 40 degrees 5-2-99 cut side 1, glue side 2 1.5 hr 55 degrees 5-8-99 patch holes w/ epoxy, assemble sides to bulkheads (w/ kids) 8 hr 60 degrees 5-15-99 cut wales & chine logs (w/kids) 2 hr 70 degrees 5-16-99 glue up first layer of wales 2.5 hr 70 degrees 5-21-99 wales + chine log 1 (w/ kids) 3.5 hr 70 degrees 5-22-99 chine log 2 2 hr 70 degrees 6-5-99 loft & glue bottom, fair chine logs (w/ kids) 4 hr 70 degrees 6-6-99 cut bottom & mount on hull, fill knot holws (w/kids) 6 hr 70 degrees 6-13-99 sand bottom edges (w/ kids) 3 hr 60 degrees 7-5-99 fiberglass bottom w/ epoxy & tape starboard chine 2 hr 80 degrees 7-10-99 glass tape port chine, repairs & putty, second coat of epoxy 3 hr 70 degrees 7-11-99 glass bow grounding area 1 hr 70 degrees 7-18-99 deck clamps 3 hr 70 degrees 7-22-99 deck clamps + supports & deck beams 8 hr 80 degrees 7-25-99 assemble decks 8 hr 80 degrees 7-31-99 sanding & corners 1 hr 70 degrees 8-1-99 oarlocks & seat cleats 7 hr 70 degrees 8-7-99 oarports & leeboard guards, rudder cheeks (w/ kids) 4 hr 70 degrees 8-8-99 oarports, leeboard guards, seats (w/ kids) 6 hr 70 degrees 8-15-99 seats 1 hr 80 degrees 8-22-99 leeboard & leeboard guards 4 hr 80 degrees 9-4-99 sand & prime (w/ sprayer) 6 hr 80 degrees 9-18-99 prime coat 2 (brush & roller) (w/ kids) 6 hr 70 degrees 9-25-99 prime coat 2, final paint inside 4 hr 75 degrees 10-3-99 final paint outside (w/ kids) 3 hr 75 degrees 10-9-99 finish paint & work on rudder 4 hr 75 degrees 10-17-99 paint red gun'nls & misc sanding 2 hr 65 degrees 12-23-99 paint leeboard 1 hr got a garage heater! 12-25-99 sew sailbag, reef patches 4 hr 12-26-99 sew sail patches, reef points 5 hr 12-28-99 sew sail patches 2 hr 12-29-99 sew seams & tape, install grommets (done w/ sail!) 5 hr 1-1-2000 paint leeboard & misc parts 1 hr 1-3-2000 paint leeboard & install windows 2 hr 1-8-2000 cut scarf joints for mast 2 hr 1-9-2000 cut/glue scarf joints for mast, oarlock sockets, gudgeons, pintles, seats 6 hr 1-12-2000 mark & slice mast 2 hr 1-14-2000 slice mast & glue 2 halves 1 hr 1-15-2000 slice mast, mast parner 3 hr 1-16-2000 shape & sand mast, mast parner, plug knot hole in mast 4 hr 1-18-2000 varnish spars & misc pieces 2 hr 1-20-2000 varnish second coat 1 hr 1-22-2000 load onto trailer, rigging, ridgepole & a-frame for boat cover 2 hr 1-23-2000 fitting the trailer, oar leathers, rig leeboard 3 hr TOTAL 170 hr

May 1999

Bulkheads against the wall

Side panel ready for assembly (notice the snow)

 

The bow

Sides and transom assembled

Sides and transom assembled

June 1999

Summer 1999

We later removed these seats - they didn't work out

Fall 1999

Sail in the dining room/sail loft. It took about 14 hours (with only a few hours of previous sewing experience)

Making a scarf joint for the mast. Step 1: Piece in the scarfing jig

   

Step 2: Chopping out the excess

Step 3: Planing the surface

Step 4 ready for gluing