Argie 15 Seat Fronts

The seat fronts have now been fitted to the framing in our Argie 15. This is a fairly simple stage of the build, the groundwork having been done in constructing the framing and pre-bending the seat front panels, described in my previous posts. Builder Kevin Agee says that pre-bending the panels helped a lot in making this stage easy.

The side seat fronts are set vertically. Start by using a carpenter's square to draw a line on each seat riser, perpendicular to the top edge and at the position where the side seat front will intersect. Use those lines as a guide while fitting the side seat fronts.

Dry-fit each seat front to check for correct shape of the ends. You may have to trim a bit to allow it to fit in the vertical position rather than sloping in or out a few degrees. This can vary for each boat, depending on how accurately the transverse risers were installed.You also may have to trim the bottom edge to fit neatly against the hull. The neater, the fit the easier it will be to get a nice overall finish on your boat.

I have noticed that many builders don't install the side seats in the bow, possibly to give more space in the forward cockpit area. I have chosen to have the side seats full length of the boat for multiple reasons. 1) It makes the boat more suitable for rough water use by reducing the volume of water that can land in the forward cockpit to weigh it down if we take a big wave over the bow. 2) It will float the boat higher if capsized, so it will hold less water when brought back upright, less water to bail out and the boat will be safer immediately after being righted. 3) Spray that comes over the bow and lands on the leeward side seat will run aft along the leeward side of the seat to where I will have drain holes to take it out through the sides of the boat. 4) There are comfortable seats in the bow for when the boat is used for fishing or when children are aboard.

Side seat front being glued in place.  The bottom edge has been trimmed to give a neat fit against the hull and minor trimming was done to fit the ends to the transverse seat risers. 

Joints of seat front against hull and transverse seat risers bonded with epoxy fillets. The top edge is a bit high and will be planed flush after the glue has all cured.

All seat risers glued in place.

Same stage, bow view.

Our Argie 15 is now developing into a really neat dinghy. I look forward to getting it onto the water.

To see more of this and our other designs, go to our main website or our mobile website.

Argie 15 Seat Framing

Kevin Agee is doing a great job of the Argie 15 that he is building for us. Since my last post he has been completing the epoxy coatings on the inside of the hull and completing the framing for the seats.

The framing for the transverse seats at bow, stern and midships is fairly simple. The plywood panels have timbers glued to them that serve as landings for the seat tops. The stiffeners under the seats are simply slotted or half-jointed and glued into those landing timbers and finished with the top surfaces flush.

Framing of aft seat.

 How to frame the side seats seems to be the part of the project that prompts the most questions on forums. There are various ways to go about this but the method used by Kevin seems to have worked well, so others may like to follow his method.

The difficulty of this work stems from the fact that the seats have curvature both on plan and vertically. The seat front runs parallel to the seat landing stringer at mid-height of the hull side panel, so that stringer sets the shape in all directions. In the photo below, the lengths of string running across the boat serve to define the exact level for the seat stiffeners at the various points along the stringer.

Side seat stiffeners slotted and glued into the inner face of the hull side stringer. The strings define the correct alignment for each stiffener.

Joint of stiffener with side stringer, showing how the string is retained at each stiffener. It is a continuous length of string that runs back-and-forth across the boat, which allows it to be easily tensioned. Each stiffener is numbered to ensure that it is glued back into the correct slot.

Another view of the main cockpit with the string guide and seat stiffeners.

The side seat stiffeners were cut to exact length and angle before gluing them in. The correct angle to cut off the inboard end can be measured at the intersection with the hull, it will be the same at both ends. If you prefer, you can cut the stiffeners slightly over-length and trim later. To do this, wait for the epoxy of the joints to the side stringer to be fully cured, then remove the screws that hold the guide string. Lay the seat top in place and mark each stiffener at the inner edge of the seat top. That will give you both the length and the angle to cut.

The intersections of the stiffeners with the longitudinal cleat that will join the seat front and top to each other is done with a halved-joint. The top half of the stiffener is cut away for the width of the cleat and the cleat has a slot cut into it of the same depth and the width of the stiffener. Then the stiffener ends are all glued into their respective slots at the same time that the cleat is glued in place.

Longitudinal cleat glued to seat stiffeners with halved joints.

Halved joint, with end of stiffener notched and glued into cleat. The screw is temporary and will be removed once the glue has cured.

While this work has been going on, Kevin has also been preparing the seat fronts for fitting. Installing a curved sheet of plywood like this is simpler if the plywood has curvature pre-set into it. He clamped the seat fronts on the work bench to hold them down at the middle, with the ends lifted on spacers. After a few days in that shape, it will become the natural curve for that piece. That will help the unsupported bottom edge to follow the same curve as the top, instead of having a natural tendency to stay straight at the bottom while being curved at the top.

Seat fronts clamped to the work bench with the ends lifted to pre-bend the sheet. He has also applied the epoxy coatings while pre-bent, which will help to hold it to the curve. 

More info on this an our other designs can be found on our main website or our mobile website.

We are Building an Argie 15

The Argie 15 is our most popular design, with builds to date in the thousands, spread all over the world. I designed this boat 28 years ago but have only once sailed one. That was the prototype on launch day, when we did publicity photos for the Cape Argus newspaper that had commissioned the design. Sailing among the rows of moored boats at False Bay Yacht Club, I remember it as a speedy and nimble sailor that also rowed very easily.

Getting the boat to the water was an interesting experience of its own, showing us just how big this big 3-in-1 dinghy is. We didn't have a trailer to move it from the Fishoek home of the builder, journalist Dave Biggs, to the water. Our friend, single-handed sailor Kate Steward, came to our assistance with her bakkie (South African name for a pickup truck) with a fibreglass canopy. We placed the Argie 15 upside-down on the roof of the canopy. The boat was way too big to carry that way, overhanging the roof all round and obscuring much of the windscreen, with the tip of the bow not much more than a foot above the bonnet. It reminded me of a young boy scout with a brand new hat that he still has to grow into.

Argie 15 prototype on the slipway of False Bay Yacht Club.

Me at the helm and Dave Biggs as crew. The first sail of the first Argie 15, between the moorings of False Bay Yacht Club.

We have never had an Argie 15 exhibited on the Wooden Boat Show but that will soon change. We are building one now and expect to exhibit it at Mystic in June next year. The work is being done by my friend, Kevin Agee, working from one of our CNC kits. I will post progress photos over the next few months, through to launching and sailing the new boat. Here are the first few photos of Kevin's project.

Long hull panels are longer than a sheet of plywood, so two panels are glued together to make the full length. If building from a kit, they have jigsaw joints. If building from plans then scarph joints or taped butt joints are used.

Close-up of jigsaw joint after gluing. Once faired and sanded, it disappears into the finished surface.

Kevin will be showing this boat in the "I Built it Myself" section of the 2017 Wooden Boat Show at Mystic. If you have an Argie 15 or other of our boats that you have built yourself and you live on the USA East Coast, why not bring it to Mystic and show off your handiwork alongside Kevin's boat?

To see more of this and our other designs, go to our main website or mobile website.`

Argie 15 on the Dnieper

Nick, a builder in Kiev, Ukraine, sent me photos of his Argie 15 build and the finished boat in use. Part-way through the project he bought a bigger boat, so the need for the Argie 15 fell away. He continued with the build, completed it, then donated the boat to a local sailing school. Nick says that the Argie is ideal for this kind of use, as a load-carrier it is able to carry an instructor plus as many as 8 children for introductory classes.

Nick's Argie 15 nearing completion. The large cockpit is
great for carrying a bunch of people.

Nick says that the the new boat proved to be such a hit that someone else has undertaken to finance another Argie 15 for the school, to expand its sail-training capabilities. That 2nd boat is now being built. Aside from being able to carry groups of children or adults, the Argie 15 also has a surprising turn of speed. That makes it suitable for more advanced sail-training as well, with an instructor and one or two students, to teach them how to handle a planing dinghy at speed in stronger breezes.

Argie 15 with a load of children, giving them their first experience of sailing.

These photos are shown courtesy of photographer Lubov Kotlyar.
See more of her work or make contact through her Facebook page at
 https://www.facebook.com/kievsails/

I get to meet many many wonderful people through long-distance relationships, most of them building my boats. It is always interesting to read their stories and to see their homelands and local sailing waters. Many people have built my boats in Ukraine and I have seen photos of some of them sailing on the beautiful local lakes. Nick sent me an aerial photo of Kiev and the Dnieper River, which flows through it.

Dnieper River where it flows through Kiev. This photo is in winter, with ice
on the water.

The large body of water at upper right is known as the "Kiev Sea", formed by a dam. Nick says that most of the sailing in Kiev is away from the city. His own club is downstream, out of view below the bottom of the photo.

We have about 50 boats either built or in-build in Ukraine, from 10ft to 55ft. Phil Semenov built his Didi 34 "Estra" in Kiev and sailed it for a few years on "Kiev Sea". Since then he has travelled on her down the Dnieper River to the Black Sea, through the Bosphorus into the Sea of Marmara. Now he is cruising the Aegean and other idyllic locales in the Mediterranean Sea.

I look forward to meeting many more interesting people this way. Some of them I may be lucky enough to even meet personally.

To see more of our designs, go to our main website or our mobile website.