Woodwork of 27ft Sportfisherman

I haven't posted about Kevin Agee's 27ft sportfisherman project for more than a month but work has been continuing. I took some time off for camping, surfing and sailing at Cape Hatteras with my surf buddies but Kevin stayed hard at work, sanding to achieve that perfect paint finish that he wants. The whole boat is now one colour, the light cream of the final coat of high-build epoxy. Next will be the finish primer to seal the epoxy in preparation to receive the high gloss finish coats.

In the meantime, I have been working on the pretty bits, the woodwork that will be bright-finished to set them off from the painted surfaces. Kevin bought 9-10" wide sapele mahogany planks for the toerails, from which I was able to select sections with grain patterns to flow the grain around the curves of the bow. He also found a 12" wide plank of figured sapele mahogany for me to make the helm pod.

All one colour, of high-build epoxy.

Flush lid of the fish box. OK, I fibbed a little, the lid is still a different colour.

Shaping and dry-fitting the pieces of the toerail. Kevin and Michelle glued this next day. The parts slipping and sliding on wet glue made the gluing operation a lot less fun than my experience when dry-fitting.

The finished bow capping of the toerail. It has been glued, edges radiused and sanded to a smooth surface. My high school woodwork teacher, who gave me a failing grade, would not believe that I made these high quality wooden parts without his help.

Scarph joint between two sections of toerail

The completed toerail, awaiting epoxy coatings and varnish

Cutting the components of the helm pod. Once glued up the completed pod will be shaped to a softly rounded shape.

The helm bod will form the base on which the wheel will be mounted.

I will have another break from the boat this weekend while Dehlia and I exhibit our designs on the Wooden Boat Show in Mystic Seaport, Connecticut.

This design is not yet on our website but will be there as soon as plans are ready. That will be after the launch and seatrials. See our range of designs on our main website or our mobile website.

Wooden Boat Show

Next weekend sees the 28th annual Wooden Boat Show, at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut. This is a great event in a wonderful venue, with a wide variety of wooden boats to view, or even go for a ride. We will have our Argie 15 on the village green, as well as a display of our designs at our booth in the main tent.

Our Argie 15 on show at the 2017 edition of the Wooden Boat Show

Mystic Seaport is a living museum, showing life as it was in a New England seafaring community hundreds of years ago. It includes displays of many aspects of life in that community, from milling wood for the shipbuilding operations to the drug store and doctor's office. Rides on a variety of traditional craft are also available to visitors.

This is a gorgeous part of the world and we always enjoy our annual visit there. Come to the show and drop by our booth and Argie 15 to talk boats. The show runs from Friday 28th June through to Sunday 30th and we will be there for the duration.

Road Trip to Sail the Didi 29 Retro "Arabella"

It was my 70th birthday 2 weeks ago and I was surprised by my family with a totally unexpected visit by my sister Dorothy and her daughter Robynne from across the Atlantic, come to participate in the festivities and to help make it a very special occasion. Winding down Dorothy's trip, she and I made a brief road trip to North Carolina. We started off down the Outer banks, where I hoped to find some decent surf. The weather stymied that one with strong onshore winds, so we wasted little time feeling sand between our toes, visited the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum in Hatteras and arrived at the ferry dock to board for Ocracoke to find rows and rows of cars waiting ahead of us.

Innocent us, we did not expect a flood of people to be visiting this tiny barrier island. I expected to arrive at the ferry dock and be boarded 15-30 minutes later, then a short crossing, time to get lunch on the tiny island before boarding our reserved ferry to Cedar Island. Wrong. After sitting in the queue for a long time, the very accommodating NC Ferry staff let us jump the line to catch the next ferry, or we were not going to make out 4pm ferry. That short crossing to Ocracoke is actually about 4 or 5 times the straight-line distance because the ferry has to wind back-and-forth through the channels.

Satellite view of Ocracoke Inlet, Courtesy Google Earth. The Hatteras ferry dock at extreme right, Ocracoke ferry dock at extreme left. The sand banks and channels move around and the ferries have to zig-zag through them. 

So, we had a drive-through tour that really didn't do justice to the very cute little town of Ocracoke, arriving in time to check in for our next ferry, without lunch. The ferry route to Cedar Island was more direct and parallel to the barrier islands, in deep water.The main entertainment was a variety of seabirds soaring behind us and looking for food to be churned up by the propellers or tossed in the air by passengers.

Once on land we saw the results of the coastal areas that were devastated by Hurricanes Florence and Michael last year. Homes destroyed, most that survived now being jacked up 6-8ft to get them above future flooding.Trees still on top of some homes, no longer habitable. And our hotel still undergoing reconstruction, with water service disrupted at times and cold water coming out of the hot taps. But the beds were new and very comfortable, so we got a good night's sleep. In the morning, a short ferry ride and drive to a marina in Oriental.

"Arabella" is very pretty. She was built by professional boatbuilder Bruce Mierke as his personal sailboat, to our Didi 29 Retro design. He customised his build to suit his own needs, so she has a shorter cabin and some different detailing.

"Arabella" in her dock, retractable bowsprit withdrawn

Lifting keel in raised position, hauled up by a tackle system led to the cabintop winch.

Lifting rudder in a casette. Bruce modified this from my original design, to give some steering when the rudder is partially raised. There is an outboard motor well but Bruce has an electric pod drive installed.

With the short cabin, Bruce has kept his halliards at the mast .

The bowsprit retracts and pivots on an inboard traveller on the foredeck, with control lines led aft to the cockpit.

"Arabella" hard on the wind.

Very neat high-peaked gaff rig with nicely-shaped mainsail. All spars are carbon.

So, how did she sail? Wind was very light, around 4-5 knots most of the time. On the flat water that we had, she sailed close to the wind at 3.5-4 knots, with little wake and an easy helm. She cut through the occasional powerboat wakes of the ICW with little fuss or loss of speed. Once cracked off, we pushed out the bowsprit, set the top-down roller-furled asymmetrical off the end and rolled away the jib to allow the spinnaker to breathe.

She powered up and reached at just a touch under the apparent wind speed, topping out at more than 8 knots boat speed in 9 knots of apparent wind. That put her boat speed at well above the true wind speed in which we were sailing. She did this with no fuss and very easy control. The speed gave the feeling that the wind had picked up but with the bag stowed and back on the wind under main and jib, we still had the same light breeze as before. She just gets up and goes. She will reel off the miles if used as a small cruiser.

"Arabella" has the smaller of the two gaff rigs that I drew. This one is suitable for most small crews, for racing or cruising. The other gaff rig is larger and will need a larger and more experienced crew. We also have a Marconi rig with square-top mainsail.

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