Duckworks - Splash

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Splash!

This time we have the following boats:

Kiwi Flint
Stan's Family Skiff
Sherpa
Pickup Pram
Janette
Puddle Cat
Apple Pie
Paradox
“Qwan Yin”

Send a picture or three and a short description of your boat and its launch to chuck.leinweber@gmail.com for inclusion here next month.

Kiwi Flint

News has come in of another Flint launching. The builder is from New Zealand, and as you can see, he has done a really good job of building and finishing the boat.

Ross

Stan's Family Skiff

I just got back from the Travis Traverse yesterday afternoon. It was the maiden voyage of my Family Skiff Spartan. Everything went well. We had as good weather as possible for the season, light to 20mph winds, temps from high 50s to 32, and good camping areas each night. It was a very good trip and I think Cathy (of the Dingleberrrys) will try to write up a story about it. Four boats started; Frank Coletta and wife Beth in his Pelican, Doug and wife Laurie on the Bolger Bobcat, Chis and Kathy on his Caroline and me on Spartan.

Stan Roberts

Sherpa

After much research last year on a design for our sailboat tender we decided upon John Welsford's Sherpa as a stable and appropriate sized dingy for our family of five. With lots of ideas from the Welsford online forum and a few emails from John himself we are pleased with our end result that was officially launched this past October. We are in the process of completing the rudder and mast to utilize it both as a rowboat and sailing dingy. Our locally made oars from Barkley Sound Oar and Paddle make it a pleasure to row.

Dale Toronitz

Piccup Pram

"Pug", a Michalak Piccup pram has entered the waters of her new playground, the beautiful Moreton Bay, Queensland, Australia. As a first time builder I found Jim's plans excellent. Other local boat builders, designer Ross Lillistone and members of the Wooden Boat Association of Queensland provided wonderful guidance and motivation. The Duckworks sail (Jim's larger option with three reefs ) sets beautifully and she gets moving when you can barely feel there's a breeze. Jim's reefing setup which is simple and inexpensive to create also works effectively. I am very happy with the Piccup design which I can transport the 100 metres to the water on a trolley using the oars as wheelbarrow handles due to her light weight. The local children also love "pug's" happy face.

Ian

Janette

Please find following some photos of Janette under sail at Matapouri Bay. My Dad did quite a bit of sailing but we only had one day where we also had me in the rowing dory taking photos - and it wasn't a very windy day and it was only the second day out so we were all still getting a feel for it.

Chris

My Dad on the first day out setting up the rigging, with my nephew and daughter helping.

Dad sailing with my nephew on day two, sail not quite all the way up but beautiful regardless!

My husband Jimi having a go, with the sail fixed.

Jimi again waiting for a bit more of a breeze.

Puddle Cat

Me and my wife launched a new boat on Jan. 16 2011. We had to wait for the snow to clear since we had the worse snow storm here since I can remember with nearly a foot of snow on the ground. It does not sound like much but for South Carolina it was unusual. The good thing was that it started on Christmas so that was nice.

The boat was started Thanksgiving Weekend and the only trouble we had was keeping the garage warm enough to work in and the epoxy and paint sitting up properly. Best I could do was to get it just over 50 degrees. Other than that the build went smoothly.

It was a great day for a first sail. Calm to 5 mph conditions and everything went great. We stayed out for around two hours on a local lake where we had greater than normal sea bird activity to enjoy and not too cold with the high around 40 degrees.

It is not built from the puddlecat plans that I sell at www.rogermann.org. I hope to add this boat later but I will start drawing plans now and maybe have them done in a week or so.

I really like the boat, and my wife likes it which is most important since she wants to go with me now, what a surprise that was! Maybe she just feels that it is safer. It is 50% larger approx than the puddlecat but it is very similar I suppose. Stitch and glue, ¼ ply and fiberglass and epoxy.

Here are a few specs. Just over 13 foot long, 6 foot ½" wide. Weighs 360 lbs as seen in the photo with the biplane rig. Draft with one person on board is 6 ½ inches. (better that I expected) Bridge deck clearance is 17 ½ inches with one person on board. And this has both the bow and stern still out of the water so payload should be good. Yet to determine that.

She sails very well in the light wind we had. We will see how she does in the higher winds but being able to reef and drop a sail all together I am not expecting any surprises. I wish I would have taken out the spinnaker yesterday but didn't. we hit 4.1 sailing in calm conditions. Could row at 3 mph and hit just over 4.5 mph in a rowing sprint, and sculled at around 1 to 1.5 mph. I even used an oar to paddle while standing in the middle on the bridge deck with both rigs lowered, as long as I offset my strokes with the rudder I only had to paddle on one side so that was surprising as well and I could paddle at just over 2 mph. I should be able to pole in shallow water as well but did not try that.

The cabin can sleep one laying across the boat. It has a floor even with the bridge deck with airtight compartments underneath in the hulls for storage and flotation. Will try and add photos of that.

It may be built without the cabin as well. That added around 40 lbs.

My friends that I showed it to here at work seem to really think it is attractive. I can't wait to get it out again.

Thanks, Roger

Roger Mann
24 Gary Ave.
Taylors, SC. 29687
864 787 5980

roger@rogermann.org

Apple Pie

Apple Pie

Safety first Keeerrr---SSSSpplash Wow - what a winter we have had here. This has been the coldest that I can remember. I've had to keep asking if this was Central Florida. I know you all have seen that a number of times, the good thing is; it's over. Not to disc all of you other builders but, I've wondered how someone could start a small boat and then let it drag on and on. Now I'm one of them, I thought at the start this would be over in four months, at tops. Now at about 15 months I still need to get back on it. I can't blame the weather for all the lost work this year. Cause----I did have something to come up.

Chuck I hope it's OK to talk about this, all men need the information. In January I went for my normal checkup. My PSA was 2 points higher than normal. Sent to an urologist. Digital Rectal exam, prostate enlarged. Ultrasound also shows enlarged. 8 biopsies, 2 positive for cancer. Now the options: surgery, radiation, radiation with seed implant or freezing. All equal urinary and sexual problems. Second opinion; the new kid on the block has a new toy. It's a Sonablate 500. Its uses High Intensity Focused Ultrasound to burn the prostate tissue without surgery. WOW I'm sold! What now? Its April next available time slot is June 11. We fly down to Cancun on Thursday, procedure on Friday, home on Saturday. I walked into the hospital and walked out. I have had no pain except for the catheter thru the pubic area and that is mostly just uncomfortable. I am now cancer free!!!!! Latest's News break!!! September 13, 2010 PSA test from last week was 0.00! Now if it stays there The Doc says I'm cured. Now back to our regularly scheduled program.

Paddle and rudder. Paddle is 7 ft long. It's made from recycled shipping pallet. It was a 5 ft 2x4, trimmed to a square then shaved to an octagon. The blades were 1x 3's, glued on the sides then shaped with shur plane and lots of sanding. Finish is epoxy 3 coats.

It floats!

I finished glassing inside, made a skeg from 2 slices of 1x6 epoxied together then shaped and glassed. The skeg has a 1" keel strip and two rub strips of the same material. A rudder, that was some work shaping that foil and the leading edge. Still need to make, floatation boxes, oars for rowing and sculling, and the mounting points for a sail; I've still got to figure out how to go about it. How big can it be? A six foot mast with five foot yard? 15 sqft? I've read what the PDR's are doing, just have to start and adjust along the way.

Paddle and rudder. Paddle is 7 ft long. It’s made from recycled shipping pallet.

She's a grand tender sits well on her lines, handles like a lady here on Lake Lisa. Hope she performs as good on the Indian River. I've never sailed, so look out if you are on the Indian River when I'm out. I'll be sailing from the Eau Gallie harbor down toward Melbourne, Florida. Dreaming of sailing to Bermuda. She's called "Tres Centavo", three cents.

My back porch/shop.

My grandson didn't try for a proper sitting position that was still to be found, but he'll learn about trim and that other stuff. We all just wanted to get it in the water. If anyone has questions about HIFU just enter that in your search engine or e-mail vdavis32@cfl.rr.com, subj: HIFU