The Goat Island Skiff Project Begins

Michael Storers Goat Island Skiff is a GREAT boat. We decided to build one for ourselves and use the boat as a test for producing high-quality, perfectly fitting kits to sell to amateurs and other professionals with little time on their hands. The goal for these kits is that they produce a hull with perfect lines that have been adjusted by a professional so new boatbuilders can get a fair hull that goes together easily. Every boat needs refinement. With our patterns, a CNC file will be made, and CNC kits will be produced. With Storers thorough manual, a new boatbuilder can build a great boat for themselves and enjoy doing it because things fit and much of the tricky work has been done for them. Time will be saved and boatbuilders can get on the water sooner.

Clint modified the boat by adding a mizzen, making the boat more along the lines of a sail-and-oar boat and more easily singlehanded.

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US Alternator Has Arrived

The Ecoair alternator arrived today from America :-)

Just a picture quick entry this time.

Its big! and its heavy 18kg!

In the interim I have been looking at drive options.  I have decided to make a new drive plate:-

Old drive plate

to which I will probably use a Fenner HRC Coupling or possibly a Fenner Tyre Coupling.

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a project you might want to check out during 2016

Some exciting stuff, regarding those dire predictions, and something well worth the read...

Someones been busy.

I expect youll be able to find out more as it develop over at Boat & Koad.

Listening to a plethora of good covers

So it goes...

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The conception of our project

In February 2008, while we were walking along the north shore of Flathead Lake, my husband Richard commented that he wanted to build a wooden sailboat and sail away into retirement. How else do travel junkies afford their habit, but take their house with them?

As the winters tend to get rather gloomy here in the Flathead, a long term project sounded great. We toyed with buying and refurbishing an older boat. A 30 year old hull, however, is still a 30 year old hull with its inherent weaknesses and problems after almost as much financial outlay to repair and update it. Besides the challenge of the building process, and the intimate knowledge of every aspect of our boat was something that appealed to us. The next hurdle was deciding what and where to build.

As Richard owns a custom cabinet shop, and has been working with wood for over 30 years, he really wanted to build a modern wooden sailboat, but with traditional appeal. After a lot of research he decided on the strip plank-cold mold method of construction. He wanted to build a vessel large enough to live on, but small enough to be a realistic goal financially and in terms build time. We also wanted a boat that could be easily handled by a couple, with shallow enough draft for poking around remote areas, but designed for bluewater and passagemaking.

The lengthy process of picking plans began....

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Heres a project of interest

John Scalzi making some needful points, a sky pilot getting it right, and Badtux pointing out the obvious...

A long time ago I read the book "Sailing the Farm" by Ken Neumeyer and while there is a lot of good ideas, some excellent information on seaweed and other content of a useful sort, it suffered greatly from the fact that a lot of the projects/ideas were just not practical aboard a boat or, in their current form of evolution, simply did not work. Which is not to say he was not on the right track or his theories were wrong but it was simply not quite ready for prime time.

Tragically, as fate would have it, Ken Neumeyer was never able to write a sequel to "Sailing the Farm" but Im sure that if he had it would have contained a boat sized, scaled down, and demountable version of something like this solar dehydrator from Mother Earth News.

Actually, maybe its time to look at "Sailing the Farm" again and see how we can apply current tech and materials...

Listening to The Platters (2015 version)

So it goes...

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School project boat design

School project boat design Build a Model Boat Template Small Wooden Fishing Boat Plans School Boat Science Project Build Small Wooden Boat Miniature Wooden Boats

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