A Three Hour Tour

Late Friday night I got the spray rails painted with a coat of System Three Yacht primer all the while looking down the hill at Cap Sante and the oily black water beckoning to be disturbed. I had to remind myself to be patient, after all the forecast for Saturday was very good, winds forecast out of the W up to 10 knots with partly sunny skies.

Well my oldest son decided that he wanted to go paintballing in the morning with Jose (our sales guy) and my brother. Knowing how much he likes to paintball and that the forecast was for a perfect day I acquiesced and let him go. I reasoned that I could always drop the boat in the water and run it around to the marina while he was paintballing if I absolutely couldn't wait to go boating.

Saturday morning dawned with a high overcast (I guess you could call it partly sunny) and absolutely no wind. Being somewhat complacent after hearing the forecast Friday night I began leisurely getting the boat ready and doing some cleanup around the yard. I figured I might as well turn on the weather radio and let the computer voice drone on in the background while I worked.

All of a sudden I was jolted from my leisurely haze. The forecast had changed! It was now calling for afternoon thunderstorms with a small craft advisory for late in the afternoon. I began eyeing the bay nervously while intermittently checking my watch waiting for my son to get home so we could get on the water, the whole family was going on this trip and I wanted smooth water (got to get a few "nice" water trips in with the wife to get her hooked).

Ben, my son, finally got home and we got on our way to the launch ramp. I had forgotten to check the tide tables and when we got to the ramp we found that it was low tide, low, low tide. Which at Washington park can be an issue as only one boat per side can fit and by this time I was a little antsy to get the boat in the water and get going. Soon a spot opened up to back the boat down but the people that had just launched weren't quite ready to go and were hogging up the dock space and I was getting really impatient. I began backing the boat down when I saw one of them running back down to the dock from their trailer and felt a little relieved that they might get out of the way so I could launch. I looked back in the rear view mirror and saw lawn chairs coming out of their boat and on to the dock, which was not a good sign. So I decided we'd drop the boat off the trailer and pull it up on the beach, after all that's why we build an Oregon dory. As I started backing up the people on the dock got a little nervous that we might launch our boat right into theirs however when I told them the plan their anxiety dropped a little.

Soon we had the boat off of the trailer and on the beach. After a little challenge with the shore pound we where off and the worries of the launch ramp were behind us, literally.

The water was beautiful, glassy smooth, and perfect. I was excited to drive the boat and see what the new spray rails meant to how the boat handled. However it wasn't two minutes before Ben began nudging me out of the way wanting to drive the boat. For some reason I let him take the helm and pointed out to him a landmark to line up with. It took him a while to get the hang of it but soon he had us all lined up. I was a bit bummed to not be driving however it did give me a chance to wander around and hang my head overboard to see how the spray rails were doing.

The rails were working great, no longer did I have a sheet of water coming off of the port quarter and we didn't have to trim the engine so far down to get the bow down.

Ben had everything under control so I sat down and enjoyed the ride. When we got up near Eagle Harbor on Cypress Island I took the helm and we did some maneuvers, the boat turns much better with the spray rails on as they cause the water to release from the boat and allow it to carve rather than slide through the turn (for you surfers out there it would be like the difference between a board with sharp edges at the tail and one that has 50/50 rails all the way through). It was great.

We motored in through the mooring buoys and up into the cove at Eagle Harbor, there were little bait fish jumping on the surface and once past the mooring buoys the bay shallowed out to 4ft real quick. First we headed up to the NE corner but decided that the bottom was too muddy (almost lost a rubber boot) and not steep enough to leave the boat on. I hadn't checked the tides and didn't know if it was going to keep going out or start coming in. So we went over to the NW corner of the bay where the beach was small gravel and much more suitable for beaching.

We got out and secured the boat and hiked around for a while, the boys found clams, small crabs, oysters, dragon flies and even a snake.

We decided that instead of heading straight back to the launch ramp we would go all the way around the island.

We motored out of the cove and started heading North. Zach our 2 year old decided that since Ben got to drive the boat there that he should get a turn too. So he nudged me out of the way and took the wheel. He did quite well too considering he couldn't see where he was going. Apparently not understanding the connection between where we were going and what he was doing he soon tired of navigating and turned the wheel back over to me. Ben hadn't had enough yet so he asked if he could pilot the boat so he took us up around the top of the island. The breeze that was forecast began to kick up and while we were on the NE side of the island it was nice, since it blew the hot air off the island but soon we rounded the corner and were coming at it as it blew straight up Rosario Strait. A light chop kicked up as well and for the comfort of the crew we cut the speed back to about 14 knots.

As we approached Guemes Channel the Ferry and two tugs were headed up the channel and as we crossed behind them we picked up their wake. The little boat with its flat bottom is a hoot in the big rollers, you can feel it pick up speed as it surfs down the big waves. Ben who had by this time given the helm over in order to find a warmer place to hide poked his head out of the blankets he'd wrapped up in and gave me a big smile as we slid over the large wakes.

Coming into Washington park we got out of the wind and back into the soft water again. Nearing the end of the day's journey and having had a good "three hour tour" I decided to hot rod around in the boat for a bit. Running in circles the boat turned great without a hint of out of control sliding or wallowing. It definitely needed the spray rails and the effort to put them on was very much worthwhile. If I did have to do them over I might raise them up a little more, but they seem to work great. Now on to the rest of the list.....

Oregon Dory - W.I.P.

We built or as the boats name implies, are building an 18' Oregon Dory named "W.I.P" or work in progress. Most of the work on the boat was done 3 years ago but once the motor got slapped on it substantial progress slowed to short bursts during the winter or at other times when I feel that a critical upgrade needs to be done. After all is it about building the boat or using the boat?

The most recent upgrade to the boat is adding the spray rails. In all actuality this is something I should have done before putting the motor on it but sometimes I really like learning how things work by experience (like torque steering however I'll discuss that some other time). Spray rails are necessary in order to break the laminar flow of water over the hull, which under certain circumstances can cause a boat to handle poorly, submarine, or even flip over. Running the dory without spray rails we found that in some cases the flow up the port side of the hull would definitely pull the boat down to that side to the point that, well let's just say it needs spray rails.

On deciding how to go about doing the spray rails I turned to Renn Tolman's book, "A Skiff for All Seasons". Renn calls for doing it in two layers of 3/4" stock cut with a 30 degree bevel at the top of the rail so I went down to the hardware store and picked out some clear pine and ripped them to the right dimensions. The stock I got was 8' long and I got enough to go 16', unfortunately I didn't get time to measure the boat before going to the hardware store so I was running off of my best guess that 16' would be enough. Turns out it was, but it didn't leave me room to scarf the pieces together. I decided on the starboard side that I would just screw and glue the first layer on and butt join the pieces together. I dry fit the parts together and then pulled them off to glue them on.

We've recently started stocking System Three's gel magic in the u-TAH cartridge so I figured this was a good chance to give it a spin. The u-TAH cartridge is a caulking gun cartridge that dispenses both sides of the epoxy at the right ratio, using a static mixer tip the epoxy comes out mixed and ready to go. I laid out the pieces and began to squirt away with the caulking gun. It was nice that the material came out mixed but I did find that I wanted it to come out faster and that it took quite a bit of effort to squeeze it out. Later I did notice that System Three recommends using a caulking gun that gives better mechanical advantage than a standard caulking gun. Personally if I was frequently using the product I would switch to a powered caulking gun.

After squirting a bead of glue down the boards and spreading the glue out to cover the whole surface I screwed them into place. I was a little dismayed to find that I did not get even squeeze out down the whole length of the boat. I also did not like the way the joint laid as it stood a little proud and uneven.

For the port side I decided to join the two 8' pieces to make one 16 foot piece and to use a different method to screw it to the hull. Also I decided to use System Three General Purpose epoxy with cotton flock as a filler in order to glue the boards down.

As I mentioned I did not have enough length in the material to make a scarf joint so I decided to use a hand plan to taper the wood at the joint and then use fiberglass cloth on each side of the joint to reinforce it. I put 2 layers of 6oz glass on the back and 4 layers on the front as that was the side that would be put under tension. I wet out the glass for the back and laid it on a piece of wax paper and then wet out the pieces in place on the front of the rail. I used some weights to brace the wood and keep it from moving while the resin cured. After it cured I used a sander to knock off the excess and make sure the surfaces were fair. This worked really well and took a curve with out unevenness. It was also much simpler than scarfing and wasted no wood.

I then dry fit the spray rail to the boat, this time using longer screws and only in areas where I could put backer blocks, this was much easier than using short screws that didn't get enough grip in the hull to hold.

This time I used System Three General Purpose resin mixed with cotton flock as a filler instead of using the Gel Magic. On the first rail with the Gel Magic I used about 6 oz, spreading this new mixture on by hand was much more messy than using the Gel Magic and probably took longer, additionally we used much more epoxy as I ended up mixing 12 oz of resin plus cotton flock. I was happy though that I got really even squeeze out.

The outer rail laminations went well, I stuck with Gel magic on the starboard side and the cotton flock mixture on the port side. I didn't join the stock but put it on in 3 pieces (in order to stagger the location of the joints) and cut the boards at 45 degree angles where they jointed. They went on well and for the most part really fair, I'll just need to smooth some of the joints slightly with a block plane.

I'll be finishing them off later this week, at least to the point that we can get out on the boat this weekend and go exploring the islands.

New Blog @ Fiberglass Supply

Welcome to our new blog at Fiberglass Supply. We are starting this blog to keep you current on what we are working on and learning about here. Often times we meet customers that have great ideas or are working on great projects, or we are working on our own projects and feel that sharing what is going on might help you with your project. We have found that it is the little things that can make the difference between good and excellent but have not yet found a good forum to share those things in. We are hoping to find that forum here so keep checking in as it gets updated.