Kurt Hughes Daycharter 36

Discussion in 'Boatbuilding' started by Charly, Mar 10, 2010.

  1. Charly
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    Charly Senior Member

    Fitting Rudder to Underbody

    Yesterday I got out the grinder and shaved off some of the rudder blade at the top, so it would clear the hull when hard over. The wedge cut alone was not wide enough. I figure I am half way across the stream so there is no turning back now with it.:rolleyes:

    The first photos show the new limits of turn angle after the rudder blade mod. I haven't measured but I am guessing about 35 degrees. I think I can live with that. If I set the limit there, the only thing I have to worry about then is how she will behave in irons., and I won't know that until I go sailing. Dockside manuevers should be no problem, since I will be motoring anyway, and the ob's are set wide apart.

    So, then, NOW what?:) Should I leave the whole thing alone and just fair out the joints where the cassette meets the hull underneath? Or should I try and enhance the endplate effect by building down some kind of little nub, skeg, thingie, in the front and back of the cassette? IOW, would the gap between the top of the rudder and the hull, as shown in the photos, create a lot of drag??

    What would everyone else do?
     

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  2. Charly
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    Charly Senior Member

    Sometimes when you post stuff online and then go back the next day and read it, it doesn't make any sense.:D

    So, to try to clarify, I will just pose a question: Is it worth the effort to narrow the gap (I think this is called the "root gap") between the rudder and cassette as shown in the profile picture?

    Thanks for any input.
     
  3. groper
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    groper Senior Member

    Designers always specify keeping this gap as close as possible. We went over this earlier in the thread. I know you don't want the extra work, so I guess you didn't want to hear this :)
     
  4. Charly
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    Charly Senior Member

    Hey Groper, yeah, I got that part down, but what I was worried about was the turbulence that might be created by building a shape down from the cassette to the rudder top.

    If I build a regular rudder foil shape to match the rudder I have, and stick it to the underside of the cassette, when I turn , it will remain fixed fore and aft. This "opening of the scissors" seems would create some kind of "overfall" or something that I thought might do more harm than good.

    Maybe I am worrying too much about it.

    And....I see after some more poking around that this is not an uncommon arrangement, however, so it probably is the best way to go (photo)

    The building part will be easy.

    I really appreciate your feedback. I have learned a lot here from you and others. Maybe some folks will learn something from me, if only it is how NOT to do something.:D
     

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  5. Pylasteki
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    Pylasteki Junior Member

    I ran a a 36 foot kurt hughes charter cat for two years doing day charters.

    The design of the rudder box and cassette, sucks.

    The cassette box, needs to be wide enough that you have some steerage if you kick only one rudder.

    The 3 inch or so head box, means that you don't kick the rudders if you are turning, meaning the rudders now are spuds in the sand and you have to throttle astern and horse around on helm until you can center the wheel to kick the rudders. I think the rudder head box should have been 6 or 8 inches wide, and the whole shebang tip up leaving not much of the lower step. If you are running a crew of two (We did...) if you kick the rudder, the mate has to be aware that you are in shallows to literally go stand on the rudder head box while backing and horse around on the tiller to drop it back into place.

    If, you happen to have sail up while this happens... You now have no steering, and your mate standing on the rudder. To say that this can be exciting, is an understatement.

    We had hold down lines, at the front of the rudder head which turned out to be from the bad design files. You would believe that a turning block in the front of the cassette would let you hold the rudder down, under tension... You can... But once the rudder kicks up the line gets wedged into the crack around the rudder box meaning if you have a mate with a heavy foot they jam the line into place like caulking a plank. Rudder doesn't go back up out of the slot without two people. The design should be WEDGE shaped. So the slot gets wider at the top and narrower at the bottom so that it is impossible to JAM a rudder up, down, or in between.

    The third step, needs to be recessed a bit, for the tiller arm to clear, if you want to kick the rudders up high enough to be clear of the water at rest in the slip. The inside shear clamp, needs to be cut away to clear the rudder tie bar.

    We ended up with 3 Eye bolts in a row and a 1/2 inch sacrificial oak dowel run across the top of the rudder to each of the "steps" to hold the rudder down because it is possible to kick the rudders at speed, and if you are steering the rudder blade binds up in the slot. The way we did that, was 5200 a piece of plywood to a piece of aluminum, take a 6 foot long stick and tape a sheet of sandpaper to it and scuff off the underside of the step... Then coated the top of the plywood with thickened epoxy, taped it to the end of the 6 foot long stick and screwed down from the top of the step until we hit the plywood blocks. Once everything cured, we drilled and tapped into the aluminum plate for the eye bolts.

    Before that, we were using wooden wedges jammed into the rudder cassette to keep the rudder down. I would suggest, making the rudders out of foam like ours were, but casting 20 or 30 lbs of lead shot into the bottom of them so they don't float up out of the slot when the helm is centered and you are cruising along at 13 or 14 knots, and lose all steerage. This, is also interesting, and exciting!

    If one rudder kicks, you lose all steerage, because... the rudder that kicks is trapped in a 3 inch wide slot. How far can you steer the other rudder... About 1 1/2 inches.

    When we were running under power, both of the first stern steps were sumberged. If it were my build, I would plumb up the stern and make a wide first step, mainly because off a floating dock you have to step over the shear clamp to find a step as the transom is reversed.

    At rest, unless you close up the bottom step you will have growth. We grew all varieties of barnacles right there at the waterline on the steps and had to scrape often. The boat I ran was boxed in with a reverse transom up to the first step.

    If you use a Edson steering post intended for rack and pinion steering and a jack shaft with an idler in the rear cross member to get the idler arm stuck out the back of the cross member the rear cross member needs to have a ring frame built to hold the tension. We had play in our steering system because steering the helm tried to spread the cross member apart. Our main starting batteries were to each side of the steering rod.

    We ended up installing plastic rub rails from BarBour plastics, the big 2 1/2 inch wide half ovals. If you don't work off a floating dock, the boat is slab sided enough that pilings will take off your vinyl graphics. If you have any cross current at all, she still lays to the wind direction but moves with the current. If you don't have rub rails and work out of a fixed dock, you end up trying to gun for the slot and back her down hard to not touch anything. We knocked a chunk out of the bow, when one outboard died on us when it went into reverse. Rub rails mean you can work into the slip, and not tear up the world.

    Cheers,

    Zach
     
  6. Pylasteki
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    Pylasteki Junior Member

    The lifting sleds we had for the outboards were about 6 foot long aluminum pipes, welded together to make a "ladder" of sorts with a transom on the back angled to take the motors. We had short shaft motors. Depending where you operate, I would have preferred long shafts run a little deeper as any leftover swell meant you had to work the throttle constantly to keep them from revs from launching to orbit. The short shafts also would come dangerously close to taking water over the top if you punched out the inlet with a contrary tide and wind... Even with all that bridge deck clearance. The front of the "ladder" set into fiberglass "pillow blocks" with delrin sleeves. I liked the arrangement, as when they were down you could stand on and around them to work on the motors, as they were fairly difficult to do much to in the raised position.

    The motors were mounted just so the motor cowl would clear the rear cross beams when the "ladders" were all the way up tight to the stern. We had a block and tackle that went to cam cleats on the top of the rear cross beam so we could lift and lower the motors at speed. The rope was about the right length to grab a hand full, and walk up to the front cross beam. We had chafe issues where the block and tackle would rub the cross beams. The lifting eyes needed to be on built out blocks to accommodate for that.

    We had aluminum angle welded up, and plastic "Deck board" for the supports under the fuel tanks. Our fuel filters were right beside the tanks. We used 6 gallon tanks, filled to 5 and had metal quick connect fittings on all of them. The fuel filters were the spin on variety, and gave us enough fuel to swap tanks while under way. I would not go any bigger than 6, as they are heavy to handle to and from the dock. We kept two spares one to each side of the helm. Fuel lines were a wear item as they looped down from the filters to the motors.

    The weight of the motors hung on chains to the bottom of the cross beams. the depth adjustment, was adding or removing a chain link from the length.

    The motors could be kicked... since they were on chains. We popped a log one day, and it went under the sled, lifted the motor and dropped it right back down none worse for wear. In sloppy sea, the slap and bang a bit.

    Backing down off a beach, often one or the others skeg would be deep enough that they would bounce a bit, or at least leave tracks in the sand. Even though they only had their weight holding down they did a good job.

    I would want a pair, larger than the pair of 25's we had. They were, border line. In 20 knots of wind we couldn't motor pass the bow through the wind for docking or man over board drills... We had to fall off and gybe the boat unless we had steerage speed to use the rudder. Given, you don't always have room to accelerate up to speed... Or to turn a 36 x 24 boat full circle down wind, that can be a little bit hairy depending what you are doing. At times this felt like the russian submarine crazy ivan. Full ahead both motors and then full wheel, then reverse the inside motor... Lots of squawking. More horsepower would have been nice. We about had a boat go between the bows. They were glazed over with beer goggles on, and it was all we could do to hold our place with a following 1 1/2 knot current and wind... Couldn't back up, couldn't go forward, and were entering a basin with a wicked tide rip.

    I would also add some sort of lifting arrangement for the center board. We used a spare halyard to hold it up... but it chafed quite severely at the mast head and didn't have an angle that worked for actually lifting. Often captain and mate would end up giving it a boost to get it un-stuck and raise it for beaching. We had no way to control depth of the board other than a wooden wedge in the dagger board case.

    We had no bow chocks for anchoring. If I were building the boat I would add a center mounted electric anchor windlass just ahead of the mast and a "box" for the rode to lay in with an anchor roller off the center of the cross bar. We would do fireworks cruises on the 4th of July, and that was an adventure trying to get the anchor up over the cross bar, flaked back into a 5 gallon bucket and lowered back down the bow hatch. Our default was if we had a problem run her up on the beach, not drop anchor... The boat however, would not lay to its anchor if wind and current were contrary to raise it. You couldn't power up to the anchor without passing it. If you have a bit of chain on the anchor without a dedicated bow roller you tear all hell up trying to get it back aboard over the cross beam.

    Spend whatever it takes to put a rotating mast on her. We gained a lot of speed with it set up to rotate. We had a block and tackle arrangement so we could hold the mast to one side or the other to keep people from getting pinched. Also had a nearly full width traveller with a spliced endless loop to bring it up or fall off. Our main sheet did not lead to a winch, it was simply a cam cleat. It had the ability to smoke your hand if you didn't roll tack the boat like a beach cat and ease the sheet with the nose in the wind. We would have liked on high winds to have a winch, but more often than not we had room to head up and make our adjustments. Once the boat is moving, the apparent wind goes forward and as you start sheeting in the faster you go. More often than not we were close hauled, or nearly so.

    We had a self tacking blade jib, with a 2:1 on the sheet going to a which. This worked fairly well, it was a high cut jib. I would have preferred a lower cut, and a touch more sail area. The Tack was on about a 2 foot strap so we could see ahead, and at that height the clew was about 5 feet off the tramps. Worked well for passengers, but more often than not we could not tack through the wind unless the bottom was extra clean, the motors were up, and the mast was set to rotate on its own. The mate would back wind the jib, which a touch more sail area would be harder work... but faster acting.

    We had lazy jacks that were not set up to be able to pull forward. This meant a good bit of co-ordination to get the main up. Rig the main halyard and jib halyard through clutches on the side of the mast to a two speed winch on the starboard side and leave a clear path so if you have kiddos on board, you can have a big long row of them and they can hoist the sails. Our main halyard winch was undersized for diameter to get a good bite on the halyard. The last bit required some grinding.

    We had plastic Tides Marine Track system and full length battens. We could drop sail just by dropping the flaked main halyard in a pile and letting the clutch open. This was one of the best parts of the boat. The full length battens required some work from time to time. We snapped two and got good at scarfing them back together. (Wooden block, wrapped in mylar... lay in glass.)

    Our topping lift was a vinyl coated wire, with a 4:1 block at the aft end. The battens overlapped it, so the boat hook was often used to clear it.

    Our main sail was about 7 years old, but with the lazy jacks we had no sail cover. I would suggest some sort of "pack" with a zipper across the top with flaps for the lazy jacks as our main was pretty well sun eaten in that time.

    The boat was not all that accessible to youngsters. We had 4 moveable steps. 2 double steps, and two single steps. The cross beams and height from the top of the deck to the cockpit is enough that people without depth perception would fall. In my opinion there needs to be built in steps in the front and rear corners of the cockpit. Make them with lifting lids for storage too. We had one hull that was only lifejackets. It would have been nice to have a a secondary set of dock lines and storage for DRINKS up out of the hull. We had a hard time keeping the boat dry enough (humidity) that the cardboard would stay together to keep sodas and beer on board for the next cruise.

    I would make two heads. Ladies on one hull, men on the other. Reason being: You can't always get pumped out when you want to. If you have one head that is full and one that is not, you can still run. We were within minutes, on one memorial day weekend of not making it back to the dock for our sunset cruise waiting to get pumped out. We had one head. I would suggest the Sealand 711 head over holding tank arrangement. Mainly because you can budget that once every 2 years, just replace them both. If you run 40 people 3 times a weekend, heads look a bit worn looking. The other thing, they don't require pumping valves just a foot valve. Folks can throw whatever they will (whether you tell them they can or not) down the hole, and it doesn't shut down the head for the rest of the day. We had a 6 gallon tank in the Lazarette that gravity fed water for the flush. We did not have a sink, just alcohol hand sanitizer. I would suggest a sink, because every now and again we'd have folks that were beside themselves at the quality of the facilities. Not that we weren't clean, but because they couldn't wash their hands. That is some cheaply corrected, bad advertising.


    Zach
     
    Last edited: Mar 29, 2014
  7. Charly
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    Charly Senior Member

    Great information

    Hi Pylasteki,
    I can't thank you enough for those posts. It is great to have inputs from folks who have actually run the KH 36. You have confirmed some of my suspicions and given me much to think about at the same time.

    As for the rudder setup, I think I have made an improvement, and hopefully won't have any issues with the thing hanging up. I have never liked the idea of having to do any kind of work down there, especially while underway. I already have messed up my rotor cuff by slipping on that sloped aft deck one frosty morn. Must work on that safety issue, and somehow improve it. I don't care for the "dinosaur's back" look, but may have to grit my teeth and glass in another step up there.

    My hold down line jammed up the first time I used it, just like you said. I thought maybe I could fix that with a bungee that would keep enough tension on the line, so it wouldn't go slack and thus keep it running fair through the blocks. I haven't tried it yet. Did yall try that?

    You lost me with the bit about the Edson steering post. I suspect your setup was different than the stock arrangement with the track mounted on the aft face of the beam? I can tell I am going to have some issues with the tie rods. My plans call for a morse threaded rod embedded in bog in the end of a pipe, with a clevis connection. I don't yet have any idea how I am going to connect the end at the car on the track. Seems like it could be pretty sloppy without a careful layout. (Was your boat the one that was for sale in Oriental a while back? "Sea Dragon" or "Kahuna")

    Have to go now more later...
    Thanks again!

    EDIT:
    A couple of more questions.
    How did the nylon deck bolts hold up? Did you have any stiffness problems (the bridgedeck) or separations?

    25+ horses per side? Yikes. I have been planning on using tohatsu 9.8 xls high thrust. The plans spec'ed less that that. This worries me. The way mine will be set up the motors will be hugging up against each hull for max separation. I would hope the xtra long shafts with four blades and wider separation will make the difference.

    Would sure like to see some pics if you have any...
     
  8. Pylasteki
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    Pylasteki Junior Member

    Not sure what the plans show for steering, as I only ran the business side... friend owned her.

    She was Sea Dragon. If you call Jim, he can probably put you in touch with the builder. She was built up in Alaska... they both may have pictures or advice too. http://www.bowtosternboating.com/

    She had stainless bolts holding the beams into place. As far as I could tell the only looseness in her, was the cockpit sole. The cleats glassed to the bottom of the beams holding the sole into place were starting to show the years around the helm station. Other than that, sheer size of the box beams keeps her tight as a fiddle. I've been on a few smaller cats, and some up to 80 feet or so none were near as stiff as the massive kurt hughes style joint. Most of them are designed to give a bit, but they go through the waves like a stair stepping machine. One bow goes up, other bow goes up... stern does something else with the occasion grunt and groan. Sea Dragon had none of that.

    One of the best uses for those box beams, is a speaker box. We had four cheapo marine grade speakers, with a car stereo and 300w amplifier. Pretty sure that boat has the best audio quality possible. 2 ft square, 20 foot long hollow boxes. 6 inch speakers, with loads of bass.

    Our competition, http://lookoutcruises.com/ was a 45+/- fiberglass cat, and she has twin 50 horse Hondas on hydraulic sleds and has been running around successfully chartering for 20 or so years.

    The reason I suggest more power, is that if you are out on the water doing charters and you can't back the boat down off the beach... You need a tow. We had to do a bit of a dance to get people aboard from the beach, as you are loading a couple tons of weight. We would have folks walk back to the stern, back her off off... then power back up the beach. The last folks aboard were not quite knee deep most of the time. If you load everyone at once, it takes the perfect beach and quite a bit of power to back the bows off.

    When you back her off, there is a bit of a dance...

    You have to have enough power to back her off with the added weight, and also not lose ground to the tide. That means to hold her orientation perpendicular to the beach, the down wind motor has to be turning harder than the upwind one, lest the stern start down wind. Full throttle both motors... you can do it, but you need to have the stern in deep enough water that you can back with the rudders once you gain steerage, and let the bow be blown down wind before running parallel the beach. If the beach in question has a shoaling a few lengths off the beach, you've got to back her and turn her into deep water before you find the bar with the rudders. If it is windy, the boat wants to channel air between the hulls which means if you've got wind directly off the shore or blowing on shore your turning circle gets wider than if the wind is on your beam.

    If you lose your orientation to the beach (think beach is perpendicular to both wind and tide...) and one bow or rudder trips, you go broadside to the beach, stern first. You've got have enough thrust to back the stern back into perpendicular as you can't power up forward and steer off as you are aground.

    Once the beach side bow that got stuck is backed off, you have to back off the shoreline a couple boat lengths and regain your bow to the beach posture or the wind/tide will roll you broadside to and try to put you ashore. Think about a boat wake coming by when this happens...

    We would keep the motors in ahead gear at the beach, and keep an eagle eye out for wakes and waves as they will lift you up and set you further ashore. Otherwise, you can just as easily get lifted off the beach and wind and tide take over control.

    That, is entertaining, particularly if you lift a rudder and have to do all the above with the motors.

    I would not want to run with twin 9.8's if you plan on beaching the boat.

    For one, you will be limited on your top end speed. We had regular propellers, not the high thrust version, namely because of the speed limitation when underway. (I would have liked them around the dock, but we made do...)

    The other half of having decent horsepower, is you can have some speed to outrun incoming weather back to your slip. Off hand I can't remember our motoring speed was, after the first season we ran her as a sailboat as the fuel burn for a 6 hour trip is healthy...

    We were lucky to have cancelled our afternoon cruise, one day when a 70 knot squall came through. Lookout was out, they had to set anchor and power up into the squall behind the lee of an island and open up the bar for a few hours.

    Like Captain Ron says... "If it's going to happen, its going to happen out there." The other half of that, is if you are out every day for the season you get to see the good weather, the bad weather and the squalls as bookings can be two, three weeks out and most of the time... bad weather isn't as bad as predicted so you grow tired of cancellation based on predicted weather forecasts, if the guests are willing.

    You'll be out, in the predicted... that turns into the unexpected that for your own pleasure you might have gone. You've got a crew that knows the boat, everyone knows the waters, and if you cancel no one gets paid.

    Because of the nature of that side of the business...

    Keeping safe in the best possible conditions is pretty easy to build to, you need to build the boat to account for taking care of the worst possible conditions you will experience if the business is successful. If you do day boat cruises, where you can end up 3-4 hours ride from your home slip it gets more important that the boat is rigged out for the unexpected.

    That dovetails up with having a decent size bimini top and windscreen of some sort. We did not have a windscreen, but it would have been handy to have an vinyl zip up across the front of the bimini to the forward beam. In the best of times, folks take 3 hours of sun before trying to squeeze together under the shade. In the worst of weather when it snaps cold rain and 50 degrees with the wind blowing sideways, you've got a load of cold wet and shivering people for which their beach towels do nothing. Only sailors know to take a jacket... and hat!

    More power, means you can take a show of hands... Figuratively or Literally of who wants off, drop sail and lay the throttles on the console and get people home. With one home base of operations, you've got one direction you are into the wind and the other with the wind behind you. On cold days, taking the run that puts you down wind on the trip home most folks enjoy more than an upwind run. Wind chill speed doubles up. A 10 knot wind, and a 10 knot boat going into the wind, is a 20 knot wind chill. It doesn't take much wind, or much cool weather or humidity to chill folks to the core.

    Down wind on the way home, folks don't mind a bit of a chill. Up wind, they want off the boat and if you've got single digit speeds it takes twice as long to get back as double digit speeds... They appreciate the wind chill being over, sooner if they hear the motors thrashing! We had at times 6 or 7 girls huddled down in the head, peaking out "Are we home yet?" More times than I could count.

    We also used the motors from time to time to quickly get to the wind, as our home port was sheltered from an east wind and the channel wasn't wide enough to sail with a true south wind. We'd lay the throttles down and get to the sailing grounds quickly while doing introductions and a getting people situated with drinks. Without having the power to do that, to windward, your customers don't get quite the trip they thought they would get... sailing instead of motor boating.

    Cheers,

    Zach
     
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  9. Charly
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    Charly Senior Member

    Tiller arm connections and track

    It's time to make some decisions about the steering, on the tiller end. The rudders are about done now.

    So much depends on the type and brand of track and hardware used.

    The cost is of course a big issue for me here, as it all adds up rather quickly.

    First, for those not familiar with this layout, the tiller post goes through the main crossbeam at the helm station. Attached to the arm is a cable or spectra line that goes out in each direction to a block, where it reverses direction and goes back to a car of some kind that rides on a horizontal track that is mounted on the back of the beam. This point is where the connector arms connect, and from there run down to each rudder. Note photo.

    This connection point so far is the trickiest. Any ideas?

    About the cheapest thing I have found so far is a schaeffer track, with a spinnaker pole car. The problem is making in the connection to the crossarms. It can't be sloppy. I was thinking maybe I could get a small plate welded to the car, since the ring will be vertical, and needs to be horizontal, but the car has some king of lube strip on it, and the heat might mess it up (?) If I did that, I could the make a clevis pin connection to the threaded rods, that will be embedded in the ends of the aluminum pipe with epoxy.

    I guess I will figure it all out eventually, but any advice would be appreciated. Anyone else done it this way? Is there a better way to do it, without changing the basic layout?
     

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  10. keysdisease
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    keysdisease Senior Member

    With steering I would not want to use anything less than ball bearing bat cars. I know pricy, but you're only talking one car here and you hand is going to be on the tiller A LOT.

    IMHO that car and track you're looking at with any type of load is a bind waiting to happen, and with steering that's not such a good thing:eek:

    $ 0.02 Steve :cool:
     

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  11. Charly
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    Charly Senior Member

    Thanks Steve. I went ahead and ordered the Harken stuff from fisheries supply. Part of the problem was I had old part numbers, and thought the specified stuff would be way more expensive. I called Harken and they set me straight. Hopefully I am now on the "right track" :)
     

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  12. keysdisease
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    keysdisease Senior Member

    You are definitely on the right "track." Hardware like this doesn't get better than Harken, I had just grabbed the first image I found in a search.
     
  13. Charly
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    Charly Senior Member

    Bow Beam

    After looking hard at the numbers and trade offs of aluminum vs. plywood, I decided to fabricate my own bow beam, using "nature's perfect material":). I always feel guilty when I have someone do a detailed price quote, and then turn them down. I used to have to do it, and it is a lot of work. BUT... it is after all, all about the reality check of actually seeing the project to completion.

    Kurt Hughes gave me a very reasonably priced drawing, with a custom feature to make it all work on my particular composite bracket's configuration. Total cost of materials is only a few hundred bucks.

    The actual chainplate is 3/4inch aluminum. (in the photos I have a plywood piece inserted as a mock up and future template.) It will have inserts pressed into the holes to accept the pins at the composite brackets already glassed to the deck, and for the shackle and wire to the gull striker.

    The beam will have 3/4 inch pvc glassed to it to match the rest for net attachment, composite headstay/tack fitting, some kind of roller for ground tackle, etc., and composite brackets for the compression tubes.

    Yet to be determined: compression tube material, gull striker and rigging plate material, and whether or not to fool with some kind of foam fairing on the front face of the beam. And what is the best kind of insert bushing material in the aluminum plate??

    Any advice welcomed.
     

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  14. Charly
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    Charly Senior Member

    Bow Beam con't

    This weekend the headstay/tack fitting was laid up and bagged on. Was about a full days work, counting set-up, fabric layout, and cleanup. Next the edges will be trimmed and the hole cut out before the aluminum spreaders are mounted akimbo.
     

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  15. Charly
    Joined: Dec 2009
    Posts: 429
    Likes: 32, Points: 0, Legacy Rep: 377
    Location: st simons island ga

    Charly Senior Member

    Dave Gerr's Nester

    I've been banging out a tender in my spare time. Here are a few shots of the progress so far.

    This little project has been pure joy. The plans are available free in Dave Gerr's book The Nature of Boats. The book is well worth the price even if you don't use the plans.

    Since I don't really need to nest mine, I think that in the interest of saving weight I will just leave the boat whole, and not cut it in half, like in the plans. This way I can leave out the extra transom and the thru bolts. I think I will still keep the thwart seats removeable though, in case I change my mind later on.

    She's not yet at "peak beautimosity", but I couldn't resist showing off her figure. Of course everyone knows that with dingys, the prettier they are, the more likely they will be stolen, so I will try not to put too much effort into her looks.:D

    Edit: Question re "twist"... if you take one end of the boat by the transom, facing the boat, and twist it, ie, pull one out board side down, and push up on the other, the twisting action will cause the other transom to move in the opposite direction. I never really understood this. Where is the point, inside the hull that stiffeners can be put in to counteract this kind of flexing?
     

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