Building Dave Gentry's "Annabelle" SOF Sailboat

I have officially started the build. After acquiring plywood for the frames, I cut them out on the last warm day we had (last week). I also cut the stringers, keel and gunnels. Today I went and got the 4" PVC pipe I am going to use to soak the keel for pre-bending. The fixed end cap is currently curing. I did a dry fit of the keel, stem and frames to see how badly I had messed up my notch cutting... not too bad actually. I made the slot for the stem a tad bit oversized but nothing the epoxy won't fill. Here are some pictures of the dry fit.











One might notice some roughness in the frames... I'll be attending to that before final assembly. I still have to wait for a nicer day so I can plane the stringers' 4th side roughness and get them down to 3/4" from 7/8" and I haven't made the transom yet. I want to do something special with that so it will take some time and a couple of decent days so I can work in the garage.

 

Tell more about the design, any links? Good to see another boat being built inside the house

 

http://www.gentrycustomboats.com/Annabelle.html

 

Nice. I like Dave's boats. Will be interested to see what you think of it once it's on the water.

 

Unless I screw it up... I have already been on the water in his. It is a lot faster than I would have expected a 10 ft boat to be. Must be the fact that it is only around 55 lbs, and over 9 ft of waterline length. Maneuverable too... I'm gonna bump the sail area to 60 sf from 52, with a couple of reefs in it.

 

Soaking the keel. Unfortunately the cement, while securing the bottom end cap on, did not seal it 100%. It leaks down about 2 ft/hour. I'll let it drain out, then slap some silly-cone on it.

 

Went and drained the tube and found the wood to be sufficiently soaked for a first bend. Pardon the mess... I haven't gotten around to the basement yet. I took two shots, one without flash and one with... both have their merits so both are here. I offset the block to see if I can get a bit more rocker aft than forward rather than an even arc. I'll give it a couple of days to dry and see how much is springs back, then decide if I will wet out again and rebend with more weight.

 

After letting the tube dry, yesterday evening I gooped more CPVC cement all around the cap/tube joint and this morning it held water, so I filled it and put the keel piece back in. Note to self... put the wood in first, then fill it with water! I had to take it out of it's upper support loop to lower it and put the wood in... so it poured out. Putting the wood in displaced much more water than I thought... so it poured out. Lifting it back up while shoving the wood in made it... pour out. This time though, right down my arm/armpit/side. Cold basement water at that... Brrrrrr.

The reason I am soaking it again is that when I took the block off, the springback was about 75-80%, leaving me with less rocker than I wanted and wood that will want to slowly lose more. Time to soak it for a couple of days, then really plunk some weight on it and let it cure with a heater aimed at it.

 

Why not just give it some steam? Best way ever to make wood bendy.

 

The keel is just Poifect! Fits as snug as a bug in a rug... so I'm gonna glue the stem to it over Christmas. I spent the last warm day kerfing the Gunnels so I am going to re-assemble things and determine how much pre-bend I need to put into the Gunnels then glue them up. Hopefully I will have time to start cutting out the pieces for the transom. I have decided on a sunburst design... similar to the Japanese flag except the sun arc will go from one bottom corner of the transom to the other with alternating dark and light wood rays spreading upward and outward from there. The woods selected are Black Walnut, Meranti, Maple and Cherry on a backing of 6mm Meranti marine ply. I will cut the pieces from dimensional 1x pieces that I have on hand (bought over the last few years). I'll cut them about 3/8" thick, glue it up to the backer then run it though the planer and finish it at about 9/16"-1/2" thick (it should just squeak through my planer... I hope!). I'll finish it with a couple of thin coats of epoxy then some varnish. Still debating if I can get away with a sail I already have or if it will get a new one. I think I will try my hand at a birds mouth mast for this one if I have time this spring. I have the router, bits and table... I just need to put them together and get a bit of practice in. Time to play is always the limiting factor unfortunately. This week and next week's Holiday pay and double time will pay for the cloth and Sinew and a few other things for it. Temps are moderating a bit this week so I will be able to do some detail work on the frames (time permitting).



Measured 4 1/2" crown from floor to the lower edge of the keel.



Snug fit without any support or attachment. Each end has just a little bit of upward pressure on the brackets. Perfecto!!!

 

Bummer... It seems my stem piece has decided to go all warped on me... and I ended up cracking the tip of my keel at the stem notch too. I'll glue it back together and add a doubler to prevent that from reoccurring. However... this is a really nice picture:





(Straight left off the tip of Lake Michigan, find the densest spot and that's about where I am. Our wind is slightly west of south).

It means some nice, relatively warm temps for the rest of the week. Considering it was -9 Deg F this morning when I came home, it will be in the upper 30s to low 40s for the next 3-4 days. Woo Hoo!

 

Finally... a bit more to report. Being as I cracked the keel where the stem cut out is I had to reinforce it a bit. What I did was continue the doubler for the mast step all the way up to the end of the keel and shape it to fit. I used high quality birch plywood which is quite hard, stained it with some water based stain and now it has been epoxied onto the top of the keel and is curing. I also epoxied the keelson piece which goes between frames 2 & 3 which is also of the birch. Here is a picture I took of Dave's at Sail Oklahoma in which you can see the keelson for the daggerboard case and if you look really close you can see the end of the one for the mast step poking out from the front frame between the floor boards.



I will post pictures later when the drill batteries and plastic and clamps are off after it has cured.

 

Steve, I am guessing you already had a sail to use?

 

I still have that 55 sf gaff sail... and the way finances are going I thing that will have to do for a while. At the rate I am building it though... I may not need it till fall so who knows.

 

Trying to straighten the Stem...



Daggerboard Keelson between Frames 2 and 3... had to scarf it.



Extension of Keelson under 1st frame which also beefs up the mast landing just in front of the frame. I extended it to shore up the crack in the Keel running back from the Stem cutout.