Mike367 said..
This weekend I did a dry fit on my dinghy, still have to sort out the mast step. Then I can check it all again and epoxy everything in place.

Next, make the swing rudder, tiller, in/out wale, mast,boom,spar, and order the sail. Oh and sand, paint, and varnish.
Splash down is set for the end of Sept, somewhere sheltered and quiet.

Hi Mike, Looks fantastic, you have done a nice job. I look forward to following your progress as you finish her off.

UncleBob said..
I cleaned a large ammount of gull offerings from the solar panels (no wonder the trek told me they weren't working very well) and pilothouse roof. Geez those things are prolific.

I have a shag that has taken a liking to my pulpit!!

cammd said..
Preparing to antifoul.

Removed some loose filler on the keel and primed and re filled today. Sanding and more primer tomorrow morning ready for antifoul in the afternoon........hopefully.

For those interested, top half of the keel is a SS fuel tank, bottom half is 4 tonnes of lead. Difficult to try to get a good key with a grinder on the SS. Fingers crossed the primer sticks.

Interesting design there. How are the stainless and lead mated together? Guessing from the photo, it gives you a fairly large fuel capacity, what is it? PR 250 will bond on most materials if that's what you're using?

cammd said..
Tbh I really don't know. I assumed the lead is probably bolted through the bottom of the fuel tank.

It's possible the SS keel goes full depth and the bottom section is lead filled and the "bulb" part is lead bolted on across the keel.

UncleBob said..
I cleaned a large ammount of gull offerings from the solar panels (no wonder the trek told me they weren't working very well) and pilothouse roof. Geez those things are prolific.

I don't have that problem , a mate and I take turns putting cat food on a boat that's between us , we have found that hiding it on the solar panel works best , the boats a fish........oh don't , sorry , ignore this post ??

oldboyracer said..

UncleBob said..
I cleaned a large ammount of gull offerings from the solar panels (no wonder the trek told me they weren't working very well) and pilothouse roof. Geez those things are prolific.

I don't have that problem , a mate and I take turns putting cat food on a boat that's between us , we have found that hiding it on the solar panel works best , the boats a fish........oh don't , sorry , ignore this post ??

I heard that chicken bones and rusty shakles is an interesting mix.

cammd said..
Polishing today






Only three quarters to go

Seriously good finish though.

Proposed today. .. then more polishing

r13 said..
Proposed to who? ........as in propspeed............is that a Van de Stadt 51 or a bit smaller?

Oh Camm, you are so romantic....

Would be interesting to know what design your boat is. Hull is GRP? Integral SS keel? Nice curvy shape so SS manufacture would be tricky.

Oops.... propspeed not proposed but I am a little bit love.

Her name is Wapiti, she was built on the Sunshine Coast by Serica Yachts. Officially she is a Serica 44 but the design is by Graham Radford and his website list's her as a 13.4 Performance Cruiser. I think she is the only boat built by Serica Yachts because the owner of the company set off on a circumnavigation with her not long after she was launched and she spent 8 years travelling the world. He was going to go again but health issues and covid got in his way, so he listed her for sale and I purchased her off him a couple of months ago. A very nice gentleman, happy to assist with any questions I have. He was sad to let her go..... I will be sure to take sailing from time to time.

She ticked all my boxes for what I was after in the long term and has a few luxuries on top but what attracted me most is the quality of her build and the construction type. She is all timber, built off a male mold using the west epoxy system. Her hull is 25mm strip plank Kauri with double 5mm Kauri diagonals and sheathed in Dynel. Her deck and coachhouse are cedar strip planking with kauri diagonals and 12 mm teak.

this link has photos of her getting built in Kunda Park.

www.radford-yacht.com/dsn053/dsn053S44.html

Greasing the bearings in the Brunton prop

Hi Cammd
Check out Sam

Thank you for the tips

Ramona said..
I should add the best money I have spent was a few months ago on a good hot knife. Don't use a soldering iron like in the video and don't do pretty much anything that bloke does. There are plenty of good Youtube videos on the subject.

Ramona said..

cammd said..
My stack pack is pretty much cooked. I bought myself a sewing machine thinking to make myself a new one. I managed to do some rather ugly repairs to the old one and put it back on the boat today, it will suffice for a little while. I need to improve my sewing skills so a few smaller projects first, repair a couple of windsurf sails and build some board bags etc before taking on the new stack pack.

I have seen the sailrite videos but any other plans/patterns of stack packs on the internet the anyone knows of.

I'm sewing up one right now. I'm using Weathermax and the design is basically the same as what I had on Ramona but the dimensions are different of course. The best bet is to check on what other boats use and make improvements to what they have and what the professionally made units have. Material costs are reasonable but there is a lot of labour. I would suggest using straight stitching only and use a thread like Tenora. The secret to good sewing is the thread tensions!

Thanks for that :-). Any suggestions the best place to source a hot knife and for that matter your material, thread and zipper? As is usual prices seem to vary wildly :-(.

Ramona said..

julesmoto said..


Thanks for that :-). Any suggestions the best place to source a hot knife and for that matter your material, thread and zipper? As is usual prices seem to vary wildly :-(.

I bought the hot knife off Ebay.
www.ebay.com.au/itm/260877403422?hash=item3cbd81451e:g:kzQAAOSw8OpbE0U3&frcectupt=true

The Weathermax came from these people.
www.paskal.com.au/weathermax80.html

Thread and needles came from Sairite but took 6 months to get here. I would use eBay next time!

SS D rings and various size webbing and clips are all from eBay. 20mm PVC pipe from Bunnings. I'm not using zips, they don't last well and after replacing two on Ramona I switched to clips instead of the zip. Sail slides and leather I just had laying about in my sail room.

Thanks once again :)