Navigator S

New Sailing Blog

2009-05-28T21:27:00.002+12:00

I have a new website about sailing our John Welsford Navigator.

Just visit http://lukefoster.com/dauntless/ for the latest sailing photos and videos.

Cheers!

sailing Dauntless

2008-03-10T17:02:00.009+13:00

Well after the tropical cyclone passed (which prevented any sailing on launch day) we had four great weeks of summer holidays to sail in.

(The holiday and the subsequent knuckling back down to study have been the reason for the long delay in posting).

We’re wrapped with how the boat goes. I’m very happy we chose the Navigator. And especially glad we had the big race rig.

We’ve tested her in all kinds of conditions up to a gust of about 30 knots (which was more than I liked). Four crew in 15 knts and she just goes! Any more wind and you have to start reefing, but we’ve got two big reefs which work well.

We were concerned about how lots of the systems would work, but for the most part they were really good. Apart from the rudder which we tore off twice. The first time was beating in 15 knts in a good chop. Frantic reactions from Zac and me were all that kept us upright, and got the sail dropped.

We’ve had the gennaker up about three times. Not in too much wind so far, but looking forward to more of that, as it could be fairly exciting!

launching Dauntless

2008-01-22T16:42:00.000+13:00

today's the day

2008-01-19T08:11:00.000+13:00

After 2 years and 8 months, today’s the big day.

They say the time it takes to finish any job will expand to fill the allotted time. We've been pretty busy with finishing off this last week. And I have to admit late last night we were still gluing, and I have to get out there now and do a bit of coating.

All the systems on the boat have had much thought and discussion go into them, but we'll find out how they work this afternoon.

One of several shopping trips.

The foils got their final coat.

Last weekend we dragged her outside again to stand the rig.

Yes, and the forecast for today is 25kts, gusting 35!

Come 4 o'clock we'll find out how she likes the water. I'm a wee bit excited...

nearly finished

2008-01-07T10:52:00.000+13:00

The long lack of posts has not been because we've stopped working on the boat, it's because we've done little besides work on the boat. We set the launch date for January 19 and have since been working our little hearts out.

The coamings ready for action.

The gunwales ate an enormous amount of time; sanding them flush with the deck without scratching the deck, and plugging them.

Dad and Zac re-built the trailer they built for the old Frostply dinghy.

Fitting the trailer to the hull.

Varnish begins. The first coat of many!

Outside for the first time. We had to take her down to the riggers to get the mast stood and the stays and spreaders fitted.

Spreading the mainsail out on the lounge floor was scary! We started wondering if we really needed the racing rig.

More painting and sanding. (The story of the Christmas holidays.)

The cockpit masked up, ready to apply the non-slip particles.

the deck

2007-11-14T12:47:00.000+13:00

Finally it's time to add the deck. We've left it as long as possible so that we didn't do it any damage while building and painting. It's going to be bright finished Fijian Kauri, and every mark and ding will show.

Marking out the first piece. 4.5mm 3 ply bends nice and easily.

I'm pretty pleased with how it looks.

The bottom of the deck is epoxy coated before we glue it on. We're currently debating whether it needs painting or not.

Since we're varnishing the deck, we've taped and papered it while we work on it to avoid making any marks. Epoxy with glue powder will leave a stain that you'll never sand out. (A lesson I learnt the hard way when I replaced the deck on my Starling dinghy a few years ago.)

We cut the deck oversize and screwed it to temporary battens along the side while the glue dries.

1:30 this morning, getting pretty tired!

myth busters: special home edition

2007-11-12T11:40:00.000+13:00

The Myth:
That you can successfully steam bend timber at home, using little more than an old brake fluid drum, a weed burner and the draw bar that’s waiting to be welded into your boat's new trailer!

Up till now we’ve managed to bend all the timber onto the boat using only brute force and sheer ignorance. It’s mostly worked; we’ve only broken a few stringers. And a couple of pieces of ply on that over ambitious reverse curve in the bow.

But when we had a quick try with the top outer gunwale we realised there was no way we were going to get it on. It’s Fijian Kauri 35mm by 18mm, and it curves in both directions. A bit of research told us that others either cut it in two or slowly bent it round tightening it a bit every day. Neither of these appealed to us.

Steam bending has always seemed like the next frontier of boat building to me. Like it was a bit beyond us, in the realm of serious boat builders. We did a bit of reading, but I doubted that we’d cobble together something that would work. Even if we managed to get the steam going, whether we’d get that tight curve in the timber would be another thing.

Come Saturday morning, here’s what we had sitting on the drive.

It took us a while to get things working. Once the water in the drum was boiling, we found you need a decent incline on the chamber to get the steam coming through. The chamber had to be hot before we could do anything, so at the start we hurried it up with the gas torch and a heat gun ;o) .

The temperature measured at the far end of the chamber.

Seeing this is myth busters, at this stage I’d say:

There’s a 3% chance we’re going to create a massive explosion and just blow everything up.
There’s a 40% chance we just make the wood warm and wet.
A 25% chance we scorch and burn it.
A 10% chance it works out successfully.
A 20% chance of Zac seriously burning his hands.
And a 2% chance we actually get to go sailing before Christmas.

Yes! After about an hour we got a nice steady supply of steam.

We decided to put a practice piece first (although it was difficult to sacrifice a nice piece of Fijian kauri).

Dad stokes the fire.

After 35 minutes we pulled the practice piece out. It bent round very easily, although it was thinner. The problem was all this black stuff from the inside of the steel section.

We drew rags back and forth through the chamber to try and clean it. We also cable tied these bits of hose to the timber to try and keep it from sitting on the surface.

Here's the piece sitting ready to go in. You can also see our scarf cutting jig, each gunwale has one join in them.

Having the chamber at this temperature worked really well. We steamed them for about 45-50 minutes each. They say you have 5 seconds once the timber comes out to get the shape in it, and that was definitely the case for us. You could still move it a bit as it cooled, but it was only easy for the first few seconds.

That time limit makes things fairly intense! We still had to apply plenty of brute force. And it was quite frantic getting the clamps on as well as protective blocks of wood.

Here's a vid of the last piece going on. This was by far the calmest (least yelling) and most successful. You can see how we get the bend in it as soon as we pull it out, as we carry it down (this was rehearsed, several times).

In the end it worked remarably well. The plan now is to leave the clamps on for a couple of days while the timber realigns. We'll have to take them off while we glue the deck on, and then glue and screw them on the following day.

This myth is proven!

the cockpit is painted!

2007-11-12T08:13:00.000+13:00

Finally we’ve finished painting. Four undercoats and two topcoats. This boat is a lot bigger on the inside than the outside. (In surface area anyway!)

We’ve got to come back and add some non-slip to the floor and seat tops, but we’re waiting for it to get plenty hard before we climb back in.

Drilling the holes for the bow-eye was every bit as horrible and scary as it looks. We drilled it oversize and then ran lots of epoxy inside to seal it. We’ll drill it back to the correct size and seal the bow eye with flexible silicon sealant.

sand, sand, sand, sand, bacon, eggs and sand

2007-10-31T08:35:00.000+13:00

13 combined hours to sand the epoxy coat!

We put on the first undercoat as a kind of sacrificial coat, to show us all the holes and checks that needed filling and we couldn't see before. Then, of course, we sanded most of it off.

The distressed look. Maybe it's okay in a kitchen but I'd rather not see it on my boat.

laminations

2007-10-22T10:54:00.000+13:00

We’re laminating the tiller, bowsprit and traveller arch out of Fijian kauri and sapele.

Our cabinet maker friend Murray Jordan ripped and thicknessed the timber for us.

The tiller and traveller arch are laminated.

And the Bowsprit (clamping it up felt like playing foosball!). We’re building it a little larger than plans as we’ll be flying a gennaker off it.

coaming stringer & epoxy coating

2007-10-22T09:27:00.000+13:00

It’s taken four weeks to complete all the coving in the corners. Now it’s done we've glued on the coaming stringer. (We didn’t want it to get in the way before.)

We’ve gave the whole cockpit a coat of epoxy resin, and two coats on high wear areas like floor, seat tops and seat fronts. This is really hard and should protect the timber as well as being a great primer.

Joe dries the boat after scrubbing the amine blush off from the epoxy.

The framing is all ready for the deck to go on. I’ve planed the gunwale and coaming stringers down.

seat radius & ancient epoxy

2007-09-28T12:05:00.000+12:00

Well with three months to go our deadline is pretty tight. The main sail has been completed and the others will be soon too. The spars have been ordered. We’re putting in a lot of hours. The majority are being sucked up in sanding and coving. Our biggest problem is the epoxy we have to clean up from when we were building.

Having built boats before, we preached the “clean up all the epoxy as you go” sermon to ourselves. We thought we’d done a reasonable job until now when we’re trying to finish off. One – two year old epoxy is very hard.

We’ve glued the seat fronts on now, and built in the back seat. We’ve departed from the plans here. Normally the seat tops overhang the fronts by about two inches.
As you can see we’ve sloped the fronts and are rounding the corner off. This should give us more space, be more comfortable and make her a bit racier.

Before and after.

seats

2007-09-07T10:22:00.000+12:00

We've glued the seat tops on. Coving underneath wasn't the most comfortable..

We've put the skirts round the boat to protect the paint work (no we're not hiding a HULA ;-).

We glued doublers to the back of the seat fronts for the inspection ports and to strength them.

Well how else were we going to hold them in place? The supermarket had a special on clamps :o)

sunny side up

2007-08-29T15:46:00.000+12:00

Here’s hoping she spends most of her time this way up.

turning point

2007-08-29T15:28:00.000+12:00

Time to turn the boat back over - with the help of Mr Joe Muscle…

Photo by the six year old cabin boy, Jesse.

And these by Able Seaman Joseph (10).

We had to make some modifications to the jig, as the boat has grown a keel while it was upside down. We're a bit worried about how hard the paint is, (ten days since the top coat) but hopefully it won't stick.

gloss

2007-08-29T15:19:00.000+12:00

Painting the hull is finally finished! 4-6 Undercoats
3 Topcoats - Altex Isotal Enamel

white out

2007-08-06T07:42:00.000+12:00

After applying four to six layers of Altex undercoat - more on the edges - we're back to the sanding gig. The garage and surrounding countryside has been covered in a fine white dust; you can probably find us on Google Earth ;o) .

After the first coats we found a pile of marks and holes that we hadn’t seen before. We filled them with one part filler and then ended up sanding a lot of paint off around them and re-coating. One sheet of plywood didn’t seem up to the claimed BS1080 marine standard, and we’ve really regretted using it. But looking at the finished product, hopefully you’ll never know.

toxic substance

2007-07-24T11:48:00.000+12:00

No, it’s not anthrax powder, it’s weaponised epoxy dust!

After another eternity of sanding the paint finally went on (more pics soon).

timber yard

2007-07-21T10:22:00.000+12:00

It’s nigh impossible to get good timber in Tauranga, so while we were staying with friends in Whangarei last weekend we called into BBS timbers. Got a nice lot of Fijian Kauri for the top rubbing strakes, tiller and bowsprit, and some sapele for laminating into the tiller too. Had to wrap the lot in plastic with all wet and wild northern weather.

it's cold

2007-07-01T14:09:00.000+12:00

We’ve been battling the cold the last few weeks, the epoxy has been taking ages to go off. The temperature was averaging 12 C last week.

Dad figured he’d rig up some lamps inside in a desperate attempt to warm the boat… a little.

We switched to fast hardener for our International Epiglass HT9000. Sanding and filling was finally completed and we coated the hull. The fast hardener made a big difference to the pot life, down to about 15 mins compared to about 45 mins with standard hardener at this temperature. We'll see how much difference it makes to the drying.

coving

2007-06-19T08:13:00.000+12:00

Been busy filling, sanding and coving - not much to see, just lots of work.

We've also added the bottom two rubbing strakes from Fijian Kauri.

keel hauled

2007-05-29T21:15:00.000+12:00

The last week was spent working on the keel. We needed a semi-hard wood, which is difficult to come by in Tauranga despite all the boat building. Eventually I found a little saw mill down a windy gravel road near here. Once you manage to find the rickety old building - behind all the stacks of timber - you’re not sure if it’s been abandoned for 30 years until you see some sawdust billow out from behind a machine. This place reeks character.

Eventually they found some old kauri floor beams and machined one up for me. A beautiful piece of timber barring a few nail holes.
Considerable time was spent draughting the keel and then shaping it with the assistance of the router. Then I spent some rather uncomfortable time inside the boat waiting for the command to fasten the screws.

The last two pieces either side of the centre-board slot went on in rather a rush before dinner on Saturday. I went out yesterday and grabbed one of the Makitas, but some wayward epoxy seemed to have fastened it to the hull. Don’t tell Dad…

ramming speed

2007-05-29T21:04:00.000+12:00

I’ve added extra layers of fibreglass tape to the bow (because some members of this family forget to give way).

And there's been lots of sanding.

Fiberglassing

2007-05-07T20:11:00.000+12:00

With the fibreglass in place, we can start applying the resin. The job is to get the resin evenly applied without runs and to get the glass cloth lying nicely on the boat.

Our trusty epoxy mixing machine.

We trim the cloth as we go, once it's all been wetted.

The first coat is on, but it needs several coats of epoxy resin to fill the weave of the fiberglass cloth. If you wait for the epoxy to dry (roughly a day) you'll have to scrub the amine blush off, and then sand it before you can apply the next coat. However you can apply another coat while the epoxy is in the ‘green’ state – started to cure, but not hardened, slightly tacky – or roughly six hours.

And so six hours later the second coat is carefully applied. We've added a little fairing powder to the resin to make it lighter and help full the weave quicker.

As the evening wears on we realise we need to heat the garage. Dad couldn't resist using his new toy.

Eventually common sense prevailed (before everything went up in flames). The fourth coat went on at midnight and the final at six AM.

Fibreglass Prep

2007-05-05T22:57:00.000+12:00

The bottom and the first plank are going to be fiberglassed, with 200gm fibreglass cloth.

And then we discovered a half built boat in the garage...

2007-05-05T22:42:00.000+12:00

We’re back at it. After a long period of other things taking up the “spare time slot” (namely making a movie for me) we’re back into building a boat.

To get a nice fair curve on the planks, we attached a temporary batten and used a profile cutter on the trusty router.

We’re in the old, sand and fill, rinse repeat stage. And the ugly duckling has a bad case of chicken pox.

The Turning

2006-08-14T14:31:00.000+12:00

After working on the boat eight days in a row we finally finished the planking and got her turned over.

Planking Complete

2006-08-14T14:03:00.000+12:00

Top Plank

2006-08-10T17:57:00.000+12:00

Photos from this week. The top plank, and cutting the gain.

Top Stringer

2006-08-10T17:53:00.000+12:00

These photos from May.

Back In The Saddle Again

2006-08-08T21:18:00.000+12:00

Progress came to a standstill over summer. We did a little work in May and now we’re really going for it. We got scared when we realised another summer was coming and we could again be on the shore watching.

Before summer we managed to get those difficult bow planks on. Big windlasses and 10mm threaded rod (even some of that got stripped) where how we coped with it.

Since then we’ve been working our way through the planks. We’re on the top one with just the forward section on either side to go. Then we’ll be turning her over to work on the bottom.

Seat End

2005-11-11T14:34:00.000+13:00

Not a lot to report on the boat from the last few weeks: non essentials like fences, shade sails, lawns, broken mowers, vege gardens, weeding and those sort of time wasters have been getting in the way.

Got the seat end on though. That's an extension from the plans. We wanted to have more cockpit space, so we moved the thwart forward and narrowed it down.

Sorry about that bright glare in the first picture but that's what you get on a typical Tauranga afternoon.

Hopefully we'll get that bow plank on this weekend. Had a fairly successful dry fit the other night, involving a windlass and some threaded rod.

How to remove a bow plank

2005-10-21T12:18:00.000+13:00

We decided it had to go.

Someone asked me how we got it off. In small pieces. Actually, mostly in pieces that fitted up the vacuum cleaner. That’s the beauty of a grinder fitted with a sanding disk. Artesian work. And about 4mm of dust covering the entire garage and surrounds.

We decided to make some changes to the stem to make the plank fit better.

And while that was happening, we got another plank on.

And we got the seat tops cut out ready for later.

Well, how else were we going to get the front edge marked?

The Infamous Bow Plank

2005-10-13T23:28:00.000+13:00

After reading what other people had gone through trying to get the reverse curve in the bottom bow plank, I had been dreading it.

We came at it slowly, with lots of dry fittings, and slowly pulled it into shape. It got glued on with at least a dozen temporary screws in it, some stiches and a pile of clamps.

It sounded like a few wood fibers had broken, but we weren't too worried until we looked at the curve after the clamps where out the way. It's suppose to have a reverse curve, but it looks too extreme.

What really concerns us, is as the plywood comes around bulkhead one going aft it bulges, and then curves back in before bulkhead two. The straight edge in the photo helps show what I mean - the arrow points to where it dips back in.

We don't know if this is just how the Nav's lines are drawn, and if this is normal. Or if it's a problem with how this one's gone on.

It looks all a bit messy in here at the moment, but we glued these blocks on to give us a solid anchorage to screw into when we fitted the plank.

It was when we started putting the second side on that we ran into serious problems. Although we were screwing into the stem, and had some clamps going to temporary battens, we obviously had too many clamps straight on the stringer because it started tearing the stem apart. The ply delaminated on at least three different layers.

We repaired that by running epoxy in, and bolting it together.

After that had several days to harden up, we had another go. This time despite using screws with large timber pads, we tore the plywood.

We've been left a little bit disillusioned at the moment, and trying to sort out our options.

Progress, but slowly

2005-10-13T22:06:00.000+13:00

It's been ages since I posted. A few weeks passed where nothing happened on the boat, and then when something did I had to get hold of a camera.

The centre case went in. Those cross pieces are where we are putting the thwart. The side seats will extend to the front edge of those, and we'll put an end on them forward of bulkhead five.

Here you can see our mast step and the bracing on the forward end of the centre case.

The first and second planks from the stern are on. And the third stringer now.

I-love that stepped scarf.

Here's the glue part of stich and glue, with the cove and fiberglass tape applied.

And here's one I need to get to.

We've hit on a system now. I do the epoxying, Zac removes the excess once it dries, and Dad nuts out the fiddly bits. They give me a bit of flack for apparently being too liberal in my use of bog. (It's not so much around the area I'm gluing, it's the tools that really gets them. When things don't work quite right and the epoxy hits the fan (just when it's starting to cure) you seem to end up gluing other things (like hair).)

I remember when I was little (OK, younger! (for the unacquainted, I'm five foot three and a half)) someone asked my grandfather if I was any good at painting. He said, 'Depends what you mean by good. He does more than he's asked.'

Epoxy really does go the second mile.

First Plank

2005-08-10T13:49:00.000+12:00

The second stringer is on.

Here's the Luke Foster 10:1 Stepped Scarf Pro Jig. Just add skillsaw.

And finally, the first plank.

Centre Case and 1st Stringer

2005-08-09T09:47:00.000+12:00

I've been getting a hard time for not posting, but we're trying hard to be finished for summer and I do have to spend time studying and writing.

Here you can see the inside of the centre case sides.

The stem and bulkhead one went on.

Here's our centre case. We've made a lot of changes from the plans. Our centre board is a much higher aspect ratio. It comes in around 1m by 300mm and 30mm thick. The board's laminated from 20mm strips of cedar.

In these two you can see where the blocks for the uphaul and downhaul fit. And the notches for the thwart, which is only going to be 200mm wide and on the forward side of bulkhead five, instead of the aft side. We're changing the seat layout to give us more space in the cockpit.
And here's the first stringer. Boy it's fiddly, and it takes ages coving around every joint.

Mods

2005-07-28T10:31:00.000+12:00

Here we're gluing on the third and final seat front stringer. We've angled the seat front for a more sporty feel - eight degrees to match the coaming. We're having a rounded off seat front instead of the normal over hang on the Nav. Thats's the reason for the three stringers.

At the stern we've done away with the aft deck and changed to a scooped out transom.

And some more framing goes in.

Bulking Up

2005-07-26T10:34:00.000+12:00

Going 3D

The IT Department

There's a hole in my boat.

S for Sports

2005-07-26T08:03:00.000+12:00

This is the 'sports' version, because we've taken John's option of the racing sloop rig. We've also made a few internal changes to the seating, transom and centre board.

Building started at the beginning of May.

Here's the bottom scarf joint cut.

And some of the bulkheads gluing.

The building jig going together.

And the bottom panel cut out.

A Bigger Boat

2005-07-25T16:03:00.000+12:00

Hi, I'm Luke Foster

Here I'm planning to post updates as we build and sail our Navigator dinghy.

By way of introduction, I'm 20, living at home and still studying, business particuarly direct marketing. I'm the oldest in a family of six kids.

I've been sailing since I was seven, starting with Optimists, then building a Firebug dinghy Pilgrim with Dad when I was 11.

For several years now I've owned a Starling dinghy, and the family also has a Frostply and another Firebug.

This has been great fun. These are peformance boats, which are set up to be raced. So we go out and have a blast, but its hard to cruise or explore. There's no way to take the whole family out. And rigging and unrigging takes an age.

Time for a bigger boat.

We've been long time fans of John Welsford's designs. So after hearing so many rave reviews we settled on building a Navigator. With a view, or perhaps hope, of building or buying another in the future.