After the launch on Sunday I spent a couple days working through the final rigging for the mainsail and getting a few more small daysails in to test the setup properly.
Mizzen sheet block tied to boomkin
It was a real pleasure to have all the blocks I made fitted and feel like the proportions I chose were appropriate.
mainsheet dyneema stropped fiddle blocks with cherry cheeks.
It all came together nicely for the maiden shakedown daysail on Wednesday.
under full sail
Everything went quite well except that the centreboard was quite tight in the centreboard well when I tried to lower it. It would appear that the extra layers of paint on top of the graphite epoxy finish might have been a little superfluous and causing me grief.
So I removed the thwart to get the centreboard out the next day and saw exactly where it was a touch too wide.
centreboard just a little too wide
knowing that these parts are well hidden and have lots of epoxy coats. I sanded down the paint and re-installed it in the centreboard well.
I’m now ready for the planned first voyage out to go camping in Howe Sound on Friday with the family.
What a race to the finish line it was yesterday. I knew things would not be perfect and that my list of to dos was too long to have everything done. But I needed to set a day to splash the boat. I was madly leathering the spars and splicing the eyes for the stays.
And bit by bit people started to stop by and I am grateful for the support and the help I received yesterday. The builder is always really sitting on so much support that allows them to do what they love.
I put a coin at the base of the mast that happen to be a 2021 pressed Canadian dime of the Bluenose. Which I think is an appropriate choice.
I ran out of time to rig the main and mizzen sails. But it was really amazing to see the masts up and the jib rigged.
I then took the boat down to the main ramp of the Jericho Sailing Centre and did a little naming ceremony. The boat is called “An aod oolichan” which is a mix of Breton and Chinook languages meaning “The coast oolichan” which to me connects two places and cultures that are important to me. The main fishery in my village in Brittany is the sardine which is a small oily fish that the oolichan kind of evokes for me as an important part of the sea. My boat is not big and so naming it with the name of a diminutive fish seemed appropriate. I also think it will be a coastal boat and so adding the Breton An aod connects it to the coast. It was also the name of my grandmother’s house in Brittany.
photo credit: Anne Lama
photo credit: Anne Lama
Then it was time to splash down and do a little sail under jib alone.
It all went really well and my first passengers were pleased. In 8 knots of wind the boat got up to 2.8 knots under jib alone which bodes well. The centreboard cap plate leaked a tiny bit at the base and the centreboard was a little stiff. So I have little work to figure out how to make that smooth. But overall she floated on her lines and the launch was a success.
I made the remaining thumb cleats, jam cleats and fairleads needed just in time to be varnished along with the spars.
I also rounded out the base of all of them that would be attached to a spar, so that they are seated well.
I also made a copper 6 gauge wire lock for the boomkin brace.
It rained for a couple days so I moved all the varnishing inside and kept the fan running to help the drying process.
I’ve also been holding on to pre-1996 pennies that have a high copper content for precisely this use. It is kind of fun to put in some centennial pennies somewhere were they will continue to be admired.
Then onto making rope strops for the blocs while I wait for the varnish to dry.
This was a super satisfying moment to see this come together into fully functional blocks. This fiddle block with two eyes was the most complex of them all.
The dyneema is easy to work with and is so stiff that getting everything snug and tight was relatively easy.
I have home made, blocks for the main, jib and mizzen as well as the jib halyard.
Today is the eve of my self imposed launch deadline. So I also started doing all the leathering on the spars.
Tomorrow will be a full day preparing for the launch at the Jericho Sailing Centre. My hope is to be ready by 4pm. I still have to splice the eyes for the halyards, the gaff span and leather the mizzen and boomkin. Then I think the last job will be lashing the sails on and running all the halyards and sheets.
Progress, progress, progress… it still feels too slow but at the same time it is nice to see things I thought about in advance come into play.
I had the 6 gauge copper wire for several months and it is quite satisfying to see it work nicely with the home made roves.
I also did the final shaping of the inside of the jaws with a half round file. In hindsight it would have been better to cut out a semi circle from the but of the spar before gluing and advancing the wedges a little too. But although it took a little more work I think it looks fine.
I finally applied the first coat of Epifanes clear varnish mixed with 50% brushing thinner so that it penetrates into the wood as much as possible.
It is such a satisfying feeling to finally stop sanding and apply the finish to the wood. I did realize that I had not completed all the little thumb cleats that need to be added to the spars and will need to be varnished. So I started on that this afternoon. I’ll keep at it tomorrow morning so that the next coats also cover the cleats as well.
The boom and the yard come second only to the birds-mouth mast in complexity. The jaws required some attention to detail.
shaping the yard
The process of going from a square piece of glued up wood to a tapered cylinder is now becoming familiar. But there are still individual particularities to each piece as you have to read the wood and each facet might require planing in a different direction to avoid grain pull out.
I started to decorate the place with the draw-knife cuttings which are so much fun when they are the full length of the spar.
Careful mapping of the facets when you get from 16 sided to 32 sided is worthwhile. I found that marking the 32 edges then helped me keep track of where I was when I cut it down to 64 sides. On the yard that ends up being just one or two passes with the planer set very fine. It is in my mind the trickiest part of the process.
After sanding the yard with 36, 60, 80, 100 and 120 grit sandpaper I was onto the boom. The time spent making this spar gauge based on Harry Bryan’s design in Wooden Boat magazine 277 was worth it but it was kind of bittersweet to think this was one of the last times I’d use it for awhile. (note: I still might use it to make the oars)
The jaws require a transition from round to square which is an extra challenge when shaping the spar. In the end once marked it is relatively easy to do.
I still have some of the reclaimed Honduran mahogany that was pulled out of home demolitions by a renovation contractor who was retiring and selling off their stockpile of old window and door frames. I now wish I’d bought more for future projects. But for this project I have enough.
As per Ian Oughtred’s plans he specifies the jaws should be 22mm thick and made of two pieces. I added a 5mm marine ply to the mahogany to get to 25mm and it will do well to reduce the chances of splitting along the grain on this curved piece.
I’m also attempting to make some copper rivets according to the September 2015 Small Boats Monthly article by Christopher Cunningham for the yard and boom jaws. I was able to order #6 gauge copper wire and I’m using some leftover 1/2″ copper pipe for the roves.
spokeshave for the transition from round to square
The last ridge going from 8 sided to 16 sided on the boom. The last spar!
Marking the ridges from 32 to 64 sides on the boom and then shaving them down.
Gluing the jaws layup with the wedges so that I can do some further shaping before gluing them to the yard and the boom.
Gluing the boom jaw pieces together.
Then shaping the pieces into something that looks relatively nice. I used the Japanese rasp, the block plane, the spoke shave, the belt sander and the random orbital sander to get it into it’s desired shape.
The boom and yard jaws dry fitted.
… and then all glued up. Tomorrow I’ll do the final shaping on the yard and boom and some sanding of the epoxy. All the spars will get sanded down to 150 grit tomorrow and all set up for varnishing. I’ve also got a bunch of little fittings to make that will need to be screwed onto the spars. Most are just little thumb blocks, but I also have to make the jib fairleads. I’m getting close to being able to rig it all up.
The race to be done for my vacation is still on. But I’ve resigned myself to the reality that the first week of my vacation will be spar making and rigging the boat. The finishing line is in sight, but there is still so much to do.
I’ve tackled the main mast shaping going from 8 sided down to 16 sided, then 32 sided and 64 sided.
I used a used West Systems thickening powder container as a sanding backer and pulled out some sand paper left over from sanding my floors a couple years ago. I started with 36 grit to cut down the corners. Then 60 grit, and 100 grit sandpaper.
Sanding, sanding more sanding
This was hard work and Vancouver this summer is going from one heat wave to another. Fortunately I went out an bought a large ventilation fan that I mounted to the rafters of the shed. This has worked wonders to help me keep cooler while I work up a serious sweat sanding.
I then cut the mast head to a smaller diameter with a router. This will create a nice saddle for the shrouds to loop onto the top of the mast.
I did most of the shaping with the Japanese rasp and finished with the random orbital sander.
I think the scalloped ends of the plug and birdsmouth look really cool.
Using this portable guide I drilled the ends of the mortise for the halyard sheaves.
The tricky part was drilling the hole for the axle at 90 degrees to the mortise.
I’ve also sanded the sprit boom and the boomkin and finished the ends on those.
Then onto the mizzen mast. Where I experimented with the difference of using the power planer.
And using the drawknife to cut down from a tapered square to the 8 sided shape.
My conclusion is that with the drawknife guides it is much easier to control and likely just as fast as the power planer. If kept sharp it is almost easier and certainly quieter and less messy overall. It is way easier to pick up the shavings than vacuum up all the sprayed chips sent out by the power planer. I found it gets me quite close to where I need and then I can just finish it off with the jack plane and the block plane.
The mizzen mast is now complete. I now have three days to complete the main boom and yard. Then I will lay everything out and varnish them with 6 coats.
This week we brought all the spars back to the shed to free up the loaned woodshop and start gluing.
I had to set up the cradle and cut the taper
Lots of planing with the jack plane to get each stave tapered.
But with a sharp blade it is a pleasure to work with quiet hand tools. I think it is my favourite part of the build when I am able to just get in the groove with the hand tools.
After a short hiatus in June due to a heavy workload with spar building partner, we took a couple days off to do a final big push in the workshop to cut all the staves for the hollow eight sided birdsmouth masts.
2×6 by 20′ sitka spruce we cut down to make the staves
Each stave was 15mm by 32mm for the Caledonia yawl mast. my friends’ masts are a little bit smaller and his were 14mm by 29mm.
All the Sitka Spruce stock was excellent in the pieces we used to cut the staves. Unfortunately with 15mm width, could not get eight pieces from the one good 2×6 I’d reserved for the mast. I had to scarf together the eight piece from other stock that had some knots or other imperfections. Fortunately small diameter Sitka Spruce was easy to plane into the scarfs with the long jointer plane.
The next step was to set up the router table with the birdsmouth 45 degree router bit. Since we are routing 20′ long sections we set up a feather board on each side of the router and a fence on top as well to hold it in place. Such long skinny pieces have a lot of flexibility and wobble if they are not held down against the fence.
Once we had it all set up we made quick work of it and produced quite a bit of sawdust. Fortunately the woodshop had an excellent dust collection system.
The final product looks great. The final step is to cut the taper in each one so that the mast can have it’s appropriate taper.
This weekend was the fathers day weekend and south of the border the Junteenth. Although not planned this way it was a good weekend to get the boat out of the shed.
After more than 800 hours of building on evenings and weekends in 2-4 hour blocks. I’d been waiting since October for the COVID restrictions to be relaxed to the point where I could invite 7 or 8 friends to help me lift the boat up and onto the trailer. An extra challenge was that in the intervening 5 years a fig tree had grown to block the way a little.
Un-sheding the Caledonia Yawl
Big thanks to all my friends and family who have helped me to get to this point. It is not without their support that I have the privilege of being able to take on a project like this.
I am pleased to say that I’ve finally reached what I think is the final big project standing between making this boat ready to launch. My friend Patrice has a Penobscot 17 hull that he purchased a few years ago that had only been used for rowing and also needs spars to unlock it’s full potential. So we are teaming up to build all the spars at once. In his case it will be the schooner rig with standing lug sails. While in my case it is the Gunter Yawl rig. In the fall of 2019 I was able to have two 20′ long beams of sitka spruce milled down into rough sawn 2×12″ pieces in Maple Ridge. It is not an easy wood to procure and until I found this supply I was ready to use douglas fir or even consider using carbon fiber spars. But now that I have it I am pleased to have this beautiful wood.
lots of sitka spruce
What do we have to build? For the Caledonia Yawl:
1 birdsmouth construction main mast
1 main boom (solid)
1 main yard (solid)
1 mizzen mast (solid)
1 boomkin (solid)
1 sprit boom (solid)
For the Penobscot:
2 masts (birdsmouth)
2 yards (solid)
2 booms (solid)
checking for checks in the wood and mapping around the knots that exist.
Fortunately we’ve been given access to Patrice’s friends wood shop for this step. So we have access to excellent equipment in particular a skookum table saw, thickness planer/jointer and solid router table.
More to come soon as we dive into all the cuts and glue up the spar. We are starting with all the solid spars first as they are easier glue ups and smaller pieces. Once those are done, we’ll then tackle cutting all the staves for the three birdsmouth spars we are building.
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