Goat Island Skiff Build for Making Kits

My own build of the GIS continues until this Friday when kits for the boat go out, the patterns for which are based on this build. The assembly of the sides is quite typical of a self-jigging skiff, with side panels wrapped around bulkheads, glued, and carefully leveled to prevent twist in the hull. These builds are notorious for twist getting built into the hull. It is easy to see when the boat is in the water without any people or gear, and the transom sits out of level with the water. With this sighting trick in mind, you will see it more often now!

Pre-finishing is always employed to make finishing and painting a more efficient process. I use "scrape-filling" to fill the grain of the wood and seal the plywood in epoxy.



I approached this hull differently because of the twist in the side panel as it wraps around the first bulkhead, developing compound curvature as it fairs into the stem. Putting the whole thing together in one glue-up session, solo, is a workout. But boy was it fun. I've built a few dozen boats like this; this skiff was the most fun to assemble.

I started by glueing and screwing the panels to the first then second bulkheads, the place where the compound curvature in the panel is centered.



The stem was fastened then the hull was zipped up from the midship frame aft. It is now glued with no twist in the hull fore-to-aft.



I am also posting on the Michael Storer Boats Forum.

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finished!

well, practically. i stuck the wingbars on with string.

stood back and admired my work. (you'll notice that i stuck them on once before, made holes in the hull, then decided they were too far forward and moved them back. not like me to be that conservative, but i realised that i got my numbers wrong, upon measuring a Mach 2, and i probably should have put the centreboard case about 85mm further forward. im happy with how its sitting now. mast step is 985 from the bow, front of centreboard is 1585.) anyway, standing there planning how i was going to paint it, i realised there were still a few jobs to do. made a list.

The list nearly fitted on the foil alignment template, so thats a good sign. i reckon if i tick a few of these jobs off each day i should be done in like 3 or 4 weeks. start work in a week.

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New Boat: CIY 16

The Calendar Islands Yawl 16

A Sail-and-Oar Dinghy for one or two people

The CIY 16 began as a 19 x 6 1/2-foot daysailer design with a deck and coaming with a bit of Herreshoff flavor. A friend who sails the Goat Island Skiff design by Michael Storer wanted a similar boat -- singlehanding, lightweight, lug rigged sail-and-oar dinghy -- but with a hull shape more amenable to Maine waters. I immediately thought of my CIY lines that I had drawn years ago and that had been sitting untouched and in need of inspiration. I had already put the lines into the computer so I scaled them down and reworked them to make this hull. The specs are:

LOA 15 1/2'

Beam 5' 1"

Displacement ~522lbs

Depth amidships 1'9"

DWL is 3'10" x 13'2"

Cp is 0.54

The hull has a wide plank keel for rolling the boat up and down the beach. The skeg is there for tracking under oars, but the cutaway allows the stern to come through the wind when tacking. The lines are fairly straight forward and full aft. In a breeze she will plane. Yet trimmed on her DWL, the transom is out of the water and the stem is in the water and she'll row fine with 10' oars so long as we keep her light. Construction will be 1/4" plywood: bottom and garboard stitch and glue style, with lapstrake sides, about 5 strakes total for topsides.

It's always fun designing something really new. The next steps are to put in all the planks in the model so look forward to that post. I'll be looking for someone to prototype the boat. Let me know if you are interested. Stay tuned!

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It's My Boat Radio Interview

Small selection of our plywood kit designsPlywood kits for our designs

To see our full range of designs, go to /

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Lands End, Lizard , Falmouth.

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Didi 950 Build Started

Michael Vermeersch of Ohio commissioned the Michael with wife Pat & daughter Catherine.Since adding this design to our stock design list, another three boats have been started. They are in Australia, Greece and Latvia.

The Didi 950 is drawn to the Class 950 Rule and detailed for building by the radius chine plywood construction method. It can be built from plans only or from a kit. Kits are currently available in USA but can be supplied by most of our international kit suppliers as well. Enquire with the supplier in your area and I will send the files to them for pricing. Note that for USA you must order from us, you cannot order it directly from Chesapeake Light Craft.

For our full range of designs, please visit /.

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Yawl should know the conundrum of getting a tiller 'round the mizzen mast

The details of how to design a yawl so that the tiller gets around the mizzen is an interesting topic. There are a number of tricks:

Using a line steering system: Here you can see Michael Storer's Beth Sailing Canoe with the tiller forward of the mizzen and the lines connecting to the rudder, which is out of the picture.


Using a normal tiller with an offset mizzen




The other methods I mentioned just won't fit the situation we have in the Goat Island Skiff, mainly because there is not room for a split tiller and we want to keep the solution simple. We are deciding about just how much to offset the tiller. You can see above that the tiller will hit the mizzen before 45-degrees. The big question is how much room do we want to give the tiller to swing. In the pictures, we decided to test a 45-degree swing. That puts the mizzen a little further off the centerline than I'd like. This boat is very light and pushing a tiller than hard over makes the rudder act like a brake and the risk of losing so much speed that you can't get through the tack is something to consider. Then again, we don't need it so close that things feel claustrophobic. In the picture above of the offset mizzen, notice how little offset the mast is...the tiller must touch the mizzen pretty early. Does that give enough steerage for the helmsman when the push the tiller in the mizzen direction?

We'll have a solution soon after a full-scale mock up. The way we are doing this, collaboratively, is something I do on many projects. It always gets a better result because many thoughts and ideas can be sifted through. The more the merrier. Whatever the solution I draw up, the mizzen can always be moved a little more or less off the centerline according to the skippers preference. The important thing is to maintain the rake of the mizzen, which has been determined. My point is, that collaboration with designers, customers, and other folks with experience through the forums and boat shows can be an advantage in getting many thoughts onto the table and generating the best solution.

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