The new boat, the design and the first piece of ply cut.

Long Steps, the build has begun.

I’ve four frames drawn, the stem, and the spine for the forward section, the mast box and some of the detail around the “cabin”.

The drawing is progressing in my “spare time” as I’ve other jobs to get completed before I’m really free to get on with my own project, but I need a break now and again and wanted to get started on “Long Steps” so the overall timeline does not become impossible.

To give an outline of “the project”.  I have thoughts that as the numbers on my birthday cake are getting alarmingly large, its evident that if I am to have that life defining adventure then I’d best get on with it.

A second motivator was an article in the newspaper last year that described the adventures of a young woman who’d kayaked alone right around New Zealand. It took her a year to cover the distance of around 2100 sea miles, with a few of breaks along the way. What an adventure, she’ll remember that forever.

I’m not quite as ambitious as that, but to get around the North Island is workable.

That’s about 1300 nautical miles, only a little less than the distance  around the British Isles, or the distance from San Diego to Seattle. About, don’t quibble over the odd mile or three.

In an open sail and oar boat. Mostly open anyway.

The circumnavigation of Te Ika a Maui ( North Island of New Zealand)  has some challenges, I’m planning to try local voyages first, and have put a lot of thought into the design,  so, below is a pic of the working drawing.

She’s 5.520 metres long, 1.660 wide, I’d expect a dry weight of around 220 kg.

That’s 18ft 6in x 5 ft 5in x 460 lbs.

Sail area 13.5 sq m / 145 sq ft.

One of the “interesting” things about the planned voyage is that there are at least two long stretches with either bar harbours with prevailing onshore winds or no shelter at all, even in favourable conditions these two stretches of coastline could take up to three days to cover so nights at sea have to be provided for.

Shallow draft is a must, there are some shallow river harbours in some places, but much of the course will be in very open waters, so this is to be essentially a blue water capable boat.

Now I’ve mentioned this to people who’ve banged on about Shackleton and Bligh, but I’m not that tough, so safety, self reliance in emergencies and a modicum of creature comforts are all part of the design brief.

What I’ve done is to take the midsection of the very successful SCAMP design, with its high up bouyancy, sheltered “veranda”, self draining cockpit and water ballast.  The same offset “board” and lying down space is there, along with the massive dry storage that the little boat offers.

This is fitted into a hull shape similar to that of the “Walkabout” design, that boat is very fast under sail, rows well, is easy to right if capsized, and is a very good load carrier.

The ducks and batten marking the curve of the stem.

I started the build today, drew out full sized and cut the stem and spine, cut and glued the doublers around the stem, cut and finished a stack of cleat material and sanded the whole lot so they’re going into the boat almost completely “finished”.

The first cut, thats a Makita 10.6 volt cordless circular saw, nice tool, very accurate, light and easy to use. Its great on plywood up to about 12mm.

The spine, stem, and mast box support will have B#1  B#2 and B#3 slotted over it egg crate style.

The jigsaw is a Makita 4200 BV, I've had it for over 30 years and its done a huge amount of work.

Good machine.  As is the Japanese saw, wouldn't be without either of them.

Doublers cut out, the edges radiused with a router and all glued up. Progress already!

Tomorrow will see B#1 and B#2 cut out, I expect to be putting the whole lot together on the building frame in January, I have to extend the floor in the boatshed, plus have an adventure in the Straights of Magellan which will soak up a few weeks around the end of the year.

Plus I still have to get some work done.

But I’ve started. The boatshed / workshop is not empty any more, the symptoms of empty workshop syndrome are under control again.