stitch and glue

This morning, I cleaned off the epoxy from the inner plugs using my trusty farriers file....easy!

The plug for the bottom of the mast seemed a little oversized and I had to plane it quite a bit to get a good fit, especially at the base of the mast where it is tapered down from the gooseneck.  Brian made up the solid plug or the top of the mast - we planed down a 50mm square piece of DF stock - with hindsight, it might have been easier on the table saw, as the octagonal shape was hard to form freehand.

So today was somewhat of a milestone...we finally managed to get the mast glued up, which was a family/team effort with Siobhan, Jane & friend Brian gloved up and spreading epoxy over 8 staves on 3 sides, each 23' long...so 552 ft of stave surfaces covered, while Clare took the pics!  We used old toothbrushes which proved superior to small paint brushes which were improved somewhat by cutting their bristles short.

I set up the ladder straight such that the mast would lie flat on the rungs of the ladder and so define a straight edge which would be the aft side of the mast, transferring all of the taper to the front of the mast.  I'm led to believe that this will allow for better sail trim as well as a straight sail track.

We made up ply forms the with an octagonal hole in them which helped considerably in forming the mast together...just one at each end and the mast was quite easy to assemble.

Here you can see the mast epoxied and initially assembled.  We used a variety of hose clamps, cable ties and spanish windlasses to pull the staves together.  This produced a satisfying squeeze out, which reassured me that we had adequate epoxy in the joints.

Tomorrow I may start planing down the mast to its final dimensions.  We have deliberately left half of the taper to be removed from planing the outside of the mast rather than solely tapering the width of the staves.  However as I do not yet have the hardware to position on the mast, I will leave the mast rough finished before finishing to final dimensions, which should allow some wiggle room for fitting the hardware.  The specifications call for a rectangular shape to the head of the mast to facilitate mast fittings and a square base to sit into the mast "step" ( I think that is the right term).  Given that my mast is now octagonal, I will have to examine how best to make the step for the bottom of the mast.

Today I flew to Maine and picked up a rental car in Portland. I am making my way to Brooklin Boat Yard but wanted to spend a couple of days visiting boat yards. My first stop was Rockport Marine where I had the pleasure of inspecting their recently launched 1938 Alden motorsailer. The restoration was a 3 year process and it shows. Fantastic boat. Click here to access their website and see the finished product. I certainly hope this leads to more restorations of this type, especially if they are S&S motorsailers. I have a policy of not posting articles about other designer's work but in this case it is worth the exception.

I then drove over to Artisan Boatworks. This is a smaller yard run by a alum from Rockport Marine, Alec Brainerd and his crew. They specialize in smaller boats and custom construction but they tend to do their fair share of restoration work as well. Check out their website here. That boat at at the top is Sparkman & Stephens yacht Glory, a Finisterre type undergoing complete restoration. Here's a shot of her gutted interior. At the moment they are replacing broken frames.


And here's a Dark Harbor 20 being spiffed up for the season. I think this a great yard to build a smaller daysailer or cruising boat out of wood and really enjoy the process. Click here to access their website.


Tomorrow I am off to Morris Yachts. I will have the pleasure of sailing a new M42 with "short house" (sport edition) later tomorrow afternoon. This will be the second launched of this new series. I'll try to get some images and I'll be sure to post them here.

I returned to the marsh at the mouth of the big river, but I set out on a tide that would be rising for another hour.  Within fifty yards I spotted six yellow crowned night herons.


The marsh goes through dramatic changes during a tide cycle.  Where there were broad islands of tall spartina grass at yesterday's mid tide, there are now large open areas of water.  Instead of following the edge of the marsh around to Milford Point, I bee line straight across the marsh.
 

Two bird species of note occupied the point.  A pair of oyster catchers, and an endangered piping plover.  There is a nest cage for the plover nearby, a four foot square cage of mesh to keep predators away from the nest, which is a scooped out depression in the sand.

Piping Plover

From there, I continue out, crossing the main river channel and rounding the point into Long Island Sound and following the shore to the Stratford Lighthouse.


On the return, I spot a pair of swans with two small cygnets in tow.


And then I continued and did a grand circle of the marsh.

Two snowy egrets and one great egret

The screen door slams shut just as I get about five feet out from shore.  It is the man that lives in the house near the put-in.  We've talked before, he's a nice guy.
"Nice day for it," he says.
"Perfect!" I respond with a thumbs up for emphasis.
I turn upriver, split the tip of my paddle on the first rocks, that I know all too well, and paddle off into the steady spring rain.  I suppose that the man is the only person I will see on this trip, and if I should run into another, it will be someone of such a like mind that we will be able to finish each others sentences. 

The tide is on its way out, which is of little consequence here except that I have to avoid some large shallows, the wind is light, the rain is moderate and steady.  I will be sponging the bottom every twenty minutes or so with this rain.  The camera will not be ready, stuffed in my life vest like normal, but instead sealed in its waterproof box....not a day for a lot of photographs.
An osprey glides from the trees on my right to join its mate at the osprey box on Goose Island.  It is a 600 ft trip with a twenty foot drop.  It is effortless except for a couple of shimmies in mid flight to shake the rain off.  Another osprey overtakes me on the left with a fish in its talons.  Two more hover high in the shallow bay above the island.  It keeps raining.

As I edge along the bedrock hillside that borders the cove, a large immature bald eagle flushes from a tree.  It was on a ten foot long snaky branch, some 2 inches or more thick, and the branch bounces like a diving board for several seconds.  It gives the illusion of a much heavier eagle than is possible.  Just a short ways on, a second immature eagle takes wing from the trees.

I go to the usual farthest reaches of the cove and start my way out by circling Coultes Hole, a large round area that looks far more interesting on satellite photographs than it does up close.  It is, for one thing, not a hole, but rather a shallow area where no cattails of grown for no reason that I can derive.

I spot a few more osprey as I continue.  It seems that all of the nests are occupied. 

The rain slackens to a spit.

I cut out across the shallow bay upstream of Goose Island and descend in the main river, rounding the sandy island near the put-in just to add a mile to the trip...two more osprey and a mature bald eagle on that island, and it rains steady once more.

Where: Lords Cove from Pilgrim Landing