Ottawa Area Model Yacht Club

Nigel has started on my S-50 hull.  Pics are posted in the Photo Gallery, in the S-50 album... have a look!

He has finished Scot's hull and has started on mine # 11. Looking forward to it.

Rick

Met with Nigel and picked up my S50 hull. Very high quality mold. Very straight and symetrical . No work to be done to it at all just build it. Thank you Nigel for a great design and a great hull.

Rick

No problem Rick - and never new a coffe at Timmy's could brighten up a cool winters day so much:)

Nice to get togeather and spend an hour talking about summer time activities that will be with us so soon.kake St Loiuse is almost open, only ice is in the bays. Unless it gets dramatically colder will be a very early ice out this year

#12 came out the mold last night - another hull at 2lb 1oz - I am amazed at how consistant they are in terms of weight for hand layed hulls.

Been less than 1oz variation since the first glass hull was done. 

Kevin is progressing on Scot's now the radio placement has been figured out. Turns out the LiPo battery can be 'lost' in the keel recess right under the sail winch.  Flat pack AA cells also fit in nicely but not 'under' the servo. Like Scot will need ANY minor advantages:) Might have to get Kein to engineer a split rudder to act as a speed brake (with a control system hidden in the hull only we can control) to make sure it stays behind certain other boats....

Nigel

Nigel just build him a set of "SPECIAL" sails and that will fix him.

Rick

Hey Hey... You guys know I can read this to, right?!?!

LOL

Latest photos of S50 #10 on Kevin's bench have been uploaded to the photo gallery.  Find them here:

http://ottawasailing.webs.com/apps/photos/album?albumid=12358496

Foredeck framed up and first servo in place.  Kevin's work is very accurate and neat - and he's progressing fast!

Scot. Kevin is a master craftsman bud. He is doing a very nice job. It's going to be a beauty boat. Looking forward to seeing it up close. Wish I knew how to build like that.

Rick

Rick Larocque at February 23, 2012 at 3:15 PM

Scot. Kevin is a master craftsman bud. He is doing a very nice job. It's going to be a beauty boat. Looking forward to seeing it up close. Wish I knew how to build like that.

Rick

Don't flatter Kevin to much or he will be unbareable.... now if we could ONLY get his sailing skills upto the level of the building skills. Guess we will have to settle for 1.5 out of 2. But if you added in his abilities with electronics would rise to a 1.75.

Only guy I know who figures it would be easier to design and build a custom microprocessor controlled device to do jib trimming verses using a third servo:)

anyone warned the Mini's about these big scary EC12's and S50's that will be on the pond this summer?

Building is just practice - lots of mistakes and learning and patienece and doing it over and a salty sailors vocabulary to ease the process along!

Nigel 

I'm not sure you're correct about building being just practice.  I've tried many times, but I just can't seem to build nearly as well as others... I'm certain there's some amount of talent involved.

The real building talent is fixing and 'hiding' the goofs  

I could only wish I has 10% of my old mans talent or 1% of by Grand dads or 1/10 of 1% of my great grand fathers - they were master craftsmen, an almost (?) dead art these days.  My dad could do more with a hammer, saw  and chisel than most people could do with a work shop full of power tools. He never owned a power till till I started to buy them and realized they saved time (???) and then went on to show me HOW to get the best from them. Boat building - well he tought me to do my best and never stop learning by 'doing'. Then I met up with a bunch of guys here in Montreal who showed me what I thought was impossible was possible! Boats don't need to be 'perfect', just suit their intended use and be a source of pride the builder did their best with the resources and skills at hand! I have always admired east coast fishermen and their fishing vessels, from the Bluenose to a modern lobster boat  not because they are works of art but functional, durable vessels built with the materials and skills at hand and suited to the real world they work in. 

All that said - some people are great sailors and building just isn't their cup of of tea:)

Building or sailing are just different skill set that only come from "Practice" - I have yet to meet a fast skipper who didin't invest time practicing getting to be 'fast'  

Nigel

Started on my S50 boat on the weekend. Was waiting for stuff to dry on the EC12 and am real tired of building M12 rigs so I decided to attempt attaching the lead keel to the hull. Got a very nice tight grained piece of poplar and shaped the spacer block. Drilled and tapped the keel for three 10-32 stainless threaded rods and installed them. Fitted the spacer and keel to the hull with West System epoxy  thickened into a paste and let it set. Cut and drilled an aluminum plate as an inside spacer and installed and tightened 3 lock nuts inside the hull to secure everything. It will not move.  Did some more shaping and sanding then put a coat of 2 part high end body filler and let it dry. Once dry I sanded to shape and then wet sanded the whole thing till I was happy with the result. I then put a coat of grey Duplicolor primer on it and it came out great. Couple of minor imperfections to fix but all in all I'm very happy with the result. Decided I now had to build a building stand for it now that it has the keel attached. Got that done out of rough plywood I had laying around so now the hull is supported on the keel. That's all for now. Back to the EC12 this weekend I hope.

Rick

We need pics!!!!

Rick sent me some, I think he is hiding building skills well beyond what he 'admits to'

Keel is on and looking like a darn fine job of what can be a challenging task. That said, I suspect he may have had assistance from the "911' boys..... seems some blood was lost somewhere in the process.... 

Rick also sent some of his S50 and EC12 in strange and compromising position  - still not sure exactly what the two boats were upto or what will come out of the union:) As I am to darned challenged to post pictures and NOT being mine to post, we will just have to wait for their owner to find time to recover from injuries sustained and his busy building schedule.   

Nigel

OK I posted some pictures in the photo album section. There are 2 with the S50 on top of the EC12 to show the size difference in the 2 hulls ( Nigel has a dirty wee mind). The rest are attaching the keel. The one with the 3 rods in the keel that look all crooked is an optical illusion caused by the closeup lens of a cheap camera. They are straight by the way. I did give my right thumb a little bit of a slash and bled all over the place before I got it covered up and the bleeding stopped but as my dear old Dad used to say to me " It's a long way from your heart boy, you'll be ok".

Rick

Nice looking boat!! But mine is faster...

faster compared to...????? Test of a REAL sailor and his boat isn't playing in puddles:)

Need to check the rules, I don't seem to remember blood being an 'approved' building material, seems there is something just not quite not kosher about using it. Trust Rick to come up with an innovate new material to gain just that little bit more and then he will claim it's all in the genes

Remember guys I can always make sloooow sails for everyone except.......

Nigel

Scot , your's is being built faster than mine but that is on dry land BUCKO and that's as far as I would go with that.:D Nigel, nowhere does it say no blood , sweat or tears as building materials. I already checked knowing you would start already with the excuses:roll: As for making slow sails I think we'll just leave that one alone;)

Rick

I am confused (as usual)  was that a jibe about being slow making sails or making slow sails:)

Boat building does entail a lot of blood sweat and tears - blood from our old hands trying to perfom delicate tasks with sharp knifes, sweat thinking what the spouse will say when yet ANOTHER toy follows us home and tears when an emphatic NO precludes it taking up residence in our work shop (unless we also intend it to become our residence:))

Nigel

Nigel

I simply like stating that mine's faster while I have the chance.  It's not as though you can prove any different - the water is still crunchy!

As for sails - we're all well aware that Nigel is incapable of making poor sails.

Fast quips don't necessarily equate to fast boats:)

We do have open water if..... but then it's real water not a soggy swamp we would have to sail on and full survival gear would be a prerequist. Falling in would lead to the ultimate turtle test and recovery is not guaranteed.

ENOUGH of the slagging, lets wait till we can live up to the bravado and see who comes out on top Of course the sail maker and hull molder can always take some credit in other success 

Won't be long before we are back on the water and the real slag fest can begin....! 

Nigel