While the advantage ebbed and flowed in the prestart and in the first few minutes of the first leg, the challenger USA overcame a 650 meter deficit and passed Alinghi just 15 minutes into the first race of America’s Cup 33. From there, the Americans never looked back. It’s 1-0 in a best-of-three match.

America’s Cup Coverage from Cup Watch

The 33rd America’s Cup has been the subject of extensive court action and litigation surpassing in acrimony even the controversial 1988 America’s Cup. Since the two parties were unable to agree otherwise, the match will take place as a one-on-one Deed of Gift match[2] in gigantic, specialized multi-hull racing yachts with no other clubs or teams participating. The litigated issues included which club would be the Challenger, the dates and venue for the regattas, certain rules governing the regattas (in particular the measurement rules), and the construction of the boats.

The Wikipedia article contains more of the sordid details, including the formation of a non-sailing yacht club intended solely to keep the competition in the waters off Valencia, Spain. The winner of the last cup, Switzerland’s Société Nautique de Genève (SNG), accepted the challenge from the newly formed “yacht club”. After court challenges, the Golden Gate Yacht Club of San Francisco, California, was declared the rightful challenger over the Spanish group.

Garry Hoyt's patented Offset Rig

As Gerry explains on his web page:

The fundamental difference of this patented rig is that both the boom and the horizontal gaff are carried out to the side of the mast by a special offset arm. This provides a totally clean leading edge to the mainsail, free of the windage interference of the mast, which penalizes the performance of conventional mainsails.

This offset arm also allows the forward projection of both boom and gaff ahead of the mast, creating a balanced rig that enables easier trimming in the same way that a balanced rudder enables easier steering. The Offset Rig also delivers an important new safety feature by significantly softening the force of the jibe. The approximate 20% of the sail area that is carried ahead of the mast acts as a brake by slowing the swing of the sail across the boat during the jibe.

Garry Hoyt's Illustration of the Offset Rig

The HOR will work on any sailboat hull, but care must be taken to position the mast, boom and gaff so that the sail’s CE (center of effort) is correctly related to the CLR(center of lateral resistance). Also, the free standing mast of the HOR requires extra strengthening at the deck partners and mast step. For all these reasons, I am reluctant to encourage amateur installation at this stage because improper installation could penalize the concept. Therefore, I prefer to initially concentrate on new construction with the involvement of professional builders and designers.

A Cute Little Dubber

Peter Hunt, not Lying about Fish

Narrow Top "Whaleback" Design

If you are over about 160 – 170 pounds you should definitely consider building the Bigger Dubber; however, if you weigh up to 180 pounds and lightness and portability are overriding demands (and you are careful using it on protected water) you can go with the Little Dubber. For people over 180 pounds, I recommend the Bigger Dubber (or a diet).

Plans, page 9

The plans booklet, 76 pages and generously illustrated, is very readable. Peter’s wry humor is sprinkled thoughout, and every imaginable question a new builder might pose is anticipated and answered. He provides a list of the tools he uses when he builds a Little Dubber, which is full of items you don’t actually NEED (pencils are listed several times, because you always lose them). But the real tool requirements are basic hand tools and, in the power arena, a jig saw and drill. He recommends a table saw for ripping some trim to 1/2″ and 1/4″ square, but allows that for this one operation, you can probably impose on a friend who has a shop. If you have a woodworking shop already, you have the tools you need.

The Little Dubber Plans

Example of the Generously Illustrated Pages

I estimate it would cost $300 – $400 to build a Little Dubber using 2000 prices. Less if you already have some of the materials lying around.

In July, 2009, Southport Island Marine commented that they build the Dubber to spec for customers, and are planning a lower-cost production version in fiberglass. We’ll feature the new fiberglass model in a story here on messing-about, as it promises to be an economical alternative to hand-built wooden versions.

Now, what about that name? Peter’s friend Sandy, upon seeing the first one, said “What a cute little Dubber!” His marketing research for a suitable name ended at that point, and the design was dubbed the Little Dubber.

I emailed Peter prior to writing this article, to let him know the Little Dubber plans would be reviewed on our new web site. At that time, he didn’t have a web site set up yet, but now he does: go to the Little Dubber Page at his KayakDesigns.com site to see more about purchasing the plans.

Somewhere out there folks are building and paddling Little Dubbers, and we’d like to talk to them. I will build my Little Dubber (well, the Bigger Dubber actually, because that “diet” thing is out) and report on it here when finished. But other builder’s experiences are also very much encouraged.

Quick Facts:

Little Dubber Kayak
• 7 1/2′ or 9′ LOA
• Weighs 25 – 30 lbs
• Stitch and Glue Construction
• 76 page Plans Book
• No specialized tools
• No jigs or strongbacks
• Easy to build

Available from:
Little Dubber Kayaks
The Shed for Sail Studio
PO Box 135
Norton, MA 02766
Website: http://www.kayakdesigns.com
Price: $18 plus $2 shipping/handling

Peter’s more philosophical side comes to the fore in the plans from time to time, such as when he is discussing why someone should build their own boat:

I fully believe every person, both man and woman, should build a boat sometime in their life. There is nothing so satisfying and esteem-building as building your own boat and then having this creation of your hands bear you out over God’s blue waters …. As the Water Rat said in Kenneth Graham’s classic story Wind in the Willows:

“There is nothing, absolute nothing, half so much worth doing as simply messing-about in boats!”

Plans, page 5

Messing-about in boats, huh? I knew I liked this guy.

Previously, all I had seen in this class of boat were heavy displacement style boats … wonderful in their own right … like Sam Devlin’s Surf Scoter and Ken Hankinson’s Coastal Cruiser. This was a perfect cruising boat to put on my “gotta’ build” list. But alas, this article was by Tom Lathrop, an individual who designed the boat solely for himself, and no plans were available.

Liz, the First Bluejacket 24

A query on the Wooden Boat Forum brought Tom out, and several of us pressed him for “lines” of his beloved Liz.

With the epoxy barely cured, Tom set out to bring the world plans of his Liz, but like designing the boat, this was new territory for Tom.

When pressed, Tom shared more photos of Liz, whetting our appetite for the design. I was particularly interested in how she acted as she got up on a plane. While the aforementioned boats don’t plane at all unless given tremendous amounts of fuel-wasting power, I have always been bothered with the bow-up, look-at-the-sky attitude of boats that do plane as they accelerate. Tom’s hull design incorporated elements to meet his design requirements … including a weight light enough to be powered by a relatively small 50 hp outboard … and found he had indeed designed a boat which would get up on plane without thrusting its bow up in the air. You can see the smooth transition between 8, 16 and Liz’s top speed of 23 mph in the photos below.

Tom describes the Bluejacket 24 as a “lightweight, trailerable, pilothouse power-cruiser designed for cruising with a crew of two in inshore or protected water such as the Intra Coastal Waterway, rivers and inland lakes.” As far as that smooth transition from idle to fully planing at her top speed, Tom says simply “the Bluejacket 24 hull design is optimized for economical cruising in the planing mode at much lower speed than normally possible with other similar sized craft.”

Liz at 8 MPH

Liz at 16 MPH

Liz at 23 MPH

So, will the Bluejacket 24 be inadequate for coastal crusing in the waters off Southern California or the New England Coast? Its probably unfair to ask Tom, as he built Liz for his home waters. But there are plenty of flat bottomed fishing boats like the C-Dory that enjoy fair weather cruising off-shore. The C-Dory is noted for pounding a bit in a chop, and it can be expected that the Bluejacket 24 would behave similarly. As always, the builder is treading new ground when adapting a boat for other than its intended purpose. But then, who said amateur boat builders were shy about trying out new things? (That’s not an endorsement, mind you, but if any builder out there has experience with the Bluejacket 24 in other conditions, please let us know.)

Tom started his design process with some objectives:

• Small and light enough to be readily trailerable
• Capable of economical cruising at 12 – 14 mph with a top speed at least 50% higher
• Seaworthy in inshore conditions
• Economical operation
• Sitting headroom in the sleeping cabin
• Good, classic looks
• Reasonably easy to build in plywood and epoxy

Later, other design requirements came to the fore, but you can see how close his final design is to the original design objectives.

Tom used premium materials throughout including marine okoume plywood, 17 ounce fiberglass cloth and RAKA epoxy. While there may be some things missing from his list of expenses (remember he wasn’t planning to sell plans in the beginning), I suspect he captured the vast majority of costs, including building a fuel tank, window channel, steering mechanism, etc. His expenses, before adding the Yamaha T50 50 hp four stroke outboard and a trailer, was $5,800. Four stroke outboards in the 50 HP range run about $6,500 installed, and a trailer can cost up to $3,000 if you opt for a lifetime aluminum trailer (the cheapskates among us will find less expensive alternatives, I’m sure, but the lifetime cost is often higher that way).

So does Tom have any regrets? He mentions that he probably wouldn’t spend the time to build a built-in fuel tank, as space for off-the-shelf poly tanks would be easy to incorporate. But other than that, you would be hard pressed to find anything negative about the Bluejacket 24 that Tom … or anyone else, for that matter … could cite.

Visit the Bluejacket Boats website for information on other models of the Bluejacket, plans pricing and more pictures.

By Bob Smalser, June 18, 2004

These are for the wedding-gift sailboat to the oldest son, so the family consensus is that store-bought oars or my cruder, painted workboat oars won´t do … I´ll have to bite the bullet and finish something in … ugh … brightwork. The yacht-finish masochists among you should be pleased.

I pick a couple weathered 8/4 X 6 old growth Western Red Cedar planks off their stack. Tight grained and clear stock I milled from a sunken log I salvaged 4 years ago. These rift-sawn planks were milled to be door stock for the new house … but I can spare a couple for a good cause.

Why cedar? I have it on hand, and mast-grade Sitka Spruce, Port Orford or Yellow Cedar … all much stronger and more appropriate than WRC … are 8 bucks a BF. I have some good Doug Fir … but it is ugly finished bright, IMO … and doesn´t plane as crisply as the others. I can do some things to the cedar that will make it adequately hard and strong for this application.

Well … after planing off the weathering … the chalk line shows I picked one wrong plank. A butt log board I couldn´t overcome the taper in … and if I rip it straight there is a pin knot in the way and insufficient stock remaining for the blade. Fine for a door panel or an oar blade … but no good at all for an oar loom. I can go back out in the rain and muscle around a few thousand pounds of planks to find a better one, or I can make do. I decide to make do. An edge joined blade will take longer to do but will be stronger, eh? A joined oar also gives me the option of orienting the stronger edge grain to the moment of effort in the loom … like in a baseball bat … while using the face grain pieces on either side of the loom to minimize the chances of the blade splitting. That option is useful when making an exceptionally light oar … which these are not, and I don´t use it, as I want these oars to have some spring during use.

The first step in laying up the oars is to joint the fence edge and rip my looms from the straighter 8/4 plank … and there is zero movement after the rip, which tells me the stock is perfectly seasoned. If it were otherwise, I´d have to go find other stock. I rip a 16th oversize and joint all the faying surfaces on the jointer for a good layup.

I rehearse my glueup … and glue up using Elmer´s Poly and leave it overnight. Why poly and not epoxy? Well, in the old days, we woulda used Plastic Resin Glue, which in edge joining … a joint not hard on glue … is also more than adequately strong. Even with perfectly jointed edges, it will take a bunch of clamping pressure to bring 8/4 stock into a good joint … poly loves high clamping pressure while using epoxy under those circumstances may starve the joint of glue. The soft cedar soaks up glue, so I use a lot of glue on all mating surfaces, and let it soak in a while before clamping, keeping a wet surface.

Strengthening the Oar Tips
This next step looks silly, but it works. Because of the softness of the cedar, I´ll epoxy in a Purpleheart spline into the oarblade tip. It´s a crossgrain glue joint, but cedar is exceptionally stable and epoxy exceptionally flexible. In the process, I´ll use the heat gun to thin unthickened epoxy, flowing it deep into the end grain of the blade tip … as much as the wood will take … followed by thickened epoxy and the splines, which are cleaned with acetone first, as Purpleheart is oily.

And the resulting assembly is allowed to cure.

Shaping the Oars
Now I´m ready to mark my centerlines, stapling my face pattern to one of the glueups and cut it out. I like the pattern found for ash and spruce oars in Woodenboat Issue # 127 (Nov ´95) and modify it for weaker cedar by increasing the scantling size a bit. My looms will be sided 2″ X 1 7/8″ tapering to 1 3/4″ X 1 1/3″ … with a 5 inch blade width. For easy storage, I make patterns in two pieces on a long table and line them on the stock with a straightedge.

After cutting out with the saber saw, I square and fair the edges with hand planes and spoke shave. You´ll always see two planes in my pics … the #3 is set coarser than the #4, which is set for a very fine shaving and is used in finishing. A #5 is used ILO the #3 for longer oars. Oars are best cut on a band saw, but you don´t really need one … just remember that the least precise your saw, the farther you should cut outside your lines … especially on curves … to be finished square to the line with hand tools with no unpleasant surprises when you turn the stock over and discover where your blade wandered.

I then use the cut and faired stock as a pattern for its mate. The side profile or taper pattern is applied and marked on both sides of each rough oar … and the power jointer set up to machine the tapers. Set the unplugged jointer to take a 16th, then index the oar against the cutter head where the penciled taper first shows a 16th on the blade side of the loom. Make a tick mark on each oar indexed against the edge of the jointer fence as your starting point.

Turn the jointer on, open the guard using a push block held in your right hand and align the tick mark on the oar with the fence edge using your left. Then lower the oar face onto the cutter head gently with a forward motion, and push it through bearing down with the push block in your right hand.

Repeat using that 16th distance between pencil line and oar face each time, and you can taper the faces in about 8 passes per face so cleanly that they need no further work with the hand plane. Do a few dry runs, first, of course … as machines can´t hear you cry.

I make an 8-Siding Gage (see my post on  Wooden Boat Forums, or here on  messing-about) and lay out my tapered, square looms into octagons for planing … and rough out all the bevels with draw knife before finishing them with the plane and spoke shave. Very fast and efficient … but practice both using the drawknife in all 4 of its modes and reading grain before committing expensive stock to it. (I have more on this at the .)

You may have something already …
Some installations of Windows XP have a “Make Thumbnail” option on the “context menu” that pops up when you right click on a picture file. So try that … but if its not there, don’t dispair, we have two free solutions that will work for you.

Google’s Free Picasa Software

Google’s free Picasa software is really a total photo solution,and its free. It starts by Google’s free Picasa software is really a total photo solution, and its free. It starts by indexing all the pictures in the folders on your computer. There are a lot of features for enhancing photos, categorizing them, etc.

This really is a great program that I think stands up well against all the commercial photo organizing programs that run $50 or more at the computer store. But right now, we’re just concerned with making a smaller copy of a photo for upload.

Well, it couldn’t be easier. Just select the photo in Picasa and click the “Export” button along the bottom of the screen, and you get the following dialog box:

Tell Picasa where to store the new picture, select the “Resize to” radio button and slide the size slider to any of the smaller values from 320 to about 500 pixels. For forum or email use, you can also reduce the picture size quite a bit by adjusting the “Image Quality” slider to about 50%, if the format of the picture you’re making allows it.

Cool. And its completely free.

Most commercial and some other free photo editing programs have similar capability, so check and see if you already have a solution.  Otherwise, check out Picasa at Google.

EZ Thumbs Software
Another great program that’s also free is simply a “thumbnail” maker. It won’t let you lighten a dark picture, crop and rotate, organize all your pics, etc., but it excels at making copies of pics any size you like. And did we mention its free? If you’re a minimalist kind of person and don’t want a full featured program, get EZ Thumbs from Fookes Software.

Configure it for an image about 400 pixels wide, and you should be set.  It has an option to insert itself into the right-click menu on a Windows machine, so you simply right click on an image file, select “Open with” EZ Thumbs, and you have a properly proportioned copy of your image.  EZ Thumbs pre-pends “tn_” to the name of your original for the smaller copy.

Here’s where it gets confusing.The end of the keel is located 5 – 5/8″ past station 13 at the very top edge of the 1 x 12. Make a mark at this point, and when you’re drawing in the line using the batten against the nails, make sure it extends to this mark and gives you a smooth transition.

Figure 2 from Weekender Plans

For the bottom of the keel, measure along the reference line 4 – 5/8″ past station 13. The final nail is driven at this point, one inch above the reference line. On the plans, they show that point as 3″, but don’t clearly show that they mean its 3″ from the top of the 1 x 12. A few people have thought that dimension was either for the amount of 1 x 12 left over, or the distance past station 13. But it refers to the distance from the top edge of the board.

The keel stern-block to stem dimension isn’t 154 3/8″. Where did I screw up?
This measurement is taken after the deadwood is installed. The deadwood “raises” the joint where the keel meets the stem by 3 – 1/2″. You can try measuring before putting in the deadwood with a metal tape and locating it 3 – 1/2″ above the keel-to-stem joint, but you have to keep the tension very tight. (The reason people miss this is that in Figure 2, there is a call-out to the “STEM/KEEL JOINT” before the deadwood is installed.) If you are about 2″ too short without the deadwood, then you’ll be OK when it is installed.

Most of us don’t find this error, because we make the keel, and set the deadwood stock next to it and mark it off live. But here’s the scoop: The stem/keel joint does indeed fall 1″ forward of Station 1 in the illustration on the left. But in the illustration for the deadwood on the right, it shows the top corner of the deadwood 2 7/8″ from STATION 1. It really should be 2 7/8″ forward of the bottom corner, or where the stem/keel joint falls. It looks like the measurement line from Station 1 was extended up instead of the line indicating the position 1″ in front of Station 1. So you add 1″ from Station 1 to the measurement, making it 3 7/8″ from Station 1. Or, 2 7/8″ from the lower corner of the deadwood. If your head now hurts, you can do what the rest of us do: wait until the keel is ready and lay the deadwood stock next to the keel, and mark it that way. Then you know it will fit.

I can’t get both bulkheads cut out of the same piece of plywood.
I went to the trouble of drawing out the bulkheads on butcher paper, then arranging them on the plywood to make it fit. Phil Gowans, who did a beautiful job on his Weekender, used a cad program and provides the illustrations on his web site (here’s the direct link to that page: Plywood Layout. Phil made a lot of other modifications, which are worth taking a look at, so check out his entire site: Phil’s Weekender

At the foredeck, I have these little gaps where it meets the cabin/cockpit.
The foredeck is “five sided,” and you’re right, there will be gaps there when the deck is completed. Relax. Some builders wait until the sides are on and put small pieces of plywood there, or fill it with body putty, or use an epoxy/wood flour mixture to fill it in. The plans don’t mention it here, but this also happens when you put the cabin trunk sides on … there are some small triangular pieces you have to add in. By that time you’re comfortable with it, but it can be disconcerting the first time you venture into “fill and sand” land.

Here’s a list of species builders have used instead of douglas fir:

• Southern yellow pine (SYP)
• Hard pine
• Poplar
• Phillipine mahogany
• White oak

You may not be able to find any of these at a good price. But there are many more; for a more complete list see Glen-L’s great site about boat building woods at Wood and Plywood, Chapter 5 (if that link doesn’t work, go to Glen-L.com and scroll down in the left frame and select “Boatbuilding Woods”). The trick is to find the wood that is priced fairly in your area, and use that. If you really want to get technical, go to the Forest Products Laboratory Guide, published by the US Government, for specs on various woods.

Very soft woods like redwood are not appropriate, but there are quite a few rot resistant woods with even grain that can be substituted for douglas fir. I used construction grade lumber, which was re-sawn into 1 x 12s, but you do a bit more work that way. Some have asked the local lumber yard to plane down 2 x 12’s to the 3/4″ thickness needed for to simulate a 1 x 12 (they usually charge for this service, but it might not be as expensive as ordering in 1 x 12s and paying the freight). Ask at the local lumberyard what wood they sell for outdoor stair tread (real wood, not that plastic stuff!) or for fascia on homes, etc., which commonly comes in 1 x 12 sizes. Compare that wood to the description either on the Glen-L site, or at the Forest Products Laboratory Guide. Or, ask on our Main Forum. Chances are, the wood available locally that is used in exterior applications will work fine for your trailer-sailer keel.

I found an alternative wood, but not in 1 x 12 size. What can I do?
Some builders have reported using a 1 x 8 and a 1 x 4 to “simulate” a 1 x 12 when they start lofting the keel. Because the keel is laminated, and really quite strong, you can do this without worrying about scarf joints or the like. You just have to stagger the long horizontal joint by putting the 1 x 4 above a 1 x 8 when lofting the first lamination. Then, when making the “middle” lamination of the keel, put a 1 x 8 above a 1 x 4 below.

This overlaps the long horizontal joint (its easier to do than to describe!) For the final layer, make it exactly like the first, and all three layers will be staggered. When you glue up the keel, this long butt joint will be fine. (Just remember that when lofting the first layer, you still have to measure down from the top edge 4″, because that 1 x 4 is really not 4″ wide!)

Should I use marine grade plywood, or exterior grade from Lowes/Home Depot? What is “exterior grade”, anyway?Marine ply is pretty expensive, but it is good stuff. Compare prices in your area. If you want to spend the money, it is well spent. It finishes easier, will probably last longer, and … well, who can argue against quality?

That being said, I’m a cheapskate, and used what people commonly call “exterior” grade plywood from Home Depot. I’m not planning to leave my boat in the water, and if it lasts 5 – 10 years or so, that’s fine with me. Here’s what I found out about plywood.

People commonly think that the “ACX” grade of plywood is exterior because of that “X” at the end. That isn’t true. The voluntary grading system of the APA – Engineered Wood Association uses the first and second letters to tell you about the faces of the plywood. An “A” face has no voids or putty filling knot holes. A “B” face may have football-shaped wood glued in where knot holes were. A “C” face will have knot holes, sometimes filled with putty, and sometimes not. A “D” face looks like the surface of the moon, with unfilled knot holes in the face.

So a “AC” grade of plywood has a good face, and a poor face. But what about the “X” at the end? Does it stand for exterior? No, the way I understand it, it specifies that the inner core is of undetermined species. So how do you know if plywood is rated for exterior use? Here’s an example of what to look for, the grade stamp:

The APA’s Grading Stamp

APA Plywood Grading Stamp

You see the now-familiar “A-D” rating for the faces of the plywood. That “Group 1″ designation specifies the strength of the wood used for the faces, with “Group 1″ being relatively strong woods like douglas-fir. The next word, in this case “Exposure 1″ tells us if the plywood is rated for exterior use.

Plywood is made in four exposure durability classfications by those manufacturers agreeing to the APA standards: Exterior, Exposure 1, IMG or Exposure 2, and Interior.

Panels marked with the word “Exterior” are made with fully waterproof glue and composed of C-grade or better veneers throughout. That means that most of the knot holes are supposed to be filled with putty or wood on the inside plys. This is the best non-marine grade of plywood, and you probably won’t find it at Home Depot!

“Exposure 1″ panels are usually the ones stacked under a sign proclaiming something like “ACX Exterior Plywood.” Exposure 1 plywood is made with the same fully waterproof glue, but may include D-grade veneers in the core. That means there are voids on the inner plys. For boat building, those voids mean that moisture will collect there, especially if the boat is kept in the water or in humid conditions, and will eventually rot from the inside out. And, on boats where you are bending the panels extensively, the voids will cause an unfair bend (or cause it to crack at that spot!) The APA says about this common grade of plywood:

Because of the veneer grades used, panels under prolonged severe moisture conditions may occasionally develop limited, highly localized glueline delaminations coincident with grade characteristics.

IMG (intermediate glue) or Exposure 2 plywood is not required to be made with fully waterproof glue to get this grade; it can have a glue that will delaminate if exposed to a lot of moisture, but will hold up under moderate humidity and exposure. Interior plywood is not required to have exterior glue, but must be made with moderately moisture resistant interior glue.

I used “Exposure 1″ plywood. I’m day sailing my boat, and I know it will spend far more time on its trailer than in the water. And even though I love my boat, its not my wife, and I know I’ll tire of her someday (the boat, that is). Probably within 5 years. Then I will callously toss her aside and buy or build another boat. Now if you plan to leave your Weekender in the water all the time, or want it to last 15 years, I would plan on using marine grade plywood. Builder’s choice, once again

US made marine grade plywood usually has douglas-fir faces, and some builders have decided if they are going to spend the money, they want the mahogany-like faces of Okume or other imported species plywood. The Glen-L site has quite a few descriptions of the imported marine plywood.

One other factor: if you are planning on saving some real money, and are not going to use fiberglass cloth and resin or epoxy, stay away from fir faces on the plywood. The fir … even on marine grade plywood … will check and crack each season. For non-glassed boats, use a marine grade plywood with Okume, sapele, or another imported species that will not crack.