SV Tapatya
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  • Blog
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    • S2 EP 1 to 20
    • S2 EP21 to 40
    • Episodes 321 to 325
    • Episodes 301 to 320
    • Episodes 281 to 300
    • Episodes 261 to 280
    • Episodes 241 to 260
    • Episodes 221 to 240
    • Episodes 201 to 220
    • Episodes 181 to 200
    • Episodes 161 - 180
    • Episodes 141 to 160
    • Episodes 121 to 140
    • Episodes 101 to 120
    • Episodes 81 to 100
    • Episodes 61 to 80
    • Episodes 41 to 60
    • Episodes 21 to 40
    • Episodes 01 to 20
    • Behind The Scenes
  • Miss Molly I
    • The Start Of It All
    • The Lions Gate to Friday Harbor
    • Puget Sound and the Straits of Juan de Fuca
    • Neah Bay to Crescent City
    • Crescent City to Half Moon Bay
    • Betweentimes
    • Back to California
    • Mexico!
    • The Sea of Cortez
    • And Then There Were Three
  • Tapatya
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    • Other builders
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Mission Statement: To build a capable, affordable cruising boat with readily-available skills, materials, equipment and facilities.
If, like me, you dream of getting out there and sailing/cruising the world's waters, this blog/site aims to show my approach to how to do just that. Capable cruising boats should not be limited to the reach of the rich and privileged. If you accept the premise that a 25 year working lifespan for your boat is plenty for you to achieve your dreams (seems reasonable!) and are not concerned about such capitalist constructs as resale value, then the capable cruising boat is within the reach of a meagre budget. Go for it!
The Miss Molly I Adventures - the story of our Pacific cruising -Click Here!!

Update

28/9/2017

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The state of play, as it currently stands:

The 0 station bulkhead is basically finished - I've glassed the aft side with light cloth (approx 2oz, 48g/m2) and epoxy and fitted the battens/frames on the aft side. Work has started on the 1 station frame. The deck beam has been laminated and is waiting to be taken out of the clamps, and the wood for the frames has been milled. I've drawn the v-berth top on the lofting lines so the framing for this can be built into the frames and bulkheads. Photos soon :-)
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Yachtmaster Coastal (German)

24/9/2017

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This is what you get for your efforts
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Hard at work (although clearly motoring in this shot)
A week on the boat, practising manoeuvers takes it out of you. I've just slept over 12 hours on the first night back home! It was good though, and I'm sure we all learnt a lot. Of course, for me, doing it all in German adds an extra difficulty - a whole load of new vocab!!
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Some shots from the trip

24/9/2017

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The marina at the wonderfully named German town of Damp
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Beach trying to sail away
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Anchorage at the north end of the Alssund, Denmark
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License to thrill

23/9/2017

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I'm now just back from a great week on the Baltic, sailing on a Willing 31, a boat that I'd never even heard of before, but which turned out to be a capable sailboat. Most of the time was spent around the Kiel Bay area, but we did get up into Denmark for a couple of days. The purpose of the week was to practise for the practical part of the German Yachtmaster Coastal license, and it culminated in us taking the test on Friday. I'm proud to say I passed and am now the possessor of said license (having completed the theory and navigation parts last winter), but unfortunately the other two takers on our boat didn't have the same luck, which left a bit of a sour note on it all. The test itself is quite stressful, in that you have to perform manoeuvers under the eagle-eyed vigilance of the examiners, and they have their own rather inflexible ideas of how it all should be done (to the point of arguably being wrong sometimes!). It's not for the faint-hearted. Anyhow, I'm home again now, tired, happy, and with that definite feeling that the boat is still rocking :-)
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Baltic week

16/9/2017

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I'm heading out for a week's sailing on the Baltic. We're starting from Kiel and aiming to do a bit of cruising through the Danish Islands. The weather is a bit iffy, but looking forward to it :-)
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Forward bulkhead

15/9/2017

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I've started on the forward bulkhead that comes at station 0. I began by cutting a template of the forward deck crown. I then used that to loft the bulkhead and mark it out and cut it.

Once cut out, I covered the forward side of the bulkhead in a 4oz cloth and epoxy (heavy cloth as it may become part of an anchor locker). I then used the crown template as a form to laminate a deck beam from douglas fir strips. This has now been cleaned up and cut to size. Finally, I cut some frame pieces and epoxied them to the forward side of the bulkhead.
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Deck crown template
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Forward bulkhead
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Covered in 4oz cloth and epoxy on forward side
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Frames glued in place. Deck beam only laying there at the moment.
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Episode 05

13/9/2017

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The next video episode is out, featuring the second part of the stem/knee construction!!
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Stem/knee progress

10/9/2017

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I've fixed the stem to the knee, so it looks like this. To make sure everything was correctly aligned, I simply laid it on the lofted lines with glue applied and put 3 screws through it to hold it in place.
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Stem fixed to knee
Then I cut some strips of 31/2 inch wide douglas fir and laminated them to the stem to give it more width and a bigger fixing area for the ply panels later.
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Doug fir laminating to the stem
When that was tidied up, it made this - the part that will hopefully one day plough through the oceans' waves :-)
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Stem and knee finished for now
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SV Tapatya Episode 4

10/9/2017

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I've just released episode 4 of the SV Tapatya video series. There are a few more details of the lofting process and the beginnings of the stem lamination in detail.
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Toe knee

7/9/2017

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I cut and glued up the pieces that form the knee yesterday evening. The knee is basically a reinforcing web between the stem that forms the line of the bow and the flat bottom (curves fore and aft) of the boat. The plans stipulate 31/2" douglas fir for the knee, and that is exactly what I've used, layering up 4 pieces cut from a 2 metre length of 9cm square doug fir. At the moment its held together with screws, but these will be taken out again and I'll put some dowels through it instead to give it an additional mechanical bond. It'll be planed up to its final shape at the weekend and then joined to the existing stem, with some further bulking up of the stem after that.
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Sailing backwards

5/9/2017

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There's an inspiring story in the latest edition of Classic Sailor about a guy sailing backwards to raise money for Alzheimer's/dementia research. The story can be read here;

https://classicsailor.com/2017/08/sailing-backwards/

At the bottom of the story page, there's a link to his fundraising page. Please help out if you can!!!
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Stem 2

3/9/2017

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Stem being laminated
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5 layers of 10mm recycled mahogany
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Stem

2/9/2017

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I've started laminating up the stem. I've used some recycled mahogany for that, laminating it on a form made of steel angle brackets screwed to the lofted stem line. Photo soon, video in production :-)
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