Boat Plans Collection

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Minggu, 20 Maret 2016

What happens when Stitch and Glue boats get old

I came across this excellent article entitled "What happens when Stitch-and-Glue boats get old", posted on John Harriss blog "The Life of Boats".

John illustrates how epoxy-coated plywood boats age, and provides info on how to maintain and repair them. Its an excellent article with very valuable info.

Here is the link to Part 1, and Part 2.

Portuguese bridge door and cap

Ive completed some more finish work, mainly the Portuguese bridge passage door and the wooden cap for the Portuguese bridge.

The Portuguese bridge door provides easy access to the fore deck while securing the bridge from any rough weather and helping keep our feet dry. Because this door could see some green water, I thought it important to have a jamb the door will be in full contact with once its

closed. Making the jamb out of wood seemed to be the easiest way to go for me. I wanted the door to be able to handle any

green water it might see without getting twisted, torn off, or damaged. I tend to make things up as I go along, and with no real plan, Im happy with how the door turned out. I turned the door handle out of some 3/4" stainless round stock, and used a round over bit in the lathe to finish the ends. I also turned a stud with threads on the end to hold the handle in place, and make a pivot to engage the handle. Basically, the handle will dog down against the jamb, pulling the door tight and holding things fast. A nylock nut and washer holds the handle to the stud. To make the keeper, I mortised out the wooden door jamb, then fabricated a stainless steel keeper for the handle to dog against. I gave the keeper a slight taper to help lock the handle in place. The more you engage the handle, the tighter it dogs the door down. As things wear and tolerances get looser, I have plenty of areas to adjust ( without much difficulty) to keep the door locking tightly. When were on passage, the door will be dogged shut. When were lounging on the fore deck, or working up there, the door will be opened and resting against the Portuguese bridge. I need to find a rubber bumper to hold the door off of the PB, and also to prevent paint from chipping if the door gets slammed open.

The other item I finished was adding a wooden cap to the Portuguese bridge. A lot of you are probably thinking that Im an idiot for adding some bright work, and I hear you, so let me spout off my justification. I like the look of bright work, and I dont mind the maintenance as long as its easy. The height of the wood cap and the fact

that there are no rails or fixtures to work around will make this an easy area to maintain. Scuffing this cap with some 300 grit and apply some varnish, will be fast and easy with NO BENDING OVER on captain Conalls part. Im liking this part, and if I was on face book, Id give her a thumbs up. Because the Portuguese bridge area is going to be a pretty social spot, I wanted the wood cap to make things more comfortable, and give all a comfy place to lean on and rest a beer. The wood cap feels and looks nice, and hopefully will eliminate bangs to any revelers funny bones.

I had to use the last of my wide boards to form the cap. I used the band saw and a belt sander to form the curves. I then used a 3/8" round over bit in my router to ease the edge of the cap. I ran out of wide boards so I ended up edge gluing some stock together to finish the job.

I used a combination of traditional scarf joints reinforced with biscuits, and floating tenons to reinforce all the joints. Just before where the wheel house meets the salon, the Portuguese bridge terminates with a sever angle down to the deck. This leaves about thirty inches between the Portuguese bridge and the wall of the salon. I treated this area of the cap by laying the cap over the top of the cap headed down to the deck. I could have used a miter joint in this area, but I was afraid the joint would open up, and I like the way the eased edge of the top cap feels and looks. This is also the area where the spring line will be secured, and also where the shore power cords will pass through. There will be a two bar stainless steel rail bolted to the down cap and welded to the salon in this area, but that cant happen until the salon is in place.

I bolted the cap down to the PB using 1/4" x 1 1/4" stainless screws and nylock nuts. I counter sunk and bunged the screw bore so no fasteners can be seen from the top of the cap. I had a few bad spots in the wood ( primarily a few dead branch knots) that I treated the same way I do all bad knots on my wood work. My preferred method of dealing with dead branch knots is to rout the bad wood away, and install a Dutchman patch. I use an inlay tool in my router to make these patches.

The Dutchman patch is a legitimate repair used for centurys, and give the work that "homegrown, folk art character that I like. The cap will get four coats of urethane, then I will caulk the underside joint where the wood meets the metal. Once the caulk is laid down, this job will be off of the list.

There is really not much left to do to the fore deck and Portuguese bridge until the boat gets TO THE LAUNCH SITE , so Im going to scratch this area off of the list I keep meaning to write. Im kind of glad Im finished working up here, as Im getting tired of ducking under the barn trusss . Ill vacuum and clean this area this week when I finish, and hang some tarps over it to keep the dust off and forget about it until shes out of the barn.

Pull and be Damned

The Pull and be Damned messabout in Anacortes was fantastic.

I am a member of several small boating clubs. The Coots, the TSCA, the Pocket Yachters. They all have a slightly different focus, ranging from inexpensive and experimental boats to honoring authentic traditional craft. From production trailerable cruisers to homebuilts. From power to sail.

But this weekend was my first opportunity to spend a weekend with the Old Anacortes Rowing and Sailing Society OARSS. The beauty of their boats and their seamanship skills left me awestruck. From deftly launching their craft by crane, to sailing in reverse to make a perfect mooring at a dock, camp cruising, clothesline anchoring, traveling anywhere and everywhere by sail and oar only. They even rescued a stranded aircraft once. With just a glance at the sea, they knew how the tides and currents would swirl around the myriad islands that day. I had nothing I could offer as I spent the weekend in humble admiration of their seamanship skills.

It was also a weekend of many other firsts for my son Tim and I. The first first (ugh) was Ellies launching by crane, deftly done by James McMullen (in the red vest) while I nervously tried to assist and learn anyway I could.

(btw, these are all hi-def videos. Click the [ ] in the lower right corner to make them fullscreen)

Relieved at not making a big splash, I headed over and tied up to Small Boat Dock, where the messabout was to be held. There was my second first (ugh). I had to rig Ellie on the water. It took about twice as long as usual, but was a success. Fortunately there was flat water and no wind.

One by one the remaining boats arrived. The messabout officially began at 10:00. Several boats were available for anyone to borrow. My third first was testing one of the Gentry skin on frame whitehalls. Here are some videos of the event:

The James led a group aboard Island Star, a 4-oared racing gig. A replica of the worlds fastest boat in 1824.

After the messabout, most of the group headed over to nearby Saddlebag Island for an overnighter. Ive never been to Saddlebag. Another first!

And yet another first. While there, I got to try out my new Kelly Kettle. The Kelly Kettle is a cookstove that uses sticks, twigs, and dried leaves for fuel. It will boil water and heat food at the same time, very quickly. It also fries and has a BBQ grill. I used it twice and love it already.

The next morning, the sail and oarsmen set out early for a circumnavigation of Guemes Island. Simeon Baldwin, with his SCAMP Noddy and I decided to spend the day sailing together instead.

And the end portion of this video is really pretty.

This also gave me an opportunity to fully test my tiller locking device. It works perfectly.

We spent many thoroughly enjoyable hours sailing side by side in the warm sunshine and gentle breeze. After a while we took a break and hiked over to my favorite bar and grill, The Rockfish, for lunch. The sail and oar group returned from their circumnavigation so it was time to head back to the crane. Once again, The James came to my rescue, expertly extracting Ellie safely from the water. Here is a video of Noddy taking flight.

There are some really nice photos of the event over on the Woodenboat Forum.
A fantastic weekend. Simply fantastic.

Sabtu, 19 Maret 2016

Update on Didi Sport 15 and Didi 950

I have recently added two new radius chine plywood designs to our range and wrote about them on this blog. Here are updates on both boats.

Yesterday I visited the prototype of the Didi Sport 15 (DS15) that is being built by Hunter Gall in Virginia Beach. I hadnt seen it in the flesh for a few weeks and wanted to see how the deck is looking as it comes together. Hunter is doing a really nice job of his project, working slowly but meticulously.

His boat, "Scallywag", is looking very pretty. He stained the hull surfaces blue and the deck surfaces red before doing the epoxy coatings and these colours will be highlighted by areas of clear-finished timber. It all entailed a tremendous amount of extra work to get it right than if he had painted it in the normal way. The final result is very attractive and she will be an eye-catcher when complete. Hunter can be pleased with the overall results.

The deck configuration that I designed is unusual, with a raised mast deck and wave-breaker above a flat foredeck and the open self-draining cockpit. It gives a decidedly retro image to the deck, over the thoroughly modern hull. It reminds me somewhat of the Lightweight Australian Sharpies that my Dad sailed in South Africa when I was a child. That makes it somehow fitting that Hunter Gall is Australian, I am South African and we have ended up working together on this project in USA.

Hunter Galls DS15 project nearing completion

Other news on the DS15 is that work will start in the next few weeks on moulds to build a composite version in Europe. I will release more information about it after I return from the Cape to Rio Race, by which time the builder may be ready to start receiving enquiries.

The other boat was the Didi 950, for which the prototype kit has been cut and will be delivered to the builder in the next week or two. It appears that this is going to be a popular design because we have sold plan packages for another three boats since announcing the design.

Didi 950, bigger sister to the DS15

One of those boats will result in a variation on the design, with a lifting keel. A lifting keel was part of the original concept for the builder of the prototype but he decided in the end on the simplicity of a fixed keel. The lifting keel proved to be a very viable option, using the same basic keel support arrangement as the fixed keel with no structural redesign. The major difference will be moving the motor aft to a position under the companionway, driving a saildrive rather than a shaft. This is to make room for the lifting keel to rise through the galley central locker unit.

The prototype of this design is to be built in Ohio, USA. The others that have been ordered will be built in Australia, Latvia and Greece. There is interest from other countries as well.

To see our full range of designs, please visit http://dixdesign.com/.

Handrails and winch battery box

Winter is not wanting to let go of our small Ohio river town, so no work has been finished on the roof of our boat. As I sit here and type these words, a forecast for 7"-11" of snow, high winds, and close to zero degree temperatures is playing from my radio giving us the promise of an interesting day tomorrow. The mid range forecast has temperatures staying in the teens and low 20s for the next ten days, so the snow were going to get tonight is going to stick around for a while. "In like a lion, out like a lamb" was how March was described to me while I was growing up.

So while continuing painting rooms in the house, Ive managed to get some boat work done in the shop with material Ive had stockpiled. The handrail fabrication was the first job I wanted to get finished, and for the most part, went pretty smooth.

The handrails are made of 3/4" schedule 20 stainless steel pipe. I want to paint the rails, and while cost could have been lowered with mild steel, using stainless pipe will be better in the long run in regard to maintenance. Because of cost, pipe was used vs tube, and because of weight, thin walled pipe was used. Wall thickness on schedule 20 is about .095 so MIG welding and stick welding is easily used.

The handrail will be 36" tall, with the stanchions being 24" on center. The stanchions centers could have probably been stretched to 36", but 24 is what I laid out when I was framing the roof, and the doubler pads are already welded in place.

Once I post about the handrail install, youll see what Im talking about regarding doubler pads. The stanchions were cut to length on the lathe using a parting blade, and a stop to make sure they are all the same length. To make fit up idiot proof, I coped each stanchion to fit the rail. Some people call it notching, I call it coping, but what ever you call it, I accomplished this by using my mill and an annular cutter. An annular cutter , or a rotary broach, as some call it is nothing more than the baddest assed hole saw youve ever seen. The 3/4" shaft of the cutter with flats milled in it, are really designed to be used in a mag drill with its specific chuck, but I was able to use a collett to hold the cutter in the mill. The pipe is beefy enough to be held in the mill vice, and the key to doing this coping is an extremely slow feed. Rigid holding of the part, a sharp tool, and a slow feed gave me top notch results.

Because the rail is going to be painted, I was able to MIG weld it. The mast boom is being secured right now by hooking it to one of the cleats use to lift the wheel house last year. I never got around to cutting off the cleats, and darn if theyve not come in handy for securing the kayaks, and in this case, also the boom.

It made sense to me to weld a couple of stanchions to the hand rail over a mounting stanchion to be able to rest the boom and snatch it down with the cable.

Because were using electric winches to control the load and the boom, a battery box had to be built for the battery. To help keep things out of the weather, I hinged a lid to the box. The box has a partition in it to hold the battery on one side, and on the other side house the motor solenoids, the motor fuses, and a positive and negative buss bar.

The motor fuses are 50 amp inline, and came without a cover of any sort. I really did not like having two hot posts unprotected, so I used an orifice shield for pipe to cover the posts of the fuses .

The battery Im using came out of my "slightly used, but still OK " inventory I keep in the back of the shop, and is a group 31. This battery is not going to get heavy use, but I still had to decide how to keep it charged. The choices were charger in the wheel house with heavy wires. Heavy wires from the house bank with no battery on the roof. AC wires to the roof, with charger in the roof top box. Solar panel to charge the battery. I chose a solar battery charger.

The solar battery charger is 1.5 watt, and its my understanding that with this low wattage, I wont need a charge regulator.

I dont know what type of panel this thing is, but in my shop with the panel just seeing shop lights, it puts out 12 volts. When I move the panel outside and its shady, it puts out 21 volts. When the panel sees sunlight, it puts out 23 volts. The panel came with a small diode light on it that blinked when it was charging, but that blinking caused the voltage to pulse erratically when no sun was shinning, so I took the panel apart and cut the wire lead to the diode light. With the light not blinking anymore, the voltage was steady. I might as well say now, that this panel cost $14.00 , and has nothing but great customer reviews. For the three days I had it connected to the group 31, it held the charge steady at 13.2 volts.

The whole electric winch thing might come back to bite me in the butt some day, so I should probably have a few manual blocks and tackles on board. But truth be told, for how low the winchs cost, I should probably have a spare winch on board. While the winchs are of low cost, they seem to be put together well, and appear to be weather tight. Once theyre wired and operational, Ill probably cover them with something water tight, and keep things up to snuff.

In two weeks, the boat yard opens for season hours. In ten weeks, the harbor opens for business , and well be in the water.

Theres no way Im going to have my off season boat "to do" list completed, but thats OK. D day for me to have the real list complete is late June, when the plan is to motor to Kentucky lake.

Cheers

Kamis, 17 Maret 2016

Those Troublesome Skegs Bolt Holes and Finish

Here we drill all sorts of holes in our newly made skegs and finish them.

You know, it really helps to have the right tools. And you know what helps having the right tools? Money. I dont got none of that, so I have to make do with the tools I have. And sometimes that is a ridiculous process.

Here I am trying to level my handheld power drill in a slightly broken garage sale drill press with a bit that isnt quite long enough to go through the piece.

I have to drill bolt holes in the skegs. Then I have to drill through the newly fiberglassed and sealed hull to insert the bolts through structural members in the frame.

First I drilled a countersink to hide the head of the carriage bolts, then a hole through the skeg.

I placed the skegs in position on the hull, and then used a long bit to drill through the skeg into the hull and into the structural member of the boat.

Then I went under the boat and countersunk all the receiving ends of the bolt holes.

Actually, Im lying. But thats probably how I would do it now if I did it again. I doubted the accuracy of drilling down into the hull from above, so I marked the desired hole locations under the boat and drilled up. Then I marked the locations of the actual holes on the skegs. Then I took the skegs into the barn and used my sketchy drill press to drill the bolt holes in the skegs.

After all this stressful drilling, I finished the skegs with stain and a couple of coats of UV blocking polyurethane.

Next we install the skegs in the hull. Not once, but twice. Ahem.

Pull and be Damned Messabout

Come to the second annual Pull and be Damned messabout in Anacortes on May 16th. We enjoyed this messabout a lot last year and am looking forward to attending again this year. There will be a potluck, boat sharing, and an optional overnight campout at nearby Saddlebag Island. For more details see the forum at Woodenboat.

Rabu, 16 Maret 2016

Come and go blues

"Come And Go Blues", a great song by the Allman Brothers, but also a fair summary of our canceled launch date. We had scheduled with the boat yard to drop us in the water on July 10, but life and boat building has again collided, so that date is going to get pushed back.

Shes able to be launched, but a situation with my 81 year old mother found Shannon, my sister, and myself pulling together to help mom, and less important things had to be shelved. Anyway, a launch is imminent, but it will be later in July, or early August.

Boat building is still moving forward. With the devil being in the details, Im at the stage where getting things completely finished is high on my list. Im putting to bed quite a bit of work hoping to not have to re-visit these projects again. Im actually to the point where I can start to think about hauling some left over construction material off of the boat.

I had to dig the welder out of the forward cabin and make some brackets for the throttle and transmission shift cables. The correct length cables arrive at the boat early in the week, and I finalized the installation late in the week. Listening to Terry at Washington Marine was a prudent move on my part and having him order the correct length cables was worth it. The shift motion is firm and easy on the touch, and Im happy with how well the throttle control is.

While I had the welder out, I made a bracket for mounting the air horns that will sit on the bill of the wheel house, and mounted the horns.

The junk air solenoid valve that came with the horns did not work, so the only way to test the horns was to use the blow gun.

The horns work well, and the 170 decibel rating makes your ear sting if youre standing in front of them. A new solenoid switch is on the way.

While I was welding on top of the wheel house, I welded in three couplings. One coupling for the air horns, one coupling for the VHF cable, and the last coupling for a search light.

All the anodes are bolted to the hull.

I decided to install a scoop strainer for the sea chest intake. I was afraid that without a scoop, there might be a tendency to suck the sea chest dry when were under way. Instead of fooling around with welding a bunch of studs to the hull for the scoop, I welded one 1/2" stud, and used a isolator bushing to electrically disconnect the scoop from the hull.

I also decided to add a small anode behind the scoop. With only one beefy stud pulling the scoop tight to the hull, a rubber gasket was also added to help tighten things up and keep the bronze off of the steel.

A big piece of the engine system is ventilation of the engine room. The engine room ventilation is done via a stack that exits up through the center of the boat and out the roof. The stack is 26" x 26", and is partitioned in the center crating two stacks with one for exhaust, and one for intake. Fans are going to have to be used as I dont think passive ventilation will work. Once the water tight engine room doors are closed, the room is now air tight with only the stack allowing air in or out. So, if I pull air in to the now pressurized engine room via a fan, the air now has no choice but to exit the engine room via the exhaust side of the stack, forcing out the hot engine room air. The key here, in my opinion is not letting the intake air to short circuit. For the short circuiting issue, I decided to create a shroud in the stack on the intake side, and mount the intake fan in a precisely cut hole in the shroud. The shroud was made using scrap aluminum left over from the scrap aluminum I used to sheath the engine room sole. The shroud is bolted in place so its easy to remove or expand, and I mounted the fan using threaded rivets, so that too is easy to replace. I purchased two 9" axial fans from Delta T for ER ventilation. The quality of the fan is about as good as one could find with the fan having been built for specifically this application. So yesterday afternoon, Im down in the 90 degree engine room ( remember summer has found us), building the shroud and installing the fan. Im looking at this fan, and doubts are filling my mind. " I should have gone with the 11" fan". " Theres now way this fan is going to do what I want it to do, its to damn small". With the fan installed, I decided to energize it even though I did not have proper wires run from the wheel house. Using the hot wire for the ER lights outside the ER door in the master cabin, I powered up the fan. Man, was I surprised how much air that thing puts out, and how relatively quiet it is. The fan is supposed to be rated at 750 CFM, and the old head in front of the fan test tells me its pushing out 754.

Because the temporary fan power wires are running from the master cabin through the ER water tight door, I could completely close the doors to the water tight position for fear of cutting the wires, so the door dogs were only about 1/4 engaged. The door was hitting the gasket, but not compressing it, and I could tell this by feeling how much air was short circuiting out the door... not a lot, but I could feel it. That all looks good, so lets go roof top and see whats happening at the stack funnel. Up on the roof, the first thing I noticed is that the fan seems louder up top. The second thing I noticed is how much air is pouring out the exhaust side of the stack. I could sort of feel air being pulled in on the stacks intake side, but its difficult to feel with ones hand. Using a garbage bag, I placed it in front of the intake Louver, and the baggie was immediately sucked into the grill. If I did not get insect screens with the Louver, the baggie for sure would have been sucked down in to the stack and into the fan. The last thing I wanted to check was the amperage draw which I found to be 9 amps. Most times, a few small things together can add up to a large thing as to how things perform. "The devils in the details" . While the shroud fits good, I decided to use some duct tape to seal up the edge of the shroud where it hits the ceiling.

As I said before, I bought two of these axial fans for the ER. The other fan Im going to install in the aft corner, pushing air towards the work bench. Because of the amperage draw, I have to decide if I want to use two circuits or one. Im inclined to use two circuits as I might be able to get by using only one fan. The intake fan is for sure going to be running 100% of the time the engine is running along with some time after the engine is stopped to help with cooling the engine room down. The pushing fan might not need run as much, and given that it will see less duty, it should last much longer. If this proves to be the case, the less run pushing fan will also double as a spare fan to be used to replace the intake fan for when it fails. The intake fan for sure has to run, so putting the fans on separate circuits gives me some redundancy.

The next step to finish ventilation project is to pull the wires and land them in the wheel house. While Im pulling wires, I might as well pull wires for the fresh water pump along with the bilge pump switchs. I have six spare DC conduits installed from the wheel house to the ER, so this one wire pull will fill one of the conduits.

I might as well add that theres a solid day of cleaning for two people once we pick a launch date.... shes a dirty mess.

Cheers

Design 1710 Cybele and the Swan 36

One-Off Cybele in Wood - Swan 36 Prototype
Built by Molich of Denmark

Design #1710 has to be the most utilized design in our collection. Numerous one-offs were built of wood as well as production models from various builders in fiberglass. The Gaia Class was built by the famous Italian builder Benello, building 19 boats to the design.

Additional boats were also built to this design with slight variations, such as the Sigma 36 Class (built by Cheoy Lee), Rumbuster and many more in both wood and fiberglass. In all I believe 60 boats were built to this design with slight variations, without counting the entire Swan 36 production run of 90 boats delivered.

Heres a fairly complete list of boats.

Regarding Swan, first a little background. The Swan 36 was the very first model for Nautor. Heres the story about the start of Nautor by the founder, Pekka Kostenkyla, in his own words.

How the Swans Were Born
by Pekka Koskenkyla
Founder of Nautors Swan

It all started as a hobby. I grew up on the coast (Helsinki) and I have always had or wanted to have boats. My first vessel was a canoe, which I built myself in the evenings after school at the age of 14. In fact next year I built five of them for sale. Then nothing much happened in my boat building career for ten years because of school and university, where I majored in economics.

After graduation I wanted to have my own boat, so I started to build a wooden sailing boat of 11-meters. I worked in the evenings and weekends in my father-in-laws shed in Pietarsaari, where I had a job selling paper sacs. It took about 2 years to finish the boat and when it was almost complete a dentist from Helsinki wanted to buy it. I gave him a, what I thought, was a high price and he agreed. So I thought that boat building looked like an easy way to make money doing what I liked. I decided to start a yard.

The first step was to find a name and get drawings. The fact that I happened to think of SWAN was lucky, because I believe that this name and the connotations it implies was important for the success of the company. The other decision, which also turned out to be right and even more crucial to our success, was to choose S&S as designers.

My first thought had been to use the drawings of the boat that I was building, especially as it was just the right size I was looking for. An important factor in the overall length of the boat that I wanted to build was that any boats over 11-meters in LOA were exempt from VAT tax. This was of course a government concession made for the commercial fishermen and nobody had thought of yachts, because pleasure craft in Finland at the time were so small. A few years later this loophole was plugged.

The first boat that I built was designed by a local amateur naval architect and full time teacher of mathematics, Eivind Still. He was naturally disappointed, when I decided not to use his drawings, but Still later became quite well-known in Scandinavia with the many boats that he later designed. At the time I was so ignorant about this business and sailboats in general, that I did not know any yacht designers - not even the most famous. Therefore I went to the local yacht club in Pietarsaari and asked, who was the best designer in the world. I was told that it was Sparkman & Stephens.

I found their address from an old yachting magazine and wrote to the company to tell them, that I needed drawings of a sailboat about 11-12 meters long. No reply! That really was not so surprising, because I did not even have letterheads, let alone a company. I waited some more and then telephoned to their office in New York. I got Rod Stephens on the phone and he told me that by coincidence he was coming to Finland in a couple of weeks to inspect a wooden sailboat being built at the time. He said we could meet. Later I got a message from his client in Finland that he could see me at 6 oclock in his hotel room in Helsinki. However I was not sure if that was in the morning or the evening and I could not reach Rod to verify, so I decided not to take a risk and went to his hotel at 6 AM. He was there waiting for me. He must have been impressed by my enthusiasm, because that was all I had to show for.

In any case, he gave me the drawings of a 36 feet sloop, which was to be marketed as the SWAN 36. Later he told me that they had been waiting for years for somebody to approach them to design a production boat in fiberglass, but I was in fact the first one to do so. A couple of years later a lot of builders were knocking on their door, but S&S were very loyal to us and did not give out competing designs. The drawings I received from Rod were of a boat already built in wood.

Later I have sometimes thought how was it possible that I got those drawings. Maybe Rod did not take me very seriously after all? When I came back to Pietarsaari I needed a suitable space in a hurry. Outside the town, far from the sea, there was an old brick building, which had been used to process hides (skins). It was empty and I was able to rent it at a very low rate. It needed some modifications like a much bigger door and heating etc., but we had a place to start. I appointed my first wifes uncle as a foreman and we started to hire people.

As I had already built one boat in the area I knew that there were many skillful joiners in the surrounding area of Pietarsaari. Many of them were part time farmers and eager to take a full time job, because their farms were so small that they could not sup-port them. In fact these people were busy only at harvest time during the summer. Many of these people had a small woodworking shop at home and they had been doing doors, window frames and furniture etc. to supplement their income.

These activities were, however, getting uneconomical, because more and more factories were producing these items on a mass production basis and thereby suppressing prices. The other category of workers I was able to hire were small individual boat builders. These were typically also small farmers or sometimes fishermen, who could not fish or farm during the winter because of ice and snow. Their boat building operation was family business, and most of them built wooden fishing boats, but there were some, notably the Branbacka family, who built pleasure boats to customers orders.

If we go back to the history of Pietarsaari and the surrounding counties we find that this area was once one of the main ship building areas in Scandinavia. This was the era of wooden sailing ships during the time when Finland was part of Sweden. These mostly commercial vessels were built in amazing numbers and with amazing speed. In the Pietarsaari Museum there is more information about all this. In fact a few years ago they even built one vessel to these old drawings on a voluntary basis.

I have gone into all the above in more detail, because it is important to understand that the quality of the workers and their skills in the counties around Pietarsaari is something very special. If I had not had access to these kinds of people we would have failed, especially considering my lack of experience in business in general and running a yard in particular. Fortunately there was no shortage of these highly skilled and motivated people in the area.

We were like a family and run the business as such. One could either say that we had perfect industrial relations or that none of us had ever even heard about such a thing. There was one episode that comes to mind, when I think about the loyalty of our workers at that time. My very first delivery of the SWAN 36 was about to happen. This was the only wooden SWAN ever built. It was built in mahogany. The reason was that I thought we would save money this way, because a fiberglass mold needs a wooden plug and rather than build a plug and then destroy it, we decided take the mold off a real boat that could be sold. All went well except that when the hull mold was being made it cracked the planking of the wooden hull, because when the fiberglass and resin mixture hardens, it becomes very warm, which again dries the wooden hull underneath. These small cracks were repaired, but on a varnished surface they could still be seen.

My customer, a businessman from Helsinki, demanded a discount of his boat because of this. My situation, however, was very simple. If I did not immediately get the foil price in order to pay back a bank loan I would go broke. The customer did not want to hear. He insisted. He even ordered a trucking company to come and take the boat away from the yard. When he and his men with the big truck and the crane came, my men decided to stop the operation by physically blocking entry into the yard. As I had more men and they seemed to be more eager for a fight, my customer decided to pay in full.

The first year we built four boats, the wooden one, which we used for a plug and three fiberglass SWAN 36s. I was able to sell all of them at a very early stage. The most important factor for this initial success was not so much my honest looking face or the fantastic workforce we had, because we had nothing to show. It was the name and reputation of Sparkman & Stephens. It is difficult to understand now how superior in reputation they were compared to other yacht designers. There was only one best choice then. The name and reputation of S&S was built on the winning boats of their design in all ocean racing from the Americas Cup, One Ton Cup, Admirals Cup, Cowes week etc. Most of the winners in these races were designed by S&S.

Then came Nautor from Finland, the first to produce S&S designed boats not only in series at a very reasonable price, but also in a new and stronger material than wood. On the top of that, the SWANs were lighter as well, and therefore had a better chance of winning races. Just to broaden the appeal to more potential buyers my sales argument was that because it was built of a lighter material we can afford to make the boat with a nice wooden interior and therefore appealing as a nice family cruising boat as well as a racing boat. This was the argument the racing minded sailor needed to convince his wife. The racing in those days was not as competitive, or rather, the boats were not as extreme racing machines as they are today, so it was in fact possible to win big time with a SWAN that looked like a family cruising boat with heavy teak interior.