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Glassing the cradle

Did most of the work to get the cradle built. I started out by building patterns for the cedar supports. I rough cut these by using the template patterns for the stations. Once the cardboard was on the cradle, I adjusted them by creating a "cut here" line. To do this, I taped a pen to a spacer (a scrap piece of strip). Then I ran both along the cradle, long edge of the strip against the cradle, and drew a line along the cardboard pattern. This gave me a better cut line, especially along the flat part of the cradle. I then cut the cardboard along the line along the flat part, and slightly towards the cradle edge on the vertical part. Once all that was done, I either removed more cardboard from the tight spots with a rasp, or added some back with more cardboard.

All I could find at the local lumberyard was 5/4 x 4", so I had to cut out pieces to fit the patterns. The stern support is supposed to be just over 45" wide, and I had the supports come up to about 1" from the edges of the cradle. I cut a bunch of pieces and then glued them up to form the supports. Use the cardboard templates to trace out the pattern onto the wood, and cut to shape. The forward support required some rasping to get it to fit well, mostly because the contact edge needs an angle on it to fit against the wood. The aft support fits pretty easily right after cutting.

I traced out the cut pattern on the cradle itself, using my red epoxy mixing cups to get rounded edges at the corners. Then I trimmed the cradle to size. I went through about 5 blades doing this - the glass dulls everything it touches. The best cutting blade was the metal blade - the entire cradle can be cut with about three of them.

Next, rough up the outer surface, bond the front and rear supports in place with a 1/2" fillet (drag a washer along the fillet to get the exact radius), and cover the fillet with two layers of 2" glass tape.

At this point, I had to ensure both supports were level. I ensured the hull was level, and then checked level on the bottom edge of the support. The front one needed an adjustment, so I cut off a wedge along the top edge. After these two pieces are in place, I added in the centre rail to provide a little more support and torsional resistance.

Next up is to glass the entire thing again with another two layers. I ran out of glass - I only had enough for another full layer, and then one layer on the leading and trailing edge of the cradle. I started with 10 yards 10 oz e-glass, and I could have used another yard or two. Here's the first layer, which took 5 10-squirt cups, and two hours to do - mostly because of all the weird angles and trying to get a decent (no air gaps) connection. Followed by the second layer with the remaining scraps of glass I have.

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Swift Sailing Do's & Don'ts

Bram posted a quick do's and don'ts list of things to do when sailing a Swift (since the howto manual isn't done yet).

Short course How To Manual

Let me start with some don'ts:

1. Don't let anyone sail your boat without knee pads and shin guards and a life jacket (most areas a wet suit is also a must)
2. Don't leave your rig under tension overnight
3. Don't leave your boat out in the sunlight for long periods when not in use (cover it)
4. Don't leave your inspection ports or drain plug in when the boat is not being sailed
5. Don't let you breather hole become plugged
6. Don't let anyone sail your boat without first giving them a stern warning about not standing astride the tiller to raise the kite (they will fall on their ass and break your tiller or transom bar).
7. Don't leave your sails in the sunlight when not in use
8. Don't believe that sailing downwind is easier without the kite.
9. Don't sail straight downwind. Instead, broad reach and jibe-much like tacking to weather
10. Don't fall inboard during capsizes if you can avoid it. Instead, bail early and go over the outside so that you don't get pitched into you new sails (you damage either your sails or you mast track).

Some Do's:

1. Do work your way up the wind range, starting in light wind (6 knots or so).
2. Do capsize and right the boat intentionally a few times to get practice and to check for leaks
3. Do hoist the kite on starboard tack. Drop your right knee on the starboard wing and place the tiller extension behind your right knee. Steer a course that keeps the boat level while in this position (usually lower than a beam reach but always higher than a run) by rocking on your knee/ass to whichever side the tiller needs to move. With a little practice you will find that you can steer the boat very well with no hands. Drop the kite on port tack using the same but opposite technique.
4. Do Set your primary shrouds at 20 to 25 on the new Loos gauge and your caps at 7 to 10. To start with, set your lowers so they are just snug after you set your primaries but before you pull on the caps.
5. Do steer aggressively through jibes-keep your speed up so the load on the mainsail is minimal.

Miscellaneous stuff

So it turns out that VMG Skiffs is going to stop production of the Swift - the number of orders they expected to get just never materialised. I talked to Pat there, and he was sad to stop, but it just wasn't profitable. Apparently he had had other 505 and I-14 sailors through the shop, and they were saying that the Swifts he was rolling out were $40,000 boats easily - but it's hard to convince people that $40k for a 14' boat is worth the cost.

Before they shut down, I asked him to build me a couple pieces - a vang arm assembly (which would have been a bear to do myself), the mast step, the mainsheet cleat platform, and a sheet of peel ply. These were the bits and pieces that would have been the most difficult to fabricate at home, so I'm happy to get them.

Pat also indicated that a lot of people can't justify spending $14k on a (homebuilt) boat when it's a singlehander - at least if your wife can go out with you, she is somewhat invested in the funding of the boat. The Swift is also hard to build, especially for first-timers. To address both these problems, Pat liked the NS-14 skiffs - he pointed me at the Delta V, by Northwest Marine Design, from whom I had already bought plans for the K-12. Perhaps that will be another boat later on...

Another interesting idea I saw while on vacation... Someone up at Green Acres had a Mistral WindGlider (watch out, flash heavy). This was an inflatable base with a small sail, and rudder and centerboard. It looked small, not really comfortable to sail, and would require a lot of wind to get going. On the other hand, it packs up into a (relatively) smallish bag, so you can take it with you - pretty useful.

Finally, I found a good glossary of boat building terms.