(Old News, but definitely still worth reading)
5-10-09
Unfortunately, we didn't get to go to Cedar Key Florida this year for the Small boat gathering as Mindy injured her foot and we decided to take the time to recover at home instead. However, I am hoping to enter ENIGMA in the 100 mile Watertribe N.C. Challenge September 25-27, 2009. The race will begin and end from our old stomping grounds on Cedar Island, NC. The same rules basically apply for this event as for other watertribe challenges, and you can get more information if you are intersted here .
3-14-09
Today we spent several hours reorganizing the whole website to make it more friendly to Mobile devices and netbooks since these have become so popular. This basically boiled down to simplifying the main page, increasing the text size and adding some additional pages. I also removed some broken links and added some entries to the LINKS page.
By the way, congratulations to all those who participated in this year's Everglades Challenge! Matt Layden, the designer of LITTLE CRUISER , finished first in his class in a brand new home-build 12' kayak.
3-07-09
And they're off! The 2009 Everglades Challenge began early this morning, and you can see the competitors launching on Youtube. The designer and builder of our boats, Matt Layden is using a 12 foot kayak this year, and we're sure he will do well since he has paddled this event in the past.
As for interesting cruising news, we've been keeping an eye on Sven Yrvind's progress on his new 5 meter micro-cruiser. This design has many innovative ideas which will help the boat fight it's way around Cape Horn against the prevailing winds and currents in the future. Some of these ideas include chine runners, a canting mast, moveable lead ballast and a completely watertight ventilator. His website has many pictures and descriptions of this present project as well as other pages on his past trips.
In addition, we've reading about the adventures of MISS CINDY, a 16 foot microcat that was towed from Vancouver to Mexico in October 2008, and has been sailing South ever since. At the moment Tony is in Nicaragua; and from there he intends to sail on to Panama, where he will transit over to the Carribean. You can read about his incredible trip here.
2-21-09
Here are some pictures of the ballast bag in place, the portable power pack stowed and the foldable solar panel charging.
2-18-09
Here is a picture of the 12 lb ballast bag described in our earlier post. Each naugahyde fabric bag will be tied securely down to eyelets and blocks to keep them from shifting when the boat is heeled over or even knocked down. We're still thinking that a maximum of 16 bags should be sufficient, which amounts to 192 lbs. However, we will add more ballast if needed once we get the little boat back on our city lake for more testing.
These two photographs show our current power system for Enigma and Swamp Thing. The idea here was to have an inexpensive and portable power pack that we could transfer from one boat to the next. Since our electrical needs are modest, all that was required was a 7.5 amp/hr 12 volt AGM/SLA acid battery charged by one or two 5 watt foldable solar panels putting out 300 ma/hr each. We believe we should have sufficient electricity to power our LED masthead light; charge our cell phone; power our GPS; and energize our Ipods. Incidentally, the battery was purchased locally from Batteries Plus for $33 and the ICP solar panel cost $35 each on Ebay. We found the charge controller in our junk box along with two unused marine 12 volt recepticals. The controller was an old Bobier M-2 that we originally had aboard Little Cruiser in the 1990's, but we replaced it awhile ago with a SSC3 kit one. You can find something similar to the Bobier one at Defender for $27 or even do without the controller, using a blocking diode instead and making sure to disconnect the panel when the battery voltage reaches a fully charged state of 14.1-14.3 volts. Finally, the enclosure we employed was an old 1.7 liter Rubbermaid container, but a nice Pelican box would be superior if you happen to have one laying around.
1-30-09
Happy New Year! Well it's been very cold here as of late so no boat related activities have been going on. However, we do hope to begin getting some of our gear together for our next trip down to Cedar Key in May. Last time things were very tight aboard Enigma for 2 people so we intend to make some minor changes to the boat to give us a little more space. One of these adjustments is to use lead as our primary ballast. Last time we used sand bags, and the bags took up a lot of precious interior space. This time we intend to use the 1 pound ingots that we bought off of Ebay. These are going to be placed in much smaller bags for a total weight of 12 pounds each. We will most likely need between 14 -16 bags in all, and each one will be secured to the bottom of the boat.
We also intend to make one large custom foam pad to sleep on instead of using two individual thermarest pads. We discovered last time that there wasn't enough beam to fit both of them at once without overlapping them in the middle, which created an uncomfortable ridge. The final change will be the addition of cloth side pockets to store lightweight gear and navigational items like our gps and our vhf radio. In 2008 we packed our gear primarily in dry bags, and we had trouble accessing our stuff quickly since we located our equipment in the bow and the stern compartments to free up the cabin. Well, that's about it for now. Stay warm!
10-04-08
OMG, more fairing.
Over the last few days we've done plenty of sanding along with more fairing with microballons. Swamp Thing is beginning to look a lot better.
9-29-08
Yep, you guessed it! Today we did more fairing. Now it's fill/sand/fill/sand until everything looks good. By the way, we'd like to point out Thomas' great blog site about Macro/microcruising.
9--28-08
All of the glass work.
We've completed all of the glass work on Swamp Thing. The other day we added 6 oz glass to the top of the chine runners, and then today we covered the skeg in a layer of 10 oz glass which was finished with a layer of 6 oz glass to smooth things out. Now it's back to fairing and then priming the whole boat.
9-24-08
Time to sand
Today we began sanding the hull and fairing all the low spots with microballons and epoxy. One thing worth noting are the "improved" chine runners. Per the designers suggestions that are now larger than before. In fact they are about 1/4" wider and 1/8" thicker which makes them about 25% wider than the original ones. Hopefully, this will improve the boats windward performance.
9-21-08
Finally!
Well, we finally finished all the major glass work on Swamp Thing while the weather was warm enough to get a couple of coats of epoxy and filler on in one day. Now we have the fun task on sanding everything fair and adding a little more fairing compound to prepare her for priming and painting.
9-18-08
On Track
Progress on Swamp Thing is once more moving along well, and we are getting closer to finishing the glass work. All that remains is the bottom now, which we hope to tackle tomorrow. Earlier, we put 4 oz fiberglass set in West System Epoxy on the deck and then 6 oz fiberglass on the sides. The bottom with receive 2 layers of 10 oz fiberglass.
9-02-08
Moving forward.
As could be expected, several other projects came up in the last two months so not a great deal was done on Swamp Thing. However, we are now finally approaching the home stretch and glassing the hull will soon begin. When I look back on this restoration, it's hard to understand why it has taken so long; but after lookin at some of our old photos on the project, I guess it's understandable. It's seems that much of the boat was badly damaged and many components both large and small had to be repaired or replaced. The biggest thing was the bottom along with all the supporting floor timbers. Then there was the rotted deck which was clearly seperating from the sides. All my clamps were required to hold it back together while the glued set up. Most of the wooden fittings were damaged, and they needed to be duplicated. One of the blades on the custom oars was missing and was repaired, while the mast required minor work along with complete fiberglassing to make it weather tight. All of this turned out to be more time consuming then expected. I think half of our time was spent just stripping off years of paint, removing stubborn fasteners and tearing out rotted wood. I'm not sure we would ever do it again, but now that we are so close to getting the little boat ship shape, it's nice to know that this unique craft will be sailing again.
Getting things just right!
6-07-08
Happy Birthday Mindy!
6-06-08
We've been ordering 50-60 lbs of lead at a time on Ebay to use as ballast. Oddly enough, the shipping is very reasonable despite the heavy weight because the metal is sent in a flat rate box. I wonder how long it will take for the Post Office to set a weight limit or for our poor mailman to just refuse delivery.
6-05-08
Back to Work!
It's time to get back to work on Swamp Thing! This project has been dragging on way too long, so we rolled the little boat into the boat shed so that we could finish her up. Next on the "to do list" is to install the chine runners and the skeg. Then, it will be just a matter of covering the whole exterior of the sharpie in fiberglass cloth set in West System epoxy. When the weather cools down (it's now 92 F), we'll paint the boat in Interlux Brightside polyurethane and go for a sail!
6-01-08
For those of you who are interested in more information about Enigma, below are some of her particulars.
LOA 11'-10"
Beam 3'-4"
Draft 6"/1'-10" (rudder down)
Sail area 58 sq ft
Payload 500 lbs
----------------
Hull weight 160 lbs including dodger, hatches and rudder (weighted blade adds 7.75 lbs)
----------------
5-23-08
Here is our updated page to our most current food inventory list. By the way, the page is a work in progress, so we'll be adding things to it as time goes on. Since we got back from Cedar Key with the new boat, we've had a few requests for inside photos of ENIGMA. Therefore, we added two below. Also, here is the newly completed portable electrical system using the original solar panel from the boat.
(Click for larger picture)
5-17-08
We've rewritten the page on Matt's boats here to reflect his newer designs and to further elaborate on their place in his line of micro-cruisers.
5-11-08
Mindy and I had a great time at this years WCTSS Cedar Key gathering! We arrived three days before the event to meet the other early arrivals, and then we stayed a few more days afterwards to do a little cruising aboard our new boat ENIGMA, another Matt Layden design that made it's debut in the 2006 Ultimate Florida Challege. Along with a few others, we were a little worried that the high fuel costs might deter many people from trailering their boats to the event, but our fears were unwarranted as there was a record number of watercraft at this years get together. The weather turned out perfectly, and everyone had a super time. Even our talk about micro-cruising seemed to be well received at the Saturday night cookout. The only problem I had was that my legs got sunburned while I was busy looking at all the wonderful boats and talking to all the fine folks. Next year I'm definitely going to wear long pants. More of our pictures from the event can be seen here. You can also view many more photos from the 2008 gathering at the WCTSS photo page.
(Click to enlarge)
4-15-08
Good news!
We had such a great time last year at the WCTSS boat gathering in Cedar Key last year that we will definitely be returning on May 3-4. For those of you who have never been before, this is an opportunity to meet other like-minded people and to enjoy the beautiful gulf. Motel accomadations are probably pretty scarce at this late of date, but why not just sleep aboard your boat like we are doing. In addition, we will be giving a little talk after the Saturday night cookout about our cruises to the Bahamas. We think that this will be a great opportunity to answer questions for those of you who are contemplating a trip to the islands or just want to know more about cruising aboard small trailerable boats. See you there!
2-22-08
Over the years we've gotten quite a few inquiries regarding the micro folding dinghy. One of the frequently repeated questions was where to find #4 Duck cloth for the hinges. Originally, we sourced our fabric locally from a tent/awning manufacturer, but they no longer carry this heavy weight material. Luckily, a sailmaking friend of ours pointed us to an online supplier at FabricsandVinyl. The only problem is that you will need to get 3 yards of the material to make a continuous hinge, which is much more than is necessary for one dinghy. In fact, for $30 (including shipping) you will have enough cloth to make 9 boats! Therefore, it may be more economical for a few people to buy the material together, and then to divide it so that they can make a few boats apiece.
1-01-08
Happy New Year! Well it was a busy Fall for us, and we did a bunch of work on Swamp Thing . We finally got around to adding the bottom to the little boat and we completed most of the interior work. However, it became too cold to do any more glassing on the exterior so we'll have to wait until Spring to finally finish her up.
As for Little Cruiser, we refinished the floor boards, made some new cushions and started work on our latest sail. Of course this time we built a proper loft floor in the greenhouse to facilitate the sail's construction.
9-13-07
Mindy and I just got back from a trip to New York where we attended her cousin's wedding. The affair was beautiful and everyone looked fantastic in their elegant clothes. A few candid photos of us and her family can be seen here. Afterwards, we got to take a short "cruise" on the Staten Island Ferry into Manhattan. We visited South Street Seaport, which I hadn't been to in years, and we hopped aboard the subway to go shopping uptown. We ended our excursion of the "Big Apple" with a wonderful authentic chinese dinner on Canal Street.
9-5-07
Today we updated the Famous Small Boat page to include more information about Wayne Dickinson's God's Tear and Webb Chiles' Chidiock Tichborne I & II. More importantly, there are two new websites about these adventurers. Webb Chiles even posted some of his books and other publications in pdf file form for free at his site. To learn more about Wayne Dickinson and to see lots of nice pictures of his sailboat go here.
Lastly, we thought it might be a nice idea to actually trace the path of each of our voyages aboard Little Cruiser on maps produced using Google Earth. These are presented in our Trips Page. Just click on "Route" to see them.
9-2-07
We hope everyone is having a nice Labor Day Weekend Holiday (in the U.S that is). We got started on some more boat related projects the other day. To begin, pillow cases were made because the old ones were well.... passed it. Obviously we couldn't just go out and buy some nice fresh ones from Walmart since the pillows along with all the cushions aboard Little Cruiser are custom sized to fit our tiny boat. However, the new ones ended up costing nothing but our time because we had the fabric on hand. Mindy seemed especially pleased with the color, a dark deep purple. I think when our fabric samples arrive in the next few days from Outdoor Wilderness Fabrics , she'll probably match the pillow cases to some purple fleece material from which we'll make a new mini blanket.
At the same time, I began work on making a backup solar controller. Presently we use a Cirkits SCC3 20 Amp controller. This has worked well for the last few years; nonetheless, we thought that should it ever fail in the field, it would be simpler to replace it with an identical unit rather than experiment with something new. The SCC3 was ordered online, and we received it after only a few days wait. As might be expected from a quality kit, everything was there and I was able to begin soldering right away. One thing I noticed was that the design had changed slightly with the addition of two resistors and the removal of one diode; however, the printed circuit board was the same size, which meant that it would fit in the small wooden housing under the floorboards. Assembly took a few hours, and the controller worked flawlessly when tested the next day with a 10 watt solar panel and an old SLA battery. I have to say that the thing I like best about this unit is that you can control the float voltage by adjusting a small potentiometer. This is especially important with SLA (GEL) batteries since they don't like to be constantly overcharged. Ours is set to 13.8 volts by the way. In addition, there is a single bi-colored LED that tells you everything that is going on. RED means that the solar panel is producting electricty and the battery is charging. When it starts flashing RED-GREEN, you are getting close to the float voltage. Solid GREEN means fully charged. No light means no juice is coming from the solar panel. Finally, there is a switch to equalize the cells, which basically means that it will over-ride your float voltage by +1.5 volts until it is turned off. This is done periodically to insure that all the cells are charged equally.
Testing, new controller, and old one aboard Little Cruiser.
8-26-07
Not much has happened since our enjoyable cruise in May to Cedar Key. Swamp Thing has remained untouched sadly and Mindy and I have been busy with work and various other projects. However, now that summer is almost over, we are beginning to think about what to do for a nice winter cruise. Therefore, the other day we pulled the protective tarp off Little Cruiser to check out her condition and to give her a nice wash down. Afterwards, we slid the hatch open and climbed aboard to remove some forgotten items from our previous trip. Of course we weren't terribly surprised to discover a half dozen cans of food still remaining deep in the bilge. This boat seems to just swallow stuff up! Then there were the charts for the west coast of Florida, which we probably wouldn't be needing this winter. In the overhead nets we noticed a few articles of clothing and some other odd and ends. Unfortunately a quick look at our LED battery meter showed us that our gel cell would not last another trip since it was no longer holding a charge despite being fed a steady supply of current from a remote solar panel. Thus, we made a mental note to buy a new one soon, and we removed the old battery. By the the next day, the hull had fully dried, and we examined the bottom of the boat along with the the rudder blade and the centerboard for damage. We noted a few scrapes caused by hitting those darn oyster bars in Cedar Key, and we went ahead and filled the scars up with a thick putty made from epoxy mixed with milled glass and microballons. Overall, though, the little boat didn't look too bad. We'll probably give the floorboards a fresh coat of varnish in the Fall, and we'll definitely need to make a new sail and a nice Sunbrella sail cover to protect our handy work from the strong tropical sun.
5-12-07
Well, we're back from the annual West Coast Trailer Sailing Squadron (WCTSS) meet at Cedar Key, and all I can say is WOW! I've never seen so many amazing small boats in one place, EVER! There were beautiful sailing canoes, both high-tech and traditional; small production and home-built trimarans; sleek and swift proas; nine sharpies including our own; beamy wood cat boats; a fleet of Sea Pearls; several plywood cruising catamarans; an EC 22 and a Core Sound 17; a Montegomery 17 towing a Bolger Cartopper; two Drascombe Coasters and a Drascombe Scaffie; a large traditional fishing dory; a ton of production and owner built-kayaks; a Kruger solo canoe; lots of dinghies and row boats; a Skiff America 20 and an incredible assortment of day sailers like the beautiful Melonseed. I'm sure I've left out many boats, but we simply were overwhelmed by the mob of sea craft that covered the beach entirely at Atsena Otie Key. We just couldn't take it all in! Moreover, we got to meet lots of the sailors we've been corresponding with over the years, and we had the privilege to speak with quite a few well-known people like Sven Yrvind, Meade Gougeon, Graham Byrnes and Hugh Horton. To top things off there was the incredible barbecue cookout Saturday night and the entertaining guest speakers (Sven, Graham and Noel Davis/Furledsails.com) afterwards. If you want to see some really great pictures posted by the founder of the WCTSS, Ron Hoddinott, you can check them out here. There are also some really nice shots of the event at Sealpearlboats . Lastly, I asked Matt Layden in person for an official answer on whether he intends on making the 12' Enigma and Enigma 460 plans available, and the answer is "yes." However, it may be a while since he is quite busy with several other projects at the moment.
4-26-07
Well, it's official! Mindy and I will be taking LITTLE CRUISER to Cedar Key for the West Coast Trailer Sailing Squadron annual get together on May 5th and 6th. This year's event is one not to be missed as both Matt Layden and Sven Yrvind/Lundin plan to attend. We will be arriving a few days early to do some relaxing cruising, and then we'll get to meet all the other sailors on the weekend . Since LITTLE CRUISER will not be carring her usual 3 months worth of stores, we'll have plenty of room to bring along our new micro-folding bike. See you all there!
Mindy riding, and the bike stored in the stern.
Unfortunately, we didn't get to go to Cedar Key Florida this year for the Small boat gathering as Mindy injured her foot and we decided to take the time to recover at home instead. However, I am hoping to enter ENIGMA in the 100 mile Watertribe N.C. Challenge September 25-27, 2009. The race will begin and end from our old stomping grounds on Cedar Island, NC. The same rules basically apply for this event as for other watertribe challenges, and you can get more information if you are intersted here .
3-14-09
Today we spent several hours reorganizing the whole website to make it more friendly to Mobile devices and netbooks since these have become so popular. This basically boiled down to simplifying the main page, increasing the text size and adding some additional pages. I also removed some broken links and added some entries to the LINKS page.
By the way, congratulations to all those who participated in this year's Everglades Challenge! Matt Layden, the designer of LITTLE CRUISER , finished first in his class in a brand new home-build 12' kayak.
3-07-09
And they're off! The 2009 Everglades Challenge began early this morning, and you can see the competitors launching on Youtube. The designer and builder of our boats, Matt Layden is using a 12 foot kayak this year, and we're sure he will do well since he has paddled this event in the past.
As for interesting cruising news, we've been keeping an eye on Sven Yrvind's progress on his new 5 meter micro-cruiser. This design has many innovative ideas which will help the boat fight it's way around Cape Horn against the prevailing winds and currents in the future. Some of these ideas include chine runners, a canting mast, moveable lead ballast and a completely watertight ventilator. His website has many pictures and descriptions of this present project as well as other pages on his past trips.
In addition, we've reading about the adventures of MISS CINDY, a 16 foot microcat that was towed from Vancouver to Mexico in October 2008, and has been sailing South ever since. At the moment Tony is in Nicaragua; and from there he intends to sail on to Panama, where he will transit over to the Carribean. You can read about his incredible trip here.
2-21-09
Here are some pictures of the ballast bag in place, the portable power pack stowed and the foldable solar panel charging.
2-18-09
Here is a picture of the 12 lb ballast bag described in our earlier post. Each naugahyde fabric bag will be tied securely down to eyelets and blocks to keep them from shifting when the boat is heeled over or even knocked down. We're still thinking that a maximum of 16 bags should be sufficient, which amounts to 192 lbs. However, we will add more ballast if needed once we get the little boat back on our city lake for more testing.
These two photographs show our current power system for Enigma and Swamp Thing. The idea here was to have an inexpensive and portable power pack that we could transfer from one boat to the next. Since our electrical needs are modest, all that was required was a 7.5 amp/hr 12 volt AGM/SLA acid battery charged by one or two 5 watt foldable solar panels putting out 300 ma/hr each. We believe we should have sufficient electricity to power our LED masthead light; charge our cell phone; power our GPS; and energize our Ipods. Incidentally, the battery was purchased locally from Batteries Plus for $33 and the ICP solar panel cost $35 each on Ebay. We found the charge controller in our junk box along with two unused marine 12 volt recepticals. The controller was an old Bobier M-2 that we originally had aboard Little Cruiser in the 1990's, but we replaced it awhile ago with a SSC3 kit one. You can find something similar to the Bobier one at Defender for $27 or even do without the controller, using a blocking diode instead and making sure to disconnect the panel when the battery voltage reaches a fully charged state of 14.1-14.3 volts. Finally, the enclosure we employed was an old 1.7 liter Rubbermaid container, but a nice Pelican box would be superior if you happen to have one laying around.
1-30-09
Happy New Year! Well it's been very cold here as of late so no boat related activities have been going on. However, we do hope to begin getting some of our gear together for our next trip down to Cedar Key in May. Last time things were very tight aboard Enigma for 2 people so we intend to make some minor changes to the boat to give us a little more space. One of these adjustments is to use lead as our primary ballast. Last time we used sand bags, and the bags took up a lot of precious interior space. This time we intend to use the 1 pound ingots that we bought off of Ebay. These are going to be placed in much smaller bags for a total weight of 12 pounds each. We will most likely need between 14 -16 bags in all, and each one will be secured to the bottom of the boat.
We also intend to make one large custom foam pad to sleep on instead of using two individual thermarest pads. We discovered last time that there wasn't enough beam to fit both of them at once without overlapping them in the middle, which created an uncomfortable ridge. The final change will be the addition of cloth side pockets to store lightweight gear and navigational items like our gps and our vhf radio. In 2008 we packed our gear primarily in dry bags, and we had trouble accessing our stuff quickly since we located our equipment in the bow and the stern compartments to free up the cabin. Well, that's about it for now. Stay warm!
10-04-08
OMG, more fairing.
Over the last few days we've done plenty of sanding along with more fairing with microballons. Swamp Thing is beginning to look a lot better.
9-29-08
Yep, you guessed it! Today we did more fairing. Now it's fill/sand/fill/sand until everything looks good. By the way, we'd like to point out Thomas' great blog site about Macro/microcruising.
9--28-08
All of the glass work.
We've completed all of the glass work on Swamp Thing. The other day we added 6 oz glass to the top of the chine runners, and then today we covered the skeg in a layer of 10 oz glass which was finished with a layer of 6 oz glass to smooth things out. Now it's back to fairing and then priming the whole boat.
9-24-08
Time to sand
Today we began sanding the hull and fairing all the low spots with microballons and epoxy. One thing worth noting are the "improved" chine runners. Per the designers suggestions that are now larger than before. In fact they are about 1/4" wider and 1/8" thicker which makes them about 25% wider than the original ones. Hopefully, this will improve the boats windward performance.
9-21-08
Finally!
Well, we finally finished all the major glass work on Swamp Thing while the weather was warm enough to get a couple of coats of epoxy and filler on in one day. Now we have the fun task on sanding everything fair and adding a little more fairing compound to prepare her for priming and painting.
9-18-08
On Track
Progress on Swamp Thing is once more moving along well, and we are getting closer to finishing the glass work. All that remains is the bottom now, which we hope to tackle tomorrow. Earlier, we put 4 oz fiberglass set in West System Epoxy on the deck and then 6 oz fiberglass on the sides. The bottom with receive 2 layers of 10 oz fiberglass.
9-02-08
Moving forward.
As could be expected, several other projects came up in the last two months so not a great deal was done on Swamp Thing. However, we are now finally approaching the home stretch and glassing the hull will soon begin. When I look back on this restoration, it's hard to understand why it has taken so long; but after lookin at some of our old photos on the project, I guess it's understandable. It's seems that much of the boat was badly damaged and many components both large and small had to be repaired or replaced. The biggest thing was the bottom along with all the supporting floor timbers. Then there was the rotted deck which was clearly seperating from the sides. All my clamps were required to hold it back together while the glued set up. Most of the wooden fittings were damaged, and they needed to be duplicated. One of the blades on the custom oars was missing and was repaired, while the mast required minor work along with complete fiberglassing to make it weather tight. All of this turned out to be more time consuming then expected. I think half of our time was spent just stripping off years of paint, removing stubborn fasteners and tearing out rotted wood. I'm not sure we would ever do it again, but now that we are so close to getting the little boat ship shape, it's nice to know that this unique craft will be sailing again.
Getting things just right!
6-07-08
Happy Birthday Mindy! 6-06-08
We've been ordering 50-60 lbs of lead at a time on Ebay to use as ballast. Oddly enough, the shipping is very reasonable despite the heavy weight because the metal is sent in a flat rate box. I wonder how long it will take for the Post Office to set a weight limit or for our poor mailman to just refuse delivery.
6-05-08
Back to Work!
It's time to get back to work on Swamp Thing! This project has been dragging on way too long, so we rolled the little boat into the boat shed so that we could finish her up. Next on the "to do list" is to install the chine runners and the skeg. Then, it will be just a matter of covering the whole exterior of the sharpie in fiberglass cloth set in West System epoxy. When the weather cools down (it's now 92 F), we'll paint the boat in Interlux Brightside polyurethane and go for a sail!
6-01-08
For those of you who are interested in more information about Enigma, below are some of her particulars.
LOA 11'-10"
Beam 3'-4"
Draft 6"/1'-10" (rudder down)
Sail area 58 sq ft
Payload 500 lbs
----------------
Hull weight 160 lbs including dodger, hatches and rudder (weighted blade adds 7.75 lbs)
----------------
5-23-08
Here is our updated page to our most current food inventory list. By the way, the page is a work in progress, so we'll be adding things to it as time goes on. Since we got back from Cedar Key with the new boat, we've had a few requests for inside photos of ENIGMA. Therefore, we added two below. Also, here is the newly completed portable electrical system using the original solar panel from the boat.
(Click for larger picture)
5-17-08
We've rewritten the page on Matt's boats here to reflect his newer designs and to further elaborate on their place in his line of micro-cruisers.
5-11-08
Mindy and I had a great time at this years WCTSS Cedar Key gathering! We arrived three days before the event to meet the other early arrivals, and then we stayed a few more days afterwards to do a little cruising aboard our new boat ENIGMA, another Matt Layden design that made it's debut in the 2006 Ultimate Florida Challege. Along with a few others, we were a little worried that the high fuel costs might deter many people from trailering their boats to the event, but our fears were unwarranted as there was a record number of watercraft at this years get together. The weather turned out perfectly, and everyone had a super time. Even our talk about micro-cruising seemed to be well received at the Saturday night cookout. The only problem I had was that my legs got sunburned while I was busy looking at all the wonderful boats and talking to all the fine folks. Next year I'm definitely going to wear long pants. More of our pictures from the event can be seen here. You can also view many more photos from the 2008 gathering at the WCTSS photo page.
(Click to enlarge)
4-15-08
Good news!
We had such a great time last year at the WCTSS boat gathering in Cedar Key last year that we will definitely be returning on May 3-4. For those of you who have never been before, this is an opportunity to meet other like-minded people and to enjoy the beautiful gulf. Motel accomadations are probably pretty scarce at this late of date, but why not just sleep aboard your boat like we are doing. In addition, we will be giving a little talk after the Saturday night cookout about our cruises to the Bahamas. We think that this will be a great opportunity to answer questions for those of you who are contemplating a trip to the islands or just want to know more about cruising aboard small trailerable boats. See you there!
2-22-08
Over the years we've gotten quite a few inquiries regarding the micro folding dinghy. One of the frequently repeated questions was where to find #4 Duck cloth for the hinges. Originally, we sourced our fabric locally from a tent/awning manufacturer, but they no longer carry this heavy weight material. Luckily, a sailmaking friend of ours pointed us to an online supplier at FabricsandVinyl. The only problem is that you will need to get 3 yards of the material to make a continuous hinge, which is much more than is necessary for one dinghy. In fact, for $30 (including shipping) you will have enough cloth to make 9 boats! Therefore, it may be more economical for a few people to buy the material together, and then to divide it so that they can make a few boats apiece.
1-01-08
Happy New Year! Well it was a busy Fall for us, and we did a bunch of work on Swamp Thing . We finally got around to adding the bottom to the little boat and we completed most of the interior work. However, it became too cold to do any more glassing on the exterior so we'll have to wait until Spring to finally finish her up.
As for Little Cruiser, we refinished the floor boards, made some new cushions and started work on our latest sail. Of course this time we built a proper loft floor in the greenhouse to facilitate the sail's construction.
9-13-07
Mindy and I just got back from a trip to New York where we attended her cousin's wedding. The affair was beautiful and everyone looked fantastic in their elegant clothes. A few candid photos of us and her family can be seen here. Afterwards, we got to take a short "cruise" on the Staten Island Ferry into Manhattan. We visited South Street Seaport, which I hadn't been to in years, and we hopped aboard the subway to go shopping uptown. We ended our excursion of the "Big Apple" with a wonderful authentic chinese dinner on Canal Street.
9-5-07
Today we updated the Famous Small Boat page to include more information about Wayne Dickinson's God's Tear and Webb Chiles' Chidiock Tichborne I & II. More importantly, there are two new websites about these adventurers. Webb Chiles even posted some of his books and other publications in pdf file form for free at his site. To learn more about Wayne Dickinson and to see lots of nice pictures of his sailboat go here.
Lastly, we thought it might be a nice idea to actually trace the path of each of our voyages aboard Little Cruiser on maps produced using Google Earth. These are presented in our Trips Page. Just click on "Route" to see them.
9-2-07
We hope everyone is having a nice Labor Day Weekend Holiday (in the U.S that is). We got started on some more boat related projects the other day. To begin, pillow cases were made because the old ones were well.... passed it. Obviously we couldn't just go out and buy some nice fresh ones from Walmart since the pillows along with all the cushions aboard Little Cruiser are custom sized to fit our tiny boat. However, the new ones ended up costing nothing but our time because we had the fabric on hand. Mindy seemed especially pleased with the color, a dark deep purple. I think when our fabric samples arrive in the next few days from Outdoor Wilderness Fabrics , she'll probably match the pillow cases to some purple fleece material from which we'll make a new mini blanket.
At the same time, I began work on making a backup solar controller. Presently we use a Cirkits SCC3 20 Amp controller. This has worked well for the last few years; nonetheless, we thought that should it ever fail in the field, it would be simpler to replace it with an identical unit rather than experiment with something new. The SCC3 was ordered online, and we received it after only a few days wait. As might be expected from a quality kit, everything was there and I was able to begin soldering right away. One thing I noticed was that the design had changed slightly with the addition of two resistors and the removal of one diode; however, the printed circuit board was the same size, which meant that it would fit in the small wooden housing under the floorboards. Assembly took a few hours, and the controller worked flawlessly when tested the next day with a 10 watt solar panel and an old SLA battery. I have to say that the thing I like best about this unit is that you can control the float voltage by adjusting a small potentiometer. This is especially important with SLA (GEL) batteries since they don't like to be constantly overcharged. Ours is set to 13.8 volts by the way. In addition, there is a single bi-colored LED that tells you everything that is going on. RED means that the solar panel is producting electricty and the battery is charging. When it starts flashing RED-GREEN, you are getting close to the float voltage. Solid GREEN means fully charged. No light means no juice is coming from the solar panel. Finally, there is a switch to equalize the cells, which basically means that it will over-ride your float voltage by +1.5 volts until it is turned off. This is done periodically to insure that all the cells are charged equally.
Testing, new controller, and old one aboard Little Cruiser.
8-26-07
Not much has happened since our enjoyable cruise in May to Cedar Key. Swamp Thing has remained untouched sadly and Mindy and I have been busy with work and various other projects. However, now that summer is almost over, we are beginning to think about what to do for a nice winter cruise. Therefore, the other day we pulled the protective tarp off Little Cruiser to check out her condition and to give her a nice wash down. Afterwards, we slid the hatch open and climbed aboard to remove some forgotten items from our previous trip. Of course we weren't terribly surprised to discover a half dozen cans of food still remaining deep in the bilge. This boat seems to just swallow stuff up! Then there were the charts for the west coast of Florida, which we probably wouldn't be needing this winter. In the overhead nets we noticed a few articles of clothing and some other odd and ends. Unfortunately a quick look at our LED battery meter showed us that our gel cell would not last another trip since it was no longer holding a charge despite being fed a steady supply of current from a remote solar panel. Thus, we made a mental note to buy a new one soon, and we removed the old battery. By the the next day, the hull had fully dried, and we examined the bottom of the boat along with the the rudder blade and the centerboard for damage. We noted a few scrapes caused by hitting those darn oyster bars in Cedar Key, and we went ahead and filled the scars up with a thick putty made from epoxy mixed with milled glass and microballons. Overall, though, the little boat didn't look too bad. We'll probably give the floorboards a fresh coat of varnish in the Fall, and we'll definitely need to make a new sail and a nice Sunbrella sail cover to protect our handy work from the strong tropical sun.
Mindy working on the next "Trip List"
5-12-07
Well, we're back from the annual West Coast Trailer Sailing Squadron (WCTSS) meet at Cedar Key, and all I can say is WOW! I've never seen so many amazing small boats in one place, EVER! There were beautiful sailing canoes, both high-tech and traditional; small production and home-built trimarans; sleek and swift proas; nine sharpies including our own; beamy wood cat boats; a fleet of Sea Pearls; several plywood cruising catamarans; an EC 22 and a Core Sound 17; a Montegomery 17 towing a Bolger Cartopper; two Drascombe Coasters and a Drascombe Scaffie; a large traditional fishing dory; a ton of production and owner built-kayaks; a Kruger solo canoe; lots of dinghies and row boats; a Skiff America 20 and an incredible assortment of day sailers like the beautiful Melonseed. I'm sure I've left out many boats, but we simply were overwhelmed by the mob of sea craft that covered the beach entirely at Atsena Otie Key. We just couldn't take it all in! Moreover, we got to meet lots of the sailors we've been corresponding with over the years, and we had the privilege to speak with quite a few well-known people like Sven Yrvind, Meade Gougeon, Graham Byrnes and Hugh Horton. To top things off there was the incredible barbecue cookout Saturday night and the entertaining guest speakers (Sven, Graham and Noel Davis/Furledsails.com) afterwards. If you want to see some really great pictures posted by the founder of the WCTSS, Ron Hoddinott, you can check them out here. There are also some really nice shots of the event at Sealpearlboats . Lastly, I asked Matt Layden in person for an official answer on whether he intends on making the 12' Enigma and Enigma 460 plans available, and the answer is "yes." However, it may be a while since he is quite busy with several other projects at the moment.
4-26-07
Well, it's official! Mindy and I will be taking LITTLE CRUISER to Cedar Key for the West Coast Trailer Sailing Squadron annual get together on May 5th and 6th. This year's event is one not to be missed as both Matt Layden and Sven Yrvind/Lundin plan to attend. We will be arriving a few days early to do some relaxing cruising, and then we'll get to meet all the other sailors on the weekend . Since LITTLE CRUISER will not be carring her usual 3 months worth of stores, we'll have plenty of room to bring along our new micro-folding bike. See you all there!
Mindy riding, and the bike stored in the stern.
3-15-07
Now that the weather has gotten warmer in North Carolina, I've been heading out to our local lake at least once a week to get some fresh air and to be on the water. During the hour it takes me to paddle the 4 miles in my kayak, I usually listen to the weekly Furledsails.com podcast on my Ipod Shuffle. I've found this little mp3 player to be perfect for my needs since it is very small and relatively inexpensive. Interestingly, both the ear phone and the player fit into 35mm film canisters which are quite waterproof. I usually pack the two in my life vest pocket, where they stay dry until I'm ready to begin listening.
3-09-07
Matt Layden does it again-! He is first in his group (class 4 solo) at
the 2007 Everglades Challenge. This year he used an 8' pram which
really put the competition to shame! So how does he do it year after
year? Well, he simply sails his boat to it's maximum potential hour by
long hour and day after long day. Eventhough he doesn't get much sleep during
this 300 mile race, he still is always relaxed and comfortable in his
easily driven micro-cruiser. Little energy is wasted keeping his
diminuative craft moving, and he knows how to cheat the current and how
to work every windshift to it's utmost advantage. Bravo Matt!
Matt Layden does it again-! He is first in his group (class 4 solo) at
the 2007 Everglades Challenge. This year he used an 8' pram which
really put the competition to shame! So how does he do it year after
year? Well, he simply sails his boat to it's maximum potential hour by
long hour and day after long day. Eventhough he doesn't get much sleep during
this 300 mile race, he still is always relaxed and comfortable in his
easily driven micro-cruiser. Little energy is wasted keeping his
diminuative craft moving, and he knows how to cheat the current and how
to work every windshift to it's utmost advantage. Bravo Matt!
One
of our friends who is a full time liveaboard recently told us: " You
know there are two types of sailing people- sailors and nailers."
Recently, I think we've become the later. It seems
that during the past few years we've done a lot more nailing than
sailing. Refinishing