Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length.

[Greggy1964]

Waaaaaaaaay back in 1992

I decided to design myself a shallow draught boat specifically for exploring the rivers and creeks around the UK coast.

I came across George Holmes through the Classic Boat  Magazine http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~fassitt/canoe_mirror/cassy.html

He sailed his boats all over Europe and this fired my imagination.

The results were the lines of an 16.75ft canoe with Jib, Gaff Mainsail and a Bermudan mizzen. Steering is via a tiller swinging around the base of the mizzen mast with a yoke system to arms at the head of the rudder.

She is designed for lapstrake 9mm plywood, 10 planks port and starboard with watertight bulkheads forward of the mainmast and aft of the mizzen mast.

The mainmast is stepped on deck and supported by wire shrouds and forestay and the mizzen mast fits in a boxed socket below decks down to the keel just aft of the cockpit coaming and is unsupported.

Lateral control is via lifting aluminium dagger board and similar lifting rudder blade.

Floors are shallow to allow her to take ground comfortably when camping but lead to fine ends to allow her to slip through calm waters with ease.

The 2" to the foot scale model is 32 1/2" long with a beam of 9 3/4" with a draught of 1 1/4".  Her sails are hand sewn by moi and all her rigging is functional.

I used to sail her with with a home made sail winch made from an old acombs servo.

The electric guts were removed and the main drive shaft in the gear box was replaced by a long m6 bolt that ends at a bearing in the base of the servo, an m6 nut traveller takes up the space where the electronics used to be and traverses the bolt actuating simple reed limit switches at the top an bottom of travel cutting power to the servo/winch motor to prevent over winding.

The long bolt is fixed through the centre of the final drive gear and is turned by it. Winch drums are bolted to the top of the long bolt at the top of the servo where the servo arm used to be.

This winch lives under the main thwart, it has drums of various sizes for main sheet, mizzen sheet and foresail depending on the rate of inhaul and outhaul.

This system is great for small yachts and kiddies sailboats and I'll put up a how-to when I get around to it.

The rest of the 2 ch radio gear lives in a very un scale like sandwich box at the rear of the cockpit.

She is ballasted under the floors with lead bedded in builders mastic.

Suitably reefed to the wind conditions she sails very well, I have some video footage of her sailing and when I work out how to convert it from VHS to DVD I'll stick up on youtube or something.

For now you'll have to settle for photos, but my young kittens decided to move in on the photo shoot and made themselves quite at home.

Enjoy!

[Greggy1964]

Here are some photos of the model

[Brooks]

Nice canoe! And you get my vote for "cute kittens + sailing craft" award of the year Jaguars like to swim, any plans to teach your kittens to emulate (and then go for a sail)?

Did you stuff styrofoam or other material under the decks to guard against swamping?

[tigertiger]

Hi Greg

Did you build the 1:1 version?
I am interested in craft of this size as I will be moving to a big lake in about 18months or so.

[Greggy1964]

Thanks for the comments guys

Brooks, The kittens were an impromptu thing, they came to see what all the fuss was about while I was taking photos and then moved in. The little black and white one you can just see in the stern, she curled up and stayed all day!

Ha! kittens can swim, they just don't like to!

There are two water tight bulkheads in the boat, one from the front of the cockpit to the bow and another the same in the stern.

She does swamp occasionally while sailing but there is enough reserve buoyancy for her to stay afloat while she sails to the side of the lake for a bailout - even with a 6" concrete boulder aboard I found for ballast!

Tigertiger, The grand plan was to build the real thing but alas life got in the way! One day maybe. I'm not a professional boat designer, I just knew what I wanted, did some basic calculations for sail balance etc drew up the lines plan and the built the model to see if it would work. 

She is designed for the frameless epoxy glued clinker or lapstrake method of hull construction  You could build a lighter version out of 6mm plywood I suppose. I do still have the lines plan though.

The thing does sail quite well, and on a broad reach can show her stern to some of these fancy model yachts about these days much to my amusement. She just digs in her shoulder and goes off like a scalded, well, cat!

It would be interesting to get hold of some of the sail material of these modern model yachts use and make a decent suit of sails. The sails on the boat were sewn from the material used for ladies underskirts!

[Greggy1964]

Here are some stills from my old 1998 video converted to DVD

Excuse the quality, I'll get the dvd on youtube when I work out how to use dvd editing software!

[Greggy1964]

More pics

[Damien]

Well done it looks like a lot of fun to sail.  
Damien.

[Greggy1964]

When the video was taken there was control on the rudder only, I had to bring her to the bank to reset the sails for different points of sailing.

Then I dreamed up my ex servo sail winch.

I worked out the amount of sheet that was required to be hauled in on each sail so they came together to the centre line of the boat at the same time, coupled with a bowsie on each sheet for adjustment of sails individually.

Then I made a stepped drum of different diameter sub drums for each of the three sail sheets, which sits on the final drive gear of the servo creating a tiny but strong winch.

The winch lives under the thwart amidships and clamped to it, and the three sail sheets are led to the winch via bullseyes on deck.

The throttle servo is converted to a simple switch to give forward and reverse (in haul and out haul) to the winch with a central off position so that the winch stops when the desired sail setting is reached.

Limit switches at maximum in haul and out haul cut power to the winch so that only travel back away from maximum is allowed preventing winch over run.

And thats it! A very simple 2 channel set up that cost nothing to build because everything was pulled out of the scrap box.

[Greggy1964]

It's taken me nearly two days to sort out a video clip and work out how to put the video up on youtube but at last we have it.

Here's a 3 minute clip for your pleasure, it's a bit out of focus in points because the camera was on auto focus as I was trying to sail the model and take video footage at the same time.

She really goes don't she?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfiAmpvd-GA

Enjoy

[Greggy1964]

I found the original sketch plan that this boat grew from, though you might like to see it

[rmaddock]

That's really nice Greggy1964    I see you have access to a nice boating pond.  I have access to Lake Coniston but worry that I might loose my boat.

I think your canoe needs an Action Man (or such like) on board.  Beautiful as is though.

[Greggy1964]

Thanks Rmaddock,

Coniston Water! what a beautiful backdrop for sailing models I build flotation into all my boats so unless I sail on the sea they're gonna turn up on the bank somewhere

Spa boating lake used to be the local water for model boats here, the sailing canoe was built in 1992, I was a member of Bridlington Model Boat Society back then.

At that time club members had raised enough funds through hosting a model engineer exhibition at the Spa to buy a long lease on a plot of land at the back of Carnaby Industrial Estate near Brid. In 1992 it was just a big mud hole!

Now we have a purpose built model boat lake with all the mod cons to cater for power, scale and sail and the lake is the envy of the east coast  check out their website

I haven't sailed the old girl in years but you're right she does need someone sailing her just to add that little realism

[dreadnought72]

Love it, Greggy1964. She looks really sweet.

However ... why 10 laps of 9mm ply? Sure, it looks good, gives you a great section. But I'm thinking of the gorgeousness of Oughtred's Caledonian Yawl, which works well with just four laps:



(though I know the plans now allow for seven) which would vastly shorten the build time. Meanwhile 6mm ply would be cheaper and curve more easily, and if fibreglassed outside, would not be noticeably weaker than 9mm.

Not nitpicking your choices - just curious why you made them!

Andy

[Greggy1964]

Hi dreadnought72

Thanks for your comments, most welcome and I'd be happy to discuss my design decisions.

I'm a big fan of Ian Oughtred's designs, I've been follwing his work in Classic Boats Magazine for years I love the Caledonian Yawl, it's just beautiful.

I agree I could have used less planks and saved myself a lot of work, and in fact using Delftship I can redesign with any number of planks within reason.

My original thinking was that I wanted a boat with firm bilges to give a stiff sailing boat.

I had originally planned to build a full size version and I'm a lazy sailor preferring to sit on the bottom boards with the tiller under my armpit rather than toes stuck under straps with my butt hanging over the side in the breeze to balance the boat!

So narrower planks would get me round those tighter bilges, plus from an aesthetic point of view the laps on a 10 plank hull pick out the lines of her shapely form better to my mind.

Also the many glues laps between planks makes for a very strong stiff hull (built in stringers) obviating the need for frames when using the epoxy glued lapstrake method which gives a lighter boat with a clean interior than those designs requiring the need for frames.

With less planks I think you're restricted to hollow lines and steep floors like that of the Caledonian Yawl if you want to avoid the 50p bit look.

My sailing canoe design would work well with 6mm ply planks I agree, 9mm is heavier but I don't have to bother with messing about with a glass outer cloth and a coat of epoxy, I could get away with just epoxy coating inside and out.

I would have to fillet the lap joints to get glass cloth to lie to the hull, it don't much like going round sharp corners and I would loose the planked hull look to some extent.

Plus I intended her as an occasional sleep aboard family cruiser with a wider beam so a heavier boat should give more stability with no disadvantage as she's not intended as a racer.

At the end of the day she's what I would like as my personal creek crawler cruiser in the fashion of a canoe design, lots of smaller sails to play with and a shapely hull.

I'll build the the full size version . . . . one day! *sigh!*

[rmaddock]

Thanks Rmaddock,

Coniston Water! what a beautiful backdrop for sailing models I build flotation into all my boats so unless I sail on the sea they're gonna turn up on the bank somewhere

Yes, very beautiful indeed, it would seem a shame to fall back on Barrow-in-Furness' corporation park boating pond instead.  I'm thinking that expanding foam (as used by builders) in the hull spaces might be a good idea.....it'd add some extra strength to the canoe body too.

Spa boating lake used to be the local water for model boats here, the sailing canoe was built in 1992, I was a member of Bridlington Model Boat Society back then.

At that time club members had raised enough funds through hosting a model engineer exhibition at the Spa to buy a long lease on a plot of land at the back of Carnaby Industrial Estate near Brid. In 1992 it was just a big mud hole!

Now we have a purpose built model boat lake with all the mod cons to cater for power, scale and sail and the lake is the envy of the east coast  check out their website

Sounds like a nice setup.  There is, or was, a model boating club on the banks of Windermere in the grounds of the steam boat museum.  I'm not sure if it's still going as the museum is closed but their pond always seemed rather small anyway for a big yacht.

I haven't sailed the old girl in years but you're right she does need someone sailing her just to add that little realism

Yep, a captain would certainly finish it off nicely.