The Shipyard ( Dry Dock ): Builds & Questions > Yachts and Sail
Building Annie 2
peterpan:
Hi Started Building Annie thread but immediately had photo problems. All sorted now (I hope) so starting again with Building Annie 2
I am building the Bearospace Schooner Annie which has brought me back to the forum for help after some years away and I noticed references to this boat in a number of posts so with lockdown and weather restricting the build a bit I thought I would post some of my progress.
First a disclaimer . Although for 50 + years I refurbished and sailed various boats (sail and power) from 7m to 36m, both as owner and delivery skipper, I am not an experienced model maker in the class of a lot of build posts on the forum. Since 2013 I have carried on my passion for boats by occasionally building models, mostly from plans in wood, with some reasonable results (with much help from MBM members) but my projects tend to be quit a long process in how to turn my actual experience into a reasonable build without the modelling experience.
The object of the post is not to show you how its done but to show some of the difficulties I am having along the way, how I am dealing with them and perhaps get some thoughts from the experts.
So why did I choose Annie.
Two years ago I discovered RC Yacht racing and got hooked racing a RG65 and rebuilding and racing an older IOM (another case of, “with my experience this will be a doddle”....not) and I now wanted to build a RC classic sailing yacht and Annie ticked all the boxes. Its a large scale, easier for older fingers. The hull is a simpler ply construction (I thought), no building half models to produce frames or hours/weeks of double planking . It has the potential to add detail on the basic build. There is a lot of information out there and great support from the designer Gary Webb. It fits in my car. All at a cost that I could afford to fail at should I not finish it for any hopefully I will actually get to sail it.
My main reservations were the draft and the all up weight, particularly with regard to launching and recovering the boat and the depth of sailing waters that are available reasonably close. I emailed Gary Webb and we discussed reducing the draft (more later)and this contact with him gave me confidence to give it a go,
I bought the plans for Annie in Aug 2019 and began the build in early Sept 2019. I am now about 30% of the way .
Pic 2 was taken in Nov 2020 alongside my one meter IOM but don’t be fooled by the apparent paint job. Its not good, I am still working on it, More latter.
peterpan:
My very first problem was ply thickness. The plans call for 2,5 mm which is widely available in large sheets in the states for lining doors. The design requires full length hull panels of at least 58 inch and the thinnest I could find locally to meet this was 4mm. My main concern was the increase in weigh and its effect on draft and balance. I exchanged emails with Gary Webb and we resolved these concerns so I bought the thicker ply and started Pic 2 but it did cause some build problems.
The hull panels are a gentle curve in one direction and were not to much of a problem to bend to shape,but the method of initial tacking them all in place was not strong enough to hold the thicker ply particularly at the panel joints and the frames twisted.
At this stage it is vital that the keel box and the two frames supporting it are absolutely central and parallel with the hull if the boat to sail straight and so I temporally screwed the keel box into the frames Pic 3 (sorry don’t have any pics of the boxes construction but it is an internally fibre glassed very strong box) and used this to set out and reinforce the rest of the frames and hull panels. Pic 4/5. I also used the deck panel and lots of measuring to help make sure the hull was straight and true. Pic 6.
peterpan:
The ply thickness also meant the panel joints had to be chamfered to give a strong joint. This was a long job getting panel edges to sit flush but was worth it making a very strong hull and avoiding lots of external filler. eventually I could remove the keel box and have a true and straight. Pic 7 and completed internal epoxy fillets Pic 8.
peterpan:
The inside of the hull and underside of deck then received 4 coats of penetrating epoxy sealer Pic 9 followed by 3 coats of waterproof paint Pic 10
mrzippy:
Hi peterpan,
I've thought about building one of Gary's designs many times over the years and will follow your build with interest,
he has a nice little setup and life style aboard his boat - I think his great videos go a long way to selling his products.
How did you get on with the plans? pdf printed out by a printshop or good old fashioned paper plans -
if the latter did you get clobbered for dreaded import taxes etc??
regards Paul
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