Portland i550 Fleet Build

Our New Online Home

2011-01-06T22:38:00.000-08:00

We've moved! We have a new home on the internet at i550pdx.com. The new space will have the same updates as this one, but will also allow us to add more features as our fleet grows.

Thanks for reading our blog, and we'll see you over there...

Getting there...

2011-01-03T19:41:00.000-08:00

The cockpit on the second hull has been bonded into place. Just like on the first hull, the cockpit was tacked together using the hull itself as a template with a sheet of plastic between the hull and cockpit pieces to prevent them from bonding together accidentally. The whole piece was then flipped over and permanently bonded into one solid piece. Plywood backing plates were also added in the appropriate areas. It was then flipped back over and bonded to the rest of the hull. Notice as well the cleats added along the top edge of the frames to provide a large area to bond the hull to.

It also soon going to be time to paint the inside of the hull with Zolatone. This time around we primed it first with regular latex exterior primer in order to try and prevent some bleed through issues we had on the first hull.

Another nice improvement our second hull has is the addition of drain holes to allow water that gets in the opening for the bow sprit to drain immediately out. We accomplished this by adding a piece of ply between the bow and frame 18 that's angled slightly downward astern to direct the water towards the drain holes. It's a little difficult to get a good idea what's going on from these pictures, so I will try to add a few more in the next update.

Finally, here are some pictures of our custom motor mount. If you're interested in buying a similar one, get in contact with us. We can help get these as well as other hardware for a lot cheaper than you would if you bought them from a specialty marine supply.

Rigged

2010-12-28T12:19:00.000-08:00

The first hull made it to the rigger's yesterday. Things are getting real...

Dos

2010-12-16T20:10:00.000-08:00

Progress on the second hull is well underway. A few things have changed this time around. We have already figured out most of the bugs and decided on how we want all details, so progress is much faster. Construction on this hull began in earnest on October 12, and the second hull is almost ready for paint on the inside and cockpit construction is well underway. When you take into account the three weeks that two of the guys in the fleet were sailing in Mexico on the Baja Ha Ha (lucky bastards), the progress so far has been particularly swift.

Baja Ha Ha - faces not shown to protect the not-so-innocent

If you are going to be in the Portland area January 12th to the 16th, you can stop by and see us at the Portland Boat Show! We will have one completed hull and one in-progress hull at the show, and there should someone from the fleet there most evenings to answer any questions. We hope to see you there!

So, getting on to the business of the second hull, I will try to focus primarily on things that have been done differently this time around. Much is the same (sanding never gets fun), but a number of things we are doing a little differently. First of all, we constructed a proper cradle to hold the hull. Previously we simply supported the hull in only 3 areas, and the cradle was about as study as an Irish bank. Unfortunately, the hull shape probably suffered a bit because of this, but this time around the cradle is built for the ages. There is a 1/2" plywood support at each frame position, and they are securely fastened to engineered wood I-beams used in home construction. The thing is a tank.

Once again, stitch-and-glue construction takes things from random bits of plywood to a boat-like object in a short period of time...

By mid-November the frames were getting installed...

Frame 89 got doubled-up to provide extra support for the mast...

Carbon was added to the bow to further stabilize the sprit hole (there's gotta be a nautical term for that thing)...

And there's a piece of hard plastic to support the sprit bearing and make it slide back and forth more easily for articulating.

We've also included holes in the side of the hull to help drain any water that gets in around the sprit hole, but I unfortunately do not have any good pictures. I'll try to include some in the next update.

We also had the foresight to pre-cut the access holes to the sealed bunks as well as limber holes for proper drainage.

As of a couple evenings ago, the cockpit was well underway and the inside had been painted with a first coat of sealing epoxy. With a little luck the inside will be painted next week and the deck and cockpit permanently attached.

Uno

2010-10-14T21:55:00.000-07:00

The first hull of the Portland i550 fleet is complete! ...mostly. The minor details of a keel foil and rudder still need to be attended to, but we are building molds for those. Still, the hull itself is basically ready to go. In the next few weeks it will be making its way up to the Seattle area to spend some quality time with a rigger, but for now it sits in my garage while work on hull number two gets going.

It's starting to get cold and rainy here in Portland, but I hope to be able to put up a few pics from out on the water in the near future. In the meantime, you'll have to make do with the final build pics. Enjoy!

Finishing up some final details...

A view of the articulating sprit rigging and setup...

This companionway cover is simplicity itself...

A few close-ups of the new shiny bits. These were made by a local outfit. They're not "marine", which means they cost about half as much as they would have otherwise!

And here are a few shots that look like the boat might be heading down to the boat ramp...

....and Presto! It's a boat!

2010-09-15T20:19:00.000-07:00

If you're a fan of cooking shows, this is going to feel familiar. The host cook shows you all the ingredients, starts putting them together, and then turns around and pulls a perfectly done roast out of the oven. Well, that's kinda what's happened here... except that it took 6 months.

The last time I updated this blog we were looking at a bunch of plywood in a boat-like configuration. Now, it's pretty much a boat. It still needs hardware, and there are a still some foil and other fiddly details to figure out, but it's pretty much there. In the not too distant future I may even have pictures of it out on the Columbia.

What happened in the past 6 months? Well, my compatriots put a metric shit ton of work into this thing. I helped some too, but between having a new baby at home and going through some seriously busy times at work, I've been a little (OK, a lot) lazy on the boats and blogging fronts.

So, with all due apologies to the rest of the Portland i550 crew, here are a bunch of pictures of what's been going on...

That's where things stood as of last week. We also have a carbon-fiber mast and a bunch of the hardware. I'll try to get some pictures of those as well as some more details on what we actually did in the coming weeks.

Oh yeah, and one more thing. One of the crew got a job offer he couldn't refuse. The only problem was is was in Texas, so we're now either down one guy or up one extra boat kit. If you have any interest in getting in our group build at a discount, let's talk!

Cabin-less Fever

2010-03-01T15:30:00.000-08:00

It's been one month since I've updated this blog, but I have an excuse. My wife and I have been busy with the newest member of the sailing crew...

This is baby Adeline, and she will be helping her father to sail his i550 some day. Can you see the look of concern in her eyes?

So, while I haven't been over at the boat shop much lately, my fellow builders have been, and they've been busy. Not only has there been a lot of building going on, but there's been a lot of "refining" and "re-engineering" as well. Hopefully it's all for the better... Here's what the boat looked like a few weeks ago:

So far, so good... You can even get a glimpse here of the plans we have for an articulating bowsprit. I imagine this is a first for the i550 class. We shall see how it goes, but if nothing else you can't claim we're not being ambitious. Speaking of ambitious....

We've had a cabin-ectomy! There was some back-and-forth in the group as to whether the cabin should stay or go, but in the end we figured the reason we are building these boats is to race them. If we wanted boats that offer generous accommodations, we wouldn't be building these boats. Note that this is not a flush-deck super-extended cockpit design like Chris Beckwith's (http://i550paninaro.blogspot.com/). There will still be a companionway, and it will still be possible for non-claustrophobics to go below.

You can also see above that the cockpit frames have indeed been trimmed back as promised to accommodate the widened cockpit. We've also placed in stringers along the hull sides, and we've added "floor-to-ceiling" stringers along the hull bottom. These are going to be part of a dry well in the center of the cockpit for sticking the outboard while racing as well as providing some flotation (at least when it's not being used for beer storage as well).

You can also see the cleats that we've added along the top edges of the frames. These were created by ripping some 1x1 stock along the diagonal. They were glued in using thickened epoxy and held temporarily in place with brads. These will provide a solid gluing surface for the cockpit sole, cockpit sides, and decking to adhere to and should prevent having to send anyone below to attempt filleting and taping joints in an space about the size of a coffin.

Finally, we also went through a back-and-forth discussion in the past few weeks about whether we wanted to go with a keel- or deck-stepped mast. Eventually we settled on a deck-step, and here's the solution we came up with:

The arc you see above is 6 thin pieces of old clear yellow cedar that have been laminated together. Dave has had them sitting in his garage for a couple of decades, and they have finally found a home in our project. It seems as stiff as a piece of steel, and it should be a great way of distributing the mast loads evenly.

The keel box has also been installed and plans for foils should start shaping up soon as well. I'll update on both of these aspects soon...

Let's get one thing straight....

2010-02-01T20:01:00.000-08:00

Actually, it seems like there are a lot of things we need to get straight on this boat.

Progress on the first hull continues.... Yesterday we put in a good afternoon filleting and taping almost all of the frames. At the end of the day there was some question as to whether things looked straight when looking from the stern towards the bow. However, the hull was covered with various clamps, blocks, and other junk, so it was hard to tell if it was those things that were wonky or the hull itself. Today I stopped by and grabbed a few pictures, and it looks pretty straight to me. It's almost like we know what we're doing...

If you're saying to yourself, "that companionway looks kinda small", you're not the only one. We've decided to go the route that Kevin went on Pipe Dream and trim back the cockpit sides up towards the companionway. Not only will it make it easier to hike out further forward in the cockpit, but we'll be able to put in a decently sized companionway so we won't need to hire boat gnomes to go down below for us.

Here are a few more shots. It's starting to look pretty good, I think.

All in all, the frames have been fitting in pretty well. We're finding that they're a little proud of the sheer, but not enough to make us worry too much. Considering the construction technique, this isn't too much of a surprise. A batten, a hand-held jigsaw, and power planer will do wonders to coerce them to do what we want them to do.

We're also learning what a true joy it is to work with large amounts of epoxy resin. The sole of the hull looks like we were visited by the Blair witch...

Here's a shot from the Blair Witch Project for comparison. Kinda scary...

Coming up next are stringers, bunks, and some interesting skunkworks-type projects at the bow. Details to follow soon...

It's a boat!

2010-01-26T09:26:00.000-08:00

We have our first boat. Granted it's a boat in only the most technical sense of the word in that it could float and keep the water out, but you couldn't do much more than drift down river. Still, a small milestone has been passed.

Last night we glassed and epoxied the chines and installed the sheer clamps with thickened epoxy. The sheer clamp was constructed of three 8' lengths of 2x2 lumber that we scarfed together. This very long piece was then cut along the diagonal on the table saw and trimmed to length to fit along the sheer. Near the bow the sheer clamp is at the correct angle to accept the deck, but as the hull flares out towards the stern it sticks up above what will be the deck, so it's going to have to be planed down to make it flush. We screwed it along the sheer with drywall screws to hold it in place while the epoxy dries. Here's a picture of it; unfortunately it's not too clear:

For those keeping score, I've updated the name of this blog to reflect the fact I'm documenting the Portland fleet build now rather than just my boat, but I'm not going to change the URL at this point so that people can still find us.

Also, if there are any other potential builders in the Pacific Northwest out there lurking around, get in touch! We can help out with materials, advice, and possibly shop space. We want to have as strong an i550 fleet in the PNW as possible, so we're happy to help out to get other people's builds on track.

Finally, my wife is expecting our first kid (due in 4 days!). At her baby shower they decorated baby clothes. There were a few things left over that didn't get decorated, so I decorated one too...

So, does anyone know how to actually build a boat?

2010-01-21T22:12:00.000-08:00

It's been a little while since I've updated this blog, but lots has been happening the past week and a half - and some of those things have even been productive! Actually, things are moving along quite nicely when you consider that the five of us are really trying to accomplish four different tasks: 1) get our shop space setup; 2) figure out how we're going to coordinate everyone's schedules; 3) get materials and tools together; and 4) build some boats.

Last week we put together a cradle. For the base of the cradle we recycled the bottom of the crate in which Tim packed our plywood kits. We traced out the bottom of frames 53.5, 124, and 169.5 onto OSB, cut them out, and then attached them in their respective places with some 2x4's.

At the time it seemed like it might be a good idea to include support on the cradle for the boat's side panels, but experience pretty quickly showed us that wasn't such a hot idea, so they got cut off. It's not the prettiest cradle out there, but it seems to work pretty well.

We also have started to accumulate stuff. Lots of stuff. This is fifty gallons of epoxy resin and 10 gallons of hardener:

And this is a 10 pound bag of colloidal silica:

Yeah, colloidal silica doesn't weigh very much.

This week we managed to put together what looks like a boat-shaped object. After some hemming and hawing and head-scratching, we managed to stitch together the hull bottom, side panels, stem, and transom. It's pretty impressive; a few days ago we didn't have anything but a pile of plywood and all of a sudden we have what might technically be a boat.

Once the fillets are in it becomes much harder to bend the panels with respect to each other, so we wanted to make sure the panels were roughly oriented to each other in their final configuration. To do this, we trial-fit a few of the frames, and we discovered, as others have, that to get the frame in correctly requires a little muscle.

You might also notice in the above picture that the frame has been pre-painted with epoxy. The idea was to get them wet-out with epoxy now so there's less crawling around later. The one problem has been that our shop is not heated, so the epoxy has been a little slow to cure, and it's a little unwieldy to wrestle with panels that are still tacky.

For our stitch-and-glue method, we're using little pieces of electrical conduit to ensure the panels line up nicely corner-to-corner. A lot of people out there have advocated for zip-ties instead of copper wire, but we're going with copper wire because you can get a lot more leverage on the copper wire and really force the panels to comply with our wishes. For the fillets we're using epoxy thickened to peanut butter consistency with colloidal silica.

We also got three 8' lengths of 2x2 lumber scarfed together to form the sheer clamp. Once the epoxy has setup we'll rip it along the diagonal and install it. I forgot to take pictures of this, but I'll include some next time.

So, things are moving along. This weekend we'll probably get started on installing some frames and taking care of other assorted details. Fortunately, we'll have supplies to keep us going...

In the beginning...

2010-01-11T11:53:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was day one of construction. Mostly we worked on clearing out the space, going through the parts, and generally figuring out how 5 guys who all have slightly different ideas on the best way to do things are going to build 5 boats together.

We even managed to do a little boat building - we glued the panels of the first boat together. For this we cut 4" wide strips of the scrap ply that Tim shipped along with the parts, butted the panels together and stuck on the strips with epoxy thickened with colloidal silica and a few tacks to hold them together tightly. We didn't bother with lightening holes, but we were clever enough to leave room along the deck edge for a sheer clamp and room along the chine edge so there won't be any interference when the panels are stitched together. The plan is to glass over the strips for extra strength, and so for this we put a 45º bevel along the edges of the strips to make a smooth transition.

Next comes a cradle and then the stitching fun begins...

Plywood.... and lots of it!

2010-01-08T18:05:00.000-08:00

Presenting the first 5 boats of the Portland i550 fleet!

Some assembly required. :)

After their long journey from Colorado, the plywood kits finally arrived today. They're not much to look at right now, but the plan is for things to start moving quickly now. We have two bays rented from Rivers West, so we will be building two in parallel. Hopefully the stars will align for us a little and we'll be able to get at least one out on the water for the summer.

Here's another shot of one of the bays. It's surrounded by plastic sheeting, which should (hopefully) allow us to keep it warm enough for epoxy.

There will be more pictures and more updates as things move along, but for now I'm excited and just wanted to share.

Thank you, Susan and Tim at Watershed Sailboats, for all your help!

In the thick of it....

2009-11-29T14:33:00.000-08:00

It's been a few months since I decided I was going to build one of these boats. Since that time my wife and I have moved into a new house, and I've been busy doing all the sorts of things that don't have much to do with boat building. I also was starting to question why I was going to bother; I didn't know of anyone else in the Portland area who was building, and I wasn't really sure this boat could fit into any of the other fleets in Portland. I didn't really want to be in a fleet of one. I was starting to consider just buying a J/24 and being satisfied with that. Well, things have all of a sudden changed dramatically...

A week ago I was contacted by Eric Rimkus, who is well known in the Portland sailing scene, with a proposal to join four other guys in building a fleet of at least 5 of these things. All of a sudden I've gone from being alone to being in the middle of what I believe is the largest group build there is. I met most of the guys last Wednesday at Rivers West, which is a boat building facility on the Columbia River that is open to the public. I'm planning on doing most of my building in my garage, but some of the others already have a space rented out and are considering renting another so there can be builds going on in parallel.

I also just happened to be travelling to Evanston for Thanksgiving shortly after this all came together, so I contacted Kevin and got to check out Pipe Dream on Saturday. Jeff from Madison was there as well to compare rigging notes with Kevin, so I got to see the boat almost fully rigged. It looks awesome and is almost completely ready to go except for the minor detail that his local launch ramp is closed for the winter - bugger! I did however get to ask a bunch of questions and finally get to see one of these things up close and personal. I now have a much clearer picture in my head of how the whole thing comes together.

So now I've got the inspiration, I've got a kit on the way, and I've got a local group of guys who are doing the same crazy thing as me. I'm ready to go...

By the way, if there is anyone else in the greater Portland area who is curious about building one of these things, get in touch!

Why the heck do I want to build a boat?

2009-06-09T08:33:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking casually about building a sailboat for a while now, but I never really had a good idea what I wanted to build or why I even wanted to do it. I don't have any experience building boats, and I also kind of worry about what building a boat will do to my ever-dwindling sanity. That's why my interest was piqued a few weeks ago while I was checking out Sailing Anarchy. I came across a post about the i550 sport sailboat, and it pretty quickly struck me that this would be a great boat to build.

The i550 is built using the "stitch-and-glue" method, which is fast and relatively easy for utter novices like me (at least, I hope it is!). The other big advantage is cost. Comparable 20-foot-something production sport sailboats are pretty much unobtainable for less than $20,000, and that's optimistic. The i550 can be cobbled together for less than $10,000 (or so they tell me!). Thus I can "justify" this undertaking to myself since I couldn't afford a boat like this otherwise. It can also move like crazy in a breeze.

So, I ordered the plans last week. I've been looking at marine plywood suppliers. I've been trying to figure out how to convince my wife this is a good idea. I was even trying to figure out a good name for the boat until it came to me as I was going to sleep last night: "Cheap Date". Looks like I'm probably in trouble here... I guess I need to build this thing.