Skinning the Sea Tour 17 EXP

Finally posting again... it has been a while!  I have made some more progress in getting the "skin" installed.  Instead if seal skins (I couldn't find any locally...) I am using 18oz Vinyl Coated Polyester tarp material.  This fabric is REALLY tough!  First, it gets rolled out over the upside down hull.  It is cut to overlap the gunwales by a few inches all around, then small slits are cut every few inches around the perimeter.  Starting in the middle of the boat, the skin is laced tightly around the hull.

You can see in this picture how tough this fabric is.  The lacing is under a lot of tension, however the slits in the fabric do not tear; even cutting them with a razor knife was pretty hard!

One thing that can't be avoided with a skin of this type is wrinkles in the hull between the chines and the gunwales.  I knew that this would happen, and I tried my best to keep them to a minimum.  In the end, I decided to cut a couple of "darts" into the hull sides.  There are two per side, and they reduce the amount of wrinkles in the hull.

My first attempt at closing the bow was a mess, lots of wrinkles and loose fabric.  I cut off the first few inches of fabric and made a new bow section.  The second attempt was much better.  Last night, I finally finished the last dart and got the stern closed up.  I flipped the boat over and will do the deck skin next.

Progress on the folder

Over the past few days, I have almost completed the frame.  The stem took longer than expected because I ended up trying a couple of different methods.  My first attempt used a section of HDPE cut to fit the inside curve of the stem and screwed on.  I ended up abandoning this because the HDPE didn't fit well and didn't feel very secure when installed.  I decided to give the bent aluminum brackets a try.  These ended up being pretty easily manufactured using thin aluminum bar bent around a mandrel with my bench vice.  These were riveted in place, and the stringers were attached with nuts and bolts.

 

The stem / gunwale / deck stringer attachment was a little trickier, and I thought long and hard about how best to accomplish it.  I ended up making a slightly different version of the bracket where it was molded into a "U" shape.  The deck stringer went on the inside of the "U" and the gunwales are on either side.  See the pic below:

I am hoping that I will be able to leave the smaller diameter inserts bolted on permanently to the stem and stern, but I'm not sure I will be able to get the tubes assembled without unbolting at least one side.  We'll see...


After I got everything assembled, I took the frame off of the temporary supports and could not resist trying it on for size.  Feels great so far!

New Boat!

Yes, I have started building another boat!  I am building a Tom Yost designed Sea Tour 17 EXP kayak.  I am building it as a folder, using HDPE frames, aluminum stringers, and PVC skin.

I have found this to be an extremely fast build so far.  I drilled out the stringer connection points with the drill press at work (way easier than a hand drill).  I then cut out the frames with a jigsaw.  The stringers are made of three 6 ft sections of aluminum tubing connected with smaller diameter inserts.  Eventually, I was add some shock cord to hold the sections together, kind of like big tent poles.  Two frame sections were attached to the strongback and the stringers were "clipped" onto the frames.

 

Next, the middle four sections were clipped in.

Stem and stern are next.

Post EC2011 - Day 6

We woke Thursday morning in a with mixed feelings.  We were glad to have had a nice, comfortable nights sleep and were looking forward to seeing the kids; on the other hand, we were still disappointed by our DNF.  Our first order of business was to get back to our boat and wait for my dad to pick us up.  We had about a three mile walk from Everglades City back to Chocoloskee.

 

Once back at the boat, we finished emptying it out and laying some of our stuff out to dry while we waited for our ride.  The kids were thrilled to see us again and had fun playing around the boat while we finished packing stuff up.

 

As my dad and I were loading the boat onto the trailer, we could see a very dark, ugly looking cold front coming from the north.  We barely got things covered and strapped down when it hit.  There was a blast of cold air, the wind very quickly whipped up whitecaps on Chocoloskee Bay, and then the rain hit.  It continued to rain pretty hard most of our drive down to Key Largo.  After settling into the condo in Key Largo, we swallowed our pride and headed over to Bay Cove to visit some Watertribe finishers.  We enjoyed our time there, visiting and sharing stories.  The highlight was being there as NiteNavigator and NiteSong finished.  It was incredible watching them paddle in, I want to be able to paddle like that some day!

 We enjoyed a fantastic sunset, then headed back "home" for a great grilled steak dinner, thanks Dad!!

EC2011 - Day 5

We woke fairly early Wednesday morning after a descent nights sleep in the boat.

We skipped hot breakfast and just had pop tarts and Spiz.  Another benefit of sleeping in the boat was that we could get packed and underway a lot quicker.  Unfortunately, while packing the boat, I noticed that Emily's hydration bladder was empty, and mine was getting close.  I realized that I had forgotten to fill them at CP2, uh oh...  All together, we had about 13L of water to get us to CP3.

We started sailing under partially reefed main as the wind was fairly strong, even this early in the morning.  As we approached Pavilion Key, we started the experience the same pointing issues that had stopped us the night before.  We made it through the channel to the east of Pavilion Key.  We headed out into the Gulf, but found it difficult to make headway in the short, steep waves.

 

Looking at the conditions, our VMG, and the charts, we decided to give paddling a try.  We turned towards shore and beached in the Huston Coves.  I pulled down the mast, packed up the sail, and removed one of our ama / aka sets.

We pulled / paddled our way to the entrance of the Chatham River, hoping for a break from the wind.  Unfortunately, since the wind was from the east, we were paddling dead upwind and we did not get much protection from the mangroves.  The farther we went... the tougher it got... the more we started to think about quitting.  I kept looking at the charts, trying to figure the distance from where we were to CP3.  I didn't know the exact distance, but I figured it was probably about 80 miles.  We kept listening to the radio, hoping to hear that relief was coming... no such luck... in fact it sounded like we were going to have more of the same for the next couple of days.  It was getting near lunchtime and we were near The Watson Place campsite.  We were hoping to tie up, eat some lunch, and come up with a plan.  Unfortunately, the site was occupied, so we paddled up the river a bit more and pulled up next to some mangroves to eat.  As we floated, we discussed our options.  Based on how things were going, our limited water supply was really worrying me.  We didn't feel like we had enough strength to paddle all the way to CP3 in the present conditions.  After much agonizing thought, yes even some tears, we decided to turn back towards CP2 and drop from the race.  We turned up Huston Bay channel and enjoyed a tidal current and tailwind push towards Huston Bay.  In the small bay just north of Huston Bay, we crossed paths with PaddleMaker and SavannahDan.  The tried to talk us into continuing, even offering to share their campsite with us, but we were really finished.  After chatting for a while, we went our separate ways.  One thing that really surprised us was how open the wilderness waterway was; lots of big bays that were getting pretty choppy in the strong winds.  A few times, we would stop paddling and just hold our paddles up in the air and get pushed along at a pretty good clip.

As we neared CP2, we kept trying to make cell phone contact, hoping to call my dad in Key Largo to come pick us up.  However, cell coverage is extremely spotty, and we never did get a call out.  Finally, just after sunset, we landed on the beach at Chocoloskee (again at high tide, so no mud)  We were met by the checkpoint volunteer, Scully (not sure about the spelling...) who told us that we were the third boat to return that day.  He also told us the Chocoloskee hotel had no rooms left, but offered to give us a ride to Everglades City to find a room there.  We got the boat pulled up and covered up and hopped into his truck.  He dropped us off at The Captains Table Hotel, where we got a beautiful room.  We both took nice long showers, then headed to a restaurant across the street.

 

After eating, we took a walk, then headed back to the hotel.  We were pretty beat, so after watching a little TV, we went right to sleep, looking forward to seeing the kids and my dad the next day.

 

EC2011 - Day 4

Tuesday morning dawned and we slowly dragged ourselves out of our sleeping bags.  We got a chance to see just how beautiful Panther Key is, I would love to come back some time and take my time sailing and camping in the area.

 

We got packed up and underway, heading towards Indian Key Pass.  Shortly after leaving, we passed SandyBottom in her kayak, we waved, and kept sailing.  Our timing with the tide was decent, when we arrived, the current was fairly light.  The wind was from the east, so we were able to sail up the pass, but needed to tack.  Keeping a careful eye on the depths on my GPS, I held each tack as long as I could.  The wind was moderate, and I had the sail fully unfurled.  In these conditions, the boat tacked beautifully, tacking very close to 90degrees:

 

Throughout this, SandyBottom continued to follow us, occasionally popping up her Flat Earth Kayak Sail.  She finally caught us in Chocoloskee Bay when I tacked, hit a mud bank, and lost all my momentum.  It is interesting to notice on the track above, that my tacks got a lot worse in the Bay.  In the more open bay, the wind was stronger, and I furled the sail a bit... when I did this, I lost pointing ability... interesting...

I hopped out of the boat, and pulled it the last few yards into the NPS boat launch.  Also there were SandyBottom and AhMaChamee.

 

We all chatted for a while, enjoyed some ice cream, and took advantage of real bathrooms.  We were planning to camp at one of the National Park campsites, so I went to the ranger station to get a backcountry permit.  I ended up in line with AhMaChamee, and we decided to share a permit for a site on Highland Beach.  SandyBottom warned us about getting stuck there at low tide (200 yds of mud!) and we all hopped in our boats and headed to CP2.  We arrived at CP2, Emily signed the logbook, and I refilled our water.  (Or so I thought... more to come on that in the next segment...)  A few minutes later, we left and sailed towards Rabbit Key Pass with AhMaChamee.

 

I followed the route through Rabbit Key Pass that I had plotted in my GPS and we were separated when AhMaChamee took a slightly different route.  We assumed we would meet up again at Highland Beach.  Unfortunately, we would not see each other again until Key Largo.  The tide was coming in through the pass, and with the wind was also against us, we struggled our way out towards the Gulf.  Shortly after tacking near Rabbit Key, the wind quickly grew in strength.  I furled the sail a bit and started to experience the same pointing issues I had in Chocoloskee Bay.  In addition, there appeared to be storm clouds approaching from the east.  The wind and waves were building, we were having difficulty making headway, and it was getting dark, so we decided to beach the boat.  We landed in the lee of a random unnamed key and got out to stretch.  I walked back to the end of island and looked out at the water.  It appeared a bit calmer, so we tried to sail again.  It turned out about the same as before, and since we were pretty tired, we decided to just head back to our beach and camp for the night.  We headed back to where we were and made some dinner.  Unsure if we could legally camp on the island, we decided to sleep in the boat.  This ended up working wonderfully.  I rearranged our stuff a bit, and we slept Emily in the bow, me in the stern, with our feet towards the middle of the boat.  With the cover closed over us, it was fairly warm, we just used our "woobies" for a bit of extra warmth.  The only thing we wished for was a closed cell foam pad for a bit of cushion and insulation from the cold water.  We quickly fell asleep, hoping for a better day tomorrow.

EC2011 - Day 3

Before going to sleep, I had set the alarm for 5AM, fully expecting to snooze for a while.  And snooze we did, until around 6AM when the sun started to brighten the sky.  We slowly got moving, ate some breakfast and packed up our stuff.

 










 






We got under way with steady winds from the north.  As we sailed around the southern end of Chino Island, we saw CaptJackOtter anchored just off the shore.  We waved and continued on our way.

We were enjoying the north winds as we approached the Sanibel causeway.  I ended up a little to the east of the tall section of the causeway, but I assumed I had enough clearance to get under the section we were nearest to.  As we got closer, I started to doubt, but now we were comitted.  Well, now I know that the Sanibel Causeway is 16ft above the water... My mast is 16ft, but my sparfly (wind indicator) is about 16ft 6in.  Needless to say, my sparfly is now floating in Pine Island Sound somewhere... oops!  Fortunately, no other damage was done.  As soon as we passed under the bridge, the wind began to die.  We ended up drifting slowly by Point Ybel and the Pine Island Lighthouse.

 

Our goal for the day was to get near CP2, we were planning on Panther Key cutting through Caxambas Pass.  We sailed and paddled for a couple of hours; with the wind finally starting to build after lunch.  

It turned into our best sailing day of the entire event.  We sailed at 5 to 6 kts for most of the day, slowly approaching the shoreline.  Near Naples, we caught up with Brogan in his Hobie AI.  

He had lost his GPS and was wondering where Big Marco Pass was.  I attempted to relay some details, but I'm not sure we could hear each other.  We could also see CaptJackOtter's red gennaker farther offshore, and we soon caught sight of a pair of Pacific Action sails.  The PAS sails turned out to be Paddlemaker and SavannahDan in their Pygmy triple kayak.  Just before we caught them, they turned into Gordon Pass.  Brogan and CaptJackOtter also sailed into the pass.  The waves around the pass were pretty wild, but the XCR handled them just fine.  In fact, we stayed perfectly dry all day.  We enjoyed a beautiful sunset, and sailed and paddled the final few miles towards the lit up high rises of Marco Island, and the entrance to Caxambas Pass.  

I had the course into and through the pass programmed as a route into my GPS, so I was confident in the approach.  I knew from looking at satellite maps that there were three rocky barriers just before the entrance to the pass.  There was one flashing white light that marked the first one, but the others were unlit.  We could hear the waves breaking onto them, and barely see them as a "blacker" area in the water.  We sailed past the first one, and as we neared the end of the second one, I decided to turn between the second and third "island."  Well, that sure got my heart going!

As soon as we entered the pass, the wind got really flukey.  We paddled and sailed through the pass, and only hit one mud bank.  We got over that quickly and sailed out into Gullivan Bay.  I set a course to Panther Key and we had a pleasant sail under clear skies.  After a couple of tacks, we landed on a sandy beach on Panther Key.  We got camp set up, ate our dinner, and hit the tent.  I ended getting up after a few minutes and moved the boat; I was concerned about it floating away (I'm not used to tides...)  I got the boat secured and was quickly asleep.