The Finn Dinghy has been one of the most important of the racing classes over the past six decades.
It was always in the forefront of sailing developments.
One fellow contacted asking if there were plans to build a Finn dinghy … and I was able to find a partial answer.
A rare beast, a circa 1960s 12 square metre sharpie with some of the original rig is for sale. I am not involved, but in the interests of helping preserve a little bit of Australian sailing and boat design history I would like to help find it a good home.
The 12sq metre (heavyweight) Sharpie came to Australia for the 1956 Olympics. NZ first, Oz second.
However the boat totally changed the approach to the design of Australian skiffs. Thought you might be interested to read my understanding of the design issues and influence.
How the Sharpie name went from the USA to Europe and then to Australia – and how it changed our boats.
Melanie in the UK wrote to me. She has just bought an old Mirror dinghy and started sailing for the first time.
Problem is that the boat leaks and she doesn’t want to stop using the boat until the end of the season.
I have a philosophy of keeping older boats on the water and not pulling them off for months on end until you have the time to do the job.
So the article here is useful to see what can be done with an old leaky plywood sailing dinghy to keep it going.
It is perfect sailing weather at the moment in the UK and it is better she is out there learning but with the worst of the leaks gone.
With a disciplined approach she should be able to get all of this done in a week or so. The general leaks fixed permanently and the rotted area reinforced so that the boat won’t break.
This podcast/mp3 talks about why Australian (and New Zealand) wooden boatbuilding is different from the rest of the world..
Click to listen to the talk. This is the third of three.
This is the second of my talks in the USA. It focuses a bit more on construction and some of the methods that can be used to keep a boat light and simple, but very strong and stiff.
It also discusses how there is a “creep” in boatbuilding and design that increases the weight of boats way over what is really needed for a strong structure.
It is a bit hard finding information on my forum as the list is not very ordered, so I have attempted to fix this.There is a general building section then each boat is in alphabetical order.To see all the images you may need to become a member, however, they are a good bunch and will read more →
The first part was up last week. This week we talk about traditional vs modern sailtypes – everyone knows I am a fan of trad rigs because of their low cost – but here I go into the influences on the other side. I love the efficiency of modern rigs so I use all the read more →
Gluing Endgrain Gluing timber end grain with epoxySee drawing of endgrain right.. The basic problem is that end grain is highly absorbent so it can steal the resin from the join leaving insufficient for good bonding. The trick … is to feed the end grain some mixed resin before the glue mix is put on read more →
There was the suggestion that very coarse sandpaper was the best to use on a timber surface to ensure good bonding when gluing or fiberglassing the surface. This is not recommended – the following explains why. There was the suggestion that very coarse sandpaper was the best to use on a timber surface to ensure read more → This is a problem most of use come up against at least once. However it is unlikely to happen a second time. Richard wrote to me asking why his epoxy was still soft 3 days later. He suggested it might be because of one of: 1. The immediate guess is that it’s been too cold read more → There are two tricks to sikaflexing between strips. Use the Sika Primer – it improves the bond strength to the timber for a permanent job. You can get away without it often, but it changes the situation from a fairly strong bond to a hugely strong bond (you’ll know this if you have ever removed read more →
Most people know about using Cordless Drills to drive screws into timber now, but I remember when it was new and exciting! Here’s my spiel from my plans sets Cordless Battery Drill with Clutch. A marriage made in heaven. The drill can be battery (most convenient) or mains powered. It is best if it has read more → Paint vs Varnish Paint is more durable and will protect the epoxy and timber the best. Varnish hides a rough surface better. If you have done a rough job the timber grain will hide it. Make sure the varnish contains ultra-violet filters. Us My usual plan is to varnish the inside of open boats and read more →
The two methods here save a lot of mess when building boats with epoxy. They also allow accurate and fast placement of mixed epoxy glue. Most supermarkets have varieties of “snap lock” bags. They have a seal across the opening of the bag that can be pressed together with finger pressure. They make it a read more → If ply sheets are precoated it saves lots of time. It is easier to coat areas on the flat Gravity works with you to keep the coated surface level so there can be no runs. It is easier to get an even distribution of epoxy on the surface There is much less chance of missing read more →
Fiberglassing larger areas is done differently from small. Large areas require that the glass be draped dry over the surface then the epoxy is applied over the glass and worked through the surface. The example here is glassing a centreboard but the principle is the same for much bigger areas like the bottoms, sides and read more →
Where a seam has to be glassed and it is difficult to make the glass sit flat because of a complex curve then a double bias tape is used. It is also useful for complex 3D curves like the tips of centreboards and rudders. Commercial double bias tapes can be bought but you can make read more →
This is the normal method for fibreglassing small areas – typically using fibreglass tape to hull seams. Here I document the process of coating the hull and glasstaping the chines in one hit. Integration of different steps in this way is one of the major efficiencies of modern epoxy boatbuilding. However if simply glass taping read more →
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