Some Recent Work

Things have been a little busy lately.  Trying to sell our house, kids sports, work travel.  It all seems to add up to little boat progress and even less in the way of meaningful blog postings.  Here are some pictures of a little work that has gone on.

Removing this masking tape was a rather terrible job.  While designed not to stick if it is left on too long it becomes the biggest waste of time.  This marked the level the original builder planned to cut the cabin down.  I used abit of heat and a scraper to support the original tape to prevent it from tearing then alcohol to remove the left over glue.  Not terribly satisfying work.

 

 

 

I try to add a coat of varnish every time I am out at the shop.  The original builder planned to paint the hatches so he ended up clear epoxying over writing and pencil marks.  Lucky I don't mind a little industrial character and I'm just varnishing over it all.  

This is epoxying in the backplate for the lower gudgeon (the English language should have more words like that).  I will overlay some fiberglass once this is set.

Loose fitting some closed cell foam.  I got a cheap roll and some cutoffs so I thought I would try and see how it look.  I don't like it.  I also put a layer of clear epoxy on the inside of the cabin.  I'm still too chicken to cut the holes for the windows even they are cut.

Dave B gave me the brilleant idea of using shipping tubes as forms for making the vent stacks.  Here it is primed with packing table and some Vaseline.  Like the varnish this will take a layer every time I am out at the shop. 

After several measurements the piece of tape marks where the mast hole will go.  Measure it a few more times and then I'll drill a pilot hole to check for positioning from the inside.  You can see the lower pindle on the rudder and the pivot hole for the tip up part of the rudder.

The pilot hole looked to be in a great position from the inside.  Line the mast up to use as a rough guild for the angle of the hole.  I will also use a protractor while drilling using the hole saw.

Ahhhh.  Even though it appears to be correct there is something wrong about cutting through a hull.

Mast fits after a some clearance dremeling. Get that masking tape off quick.

Windows III

I've been doing a little too much business travel for a lot of boat time.  My lack of progress has of course make more window options to appear.  A set of windows that look promising appeared in the local kijiji ad.  They are unused.  Here is a rather poor rendering.  The good news is the installation would likely save time and weight.  They don't come with screens or the ability to lock the window from the inside. Even at half price they aren't cheap.  I'm not sure I like the look.

Ports that open have some obvious advantages  provided they are light and sturdy.

Windows II

    After a busy December I got to spend a little time on the boat.  I wonder how much I'm going to vacillate about the windows.  Just that fear of making big holes/adding weight/making the whole thing ugly.  I've kind of gotten used to the windowless look too.  I rather liked what Matt did with his elusion and tried to mock up some windows to see how it would look.  Going purely for esthetics I couldn't help but wonder about the blind spots in the rear quarters.  Because the windows won't be black I expect them to look smaller/less dominant than what is shown here.

This is my first run at a prototype window for the side.  Should have tried it a little farther back.

It almost looks too big but keep in mind the 2 cm overlap where the windows will screw into the frame  The actual window will be quite small.

I could live with something close.

I hope I won't need side mirrors.

My plan right now is to add some vent stacks like the ones on Elusion as painted in here.  This provides some flexibility by being able to add a canister dorade box, mosquito screens, sealed cap, small fan or wind scoop as needed. Looks kind of salty too.  I'm amazed how short the bow section looks from this perspective compared to the first pictures.

Hatch Details

  I can appreciate how a boat like this is put together and I can imagine doing it reasonably well given that you get the pieces to mate together and fill gaps, fillet over corners and given some patience get things square and neat.  The hatch on the other hand is 2 moving parts that are light weight, have tight tolerances, 3 or 4 mating surfaces and a slide with a detent when it closes.  It is enough to haunt my inner handiness and at the same time inspire it.  The original builder did such a great job and in order to haunt/inspire others I thought I would post some detailed pictures of it.  Also a few people have asked about the hatch and I am at a loss to adequately describe it without pictures.  I am still debating whether I should protect it with paint.  The wood has a very nice look.  Earlier I think I posted too many pictures detailing the design of the hatch.  I think a person can go to far in publishing details of a intricate nature of someone else's intellectual property.  While nobody said anything I would certainly be happy to receive any requests should I push such boundaries.

It would be tough to paint over this hatch.  I'll just have to do the maintenance.  Notice the tolerance.  Even though the front part of the hatch is fixed it is only tied down and can be slid right off the front of the cabin top.  Here the back part of the hatch is pushed forward - opened.

A closer view of how perfectly the hatch fits the cabin top and how even the spacing is between the forward and back part of the hatch.  Both these pieces are light weight I'll have to think about how I can stow them safely.

Here you can the back part of the hatch in the closed position from the front.

Here the hatch is open and you can see the rail that the rear hatch rides on. The lip of the rear of the cabin top acts as a detent for the hatch when it is completely closed.  The hatch lifts up and over it and won't go any further.

Here you can see the rear hatch pretty much flush with the cabin top lip so the back isn't riding on the sides of the lip but you can see the hollow where the sliding surface is. 

Windows

Probably the riskiest part of the whole build is the windows.  I want big windows.  The biggest thing the design gives up is the cockpit and this is the best way to get some of that open feeling back and move away from the submarine/coffin experience.  I think it is also the thing that will help the most with sea sickness.  Good visibility is also a safety thing but generally small windows are considered safer from a strong solid structural point of view.   Big windows are going to add substantial weight to the top of the boat which I am particularly concerned about.  Then you have to add the choice of whether you can open any of the windows.  I do not want to give up any of the seaworthiness of the Enigma as that is core to the nature of the boat.  I just know that an open window or just an open-able portion of a window will be something I will really value.  I would like to keep the inside of the top of the cabin free from sharp edges/corners that I might hit my head on.  So I might end up settling for no openings on windows.  Matt has spec'd passive roof vent on the hatch cover.  I have a bunch of 1/4 inch Lexan which seems a little overkill and heavy but again I'm inclined to work with what I have on hand.  I will experiment with this and buy some other material if it doesn't seem suitable.  The cabin top seems solid but appears to be of very thin marine ply with a little fibre glass on one side.  I've gimped up, some window layouts some of which are outlandish but one thing I have learned working with industrial designers is to play with things in order to see where the visual appeal lies.

Stock window arrangement, Wiley windows, One particularly ugly option

The stock window layout is absolutely workable and a safe fallback option should the weight indicate smaller windows.  When I heard about Wiley windows I thought "that would work great" however in a small boat reality seems to be about as bluntly obvious as possible I think the use of internal space and the head cracking likelihood doesn't favor the design on such a small craft.

Enigma with windows maximized doesn't really look right.

 I started of drawing the biggest windows I could on the boat.  Not that I think this will work well but it is a starting point.  I will need to do some weight calculations and I can work backwards from the weight of the windows maxed out.  I'm glad non of these have major appeal although the last 2 don't look bad.  They thought is the smaller back widows might be workable as windows that open.

These are the max windows scaled down somewhat the last 2 seem close to being visually balanced to me.

I like this array the best particularly the last two.  I might have to try some slightly trimmed back versions and see how they come out.  I might need to figure out exactly how much actual window is left once cabin top overlap for mounting is considered.  Not totally sure how much overlap I will be happy with.

I did these to eliminate the concept.
 

These actually looked a little better but I hope the weight doesn't drive me here.

Sometimes pushing the limits helps to cement a direction so I pushed these a little far.  To each his own.  I suspect this could look better with slightly radius-ed corners.  I can see somebody liking any one of these but in order to choose I need to amplify the distance between what I prefer from those I would rather avoid.

Ballast

  One of the things I really like about the Enigma is the ballast is easy to remove and in fact the design is such that you remove the ballast when taking the boat out of the water.  This allows the boat to be car top-able if needed.  It also allows you to play with the trim of the boat to suit gear you have and the crew.  If designed for it you can even make it adjustable while sailing to help with rounding upwind.  When I saw the first Enigma Dave showed me the various ballast options he had.  They included a cement floor pad and sand bags which came with the Enigma and some bagged lead ingots that Dave had built and which he seemed to prefer.

Concrete floor pad ballast for Enigma

Sand bag used for ballast and Dave's green lead ingot bags

I thought for quite a while about what would be a good ballast approach. I rather like Dave's approach but don't really trust my sewing to adequately contain lead dust.  It seems the boat needs somewhere in the neighbourhood of 64 kg (140 lbs).  I worried about the other approaches because one clumsy mistake and you could damage the boat by dropping a weight from the hatch and have it fall to the floor.  I don't like being one clumsy move away a serious problem although it is unlikely I would be moving the ballast anywhere but in shallow water.  The lead bags seemed the most elegant and easiest to manage but still struck me as an awkward shape to have at the sides of the cabin.  Any of them would be a hazard if they came loose at the wrong time.  Lead had some appeal but I am over cautious about lead dust as I certainly could see the boat having kids in it at some point and it is a nasty substance.  Any container needs to form an incredibly good seal.  Another good quality for the ballast would be the ability to take on more weight as the food and supplies are used up.   That one is likely where the sand ballast idea came from.  The easiest source of lead for me is automotive tire balancing weights.  It occurred to me that a hose filled might serve as a good base ballast with another hose that can be filled with sand, rocks, or even water to allow for variability at any point in the trip.  I did my calculations thinking I could get hose with 2" internal diameter and it would work out pretty well but that is not as easy to get as I thought.  I have some 1.5" so I might experiment with that for now.  I like the idea of recycling this hose for the purpose.  The good properties about the hose weights is they lay tight along the side of the boat, are easy to secure, can be moved up and down the boat with some pretty simple mechanisms.  If they are dropped they tend to distribute the force along their length and break fall and they do the same should they get loose when the boat is tossed about.  They are also easy to carry around and to create a durable seal.  The position for this ballast according to Dave is towards the mid area of the boat to compensate for the aft weight of the captain (doesn't really have a complementary sound to it).

The Plan

Original Enigma Rudder

 Even though almost all the stuff I would have considered risky, heartbreaking and messy have been done there is still quite a bit to figure out to get this boat in the water never mind all the things I would like to add.  Here is the shortlist of essentials:

• Removable Ballast
• Floatation
• Yard/Mast/Boom
• Sail
• Control Lines
• Windows/Cabin Top
• Rudder (partially done)
• Paddle/Yuloh
• Chine runner shaping
• Seating
• Waterproof hatch install
• Internal storage

Whenever I face a list that will take me months of work it is helpful to accompany the list with the things I really like about the project.

• Small easily transportable sailboat
• Simple elegant design
• In cabin sail and rudder control
• Rough weather capable
• Beach-able
• Shallow Draft
• Sail rig Stores in boat
• Portage-able
• Lots or room for innovating
• For the moment one of a kind (good and bad)
• Ideal for weekend sail camping
• Matt Layden Design
• Great looking craft