Skip to main content

Signing Off for Now. Fair Winds!

 Hi everyone, 


You might have noticed that I haven't been blogging for quite some time. Two reasons:

1. I've been involved in a secret IOM project out of Australia and have not been able to blog about it. However, information should be coming out shortly. When I am okayed to talk about it, I'll let you know what has developed. It's exciting! Stay tuned.

2. I'm out of RC Sailing, 3D design, and laser cutting file drawing for the time being. This summer my wife and I were sitting on our deck in Seattle. We had been through a semester of teaching remotely, our city was having riots, the world was on fire both literally and with Covid, the housing market in Seattle was also on fire (in a good way), and I turned old enough to be eligible for (very) early retirement. 

We were chatting and pondering as we often do, and we finally turned to each other and said, "Screw it, let's go!". Within a month we had sold the house, moved ourselves and the cat in with the mother-in-law where we intend to stay during the cold months, and then we bought a boat... a big one! We bought a 2005 Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 49 in perfect, and I mean peeerfect, shape! We'll be exploring Puget Sound, Vancouver Island, and the Inside Passage on her for the warm months. 


 

In order to do this transition, we rapidly gave away or sold everything. I gave my entire workshop to a friend who will let me use the tools anytime. But my current situation doesn't allow me to do any work on RC boats for the time being. At some point in the future though, I fully intend on returning to the wooden RC sailboat world and continue developing laser cut files for RC boats. I'm not sure how long it will be, but will probably be measured in years. 

I may perhaps try to complete my IOM Construction Manual which is currently about 70% finished. My Vintage Marblehead Construction Manual and my Star 45 Construction Manual are both still available in PDF or print formats. See the side links for more information and where to order the print versions. 

When I can, I will update you on the new project. But other than that, I'm out. So with that, for the foreseeable future, I'm signing off. I wish you all fair winds!

Aloha!

Steve

Comments

  1. SCR-Spain31 December, 2020 03:39

    Beautiful boat, whish you te best.
    Fair winds and waiting for news.

    Sergio CR

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rille15 February, 2021 14:56

    Great stuff! Enjoy your adventure. Judging by your itinerary you will be done pretty soon so you might have to consider extending that. I am eternally grateful for the V8 files you made and am almost done with the boat. I have started to look around for a what to build next but I am thinking I might build another V8. I built a very pretty boat but now that I know so much more I think I can build it way lighter.

    Best regards,

    Richard

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

IOM Sailboat Stand

I made an IOM boat stand! The plans are from David Jensen in Bellevue, WA, USA. I found the plans through someone else's blog here , and a model sailboat club from Australia here . It was pretty straightforward to build. My only contribution to the design is that I laser cut the cradle out of 1/8" Lite Ply. I made eight copies, and then epoxy laminated two sets of four each. Turned out really well. If you wish to laser cut your own set, here is my DWG file . You'll have to have your own laser cutter, or send the job to a laser cutting company like National Balsa . Here are the original plans , and here are the original plans for just the cradle . Thanks to David Jensen!! Note that in the picture below, my boat is not finished! Yikes. You can't see it in this image, but there's a small chuck of self-stick foam behind the bulb to protect the bulb. I'll eventually incorporate some Velcro or a strap of some sort to hold the bulb in place so
Post a Comment
Read more

IOM Rig Box (IOM Sail Box) plans

So all the cool IOM kids seem to have nice wooden boxes to store their rigs in. This might be my next quick project then, so that I can pretend to be cool too. :-P The rig box images that I've seen online are mostly similar, and would work well, but David Jensen from Bellevue, WA, USA (The same guy who designed a fantastic IOM boat stand I posted about earlier) has a really nice design that he shared on RC Groups . Or if that link doesn't work, the go here and search for " IOM sail box " or " IOM rig box ". It holds three sets of rigs for the A, B, and C rigs. He also has a nifty way to attach his IOM boat stand, with a boat on it, to the rig box. His rig box has wheels attached, so once everything is loaded up he just wheels it to the launch spot. Very nice! There are other sources online. They show different variations of the same type of sail box. Here's a nice looking one . Here's a YouTube video of a really nice one . Wil
1 comment
Read more

IOM Alignment and Measuring Jig (UPDATED)

I need to start to consider how I'll mount the fin and bulb, and get it all straight, so I made a 3D modeled alignment jig: Ian Dundas in Scottland sent me pictures of his setup. I just bought a laser level too! He does amazing work and has been a great help in this project so far. There is also another jig featured on page 14 of the winter 2008 Canadian Radio Yacht Association (CRYA) newsletter that features one. It's by Lawire Neish. Read it here . I took both those designs and made my own version that features sliding cradles for the hull, a fixed waterline sight, proper depth to cradles for the bulb, etc... Most of the parts can be laser cut, and the two end pieces and the base can easily be cut on a tablesaw. It has fixed waterline sights that are 420mm above the top edges of the bulb sliders in the base. The fore and aft cradles can be slid up and down to adjust the waterline of the hull. You'll see that the overall interior length is 1003mm t
3 comments
Read more

A Wooden "Alternative" IOM RC Sailboat

Being forced to stay home due to the Coronavirus quarantine has had a positive impact on my boat building. I still haven't been able to sail my newly completed Vickers V8 IOM, yet have just planked and glassed a wooden Alternative IOM . It only took me eight days. It usually takes a couple weeks. I haven't been motivated to blog about it, but I started planking on 5 April and finished planking last night. Today I sanded and have fiberglassed the outside. The Alternative by Brad Gibson was a challenge to plank due to its up-swept bow and flared sheer near the bow. It turned out okay, but as any builder will tell you, there are goofs all over. One that I only discovered after sanding is a lighter colored plank on the starboard side. It really showed up after fiberglassing as the epoxy brought it out... GAAAAH! How did that get there? The other goofs I'll let you find, but that one is pretty obvious. Here's how it looks so far: Here you can see that mu
Post a Comment
Read more