Element II Sold Last August

A year passes really fast when you're busy, but I did intend to update this site long before now.  Many readers here already know that I sold the Tiki 26 last year, but for those who may be wondering why I haven't updated the build when the boat was so close to launching, now you know.

As the boat neared completion, I began to realize that it wouldn't meet all my needs in a boat in more ways than one.  Of course no single boat can - they all are compromises in one way or another and it's difficult to find one that has a set of compromises you can live with.  This realization happened to coincide with the desires of another Tiki 26 owner who was refitting a tired example of the design to get on the water much faster than the rate at which he was making progress.  Long story short, he made a good offer and I accepted it, knowing that if I decided I want to sell it later after launching, it might take a really long time to find a buyer willing to pay what it was worth to me.  Readers of this blog will be well aware of the quality of construction and attention to detail that went into Element II.  

Below are a few photos taken when the boat was loaded onto the new owner's trailer.  It will be renamed, and has already been painted a different color, but still is not in the water.  When I get photos of it sailing, I will post those here as well.

This is one of the last photos taken before we started disassembly.  The cockpit had not yet been painted, and of course the next step for me would have been to begin the rigging so the mast could be stepped:

The new owner already had a custom-built, expandable trailer designed for a Tiki 26.  Getting the hulls on the trailer without a crane was the hardest part of the operation.  As it turned out, the open carport in the front of my house had just enough overhead clearance so that we could hoist the hulls to the ceiling one at a time and back the trailer under them for loading.

Getting the port hull on went smoothly.  The trailer had to be moved out of the way to get the starboard hull in position and hoisted.

Loading the second hull was a lot more tricky, with not nearly as much room to work with.  We managed to do it though, without anything even getting scratched.

Here is the whole rig, with hulls, beams, cockpit, mast and all assorted parts lashed down and ready for the road.  It all fit on the trailer, with lots of small parts and left over supplies stashed down below in the hulls.

The proud new owners of Element II, a father and son team who have big plans for adventurous sailing.  They moved the boat to the Texas Gulf Coast where the final fitting out and launching will be done.

So, after Element II was gone, I had lots of empty space in my backyard and boatbuilding shed.  But when I made the decision to sell, I never really planned to start another build.  It's been far too long since I've been on the water.  Since I wanted a boat with more interior accommodations than the Tiki 26 could offer, that meant I was looking at monohulls again.  It took a long time to find just the right one, but last month I purchased this Carl Alberg-designed Cape Dory 27 in Florida and sailed her home to Biloxi, which will be my base for cruising adventures.

You can read more about it on my Scott's Boat Pages blog, here.  This Tiki 26 build blog will stay live for future reference to anyone building this design. Comments are still open, and I will also still try and answer questions any builders may have by email.  Thanks for reading.

Test Fitting the Cockpit

After finishing the forward decks, I completed the basic assembly of the cockpit box and temporarily fitted some stringers on the ends so I could hang it from the beams and check the alignment and fit of everything.

 

This is just the basic center section of the cockpit, built to plans with a foam-sandwich floor.  This floor is lightweight and incredibly stiff, with no signs of flexing when walked on.  Hanging it in place allowed me to scribe an accurate line on the inboard sides of the cabins, for the placement of the rails that will support the outboard edges of the seats.  There is clearance on either side of the 4-foot wide cockpit box to accommodate a 12-inch wide under seat storage box on each side.  These will be dry storage areas closed by the hinged seats, and will provide a place for the batteries and other essential gear. 

The extra-long-shaft Nissan outboard sits high and dry in the cockpit well, where it will be well-protected and easily accessible.

The 25-inch shaft length makes it possible to mount it this high and still have the prop deep enough to minimize cavitation in choppy conditions.  You can see here that it will be well under water, yet not deep enough to strike the bottom before the hulls do:

After making sure this fit was good, I then cut out the opening in the aft end of the cockpit that allows the motor to be tilted clear of the water when it is not needed, which hopefully, will be most of the time.

 

Now the cockpit is back in the shed on saw horses for all the finish work on the fillets and glassing, as well as construction of the seat boxes.  Like every other part of this project, the assembly of the parts is a small percentage of the real work that has to be done before the parts are finished and painted. 

Building the Forward Decks

It's been awhile since my last post here, and a lot has happened in the meantime.  Most significantly, I lost my father two months ago and have been adapting to life without him - a man who was truly my greatest teacher and certainly one of my best friends.  I was fortunate to have lots of time with him right up through his last years, but being so close makes losing him harder still.
 
Besides that life-changing event, I've had a new book released this month, and I'm right in the middle of writing the next one and about to sign a contract for the one after that.  The current project I'm working on is a novel, and it will prominently feature a Wharram catamaran in the story line.  More on that later.  I've also been working on the Tiki 26 parts mentioned in my last post that I contracted to build for another owner.  These are coming along nicely and the remaining work to be done on the beams, rudders and mast is mainly fiberglassing and fairing.  I'll post some photos of that project soon as well, but for now I wanted to focus on the slatted forward deck, as I have been asked how I was going to build it

Working with the cypress and assembling the decks has been a pleasant job over the last few days, as it has involved little epoxy work and no fiberglassing or fairing.  I've documented the process with photos that show the various stages of construction from layout and design to trimming and sanding. 

First, I laminated four athwart-ship deckbeams from the the same cypress stock the planking was milled from.  The deck beams consist of two 2 1/2-inch by 1-inch thick planks laminated together to form 2 1/2-inch by 2-inch beams set on edge.  These four beams are not strong enough alone to support the deck, since the span is as wide as 8 feet between the hulls at the forward end of the deck.  To prevent them from sagging or breaking in the middle, I also made two fore-and-aft beams of the same dimensions, lag-bolted to the bottoms of the four main beams and hung from under the forward and main crossbeams by lashing cleats.  Here you can see the rough framework clamped into place for alignment and measurement, the two fore-and-aft beams are the middle two.  The extra two near the hulls on each side are temporary for alignment only. 

Next, I made and installed cleats of 18-mm plywood to support the fore-and-aft beams - two on the aft side of the forward crossbeam, and two on the fairing side of the mast beam.  Now that the location of these has been determined, I can glass-sheath the cleats, and finish fairing and painting these two beams. 

After temporarily securing the beams to the cleats so the structure would support my weight, I began working out the plank widths and spacing.  I wanted most of the planks to be 2 1/2-inches wide, as planking much wider than that is subject to cupping, warping or splitting as it cycles through extremes of wet and dry and hot and cold.  After deciding on a gap of 3/4-inch between all planks, I then made the port and starboard margin planks and two middle planks that are in line with the lashing cleats.  The forward ends of the margin planks, of course, have to be quite a bit wider than the standard 2 1/2-inch plank width, as the outer edge is cut to follow the curvature of the hull as it tapers into the bow. 

Once these four planks were secured to the beams with counter-sunk screws, the entire structure was then rigid enough to remove without getting it out of square.  Here you can see it upside-down on the sawhorses.  The longitudinal beams have been shaped and rounded over with the router on the bottom.  The clamps you can see on the ends of the deck beams are for gluing on fitted spacers under the ends of each beam where it rests on the toe rail.  Each spacer is different because of the curvature of the sheer line.  The idea is to distribute the weight evenly across all eight contact points and four beam lashing points.  The result is a very rigid deck that shows no sign of flexing when I jump up and down on it.  I was trying to achieve this with the minimum amount of framing, in order to save as much weigh as possible.

With the finished framework back in position, I then cut and installed all the remaining planking, using spacers made of little blocks of 3/4-inch plywood to maintain a consistent gap.  This spacing is close enough to keep most items on board, but wide enough to allow water to quickly drain off in rough conditions.

The finished planking, with two counter-sunk screws per plank to beam joint, for a total of 8 screws per plank.  Now I had to make 210 cypress plugs to fill all those screw holes.

This went fairly quickly with a 1/2-inch plug cutter chucked in a drill.  I had plenty of scrap cypress to get them out of.

Here, the plugs are all in, dipped in epoxy and tapped in tightly with a hammer:

After the epoxy cured, I cut them flush with a sharp chisel and then did a quick, preliminary sanding to see how it was going to look.  More detailed sanding will be done later.  I think this deck is going to greatly enhance the livability of the Tiki 26 by providing a secure working area to handle ground tackle and sails and more uncluttered deck space at anchor.  There is a weight penalty as opposed to a trampoline, but it's not that significant because of where it's located, as most Tikis need some weight forward of the cockpit to trim out properly. 

Here's some different perspectives of the deck:

 

Note that with this design, the deck beams are carried nearly as high as the bottoms of the main crossbeams.  The only parts lower are the two fore-and-aft beams.  This will minimize taking wave tops off with the deck beams, though I'm sure that beating into rough seas will be wet.  But it would be wet with a trampoline too.

Project Update

I know it's been a long time since I've posted here and you may wonder what's going on with the Element II build.  Near perfect weather has returned and now is the time for boatbuilding here.  Look for new photos soon as I will be moving forward with the cockpit and other parts of the connecting structure in the coming weeks. 

The main reason I haven't had time to work on the boat is that I've been so busy with writing projects.  My latest book was just released at the beginning of this month and I have a contract for another one that is due to be completed by July 1.  In addition, I am simultaneously working on a novel that I also hope to complete around the same time.  Here is the cover of the recently released Getting Out Alive: 13 Deadly Scenarios and How Others Survived:

 

It is the latest in a series of survival-related books I'm writing for Ulysses Press, of Berkeley, California.  The first was Bug Out: The Complete Plan for Escaping a Catastrophic Disaster Before It's Too Late, which has been a great success and is in it's second printing and soon to go into a third. 

Some of you may wonder why I'm writing all these survival books and not more boat-related books, as paddling, sailing and boatbuilding are my true passion.  The fact is, while I don't consider myself a "survivalist," my previous experiences have put me in a unique position to write about these topics for those who are interested in them.  There has been a huge surge of interest in anything to do with survival here in the U.S. in recent years, and it shows no sign of slacking up. I've found that this subject matter is currently the best way for me to reach more readers, which is of course, the ultimate goal of any writer. 

Getting Out Alive is aimed at the armchair reader as well as adventurers who might need to know how to survive certain scenarios.  Check it out if like me, you like reading about other people's close calls and harrowing ordeals. 

My biggest challenge now is to find a way to balance writing time with boatbuilding time.  With the change to daylight savings time this past Sunday, I should be able to start making progress on the boat again.

Trampoline for Element I (my old Tiki 21)

The new owner of my Tiki 21, Element, which I sold last year, recently contacted me to inquire if I knew where he could have a new forward trampoline made for the boat. I had planned to replace the trampoline when I did the refit of the boat, but at the time it was still in decent shape and so I sailed with the old one. Since I had made the custom rear tramp I designed for the boat, I told the new owner I could make his replacement forward tramp. After all, I did just spent $800 on a Sailrite sewing machine to make my sails, and it wouldn't be a bad thing at all if the new machine could start paying for itself.

Here is the finished result, which I just shipped out this week.

The Sailrite Ultrafeed's zig-zag stitch capability is especially nice for this application, as trampolines, like sails, are subject to high loads at the attachment points and the zig-zag stitch distributes the stress better. The perimeter of the trampoline is also reinforced with a heavy-duty 2-inch webbing. The grommets are the "spur" grommet type, which are much stronger than ordinary washer grommets.

I'm still undecided about a forward trampoline for Element II. I am considering some sort of slatted, more permanent deck, but will make the final decision after the boat is assembled in the yard and the cockpit is done. I will have a rear trampoline for sure though, connected to an extra aft beam near the stern. There are stronger and more long-lasting trampoline materials available than this standard black mesh that is so common on beach cats, and I'll probably use one of those.

In the meantime, if anyone reading this is need of a new trampoline for their Wharram cat, I can give quote and try to fit it in among my many other projects.

Looking Back...

Stems, Skegs, and Rudders: First Parts Cut, January 24, 2007

As the project moves on and the number of construction phases and parts increases, this blog has gotten correspondingly larger and more cumbersome. Looking for specific details and photos has become difficult, even for me, who posted them and should know where to look. Realizing that many of you who are reading this may be building your own Wharram catamaran, or planning to start one sometime in the future, I decided I should do something to make this a better reference source for those who might need that. So what I've been working on this morning is something I should have done from the beginning - labeling individual posts so that they can be sorted into categories that will make finding what you're looking for easier.

If you look to the sidebar to the right and scroll down, you will see the new set of links under the term: Construction Phases. You will see that I've divided the project up into such categories as: bunks, crossbeams, decks, floors, galley, hull assembly, hull fiberglassing, and so on. More categories will be added as I get to such phases as painting, rigging, and fitting out. These categories will make it easy to find specific text and photos. If for example, you are getting ready to build your mast, just look under the mast building category to follow the steps I took or improve on them by avoiding my mistakes. I hope this proves helpful to those who are following this blog and I'm always open to more suggestions at any time. Feel free to email me directly at: scott@scottbwilliams.com

Keel Glassing and Fitting Floors

Work on the starboard hull continues with glassing the now finished and sanded keel fillets. The first layer of 6 oz. cloth is laminated in and the floors have been cut and shaped to fit. Below is a view looking into the keel section from aft of bulkhead two. In the main entrance area of the cabin between bulkhead 2 and 3, I used the same floor pattern as that in the port hull, with a large removable panel cut out to provide easy access to the bilges. In this section just forward of bulkhead 2 is enough space to fit a 3-gallon portable head. Since the bunks are raised by 3 inches from the designed height, this portable unit will fit almost flush at bunk height. A removable panel that serves as a seat for the navigation area will be used to cover it when it is not needed.


Forward of bulkhead 3, there is an additional floor panel with openings cut out to further stiffen this section of the hull beneath the bunks and to divide up the large space there for easier stowage of supplies. These larger areas under the bunks and above this floor level will likely be used to carry a good portion of my water supply. I've located some great 4-gallon jerry cans that are just the right size and shape to fit in this space, three in each hull. More water can, of course, be carried in smaller containers in the other below bunks spaces and in the forward holds.

Back at the garage shop in Jackson, I have had to do some major cleaning out and rearranging to have room to continue work on my cross beams while building the small Backwoods Drifter I am building for a customer. The space is just enough to have a flat table to store and cut 4 x 8 sheets of plywood, set up the beams to finish work on them, and to assemble and build the drifter. Below is a photo showing the first stage of assembly of this stitch and glue boat. The larger transverse bulkheads in the midships sections are temporary forms that will be removed after all the interior parts are fitted to stiffen the hull.

As soon as this boat is completed and out the door, I plan to use this same space to build the cockpit for Element II. Other parts that will likely be built in the garage are the tillers and tiller bar, gaff, and the extra aft beam for the rear trampoline.

Back From Florida

I'm finally home and ready to begin work on the boat again after seven weeks of working in Florida, as I mentioned on my previous two posts. The job was interesting and certainly contributed much to the funding of my Element II project, but it's nice to be back on my own time and I'm looking forward to boatbuilding now that fall is almost around the corner and the best weather of the year will soon be here.

I've spent the last couple of days since I returned catching up on neglected business and making lists of materials, parts and equipment I will need to finish Element II. I plan to order much of this stuff this week so that everything will be on hand, and hope to have no further long interuptions of my work on the boat at least for the remainder of the year.

For those who are interested in the extravagent waste of fine teak lumber this project in Florida consumed, I've posted a couple of photos below. These were taken in the shop as the first half of the massive pergola was preassembled. After this preassembly, it was taken apart in seven large pie-shaped sections, moved to the house site, and lifted with a crane to the top of the 10-foot stainless steel posts to which the woodsections are bolted. Brickwork around the posts will follow, and then all this fine wood will be covered in flowering vines or some such vegetation.

This photo shows only part of the first half of the pergola with top purlins installed. The curved beams are 5"x8" laminated teak. Purlins are 3"x6". Outside diameter is 56'. Inside diameter is 38'. The other beams on the table in the middle of the assembly are for the second half. The reason that this job took so long is that it is not built to ordinary outdoor carpentry standards. All joinery is to fine furniture grade, with every cut made oversize and hand sanded to a perfect fit. Every surface of every piece of wood in the project was sanded to 80, 120, and then 150 grit, and after final installation on site will be taken to 180 grit.

This photo shows a small section of the outside radius, so that you can see the shape of each purlin. These ends were cut on a special jig we built for the bandsaw, and dadoes were cut to fit over the beams. All hardware is countersunk stainless steel bolts and lag screws, sealed with custom-fitted teak plugs.

We had the first half installed and the second half mostly fitted when I left this past weekend. I regret that I didn't get to see the entire project to completion but had already stayed a week longer than I planned. I should get some photos from David (owner of Boatsmith, Inc.) in a couple of weeks or so of the final installation. David, by the way, is a bit of a Wharram enthusiast as well, and I think the fact that I had built a Hitia 17 many years ago impressed him enough to hire me when I first met him back in 2001 while living in Florida. He's been talking for years of building a Wharram, probably a really big one. He likes the Tehini a lot. If this happens I may be back in Florida from time to time helping him out.

Still Working in Florida

I hope those of you who are regular readers of my Tiki 26 blog will not lose patience. I will be back at work on the boat, but for now I am still working on a special project in south Florida. I often travel to work on projects, but not usually for this length of time. I don't like having to put my boatbuilding on hold, but everything is a trade-off and what I will get out of this will really help me buy time and materials to complete the boat when I return. Being here in a condo within a short walk of the Atlantic Ocean makes me want the boat more than ever. The coconut palms that are everywhere around here remind me of my good times in the past spent in the tropics, both sailing and sea kayaking. But for now I have to hang in here most likely for the entire month of August until this project is finished.

The project is quite a departure from my usual carpentry work on boats and houses. It is a massive teak pergola that we are building as part of a remodel at a Palm Beach mansion. This is quite possibly the "mother of all pergolas" as the project manager put it, and such a project would only be possible in area with wealth the likes of what is found around the Palm Beach area. This pergola consists of two half circles at each end of a new swimming pool, each half circle made up of an inner and outer series of curving 5" by 8" laminated teak beams. The outer circle has a diameter of 59 feet and the inner circle 38 feet. These two separate runs will be connected by 3" by 6" purlins across the top. For the past three weeks a team of 10 of us have been laminating and fabricating the beams and purlins, starting with the massive piles of teak shown below. We are now in the process of cutting dadoes, drilling holes, slots, etc. for the assembly process, which I will describe in greater detail with more photos in my next post.

Below is the teak stock as it arrived at the shop for processing. This is approximately $150,000 worth of teak, 3"x 6" purlin stock 14' long, and 1" x 8" beam stock for the laminations, also 14' long.

A Few Weeks On Hold

Here is how I left the project: the port hull is glassed and ready to be sanded and faired, and the starboard hull panels are assembled complete with the lower stringers and coated with epoxy.

I'm in south Florida this week, the first of a few that will put my boatbuilding on hold while I work on a big teak carpentry job that will contribute a lot to the final outfitting and purchasing of equipment for my new Tiki 26. When I return I hope to work full time on the boat for awhile.

I will post more about this interesting project that I'm working on in the days to come. I first met David Halliday, owner of Boatsmith Marine Carpenty, back in 2001 when I sailed my 26-foot monohull to the southeast coast of Florida for the winter. I was living aboard at the time and looking for boat-related work while in the area, and the job I found then has led to many more trips south to work for David on special projects. His website can be found here: http://boatsmithfl.com/