Today was an epoxy day! Other than continuing coating full sheets of plywood destined to be bunks two new techniques were used today, a) to build up fillets in difficult areas and b) to add biaxial glass to bulkhead to hull sides. My work from yesterday had not fully cured over night as the temperature hovered around freezing. Heating the shed would be pointless but as I was coating the bunk boards in the garage, I could add some heat there. To do the fillets I built up the area I wanted to fillet with modeling clay then poured a runny mix of epoxy and wood flour into these molds. Hopefully removing the modeling clay will not be too big a deal. I've read about doing this but this is my first shot at it. Glassing the bulkheads to hull sides was more exciting. I made up a pre-preg rig by using stiff plastic sheeting taped to a board and then using a rubber roller of the type used for installing linoleum flooring to roll the resin into the cloth. Once the cloth was saturated, I would peel it off the plastic sheet and then carefully install it over the joint smoothing it down with my fingers. This worked really well (see photos). Tomorrow I will coat the cloth with additional resin after I cut any roughness or loose fibers out.

This isn't the first time I've posted a picture of my coffee cup. The last time I was celebrating my new dedicated coffee shelf and talked about the importance of creating the environment necessary to keep at it and with it to the end (Post October 14th). How many partly finished boats fill driveways, carports and backyards? Why did these dreams begin with such enthusiasm only to be abandoned? Building a boat is a big deal. Building a catamaran is even bigger. You will have two hulls to compare. The first one may perhaps not be as great or nice as the second one. Will you have to build a third? The size of boat you choose is a big factor. As length increase linearly, volume does so cubicly. Consider volume as the true gauge of construction cost and time. Who has months upon months if not years to build a boat. Who has the tools, the shop space the gantry crane, if the boat is really big, to complete such an undertaking not to mention the money. I think the Tiki 26 or perhaps a Pahi 31 should be the biggest project you set out on in your backyard and as your first Wharram stitch and glue tortured plywood construction. If I ever take on a bigger one, I'll hire help and build in a proper work building with some kind of overhead lift. I'm still not sure how I will maneuver the first tiki 26 hull out of my shed once it is complete - all 430 pounds of it. If you have never built a boat this way and if you were looking for my advice and you wanted to tackle a big one, I'd give the following "consider the first step in your adventure to be the building of a Hitia 14 or 17. What you will learn will be invaluable and you will have something to sail while you are building the real boat so you can refresh your motivation and regain focus. It will be cheaper than the partly finished hull in your driveway that keeps nagging at you." But wasn't I talking about coffee cups!

Before I started building my Tiki 26, I took the summer off to decompress. I find myself very lucky in that I successfully escaped from an extremely stressful job. The coffee cup is a remnant of the $120 million project, High Point in West Seattle, I was in charge of building. When I discovered that I no longer had a life, I knew it was time to leave. The message was clear - No time to sail is no life! But how? Though I escaped, I didn't do it in one step as I got sucked into another "dream project" and managed to get that project underway before I woke up and realized I was going down the rabbit hole again and needed to pass the project on. Circumstances and the right opportunity let me slip out the door before I was sucked in deep. But somehow I wasn't getting the message as early as I should have. Everytime I would go for an annual checkup, my doctor would remind me that construction project management of the multimillion dollar projects that I get hired to run is not the best for your health. What did it was when I found myself yelling at a woman who was letting my daughter walk her dog (the dog was walking my daughter out on to the road from a school playground). This made me realize that it was time to step back. The issue was real but my response was over the top. I made a plan, figured out how to set aside enough to live on and said to myself, at this point in time what do you really want to do? The answer didn't come easy. At first it was do nothing, then do everything. Then it narrowed to two boat plans and one non-boat thing. As I decompressed over the summer my head cleared and by the middle of July I was focused on the two boat things. I took the further step of buying plans for the Tiki 26 (Plan A) while I still looked for a boat to buy and refit for a round the world sail (Plan B). By late August, I was studying the Tiki plans intently and figuring out costs and schedule.

So now I am here. In a sense, I am doing what I was doing before but now I love it whereas before I didn't. Building versus building. And why do I hear from so many who when they see what I am doing share with me their work traumas and dislikes. Why do we do things we don't like or don't want to do? Why don't we follow our dreams? The easy answer is that we need to earn money to live on or support our families with but these are poor answers in the end as we may be alive but we are not living. To be alive, truly alive we must throw fear out, stop doing what we think is right and set course steering by our dreams not our dreads!

Today, I was up to my elbow in epoxy despite the significantly colder temperatures. I follow the weather fairly closely. I guess it's the sailor in me, so I knew that freezing temperatures were expected. In anticipation of this I moved all my epoxy indoors to keep it warm. First thing this morning I set up my heating pad warming system and them moved the epoxy out to the shed. This worked great as I was able to work all day making fillets, gluing the bow cross brace in and coating the two sheets 9 mm plywood which will eventually become the bunk boards. When I made the cardboard templates for the bunk boards I couldn't resist dragging a camp sleeping pad and bag out to see how they fit. Even with the bulkheads, it looks like it will be ideal. I can't wait to spend a night in a hull!
Up above I mentioned sailor. It is funny how quickly you get absorbed in the building process and before you know it your focus is boat builder not sailor. I like building things, it is satisfying when it goes well. It is a great feeling to be creative and technically adept. Building is what I do for work too but somehow it is not satisfying. Construction project management is what I do when I "work for the man!" This is fine but I'd rather be doing. The managing becomes stressful after awhile mostly because the project I end up managing are the huge impossible ones. Partly, I think I am building this to satisfy the need to build with my own hands not through endless meetings and email though I recognize the necessity of these managerial tools. Mostly I am building a Tiki 26 because I want to be able to do a new kind of sailing - on and off a beach in a simpler manner with less stuff. Most of us will upsize upsize upsize but I think that is a mistake. Two summers ago I circumnavigated Vancouver Island in my 13 foot Achilles RIB. What an amazing trip! I camped of amazing beaches and got to go to all the places I could never get to in my Westsail 28. The few people I met couldn't believe I was in my dinghy. But what could be better than rolling comfortably with the sea. I am not a powerboater but as sailors often do, I appreciate a small fast RIB, Of course I appreciate sailing such as the now underway Route de Rhum, Saint-Malo to Guadeloupe http://www.routedurhum-labanquepostale.com/en/s01_home/s01p01_home.php All classes of boats in this race are pushing the envelope! Keeping up with what is happening both in racing and cruising keeps me motivated with my building, I want to be out on the water.

One part of Wharram's designs that seem to get a fair amount of owner attention is the cabin hatch. There are numerous design variations posted on the web. I am playing around with some alternatives I'd like to explore. I;d like to incorporate a Plexiglas bubble so that you can take a look around without having to open the hatch. The onslaught of wetter colder weather may be bringing on these ideas.

I have been playing around with ideas for a name graphic for my Tiki 26 - tsunamichaser

It was inevitable, I ended up getting sucked in by the boat today. I thought I could just clean the shed. I ended up making a cardboard template for the aftermost bunk and then filleted the stern side of bulkhead 1 and installed the diagonals in this bay too. Not that I neglected cutting the grass - still green and growing, and cleaning the deck.

I have now done 25 days worth of work in the shed. That doesn't mean 25dx8hrs. It means I've stepped into the shed on 25 separate days and worked anywhere from 1 to 9 hours. It probably averages out to 5 hours per day so I've got 125hrs into the first hull. All is well, I still like the design and I try patiently, as I know I have a long way to go, to await the first sail.

I cleaned up the shed this morning and opened the one end up totally. I like this perspective. I dream that this is what it will look like after a dive off the forward trampoline into the water and then surfacing and turning around in front of the boat to look back.

I had a couple of insights today. 1. Tiki 26's do not have much storage room so what you have needs to be maximized. The bay between bulkheads 3 and 4 is the sitting area where there is a foot well and the area serves as a wet gear "locker" too. I feel this wastes space under the seating area as I don't need all that space. Anything else that is wet and that can't be dried immediately goes in a dry bag. If it isn't warm out, I use my ski/mountaineering gear - Goretex pants and shell. If it looks like it will be wet, I get into a kayak/dinghy sailing style drysuit. I sail bare foot unless it is really cold then I get into neoprene socks and boots. This works well. On my head I wear a tight fitting neoprene hood when it's really snotty. My first real design change is to add a partial bulkhead - cardboard template and final bulkhead pictured. This way I can have a separate gear locker and still have the wet well. My plan is to also install a small fresh water tank of up to 10 liters in the available area under the floor. 2. My second epiphany of the day is about the cockpit. I have been watching youtube videos of Volvo multihull cup races. All these boats have extensive areas of trampoline between the hulls. This prevents bridge deck slamming. Instead the waves just pass right through the mesh both ways. It seems that the cockpit plywood floor should be replaced by mesh. Afterall in heavier weather the water comes from every direction anyway so why not have a mesh floor at the cockpit

Today was not a big production day. It was a day of new ideas. More on that later. I want to talk a little about working with epoxy. After many batches yesterday, I wanted a day of not working with epoxy. I read the MSDS sheet this morning just to make sure I was doing everything I should be. I am. Known longterm issues with these chemical is a sensitizes of the skin so that you get a rash just by being in the presence of this of epoxy. Here is my sequence for safely working with this stuff. I have a set of clothes and shoes I use for this work. I wash these every couple of days. I often work with gloves on if I used epoxy the day before and it may not have cured. When working with epoxy I first apply barrier cream to my hands and forearms and then rub it on my face and ears (anywhere I might get an itch while working. I then but on nitrile or vinyl gloves which I change frequently while I work. I always where a respirator when sanding or grinding. I use two types, particulate and vapor type filters. Immediately after I finish work I wash my hands and face and shower at the end of work. If I do get an itch while working I use a clean stir stick or a paper towel to clear the itch. If I get resin on my skin I wipe it off then wash up and start over again in my protective practice. Like I said earlier, I'm in this for the long haul, I don't want to not be able to use these materials. It's worked for me, I've built three previous boats using epoxy and I can still work with it. Lastly, I never use any solvents. Organic solvents have no place in this process. If you use them on your skin they will simply transport the substance you are trying to clean up into your body; besides who wants to breathe in the vapors.

As you may have read in earlier posts, I have been trying to understand the function of the diagonals as pictured in the attached photo. Until Jim pointed out that the diagonals actually form the sides of tetrahedra, I wasn't seeing them and much of a structural element. I got it after Jim's comments. I've been thinking about the two sets of diagonals between bulkheads 2,3 and 4 (pictured). I have decided to switch their direction so they sit under the bunk bearer on bulkhead 3 and drop down to the bottom on bulkheads 2 and 4. From the load tracing diagram I did, the way they are called out, they don't seem to help under forces exerted downwards by a wave crashing down at the bow or stern or both nor if the center of the boat was to be in a trough while the ends were suspended on crests. If you turn them around like I am then the forces are resolved.

.....Any comments as to why this might not be wise appreciated?

I've been struggling with how to get a good glue fillet at the temporary wire locations between the hull sides and bulkheads. You can come back once the glue is almost cured and remove the glop of glue that inevitably sits behind the wire. Trying to do a finish fillet over such irregularities is not easy if you want a smooth finish. Sanding isn't the best option for removing a large amount of resin nor is a chisel. Luckily, there is a great tool and hardware store where I live, Hardwicks. They have everything. I searched there shelves and came up with the pictured die grinder bit. As I own a die grinder, This looked like the perfect tool to smooth out rough spots. It did the trick. I was able to grind out the worst spots in preparation of doing the bulkhead fillets in about 20 minutes. The photos are a before-during-after sequence.

Update: Blogger is now posting 6 am PST! It would be cool if blogger gave you realtime stats on how many people are logged in at any one time like Skype does. The photos I've uploaded are of the finished glass in the bow section. Note small air bubbles near bulkhead. This area had some slight roughness to the fillet.

Blogger won't post pictures (10pm PST) at the moment so I'll upload today's images later or tomorrow. If yesterday was a day for experimenting today was a day for production. I filleted the stern section first thing this morning then moved on to glassing the remaining bays with 12 oz biaxial tape. In the afternoon I installed diagonals in the front two bays and then as the stern bay fillet had cured to tacky, I glassed it. Once I install the remaining diagonals, I'll be installing the bulkhead fillets. Wharram does not indicate that these get glass tape but I plan on finishing them with 6 oz biaxial tape, probably in a 3" wide strip. The reason is that my experience is that this can be a weak joint when just filleted. Today before I glasses the keel seam I went over the area where the tape was to be placed with a furniture scraper. This worked very well. I took off some high spots where I had spilled resin and hadn't wiped it off. This runs or high spots interfere with the cloth laying down perfectly without separation, trapped air or excessive resin between the cloth and plywood.

The temperature is starting to drop here. It is hovering in the low 50F/10c. My trick to keep the laminating epoxy flowing is to set the jugs tight together with a heating pad tucked in between them and a towel over top. This keeps the epoxy flowing. So far the cooler temperatures don't seem to be effecting the other epoxy products that I am using. As they are pretty thick to begin with, I don't worry about if they flow or not.

Today was a day for experimenting with biaxial cloth. I did the keel in two bays upfront. In the first one I placed the cloth and then applied the resin on top of it. In the second one I placed the cloth marked its location, removed it, pre-coated the surface then placed the cloth on top. I used a brush to spread the resin then a squeegee to push it around before I vacuum bagged. I did this in both areas. The pre-coated version worked better, no air bubbles. In the one I didn't pre-coat I got some tiny air bubbles generally evenly distributed. I'll post photos tomorrow as I'm off to play soccer/football yes at 10 pm PDT!

I did the first glass this morning. Photo sequence shows fillet, dry glass cut to length, hull section being vacuum bagged (indirect to remove any posible air bubbles beneath glass), final but yet to cure product.

I reformatted the blogs layout slightly. Hopefully it will load better for PC users. I post using a PowerBook G4.

Today I broke open the pails of SystemThree EZ-fillet. This stuff is way better than mixing your own. Each batch is the same! I worked through late morning until about an hour ago (I let them cure for about 3-5 hours before tooling them to their final smoothness using my ball technique) doing all the keel fillets except the one at the stern. After cutting all the wires in the keel and removing them (I'm using rebar tie wire. It's strong easy to work with, cheap and because it has a thin oil coating comes out just fine as long as it is relatively straight.) I started working on fillets in each bay. After scuffing up the keel epoxy and vacuuming out the debris, I poured/scraped the EZ-fillet into the trough between the hull sides. This would be a good job for someone with drywall or plastering experience. I made a series of plastic scrapers and proceeded to spread the fillet pretending it was a glacier flowing down a valley. Once the surface was clean, I scraped the excess on the side off and wiped up spills with a rag. I then let them sit until they were tacky. I places a sheet of plastic film over the fillet and then rolled the appropriate size ball back and forth until the fillet was very smooth with no bumps or ridges. This worked great except right up against the bulkheads.

This series of photos shows how I resolved my issue with the diagonals, after Jim's helpful comment and my new understanding. I made a triangular piece of wood that fits on top of the keel-stem that sits immediately on top of these piece and goes from Bulkhead #6 to the land point of the diagonals. This piece has been epoxied in and filleted today. I will first glass over it with 12 oz biaxial e-glass and then fit the diagonals.

The amazing thing about the tetrahedron issue is why I couldn't see it. A couple of months ago I had been considering moving to one of the Gulf Islands, for the building of this boat, and living in what is called a Yome. I had looked into yurts but the smell of the covering fabric drove me nuts!

Red Sky Shelters make a structure that uses silicone impregnated canvas. The samples where easy on my nose but in the end I couldn't coordinate the move. It would have been good. I had a great building cover lined up with a view of a saltwater inlet and the occasional bald eagle flying by.

I'm in this for the long haul right? I haven't had a proper place to set down my cup in the shed until today. I've been too busy building to perfect these details but they are important. I walk around with my cup, balance it precariously or worst of all set it on the sticky ex-typist's typewriter stand - newly epoxy dispensing stand and contaminate the bottom of the cup. So first thing this morning, after putting my coffee down on the epoxy stand, I built this little coffee shelf. The plywood I used was from the freebees container at a cabinetmakers. Boatbuilders beware! Don't ever use this type of plywood in your boat. It has a beautiful face veneer, cherry and maple for the samples I got, but just underneath the veneer was a layer of particle board. I'm sure it makes for a beautiful smooth faced cabinet in a dry house but get this stuff wet and you'll have a heavy soggy delaminating mess on your hands.

The point of this post is that you will build a better boat if you set yourself up. That doesn't mean you need to build a 20,000 square foot shop with all the tools you can't afford but it does mean think ahead about what you are doing, visualize it, assemble everything so you can work with purpose not frustration. It can be as simple as putting your cordless drill in a plastic bag, when working with epoxy and screws, so you don't contaminate the drill with resin or taking the time to make a box for the tools you need so they are right at hand.

Sometimes all it takes is a different perspective or experience. I should have checked my email earlier too! My posting about the diagonal bracing from yesterday produced a comment that turned on the light bulb in my head. Here I was forgetting the basics of geometry and trying to come up with a clever reason, besides I was biased because the diagonals "don't look nice". The comment Jim left was exactly what I needed; along with a visit to wikipedia to refresh my knowledge of tetrahedra, now I don't think I need to lay awake all night long ideas floating in and out of my head. I even have an idea on how to beef up the stem as Jim suggests, the answer is in the stern of the boat, interior to the rudder skeg. Thanks Jim!

I found myself with no resolution to my "diagonal bracing issue" this morning. After standing looking at the boat for twenty minutes or so, holding this stick of wood then a different one, after which I switched to plywood strips, I was no further along in my decision. I cut out the wires in the bow and then retreated to the kitchen for a pot of coffee and the hope of a message explaining the diagonal bracing. I keep thinking back to the short story on Wharram's website "Stick to the plans"! I need to stick to the plans. KISS - keep it simple stupid -you know very little about hull design and even less about cats. ...but, but, but what's the big deal, these diagonals are nothing big - they are called out as 18x25 mm in softwood. What can they be all about? So I think some more and resolve to not loose sleep over this issue tonight - no waking up a 0430.

The morning is draining away and I need to get something done so I resolve to return to the shed and do some work, make progress. What can I do? I can glue the rest of the joints; stern to hull panels, bulkheads to hull panels and bunk and deck beams to bulkheads. I work for the next five hours gluing, after ensuring everything is square, going slowly to ensure clean complete joints with no dry spots. I take care fairing the joints (see the photo of the stern to hull sides) without and mess. I let the joints partially set up and then come back to clean up any glops of Gelmagic epoxy. But a whole day of work has done nothing to put the diagonal bracing issue to rest. I'm thinking about how to get a nice second layer epoxy fair done with a curved scraper in a variable angle and width joint, not to mention curved when the idea of using a soft rubber ball comes to me. See the photo of a racketball ball in the bow to get the idea. This may just be the trick. I'll try it tomorrow, I think, when the realization hits me once again. You can't fair the hull until the diagonal braces are done. Now it is 2300 hours, Monday night, and I'm searching diagonal bracing hull design. I come up with some promising sources - the USS Constitution had diagonal bracing for hogging and sagging. I get links to catamaran building forums but never find the diagonal bracing threads. It's starting to look like I'll be lying awake trying to resolve the force vectors not only about this but a new issue; mast and rigging forces on the main beam.

Today has been a good day of building - thinking ahead, focused on the work at hand buoyed by very good news, a letter from Jeckells. Sails are on order, delivery date 01-Feb-07. I'll mail the signed order confirmation back to Jeckells tomorrow.

Current things I am waking up at 5 and thinking about.

1. Should I install the forestay U-bolts now or after the hull is finished. Stainless steel doesn't like to be oxygen starved as molecular level corrosion can occur which suggests installing them after completion of the hull. If I drill the holes later will I be able to seal the holes so water doesn't get at the wood and cause rot. My solution - I'm thinking of installing oversized U bolts now and epoxying them in.

2. What is the true engineering purpose of the diagonal brace Wharram uses. Do they prevent panting of the hullsides (flexing in and out) or do they prevent longitudinal flexing of the hull. If it is for flexing the ones in the middle seem to go the wrong way. (sorry about the photo quality) I've never seen bracing like this in a boat. Typically transverse frames or/and longitudinal stringers are used. Wharram doesn't use these diagonals in his Pahis but does use longitudinal stringers. What to do! What to do! What to do! ..........

Here is a cheap, clean and very professional way to make glue fillets. You will be working in a bent over awkward position so the more control you have of the epoxy the better your work will be. Remember the cleaner your joints are, the less clean up, sanding and "fixing" you need to do. The next layer of fillet will go down better too. To glue joints, such as the bulkhead to hullsides, you need to get the glue fully into the seam. This is critical. You want no dry joints as they are a weak point. This will be virtually impossible with a tongue depressor stick or a plastic knife. Many epoxy manufacturers will sell you plastic syringes for this purpose. These are fine for small gluing tasks but they get expensive! Instead try a plastic bag, any kind will work though I use 'ziplocks'. The gluing epoxy I am using is from System Three. I'm using Gelmagic, which when mixed has the consistency of vaseline. It is hard to spread cleanly but it's great as it has no sag. After mixing up the appropriate size batch, transfer it to the bag and when you are ready clip a corner of the bag with wire cutters. They do a cleaner job than scissors. Now you can squeeze the glue out the hole like you are icing a cake. Unlike a syringe, you have better control over the size of the fillet as you can clip the corner to a size that matches the fillet you want. If you pre-tape the joint (I did one side only but two sides would be better and will tape both sides in the future) you can fair the joint, as necessary after having spread all the glue without worrying about the glue that flows beyond fairing tool.

- my new mantra. Fix it or you will live with it forever and wonder; will it hold? It is easy to take the easy path while in the shed but when you are barely hanging on as the boat below you pitches about on troubled water, you need it to be right.

I awoke with a start this morning - still dark out but my mind had been at work on the boat for awhile. I was building the wrong hull and it was only 5 am. How could this be I tried to resolve. Still in bed I tried to picture the boat and that my mind was wrong. No I needed to get up and go confirm that my mind was right and my hope was wrong. Time to pull on my jeans and find my headlamp. As soon as I stepped into the shed my fears were confirmed .

Now it's not that I had an epiphany and discovered I was building the wrong boat, it was that I was building the starboard hull when I should be building the port hull. At this point the difference is with bulkheads # 2,3, and 4, they are the only non-symetrical parts, laterally. In fixing yesterdays alignment problem I had turned them around. The issue is that my yard, behind the cottage I live in, is just big enough to hold a Tiki 26 (with a tree inside the starboard bow) so to be able to assemble it before I haul it out of the yard I need to build it the way it will sit. I was building so the outsides of the hull would be against each other. At first I thought I would just continue, afterall everything had been trued up, the bulkheads were perfectly wired in and the keel was epoxied. I justified that I could lay the starboard hull on its side and lift the port hull over top of it. Ya right! - lift all 450 lbs of the port hull over the starboard hull which would need to be lying on its side. I went back inside to make tea; afterall it was too early to be down in the dumps over this problem, I needed to solve it. I studied the plans while the kettle boiled. Tea in hand I went back out to the shed, turned on the lights and was so glad that I hadn't glued anything other than the keel and that the epoxy wasn't up to the bottom of the bulkheads. I resolved to try to remove the toughest bulkhead, # 3 first. If that worked then maybe I could remove the other two with equal luck. I found the wire cutters and cut the six wires holding the bulkhead in place and wrenched it out from between the hull sides. Once it was out, it didn't feel like I was going backwards but going the right way. I turned it around, pushed it back in between the hull sides until it snapped down so the bulkhead notches took the stringers and wired it back in. Three hours later all three bulkheads were turned around, wired in and the hull was trued up again. I'd done the right thing. Like in mountaineering there is a time to retreat to try another day instead of slogging on into the void.

I have reached a milestone. The keel was glued in place with a runny mix of epoxy and wood flour today. The runny mix will ensure that there will not be any voids or air gaps at the keel. I mixed a large batch of epoxy and poured it into a ziplock bag. Once the bag was closed I cut a corner off the bag and squeezed the epoxy mix out carefully as if I was icing a cake. It worked great.

I think I lay thinking about bulkhead #3 half the night. By 5 am it was getting really bad, so I got up! I looked at the drawings again and then it struck me, I was using 1x2's as stringers which are 3/4" x 1 1/2" true not the 1 3/4" that Wharram has on the drawings. The ruler lying on the bulkhead shows the 1/4" difference. I went out to the shed and discovered that the problem was too fold; one the bulkhead was not sitting plumb but had wave in it and two the notch on bulkhead 3 was 1/4" too low. Suddenly the 1 inch problem was fixed by removing the wave in the bulkhead (from compression forces pulling the sides together and in line) and recutting the notch so the bulkhead could sit higher. PROBLEM FIXED! Now I could move ahead to finishing wiring the bulkheads in and cutting bunk bearers and cabin top bearers.

I have a problem - maybe! Bulkheads 2, 3 and 4 form the cabin top (see photo). The cabin top is made of 9 mm plywood. Here's the issue. The tops of the three bulkheads do not line up in a straight line. The tops of the bunk level does. I've checked all the dimensions, they are right. I've looked at Wharram's diagrams and pictures and pictures on the web and don't see a downwards curve to the cabin top. Do any of you who have built the 26 have any input?

I have added a translator in the sidebar as I am getting hits on the site from around the world, eighteen countries from every continent last count. Let me know if there are any additional languages you would like to have added. If I can, I'll add them.

I am truing up the hull in x,y and z axes. I'm using a laser (double click on the image to see the laser beam trace on each bulkhead better), plumb lines and levels. Setting all this up was time consuming this morning. I got it very close to perfect; level side to side and only out of true longitudinally by about 2 mm. I set sting lines at the bunk level on the center line and from stem to stern. First I used the laser to adjust these then I placed the lines. My final check was along the keel using the laser. Now I am wiring the bulkheads to the sides and cutting bunk and deck stringers as I go. This is slow work but I guess that is ok as this is a pretty critical step. You can always rewire something but once it is all glued together that's it. You have to live with what ever bumps and curves you didn't take care of earlier.

It appears that I may have the makings of a hull. After a hectic morning or re-wiring the keel so that it sits square to the sides, figuring out how to flip the thing in one go with no help and then press bulkheads into it, I think I'll clean up the shop, admire where I've gotten to and sit for awhile to think out my next moves. I need some more 1x2 stringers too so I'll venture off to the lumber store.

I ordered sails from Jeckells Sails this morning. I've been in email contact with them for awhile. They have worked with Wharram for years and helped develop the short gaffed sail that has become so popular on the Tikis and the Pahis too. Very easy to work with. There's a link to their website in the sidebar.

Today was good. It feels like I have the beginnings of a boat. I have spent fifteen days lofting, making parts, sawing, epoxying, sanding and on and on. Finally today I got to wire panels together and set up the hull first rightside up and then upside down. I placed bulkheads, stood back and admired the boat when realized I didn't know if I had all the bulkheads in right so that I would have an inside and an outside. I can image that there have been builders who made such a mistake. Two hulls the same, bulkheads mixed up. The pitfalls are endless! I decided this hull would be the port side such that I could have both hulls in the backyard and assemble the boat completely prior to removing for launch. This was when I noticed that the keel was twisted out out true. It makes sense that the keel would do this as it is almost square; as you bend it it wants to sit on edge. I will need to remove all of the wires (keel only leaving them through the sides) so that I can try to readjust. Luckily I can still lift the boat alone as I'm going to rewire with the hull upside down on a set of saw horses. Once the keel is adjusted I will strongback the hull opening and roll it over so that I can continue with my work. Hopefully I can square up the keel and hopefully it won't twist back out of true when I flip over.

Today was a big day. I finished fairing all the beam parts - I hope I got them right. I spent an hour sanding the inside of the hulls before wiring the two sides together. I used 120 grit paper on a random orbital sander for all the sanding. While working on the first side, I couldn't tell that I was acheiving much. When I laid the second side down beside the first, I could see the change sanding had brought. Other than smoothing the inside in preparation for paint, sanding is necessary preparation for when I start to glue the hulls and bulkheads together.

I was busy setting the keel and adjusting its position using a hammer. Very time I stopped swinging the hammer, I'd hear from outside the same number of hammer strikes. What was going on? This crow was sitting in the tree above the shed. VERY COOL! I tried to get it to make the sound of an outboard motor but it ignored me and flew off.

All work and no play makes the play of building a boat work! I've been absent for a few days as I took a trip to the Gulf Islands. It was beautiful Friday but the rest of the weekend was foggy and wet. Colder weather has arrived. Fall has finally set in, though it seemed that it would never arrive. There have been days of chill but now cold and wet now feels as if it is here for the next few months.

Thursday was not the best day of boat building as I struggled with the cross beams. Whatever it was that was causing the problems persisted today. I mis-measured the front beam components, even though I'd made a template and then proceeded to cut the pieces out wrong too. I didn't discover my error until the bottoms and the fairings were done. Luckily I cut them out too big so I could recover. I made them 2300 mm long as opposed to 2030 mm long. This made them wider at the narrow end than per design so luckily I was able to cut out the correct pieces from the wrong ones. No material wasted and my ego only mildly bruised. I should have known that something was wrong when I couldn't lay out the required pieces on the full sheet of plywood the way Wharram showed them. Now they are done so I can fair them. The beam parts are at the far end of my shop leaning up against the wall in the picture. I will screw similar pieces together and then surfform them to the same shape. Then I'll set them aside and work on them later making the construction of the beams a side project.

Tomorrow, I begin stitching together the first hull.

As I continue to build the first hull, I am working backwards from the day I launch (Hopefully in June 2007). I am looking at sails, Jeckylls and Cruising Direct, Mast and rigging - wood/carbon fiber or aluminum, outfitting of the boat - think mountaineering etc. I spent last night comparing various options for the forward deck beam and the mast. I now think that carbon fiber is out. The materials alone exceed the cost of any other option. For now I think I will build the forward deck beam per plan. I have the materials so instead of dismissing it for the advantage of a CF or aluminum beam that the forward trampoline can slip over or into a boltrope track, I'll just build it. I can always choose not to use it. Today's task will be to loft up the beam components full size on paper so I can use them to layout the real ones on the plywood. That will probably be a whole day of work.

I have glued together the second hull panel today. Also the keel, which has two scarfs. My plan is to let the side panels and the bulkheads cure for a couple of days, until Monday, before I continue work on them. I want the epoxy to harden before I sand it in preparation for assemblying the first hull. In the meantime I can clear coat the insides of the upper hull panels and join them together. I should also start work on the cross beams. They need to be lofted up, cut out and assembled. I'm thinking of replacing the forward most beam with a carbon fiber tube and will use a similar carbon fiber tube at the very stern on the boat for attaching the rear trampoline. As I'm considering making the mast out of carbon fiber, making two shorter and smaller diameter tubes will be good practice before I make the mast. I didn't think I'd be able to do this but today I found a supplier of carbon fiber sleeves which will make making the cross tubes and mast feasible. Work is progressing nicely.

First side so good! This evening, I removed the nails holding the three hull sections in alignment and the screws I used to get steady pressure between the stringer and the plywood hull sides. The epoxy was tack-free after four hours. All seems to have gone well. Using screws was necessary as my floor is nor perfectly level, the stringers are not totally straight longitudinally and the plywood, when coated on one side is somewhat bowed. Using a cordless drill, with variable torque settings, made getting the screws just right and consistent relatively easy. I took an hour after I finished puting the hull side together to re-read the building manual. The re-read showed that I needed to layout the edge location of the hull sides on the stem and stern piece. The templates I had made came in handy for this as I had already measured and made the marks on them. Reading ahead to the "Assembling the Hulls & Fitting the Bulkheads" section showed me that I have more work to do to the bulkheads before I can get a hull together. Wharram has you install bunk bearers on the bulkheads before you install them. I think I will dry-fit the bulkheads without the bunkbearers as this is the height of the hull where I might run a continuous stringer instead of the sectional ones shown in the design. My thinking with regards to this is that a continuous stringer with make the hull shape fairer and will give greater strength. In light of this and my reading ahead to glassing in the keel and the bulkheads, I spent some time researching fiberglass tapes. I already bought some 6" wide 12 oz biaxial tape for the keel. This is too heavy for the bulkheads however. I had planned on using woven tape but I found some 6" wide 6 oz biaxial tape on line so I ordered a roll. Biaxial tape is far superior to woven cloth tape as you get both sets of fibers crossing the seam. It also lays down into corners and over edges much easier. 6 oz biaxial tape hasn't been available until recently. It has little demand except in the stitch'n glue community. Finding it was a boon to the project.

Two and a half hours later I have the first section of hull panel together. This is extremely cool. The System Three gluing epoxy called Gelmagic is very thick, best described as the consistency of vaseline. It is difficult to spread but works up nicely.

I'm somewhat concerned about the size of the building shed or should I say the lack of size. Things will be tight and if necessary I will extend it. The day has flown. I need to work on the stem and stern some more so that they are ready to be installed Thursday.

I spent the first part of the morning squeegeeing and backrolling the second coat of epoxy onto the remaining hull panels for hull #1 and on the backside of the bulkheads. So far no runs and I'm managing to get a smooth shiny coat. Note reflection!

Here are three photos of the scarfing process. I like to make long scarfs. These ones have a 1:12 slope. I used a power planer and a beltsander to make them. It is quick, if you stay focused and check for square as you go. The key is to keep the scarfs square and straight, not concave or convex or lopsided as you will be flipping the pieces around to join them. My plan is to join them on the hull side, not prior to attaching them to the hull panels. I used a different technique when I made the scarfs for the keel pieces. As these pieces are almost square (3/4"x1"), I cut the angle to near completeness with my panel saw first, then used the plane and sander to finish them. It was faster and may even be more accurate. I didn't take any pictures but may do so later when I make them for the second hull.

I'm getting closer to being able to join the first hull together. I'm coating as many panels on the inside face while they are lying flat. This avoids runs and make the sanding easier. This is when I could use a bigger shop! I am cramped but it is ok. I hang finished panels from the ceiling of the shop. One time and process technique I hope to use is to paint the inside before I put on the decks. We will see if this works. Hopefully I can use an air compressor to spray the paint. For now I need to stay patient and not get ahead of the process because of a desire to make a hull. .....AND GO SAILING!!!!!!

Here is a quick way to make accurate scarfs. If you want to know more send me a comment.

An hour later the pie was done baking!

The secret to successful boatbuilding is apple pie. Yes literally! Today is Sunday and though I cleaned up the shop yesterday after a week's worth of cutting, today will be boat-free. If I were single, I'd be going at it around the clock. I'm not single and I have a kid so I have to keep the family from feeling that boat building is encroaching on their lives. As in "I had a father but he hasn't come out of the shop in weeks!" Today, I'm hanging doing crafts and baking an apple pie. If boat building were to become a sore spot then it would grind to a halt - not a good thing. Like sailing and cruising, if it's not fun for the whole crew it won't work - keep morale high, keep it light, no need to yell at the crew and if you hit something, laugh it off. That is so for boat building too. After all much of the world sees boats and messing about in them as superfluous. If you don't believe me, talk to your friend's wives about it and watch their eyes roll or try explaining to your boss that you are two hours late for work because you were making sure the epoxy was not sagging - Your boss will have something to say and it won't be favorable.

Baking is good for other things than the family, it accesses your chemistry skills. This is critical to the process as a major epoxy stage is approaching on the Tiki. Wharram, in his literature talks about, boat building as being a female/male process. Not necessarily, it is art and art means you must demand yourself to transcend the social limitations of gender bias and work with the materials as they demand.

Time to post - my water has chilled enough that I can make the crust for the pie! I'll post a picture of the final product.

Those of you who have watched my videos may be wondering where the first video of the Wharram Tiki 26 came from. YOUTUBE of course! When I was setting up the blog I wanted to see if I could add video and had found this one of a Tiki sailing a while back. So I linked it to my site. Loading video to Youtube seems easier than uploading a Quicktime file directly though I'll try that too. I must give credit where credit is due to Luisuy (Youtube name) from Uruguay. The sailing video is his. He has added more since that one that are fun to watch too. Who knows one day maybe we will sail our Tiki 26's together. Sailing to South America is a dream of mine.

I thought that the video by Luis would just stay on my site until I got others up but now I think I leave it on. (I hope that is ok) It is good to get inspired by watching the end product in its environment. It motivates the building process. Thanks.

I am progressing well with the fairing of all the hull parts. I have one set of bulkheads to go. Next step appears to be making the keel and the mid hull stringers. I may depart from the design slightly and add an addition hull stringer instead of the bulkhead to bulkhead diagonals as Wharram's plans show. A laser will come in handy here perhaps to get the right height on all the bulkheads.

Some of you may have noticed that at the bottom of the sidebar of this blog there is a site meter. Open it up and click on countries at the bottom of the statistics. It is fascinating to see the global following that Wharram catamarans have. I'd love to hear from those of you following this blog. Do you dream of building and sailing a Wharram? Do you sail a Wharram? Have you built a Wharram? Are you building a Wharram? If you are, I'd love to talk with you. That by the way is easy using Skype.com - free voip. I use it daily to communicate with my global group of friends.

Today I can say I CUT SOME WOOD! I have cut out all blocking, side panels etc for both hulls. Hopefully I measured everything right. I started fairing the pieces made using a surfform, having done the stem, all upper hull sections, lower stern and stem. After all that I needed a beer. Tomorrow I will do the lower hull mid section and the bulkheads. If I get so far then I will finish epoxying the insides of the lower hulls and the bulkheads in the beginning of next week and perhaps by the end of next week I can start assembling a hull. That will be exciting!

I have spent the morning in production mode. Wharram talks in his manual about what tools you need. A small table saw is a handy addition to his list.

All I got to do on the Tiki 26 project today was pick up some additional tools and sanding supplies. Instead I worked of the correction list for the sale of my Westsail 28. I fixed running lights - salt build-up and a broken bulb. I checked for and found the reported cooling water leak. Water was coming out the tiny hole between the two shaft seals that keep oil and saltwater apart. A sure sign the seals and the shaft were shot. To get at this problem, I realized I'd have to pull the water pump. Gingerly I went at it. At least the two bolts came out with ease but I almost had a cow when what I thought were flanges came off the raw water pump when I took the bolts out. How could both flanges have broken off? I was envisioning having to order, then wait for but worst pay for $$$$$ a new water pump. Luckily I had the Volvo Penta full parts manual and discovereed that the pump is held on with clips. Equally lucky, the local Volvo Penta dealer had all the parts I needed to do a rebuild. $63 later I left with a small box containing all the bits. Now I like working with wood, don't mind wiring, can do plumbing but working on old engines in cramped spaces is not my idea of fun. My hand are sore from today's task and I've got a load of grease and grit under my nails. Atleast all the parts went back together as predicted in the instructions, the leak was fixed and the pump worked beautifully. It could have been worse, way worse.

My experience today strengthens my commitment to keeping it simple. While I traipsed back and forth from the store to the boat, from the boat to the store, I had an interesting conversation with one of my dock mates. He was struggling with his roller furling. It was way undersized for the 22 foot homebuilt boat (it looked like a Bolger), didn't use a foil but furled the sail around the sewn in wire in the sail. As he said and I quote "you can't use this thing to reel the jib" and "what I've discovered is that you really start to build the boat after you've launched it". What truths. Why would you have furling gear if it only works fully in or fully out? And yes once you get a boat into the water and start using it you discover all it's needs. This is what I like about the smaller Wharrams, you can treat it like you are camping: a sleeping pad and bag, a handful of clothes, a mess kit with a campstove, a cooler for food and the rest of the junk you drag onboard and I have dragged off my Westie after 10 years can all stay at home. SO! - The goal will be to eliminate or minimize clutter and stuff including the use of an infernal combustion beast!! I like the idea of using powerful electric trolling motors for auxillary propulsion, a battery bank, solar and wind and perhaps a small generator, only perhaps. See the link I've url'd http://www.austrian-wharrams.org/wer_wir_sind/t26_m_brose.htm this Tiki 26 uses a trolling motor. I now understand why the Purdeys have sailed all these years without an engine. Engines are dirty, smelly and a nuisance unless you need to be somewhere NOW! or you are not good at reading the weather. The better way is to have plenty of time and plan ahead. Tomorrow, I return to work on the Tiki. Hopefully there won't be any interruptions.

I didn't get a whole lot of actual work done on the boat today. I cut wood in the morning, I had errands to run, I set up to cut in the afternoon, it started to rain, I moved into the shed....one of those days. I did pick up a new surfform to true the bulkheads, the stem and stern pieces and the hull sides.

Tomorrow I won't be able to do any work. The good news is that it looks like I've sold my Westsail 28 - this is why I won't do any work tomorrow as I have to fix a couple of things on the W28 - but now I have the kitty of cash I need to build the Tiki 26. Sadly there are some out there who feel that I should be gainfully employed and they are bugging me to take the job they are trying to lure me into. That's not right! With the cash from the W28 sail, I'm going to order sails and get rigging etc ASAP so the money doesn't go elsewhere. I'll just need to avoid answering the phone when it's a recruiter.

I spent way too much time this evening editing and uploading a new video - Cutt'in Wood. See it in the sidebar or go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sek7cyyv6j8 Enjoy!

I share a treehouse with my daughter. We built it this summer from materials we salvaged. Old trees and and flotsam lumber from the beaches of Puget Sound. Scrap lumber and cast offs from a construction dumpster down the street (I brought some of this home behind my bike in my BOB trailer), scavenged cedar shingles and some bamboo which I admit I bought. My daughter uses the tree house as her secret laboratory, I use it as my meditative space. I can get up above the building shed and look out over the neighborhood through the trees and towards the water. This morning when I woke up, two thoughts struck me. One, that sailing from Great Slave Lake up the MacKenzie River to the Beaufort Sea would be an amazing trip to take. Two, that I needed to take a step back and make sure I am shaping my bulkheads correctly and that I get them finished smoothly, same with the hull sides. No point rushing ahead into dissappointment. But there is the balance between loving each piece of wood so much that you love the project to death. Afterall this is about sailing. I am not super excited about the butt blocks you need to join the side panels with. They will add a hard spot to the hull. I think I will mock up a butt block scarf and a veneered plywood scarf to test pliability and strength. To get there I may need to spend some time in the treehouse building in my head. Maybe this one time I should treat the treehouse as my secret laboratory.

Today was a fine fall day. The temperature has started to fall but as it is still sunny here during the day, the weather is crisp and it is pleasant to be outside. I moved out of the boat shed to cut out hullsides and bulkheads. With a respirator on and a fan blowing, I had sawdust free cutting. Anyone contemplating building one of Wharram's boats should look into the efficiencies of using 5x10 foot/1.524x3.048m sheets of plywood. You end up not having a joint at the bottom of bulkheads 2 and 3 and you save almost the area of an entire 6mm sheet of plywood on the bulkheads alone. I now wish I had made templates for every component or done the drawings up in CAD to figure out if there were other efficiencies. While I was working outside cutting the bulkheads, I had to go into the "shop" to get something. That is how I got the image above. I moved the plywood a little to get the Joubert label dead center to the light pattern but the shape and the message was clear from the sail shape of the light falling through a gap in the wall. This is going to be a good boat. I took it as a positive signal.

It all feels very real now; I've started cutting. The pictures are of the tools of the trade, a variable speed jig saw with easy controls and good sight lines to the blade and a small panel saw. Most important are the fresh, sharp blades that I am using. The panel saw is very convenient. By setting the blade so it just clears the backside of the panel, I can cut curves with it. They end up much more true than if I was using the jigsaw and it's faster. So far so good. I measured twice, so hopefully I will only need to cut once!!

I uploaded a short video of myself epoxying a full sheet of plywood to YOUTUBE. ....Don't worry, I'm not really that fast, this is compressed 5x! You can see it in the sidebar or go to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13Xna-uKWmg