I'm feeling good about launching next week. It would be so much easier if the tide would just roll in! I still have plenty to do to get everything ready but steadily I get closer.

I did some touch up paint, sanded the bottom of the cockpit, installed the main sheet setup including traveler and the jib sheet setups. I also played around on the computer to make a template for the name which will go across the aft beam. Once I got the font right, I took it to the local reproduction shop and had it blown up so that it is big. I'll use this to make a template out of contact sheeting so I can paint the name on super dope!

I had an interesting experience with the front hatches, the round ones I installed in the deck in front of the forward beam. Apparently they will not only be water tight but air tight. When I opened the one which was in the sun it hissed as the heated air escaped.

My friend Stu came over today to help me mask the hull striping. To get it looking good took several hours - all afternoon actually. I burnished the tape to the hull, scuffed up the paint and painted stripes in black. I like the way it looks though I've toned down my original design some. I've done so as it looks different in 3D.

I'm now hoping to launch the boat next week. I'm not sure which day but if you are in Seattle, I'd love some help. Send me a message in the comment section. The plan will be to load it one evening and get it in the water the next morning out in Ballard. I'm hoping to do this on weekdays to avoid the weekend boat traffic.

One thing that I've figured out is that the Tiki 26 is pushing it as far as a trailer sailor goes. Everything is just beyond the limit of being easy to handle. I did start building the two wheeled dollys for moving the boat today. I'm using handtrucks as the platform around which I'll make the dollys.

I'm hard at it fitting out the boat and this costs money, lots of money!

There is real truth to the saying; "the last fice percent is the hardest!" Everytime I feel like I'm a week from launching some new task comes to mind that I need to have done before I can launch and is another delay.

I woke to rain this morning so painting was out of the question. It did clear up by mid-day but instead of working on detailing the paint, I continued with installing hardware and fitting stuff. I "big" project was mounting the outboard - it fits perfectly and firing it up. To do this I stuck it in a garbage can full of water. I went with a 6 hp ultra long shaft OB. Physically it's the right size. Hopefully it will push the boat along just right.

Bow view. Note motor with cover removed mounted in the cockpit.


The ocean! ...more like a garbage can full of water to test out the motor.


Lots of thrust.

Sticking with my plan of finishing the boat piece by piece, I've now mounted the main beam again after finishing the paint and installing the trampoline attachment rail. I took the opportunity to install the forward trampoline too as I wanted to see if I'd made it right. It fits well and is fun to bounce on too!

The last big project of the day was mounting the tillers. I made the tiller chocks out of left over 3/4" HDPE sheet I had. I through bolted these to the rudder once I had the tillers tight in their notch. It's a really cool design, the way that the semi-circular notch and the wedge shape on the leading edge. This part I did per plan. On the attachment of the tillers to the tiller bar I deviated somewhat by using a Parrel Bead as a washer. These are usually used at the end of lines but by grinding out semi-circular holes in both the tillers and the tiller bar and then through bolting the set up you get a free moving pivot point that looks good.


Starboard tiller in place


Parrel Ball joint


Port tiller


Close up of tiller chock

After this morning's mess up on the hockey pucks, I dry fit every part of the hatch sliding mechanism. It's kind of fancy as I've used stainless steel pipe and fittings normally used to make biminis on yachts. It works nicely. The hatch both slides and pivots and can be set in three positions; fully closed, half open and fully open. After I finish lunch, I'll do the hatch on the other hull. If the sun cooperates and makes an appearance, ridding the sky of the threatening clouds, I continue where I left off yesterday with the touch up paint I'm doing. I also have sanding to do on the ends, sides and bottom of the cockpit. Not a task I'm dieing to do as I've had it with sanding epoxy - especially the cockpit bottom.

Mini skylight for a solar powered light with red and white LED's by Sollight http://www.sollight.com/products/lightship.cfm

As the light stands off from the surface of the skylight, the skylight will both provide natural light and be a window for the photocell.

Dear James Wharram and Hanneke Boon, Why couldn't I just follow the plans? What made me need to tweak this and change that? Sure I've wasted a perfectly good life messing about in boats and dreaming of trips when I should have kept my nose clean instead of thinking of places to visit. Why? Oh I've had day sails on others cats but here I am headed out to the horizon on a boat I've never sailed on. 26 feet seemed so small when I first began after all it's only 7 feet longer than the biggest boat I've previously built from scratch. And to think that I believed I'd be sailing this summer. Here I've been all full of piss and vinegar. I've worked carefully and I've tried to stick to the plans. I thought I was thinking clearly all along. And now I'm noticing that my house is in the way between the boat yard and the sea. How do I get out of my backyard?


As I'm Canadian, I am using "hockey pucks" to locate the beams laterally. I was all go this moring and forgat to dryfit the two pucks that locate the main beam together. 1/2 inch off on the port hull. Luckily I could fix it.


Second time I don't make the same mistake - dry-fitted before I slather on the glue!!

The big deal in my neighborhood today was a new house arriving in four pieces to be placed on the foundation that had been built over the past month plus. They used a massive crane to place the pieces. Too bad I wasn't further along and finished, they could have helped out by lifting Tsunamichaser out of my backyard on their lunch break.

I spent a couple of hours getting parts and fasteners this morning and I also prepped and repainted the cabins and beams. The cabins needed another coat as I could tell once I removed the shed. The decks appear fine though an extra coat wouldn't hurt.

I need to start thinking about my launch date and where it will be easiest to transport the boat too and get it in the water. There are a couple of spots available within a couple of miles so those are likely choices. Once I know then I can figure out a vehicle and trailer set up to get everything to the water.

I have been goofing off for long enough! I got back yesterday from a couple of days of camping, mountain biking and hanging with friends in a cool little town called Plain. It's in Washington State and is picture perfect. A green mountain valley surrounded by the North Cascades. Now it is time to finish the boat. I focused on the hulls today. By two pm it was too hot to work under the tarp that covered the shed. With ten days of mostly sunny and warm weather forecast, I decided to dismantle the shed. The veiw is good. I can see the whole boat and there is nothing to bump my head on. I'm excited about being without cover. It feels like the beginning of a new phase, sailing, is very near. I still have plenty of work to do so I'll be working long hours for the next two weeks.

I'm on my way out of town this morning again on a short trip. July is turning out to be a dud as far as getting work on the boat done but that's life. I'll launch back into it next week. I did get a couple of tasks finished yesterday though. I painted the tops of the seats and I mounted the windows. Task by task. When I get back next week I think I may tear down the shed. Though it's raining this morning, late July and August are typically dry months and the shed is now more in the way anyway. I hope I can ramp up the work pace so I can get in the water for the end of the summer. Fall is a great time to sail too.

I haven't picked up any tools yet since I've returned but I realize that I already had a clear plan as to how to finish this project - one component at a time. This actually makes it more simple than I thought. I don't want to spend great amounts of time disassembling and reassembling the boat so at this point I need to get the cockpit seats painted and its underside sanded and painted. The seats are paint ready so I'll launch into that work this morning.

After ten days away, I returned to a dusty shed where the spiders have moved in. How quickly chaos takes over. I feel lost as to where to start but that isn't unusual as it always takes me days to get back in the groove. At this point it feels even more confusing. There is no clear path as to what to do next and on top of it I'm only here for a couple of days before I go out of town again - a trip east and a long ago planned mountain trip. Both good but how am I to get focused for the last push. It's all about painting, fitting and rigging and getting it done in the right sequence and getting on the water.

A new blog of note - http://tiki38.blogspot.com

I have reduced the boat to eight components; two hulls, three beams(plus the extra) the cockpit, the rig and the tiller-tiller bar set up. To get this project done at this stage I've decided to focus on the work component by component.

In this light, I've decided to finish the front beam first. It's pretty close now. The paint is done except touch up. I've drilled holes for the beam end cleats and as the photo above shows, I've made the tramp attachment rail. This is made of an eight foot long 1" x 3/4" strip of HDPE that screws to the bottom of the beam. The lacing ropes enter and exit the strip at 45 degrees. At each location where a lacing enters and exits the rail there is a 2 1/2" #12 screw to hold the strain. Once it is tested out, I may choose to add some intermediate through bolts. Once the cleats and the tramp rail are attached then the beam should be done and I will move onto the next piece of work.

My hope is that by working this way, it will be a more logical and enjoyable completion of the building project. I know that my problem is the good weather and my desire to get on the water. I have to be gone for the next week so the project will sit dormant but then I'll plow through it at the end of July and be on the water in August.

I'm struggling with the last five percent of this project. I just don't seem to be able to focus on what ends up being a lot of loose ends so I feel like the photo above! To try to alleviate this, the whole family went out with friends for a sail. It was blowing 10-15 knts, one of the crew sailed with a mangled foot in an air cast as he got t-boned by a truck while riding his bike and we had an 18 month old with us. It was good to get out on the water. It was down-right odd! I've been so focussed on boatbuilding. I had zero sea legs which was wierd. I was trying to imagine sailing on the flat as we were on a C29 healed over. The day before I'd been out on Lake Washington in an outrigger paddling a quick stroke which felt more real. I need to focus though if I want to get Tsunamichaser in the water.


Front beam design.

Transformations to the boat at this point are small. Having said that it is always pretty dramatic when you go from bare wood to finish paint. The truth about your finish prep becomes instantly apparent. After having spent the last week tuning up the cockpit and getting everything to fit well, I decided that it was time to paint. After my disaster with the primer - paint reaction and based on information from Scott Williams about Easypoxy going down well directly over epoxy and my own test patches of this painting method, I went for it. I cleaned up the shed as best as I could, tarped both hulls, got in my moonsuit and fired up my spray gun. As it was an ideal temperature and Easypoxy has a quick recoat time I got several coats on through the afternoon. Now I just need to keep off the paint until it cures up hard. Then I'll unsling the cockpit flip it, sand it and paint it. I may try to drop it onto a couple of saw horses so that I can get the beams free and paint these. The beams still need locating blocks so somehow I need to figure out how to do these.

To stay out of the shed, I took on the task of giving the garage, where I do most of my cutting and milling a good clean. I hadn't really done this in months. I'm sorting the wood scraps and digging out the sawdust. I still have more parts to make like the trampoline attachment rails but carpentry is coming to an end.


Cockpit box prepped for paint.


....like a fresh field of snow!

I have now been at the building of this boat 195 days. I'm guessing that I average about six hours per day so I have almost 1200 hours into the project. I am almost finished every carpentry part as I finished up the cockpit seats yesterday. I managed to get all the raw wood epoxy coated so I'll let that cure for another couple of days before I sand and paint these components. Today I will sand the inside of the cockpit and the seat boxes in anticipation of painting. Hopefully everything will be fine and I won't need to come back and recoat anything. I'm feeling ready to get this boat out of my backyard.