Eun Mara Alistego Building Articles

Adding The First Bits

Wed, 3 Sep 2008 22:34:53 -0600

Coming soon...

The Set Up

Tue, 2 Sep 2008 20:42:50 -0600

The first question when actually beginning on a boat is what, exactly, do you do first? While everybody will have their own methods, I like to begin a folder where absolutely everything for the project will be stored.
On the left side I kept copies of articles regarding the boat, design information from Iain Oughtred, and any correspondence that pertained to the design. On the right side I kept all the receipts, bills of sale, shopping lists etc.
Because I expected to do a lot of brainstorming (what-if thinking), sketching, making lists, etc., I kept a notebook so all this information would be in one place and be easy to refer to later on. I also started a Filemaker database to keep track of material quantities and especially costs.
On the first page of the notebook I started jotting down information about the building frame particulars. Yes, the information is included on the plans, along with the full sized mould drawings but it is up to you to translate that into a wooden reality.
I decided a convenient base line (from where all subsequent measurements are taken) would be the floor but since I was working with a packed sand floor, I’d need a more reliable reference. I decided the bottom of my 2x6 ladder frame would be my base line. The ladder frame width was determined by the width needed by the narrower moulds in the ends of the boat. A bit too narrow would be better than a bit too wide. The waterline of each mould would be measured from the bottom of the building frame and supported by two 2x4 uprights at each station.
Once some idea of width and basic arrangements of the ladder frame are set, the length of the building frame can be determined. Fortunately, the station spacings are provided, so a little adding will get you the needed length. When setting this out you need to remember which is the controlling edge of the mould. Since the Eun Mara is a double-ender the controlling face of the mould is the one closest to the end of the building frame except for the center one which may be either, but be sure to remember which one it is.
The last detail to remember is that the building frame length is the distance between the forward perpendicular and the aft perpendicular, which is between the inner face of the inner stem and the inner face of the inner stern. If my notes are correct, this is exactly 19 feet. Add the outer stem and stern and you have the actual length of the boat.
Now that the planning is done we can put the frame together by building a rectangle, making sure it has perfectly square corners and is exactly 19 feet long. Stretch a string along the centerline of the frame as a center reference. All we have to do now is add uprights to the sides of the ladder at the stations making sure the correct edge of the mould is at the station location and that they are perfectly vertical.
Finally, starting from the center station and working to the ends, add the moulds to the uprights ensuring that the waterlines are all the same height from your baseline and using a plumb bob to center the moulds on the frame’s centerline. Working carefully, you’ll be amazed how accurately you can do this, if you take your time and are patient.
The last step is to break out some battens and tack them onto the moulds at the plank overlaps, sighting along them from as many angles as you can manage, to check for fairness. Taking your time here will pay off in a fair, straight hull. If you notice that your moulds are unfair, find out why and fix the cause now. Do not even think about building a boat on a misaligned building frame, you will certainly regret it later on.
Once we are sure the building frame is straight and fair, we can go on with building the actual boat.

You've Got To Have A Plan

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 18:00:47 -0600

The image above shows most of the sheets in the plans set for the Eun Mara. A bit yellowed, some are just about worn out, and all are very necessary to complete the boat as designed. The sheets not pictured are the full sized half-section patterns for the building frame moulds.

So what were the events that led to the selection of this design and the purchase of the plans? To start with, my wife and I both had some sailing experience, she on cruisers on Lake Ontario and me, to a lesser extent, in dinghies on small inland lakes. Once we had been married for a couple of years we decided that we needed a sailboat. We didn’t have a lot of money so we ended up buying a used fiberglass 16 foot sloop with a cuddy cabin for as much as we could afford and brought her home.

We had some great times on her over the years and I even repaired the bottom blistering that had become worse over time. After a summer spent on my back opening up blisters, filling, and fairing the hull, I complained that it would be easier to just build another boat and be done with it. It didn’t help that I was reading Woodenboat magazine at the time and there were many articles about people who did just that.

A couple of things then happened at about the same time. Firstly, we got caught out in a bit of a blow with our two young daughters and one became quite seasick. It was becoming clear that our family was rapidly outgrowing our little sloop. I was also beginning to see that we needed a more capable boat for the rather large lake that we sailed on. As if to press the point further, Woodenboat then ran the series by the Wagner brothers about the building of their Grey Seal. The more I read and reread those articles, the more I saw myself building a Grey Seal of my own.

Inspired, I bought “50 Wooden Boats”, “30 Wooden Boats”, followed by “40 Wooden Boats” and finally Iain Oughtred’s Design Catalogue, and of course Iain’s boatbuilding manual itself. In Iain’s own words the Grey Seal was a big project for a lone builder so I looked at his smaller designs as a warmup for what was now being called “The Big Boat.”

In 1996 I ordered the plans for Oughtred’s “Acorn Dinghy” from Woodenboat Magazine. During that summer I built my first boat in a 10 foot by 10 foot shed with power supplied by a gas generator. I built the 7’6” version because I wouldn’t have to scarph any plywood that way. I could work only during nice weather since all cutting and shaping had to be done outdoors.

In the end I proved to myself that I could indeed build a boat that my family could use. Other than how to actually build a boat, I learned two important lessons with the Acorn (aka Wren, Auk, etc.). First, it takes a lot of work to build any kind of boat and secondly, that your best guess at costs are about half what it will really cost.

Now I had to decide which boat to build next. I knew it had to be an Oughtred design, since I had some experience building to his plans now, and I knew the Grey Seal was going to be too big for me to build alone. My attention turned to the Wee Seal and I was just about decided on it when I was told by my better half that she did not like the look of the Scandinavian styled overhangs on her.

Slightly desperate now, I noticed a single photo of a boat only described as a “canoe yawl” in Iain’s boatbuilding manual. I decided to write to him asking about this design. After a few weeks an envelope arrived with a reply in Ian’s ornate writing, telling about two new designs he had on the drawing board, the Farne Islander and the Eun Na Mara. I was sitting on the couch looking at the specifications and outline sketches when my wife walked in asking what I was looking at. I showed her the sheets and she pointed at the Eun Na Mara and simply said, “That one.”

The more we looked at her the more it became clear that this could indeed be the one to build. The flexibility of the yawl rig was something new for us and we needed to know more. I wrote to Iain again asking for more information and in his reply he told me that the plans were still incomplete but the updated sheets were being sent out as he finished them.

This may be a good place to talk about the price of plans. There seem to be some prospective builders who think the price of plans are too high. As of this writing a set of plans for the Eun Mara are about $450 US. At first glance almost five hundred bucks seems like a lot for eleven pieces of paper. But really, this represents only two or three percent of what the boat will likely cost. For the work involved in producing the drawings, that’s a pretty modest fee for the kind of boat you’ll end up with. In reality, spending $80 on plans for an $800 boat is much more expensive.

Anyway, soon after, some money changed hands, and a big envelope arrived in the mail with a simple message on the envelope flap. “Thanks, hope it goes well!” Inside were the first few drawings for Eun Mara number 16.

That was in December of 1999 and over the next few months envelopes would appear with this sheet or that sheet partly done now, completed later, corrections after that. By the spring of 2000 we were ready to get busy building “The Big Boat.”

In the next installment, we’ll try to make sense of the building frame and I’ll tell you about my “notebook”.

So You Want To Build A Boat: Getting Started

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:58:54 -0600

Most people are surprised when I tell them that the hardest part of building the Eun Mara was deciding to do it. Since starting the Alistego.com website I’ve heard from all kinds of people from all over the world and every one of them were going to build an Eun Mara. I sometimes wonder how many even got started.

Most prospective builders start out enthusiastically enough, many even buy the plans, a few set up the building frame. That, it seems, is where reality kicks in-hard!

So what things have to be present before you can even get started?

First you need the burning, passionate, desire to build “this” boat. Seems obvious, doesn’t it? You must be brutally honest with yourself about why you want to build a boat.

Do you like to sail more than build? If this is you, building your own boat is probably not for you. You will spend many perfect sailing days working on your boat and in the end you’ll probably resent it. Get yourself a good used boat or have some else build an Eun Mara for you.

Would you rather build than sail? This is a tough one. Presuming that you’ll want to keep and sail your boat when it’s done, you’ll be fine. If you think you’ll recover your costs by selling the boat, to finance your next project, you may be out of luck. Home built boats usually sell at the low end of the scale and the best I’ve heard of was a newly built Eun Mara selling for “about” what it cost to build.

Are you looking at building a boat as a cheaper alternative to buying one? In the smaller sizes of boats this can be done. You can even build an Eun Mara cheaply, but do you really want to trust your life to that boat? Any material that permanently goes into your boat should be the best you can possibly get. Yes, marine plywood is expensive, yes there is cheap epoxy out there (don’t even think about using polyester resin), but at the end of the day the extra costs will only be a few percent of what the whole boat costs. Poor materials may even prevent you from insuring our boat if it can’t pass a survey. The bolt-on stuff can be what you can afford right now, provided you can upgrade it later. A properly built Eun Mara may well cost as much as a similar sized production boat but you’ll get a much better boat.

OK, so we have our motivation sorted out, what else? Your spouse. Without the support and blessing of your spouse (or partner, significant other, etc.) don’t even consider a project like this. Your relationship will suffer and it’s just not worth it. In my case I had my wife “on board” from the beginning and it made the building of our boat a terrific experience. Even with initial support, over the long haul things might get tense. You’ll spend countless evenings, weekends and other usual family times working on the boat so try to spend some time on a regular basis with the important people in your life. For the same reason, try to keep the project moving along so it doesn’t seem like it will never end.

Now that we’re motivated and we have our family on board, what’s next? Space. No, not the final frontier, but enough room to actually build this thing. At first glance it might seem that somewhere about 20 feet by 10 or 15 feet might work. Well, I’m here to tell you it won’t. The boat is about 20 by 7 feet or so, but you’ll also need space for materials storage, tools, moving around the boat itself, some workbenches, etc. I had a 22 by 30 foot tarp garage to use. There was a 10 by 10 foot corner I couldn’t use but the rest was mine. In addition to space for the boat I had a 4 by 8 foot storage table for plywood and lumber. A bench 3 feet by 8 feet or so is good for fasteners, an epoxy station, gloves, small supplies, and so on. It was really handy to have a very long (20 feet plus) two foot wide bench for scarphing planks, working on spars, etc. A bench for stationary tools like a drill press, sander, thickness planer, cutoff saw, and so on is worth having. Running long stock through a table saw takes a lot of space and this needs to be included too. Everything should be able to be left set up as much as possible, so you aren’t needing to move everything around just to spend a few minutes working on the boat. Those are quite a lot of requirements, but the biggie is that you need to have it all going for what might be several years. People have built Eun Maras with less space but it was certainly more difficult to do.

As with most things, there is just one more thing you need for your project. Money. Not too surprising is it? In today’s world most of us just do not have the money to go out and buy a boat, car, house, etc., outright, so we finance it. I’m not suggesting that you get a loan to build a boat but you will need to consider where the money will come from. At first, $20-30 thousand looks pretty scary for a do-it-yourself boat. Don’t panic! Consider that you don’t need all of it at once, and it will likely be spread out over at least a few years, so it will be more manageable.

If you’re the type that will do so, put aside some money each month to build up a balance to draw from and go from there. Treat it like a loan payment to yourself and you’re most of the way there. If you’re like me, you’ll pay as you go and hope for the best! The cash flow is pretty continuous through the building as there are always things to buy but there are a few phases where the costs are larger and it is best to be prepared for this.

The first large cash outlay is right at the beginning. No, not the plans, I’ll write about people who complain about plans costs later. While it did cost a few hundred dollars to get the building frame and moulds built, the first big cost was for plywood and epoxy. To get started on the hull we bought 10 sheets of 9 mm ply and a Group C size of West System epoxy with all the needed additives. The next big purchase was the bronze hardware for the spars and ports. True, we could have avoided this cost but the bronze looks just so darn nice. Here’s the worst time of the build, the finish. This is when you need, sails, a trailer, an outboard, and more. If you saved a bit as you built, this is where it will pay off.

At this point you’re clear in your purpose. You have the appropriate motivation, you have your family’s support, and you have considered how you’ll pay for all this. What’s next? Like they say in the movies, “What we need here is a plan!”