Building RED RASCAL Part Eleven of Twelve
The new bronze ports and hand rail in place. Photo: Bob Collier © 2016
Ports - My bronze port lights were from NewFound Metals (Newfoundmetals.com) and came with very detailed and pictorial instructions. The also sent the caulking and a special drill to recess the bolts.
Handrails - These are pretty easy. Each rail was cut from a single board of Padauk. You just draw a pattern, either on a sheet of paper or directly onto the wood. I looked at several handrails including Flickas and settled on this form with seven supporting posts. Note the nice straight grain on the handrail wood.
Cut the rails out with a band saw or saber saw, round the edges with a router, sand, and varnish them. The rails are then bolted to the cabin roof from the inside. The bolt heads are recessed and plugged. The trick in locating the bolt holes is to determine the fore and aft If you are putting in replacement port lights, position where you would like the rail to sit. the pattern will indicate the bolt hole Then drill the first one in the roof and pre-drill placement. Note also the eyebrow trim in part of the bolt’s length into the rail post. place, but the screws haven’t been plugged yet. Bolt this first post in place (from the inside) A key part of the installation is the butyl rope and then mark the other six posts’ on the roof. caulking. The first two port lights I caulked Now remove that first bolt to provide room to just as they recommended, but it was so messy drill the other six bolts similarly to the first that the final four I reduced the amount of one. caulking to make it neater and less to clean up. SPARS - On my boat, a gaff-rigged cutter, this But with the first rainstorm the first two port amounted to four: mast, main boom, gaff lights didn’t leak a drop while the other four boom, and club boom for the staysail. I tackled leaked so much I had to re-caulk them. Lesson the job of making the mast first. The spars are of spruce. I looked at the traditional wood for learned, follow directions! The first step is to draw a pattern by tracing around the port light or template, cut it out, and place it on the trunk house sides as a guide for cutting.
spars, Sitka spruce, but it was not only scarce but the Sitka spruce I did find was of poor quality and minimal quantity. I did find excellent spruce, primarily from Oregon, with good straight grain. I could not find any 25’ lengths that weren’t warped, so I got several 2” x 4” x12’ and 2” x 4” x 14’ and scarfed them. The mast consisted of a four-sided box-like structure 23 feet long, 5” in diameter. The scarfing was performed the same way as was done for the planking. No two scarfed joints were opposite each other. In order to hold them tightly together until the glue dried (Tite Bond, water resistant), the scarfed portions of the mast were clamped and temporarily screwed together. PHOTO shows the center part with the scarfed boards, with additional boards alongside (temporarily in place) to provide lateral pressure on the glued boards for alignment. Once I had constructed the 4 sides of the mast, I glued 3 of the sides permanently together. I laid in fiberglass/epoxy to cover the 3 insides, with a flap for the fourth side when it is closed Flicka Friends F
in---this will add great strength to the mast, acting as an internal splint. Then laid 3 cables inside the length of the mast (you can see 2 of the cables hanging out the end of the mast). These are for the radio antenna, the mast head light, and an extra one in case I would need it in the future (such as for radar). Once this was done, the fiberglass flap was epoxied and attached to the other side (inside) of the mast. Then the final side of the mast was closed up and glued together. When this all dried, the tedious sanding began to change the mast from square to round. Sanding - Hours and hours of sanding and more sanding of the mast to finally achieve a smooth rounded mast. This also involved measuring each section of the mast as I sanded to be sure all areas were being sanded equally, as well as a slight taper to the upper portion of the mast.
Measure twice, drill and cut once! Photo: Bob Collier © 2016
In the photo, the unfinished gaff boom is alongside the mast. In the background is the “first” main boom. After I completed it, it began to warp in a few weeks. I tried to correct the warp by soaking it and placing a heavy battery on it as you see in the photo. But even after a several weeks, the warped area remained. So, I built a second main boom and this one remained straight and true. All the spars were given four coats of varnish. The mast, which was hung from the garage ceiling and given nine coats of varnish. I felt that I could easily re-varnish all the other spars when needed, but the mast would be the most difficult to do and might get neglected. Later on I did figure out a way to re-varnish the mast without un-stepping it. Bowsprit - I’ve skipped over some parts in this build due either possible boredom on the reader’s part, obvious simplicity of construction, or too much time spent on one subject (the main reason). But, there have been several emails inquiring about bowsprit construction, so I decided to include this topic. First off, there are many different ways to make a bowsprit and mine is just one of those. OK, the first thing was to get two long and straight-grained Douglas Fir, 2 x 6’s. These two boards were cut down to 4 ½” wide and 1 ½” thick (the “2 x” as sold is already 1 ½” thick). These were glued and clamped together and then the forward five inches were cut with a band saw to a rough round tip. The forward four inches were then rounded with a belt sander with a slight
A special drill bit cuts the holes and creates the recess as well. Photo: Bob Collier © 2016
Three Newfound Metals port lights in place on the port side of s/y RED RASCAL. Photo: Bob Collier © 2016
The mast required seemingly countless hours of sanding before reaching the desired shape. Photo: Bob Collier © 2016
Scarfing the mast sections. Photo: Bob Collier © 2016
The completed mast in place on s/y RED RASCAL. Photo: Bob Collier © 2016
Continued on Page 5 bevel where the front four inches joins the rest of the bowsprit at five inches from the front. This beveling means that the cranse iron can be placed over the tip and firmly hammered securely in place. The dotted lines shown in the diagram indicate the location of three threaded rods. They were obtained from a local builders’ supply. Drill the holes for the rods into each half of the platform and bowsprit before joining the three parts. Dry fit the threaded rod and cut to a flush length. Then glue and clamp the platform to the ‘sprit. Also recess and tighten the nuts on the rods. Now the overall length of the ‘sprit measured 77” with 20” on deck, so 57” projects beyond the stem. The aft base was rounded over (bull nosed) with a band saw and sander. A test fit of the sprit to this point showed that it would sit too low and near horizontal. So I cut a wedge 2” thick and 18” long that was glued to the bottom of the ‘sprit and this gave it a proper lift. The American ‘sprits’ angle follows the sheer, while in England it is usually parallel to the water. The platform was made in two pieces. The port side one had four cutouts, each 16” long and 1” wide with a 3 ½” separation between the fore and aft cutouts. On the starboard side, there are two 16” cutouts and two 6 ½” cutouts with a 3 x 6 ½” rectangular opening for an anchor shank. Each platform is 6 ½” wide, two of them plus the 4 ½” wide ‘sprit means a total 17 ½” wide platform. The diagram, although foreshortened, illustrates the bowsprit. The bowsprit is anchored to the bow by eight bolts at the base of the sprit. They go through the deck and breast hook and are bolted in the anchor locker. Since the bobstay counteracts traction by the fore-stays, you wouldn’t need that many bolts. This set-up has worked for me. These photos of the bowsprit were taken some seven years after building it. You can see some aging of the platform, but all aspects considered, I have been very pleased with the construction and durability of this method. For a hint as to the next CHAPTER, you need to consult your Little Orphan Annie Decoder Ring! Carefully turn the dials to reveal the coded words: F-I-N-A-L-C-H-A-P-T-E-R Finally finished!!! Now to get this boat out of the garage, not an easy task, and launched! “Bob the Builder”---s/v Red Rascal 8
Two grab rails for s/y RED RASCAL. Photo: Bob Collier © 2016
The bow and bow sprit of s/y RED RASCAL. Photo: Bob Collier © 2016
The completed bowsprit of s/y RED RASCAL. Photo: Bob Collier © 2016
The dashes show the placement of the bolts. Photo: Bob Collier © 2016