BeamBrackets and Cold Snap
15 March 2017 | St. Marys, GA
Capn Andy/mild winter
The remaining fiberglass work on the outrigger canoe included the underside of the inboard side deck and the bottom of the main hull. The inboard side deck already received a 3 foot wide fiberglass belt amidships and now only needed two 3 1/2 foot sections fore and aft to be completed. These are the underside of the side deck, the top of the side deck is completely glassed.
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The outboard side deck which ended fore and aft with a blunt square that was roughly finished with glass because I knew I would cut it back in some kind of curved shape. There was also a curved strip from the end of the coaming of the inboard side deck that would wrap around across to the outboard gunwale and continue as a facing on the end of the outboard side deck. This curved strip was made out of the crappy 1/8“ doorskin plywood. It was shaped and laminated from two layers. It ended up looking good, it doesn’t have to bear any weight unless someone sits on it.
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The rudder gudgeons consist of the butt ends of the crossbeams which extend past the lee gunwale just enough to put a rudder there. The lower gudgeons are poplar 1X4 shaped identically to the butt ends of the crossbeams and situated below them just above the waterline. This hull design has little buoyancy in the ends, so when you are in the vicinity of the aft crossbeam, the water comes higher than the waterline and the lower gudgeon would drag in the water if it was not well above the waterline. The lower gudgeons pass right through the lee hull and are anchored inside the windward hull. The idea is to have them strongly mounted with a socket for the rudder pin, then put the rudder pin in place and attach the crossbeam above, with its own socket for the top of the rudder pin. The rudder pin is part of a cassette that holds the rudder but releases it when it strikes something hard, like a sand bar or a rock.
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The crossbeam details get complicated because I want square edges where the crossbeam is in contact with part of the canoe, like at the gunwales, but want rounded edges everywhere else. It looks like we will have to add spacers to meet the bottom side of the crossbeams because the curve of the crossbeam doesn’t exactly match the points of the canoe that it contacts. It is my fault that I goofed when I calculated the amount of arch in the crossbeams, still can’t figure out how I came up with 11 inches as the distance between the main hull’s gunwales and the gunwales of the ama when the ama’s keel is just touching the water. Perhaps I doubled it from 5 1/2 inches, which is probably more correct, because I laminated the crossbeams face to face with a spacer holding them apart, the ama ends of the crossbeams clamped together, and the butt ends pulled toward each other to create the arch. So, if I forgot that I doubled 5 1/2 inches to 11 and then doubled 11 into 22 inches, that would account for the excessive arch of the crossbeams. Of course I will show them to people and say they are arched that way to clear the waves better.
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I was going to make the crossbeam clamps, the brackets that hold the crossbeam to the boat, out of fiberglass and cast them in a mold. Then I decided to use hardwood and make them out of that. If the crossbeams had followed my original plan of laying directly on the gunwales of the main hull and ama, then the fiberglass route would have worked out, but with the increased arch in the beams, standoffs have to be made to follow the curve. Each attachment point has a slightly different profile and needs an individually constructed bracket.
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A cold snap hit us and gave two days of very wet weather, then continued with the coldest days of the winter, which we had thought was over. Work with epoxy seemed to be out of the question due to the cold temperatures.
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The crew from Bodkin Inlet came down to Florida to enjoy a spring break of mild weather. Sorry. Kaptain Kris and Cornelia Marie came down and Captain Neil and his co-captain Tess came up from Florida. We took a quick tour of the boatyard in between rain showers and headed to the local pub for burgers, etc. The photo is from that get together.