This blog describes in words and pictures the building of a Paul Gartside designed fantail launch. There are a number of fantail launches of various sizes on the Paul Gartside website at http://store.gartsideboats.com/collections/steam-launches.

My boat will look like his 20 foot steam launch but will be 18 feet long and will be powered by a small diesel or petrol engine or possibly an electric motor. I have built a rowing boat, one and a half sailing boats and a small canoe and so this will be something different.

If you would like to contact me please click to send me an email.

Monday 9 May 2016

Finished All the Strip Planking. Hooray!

I put the last 5 strips on the starboard side today. That is the end of the strip planking.


Here are some numbers. I bought 14 sheets of 5mm ply and have one and a half sheets left plus a stack of 50mm wide off cuts. The off cuts amount to a bit over one sheet but I can't think of a use for 77 short (average 850mm) lengths of ply; I have put them in a corner where they are out of the way, perhaps one day.

So that's 14 minus 2.5 = 11.5 sheets of ply in the hull. This is way less than any of the rule of thumb estimates for the amount needed which all suggested 15 sheets.

What else is in the hull? Epoxy and plastic nails. I have no idea how much epoxy I used, possible around 3x6 litre kits of Boatcraft epoxy. The other side of the epoxy situation is the filler used and I have no idea about this. I do have a comment though: I started using Epiglas HT120 High Strength filler. When I had to buy more epoxy resin from Boatcraft I bought some of their high strength filler. I didn't like it and so switched back to the Epiglass product. There's no logic here but if anyone wants a bucket of Boatcraft filler! As for the plastic nails, there are about 11000 of them in there - fortunately they can stay in there!

What's next? a bit of tidying up then a lot of sanding, filling and more sanding until the hull is fair and ready for fibreglass sheathing. This will take some time with no real photo opportunities and so there might not be another post for a while!