Camping in St Joseph's Sound!

The spoil islands just north of Dunedin Causeway have been a favorite of mine to camp on for quite a long time. The last weekend of October shaped up to be a perfect weather weekend to celebrate a round of birthdays (some of us are entering into our 5th decade :).

Over 3 days we had 12 guys out there, everyone came on canoe, kayak or my buddies john boat.

I brought the Islands 17 out, rushing to get there and get launched by 4pm Friday. My sail out was heaven! I didn't even drop my trolling motor in, had the boat loaded up with gear, and extra gear as many folks were in from out of state. I was loaded with firewood, water, cast iron camping cookware, extra chairs. Not really camping, more like outdoor living.

I blasted out close hauled into a NW wind, bouncing over whitecaps and hiking out to keep her flat. Sailed right up to the beach where the early canoers helped me unload and buddy Johnson and I turned right around and blasted around until almost dark.

I ended up using the boat swap rudder, and the blade kept kicking up on the sail out. Johnson and I put a couple extra washers in it to stiffen it up and it worked great.


I was planning on camping on another island, and mooring to the trees, so I left my huge oversized anchor at home. We didnt have that island, so I had to keep hauling her in at night with the tide, and ended up high and dry until 10am. Johnson and I went out the next morning to try and pick up a few stragglers coming in. Drying out on the beach jammed the centerboard, and I jumped in to clear it, but it fell lose as soon as I went overboard. When I jumped back on and sheeted in POP, my windward shroud lost a wire. That ended my sailing for the weekend, exept for the sail back on Sunday, but that shroud was the lee shroud and not loaded. Time to learn how to fix that piece!

All in all it was a great trip, I didn't take nearly enough pictures, hopefully my buddies will send me theirs. Glassy and Joaquin each brought 5 gallons of home brew, which was damn good (Joaquin had a really nice pale ale, but Glassy's honey brown hit me just right that weekend).  I was super comfy in my Hennessee Camping hammock. The cast iron dutch oven provided; cinamon rolls, egg fritata, peach cobbler, and the lid made for a nice bacon and pancake pan on Sunday. This little Islands 17 easily swallowed all the gear I had, it is a nice little beach camper!

Rushing some projects for a camping trip

With a camping trip approaching quickly I needed to get a working rudder. I had gotten the new head stock ready to glue up, but still needed to mount the hardware and the tiller. So I split my time and worked a bit on another rudder I bought at a swap years ago that happened to fit while I worked on the actual Islands 17 rudder. As always, I try to have a couple extra projects whenever I break out the epoxy, so in addition to playing with the rudders, I glued down the manu pieces on the Ulua canoe and then filled the screw holes and added glass reinforced fillets to the Ulua motor mount.


The swap meet rudder has a nice (slightly dinged) mahagony blade and hefty oak cheeks. The hardware is nice thick stainless. Even the nut to tighten the blad had a nice bit of bar welded to it for purchase. The tiller was split in the back, so I wrapped the bolt in an old latex glove, mixed some thicked epoxy and filled the 1/4" split, then wrapped some glass tape around the end. Ok, worse comes to worse I'd have a rudder.

Then I figured out some spacers and glued up the new head stock for to replace the Islands 17 rudder.

I used rough exterior ply, but given that it is epoxy jointed and glass reinforced on the corners I'm pretty sure it will hold hold. Especially once it gets a couple coats of epoxy to seal then paint. Need to round the corners a bit I think. I keep telling myself it isn't a museum piece, but this part is pretty ugly. May spend some cycles filling and sanding it so it isn't too embarrasing.

It is nice to have those manu blocks on. Now I can do the finish sanding and shaping on the gunnels, as well as the manu blocks. From there it is just some finish sanding and maybe some light fill coats/more sanding before I can varnish! While that is going on, I may plug away at the sailing bits and safety ama.  Actually, now that I may be using the swap meet rudder on my Islands 17, I need to add one more item - a lee board. The rudder blade was what I had planned on using for the Ulua board, oh well!

More rudder work and a bit of work on Ulua manu

Spent a few hours in the shop today. Lots of little things to do still on Ulua, and I want to replace the Islands 17 rudder head.
Started by leveling the stern deck for the Manu. I'd done the bow so long ago and it's time to even it up. I have this thing about getting as many pieces ready as possible before breaking out the epoxy. I'll put these on when I do the epoxy work on the rudder head.

After some sanding and chiseling I got it flattened out and recessed, I moved on to the rudder.

I fit and drilled the to center and place the rudder blade on the 1/4"  ply that will be used as the center segment when it is all glued up. Even though it'll be cut out, I figured it would be best to use this as a template to get the bolt hole marked on the 2 3/4" halves. I also traced the rudder blade on the 1/4" ply so I can cut it out later.

 Once I had the hole marked on the thicker ply, I drilled oversize so I can do fill with thickened epoxy  to help prevent rot. Once that's done, I'm going to coat the inside before final assembly. This may be overkill, but I want it to last!

EasyB Cedar Strip Canoe

Another one from the archives of the defunct flsail.com

I had a good time building this design from plans from one of my favorite sites, Duckworks.

They even posted a little article I put together about it, which was pretty neat.

Still use the heck out of this little boat, great for a quick paddle down a river or in calm water.