Sailboats Fair and Fine # 30 : read oldest posts first

The bottom Picture is a U.S. Army tug aground in about seven feet of water. That thing must be deep draft. Sadly, She's the only south bound boat we passed today.The picture above it is the anchorage at Swansboro and out in front of Caspers Marina. "Nice people."

Oct.23

We left early, about 6:30,and put in a very long day. We dropped Anchor about 25miles down the waterway. It started out to be a very nice day and the weather was really nice. As we were going through the swing bridge at Moorehead city, another boat passed us-- “Gimbi” from Biloxi. The captain called to us, “ Lets go back to Deltaville.”We smiled and waved to each other. Doug and I didn't remember the boat but evidently they had been in Deltaville when we were there. Maybe we'll see them again as we get farther south. The way it looks that's going to be a while. All day long, boats have been passing us going south on the ICW. We thought it was just because the wind was against us but this evening we found out the clutch has been slipping all day and has finally burned up. We turned around and with the wind with us we sailed back about 3 miles and anchored in front of a marina in Swansboro, N.C.

The next few days will be big ones. For a little background on the coming events let me say that as a small kid I had some experience with clutches. My father who was a builder of all manner of things built a garden tractor. For an engine he used a Model T ford engine with it's transmition. I hung over his shoulder and watched handing him tools, but most generally getting in his way. I learned a lesson when I asked a question and he begun to answer. It always took him a lot of time to think over the question and come up with a good answer for a small boy. I asked another question on another subject before he could answer and he lost his patience and said, "Boy when you ask a question If you want to know the answer keep your mouth shut so it can be answered. If you done really want to know don't ask. Now do you want to know or not." "Yes," I replied, and then got my answer.

What this all boils down to is this. The little little Yanmar engine has a small version of the model T Ford clutch on it. So I already knew a lot about rebuilding it right from the start.

While I'm at it, it may be helpful to some to know that the big hydrolic clutches on marine engines are the same clutch with a hydrolic pump to generate the pressure to hold the plates tight together to transmit power to the propeller shaft. Don't let those high techy types tell you you need to go to college to fix one. Seventy five years ago every man in America could take one apart and fix it.

Saiboats Fair and Fine: Read oldest posts first

The cabinets and bunks was all aluminum and were built in as strength members to the whole mono coupe design. With the centerboard trunk going all the way through the deck it became the partition between the head and galley. An excellent use of a centerboard trunk if I ever saw one. With a wide and comfortable birth forward and two seat berths in the saloon she was comfortable for four. We even managed to sleep two on the saloon sole one night.

The engine arrived. And we set her on the engine mounts and it was a fit. The engine was a single cylinder Yanmar horizontal cylinder. There was an awful lot of questioning about the size of the engine. The general consensus was that the little diesel would not push the boat in anything but a dead calm. But I was optimistic. Just a little too optimistic a twelve horse engine would have better. But she pushed Woftrap hundreds of miles through canals both with and against the wind sometimes 25 knot winds and she always made at least some headway. The engine was under the cockpit sole and had a hatch for access to it. If I were to build the boat again I would build a bridge across the front end of the cockpit. It would add strength to the boat though it wasn't need. The big advantage would be it would give good access to the engine from inside the cabin and no leaky hatch would be required in the cockpit. It would also give enough height over the engine to allow for a vertical cylinder engine. I don't think horizontal engines are available today. A bridge would greatly reduce the cockpit size so there would not be laying down room on the seats. The worry over the big cockpit taking two tons of water would be reduced though. On coastal runs out in the Gulf Stream where waves could get huge in twenty knots of wind out of the North that was a concern.

The ½ inch thick rudder needed to be faired on the leading edge back to about half the rudder width. Here I learned something about Epoxy. Not having used it before I was ignorant of it's heat generating ability. I read the directions but didn't believe it could catch on fire if put on too thick. Man was I wrong I plastered it on filled with micro balloons which of course helped to hold the heat in. In a moment it was smoking and the whole shop came running. It didn't catch on fire but it heated to a dark brown and cracked wide open making a believer out of me. That's the trouble with being the boss and trying to do something tedious. There is never the time to do it right. I gave the job to a machinist apprentice who did and excellent job.

Foam was sprayed inside and then the outside painted with Emron. We needed a shed to polish turbine blades in so we bought the trailer off an old tractor trailer. We brought it to the shop, jacked it up on blocks and took the rear axles and wheels and made a four wheel trailer for, Wolf Trap, and took her so miles to Gwens Island to a boat carpenter to have her wooden interior put in. We worked on the spars and painted them. A local sailmaker made us a set of sails and we waited for our boat to come home.

Wolftrap to the Center of the World and Beyond: Read oldest post first

The sailboat Woftrap was built by Mars Machine works in Virginia as a project to keep the welding shop busy in off times.

Here she sits at the Dock of Gene Ruark's Marina in Deltaville Va. waiting for sails from Rod Hayes at Gloucester Point. Va. Spring 1979 Above she is sailing off Stingray Pt. Chesapeake Bay.

Here's a little something about the people and Company that Built Wolftrap. Bob Grow, was President and David Grow treasurer and I brought up the rear as Shop Foreman and Vice president.
Bob and David were the sons of a barn stormer and brought that tradition into the business. Bob was a stunt pilot, Commercial pilot, aircraft mechanic, motorcycle rider and one time successful bounty hunter. He was a sharp minded business man, a keen maker and spender of money. He was to some degree a womanizer and could talk the matches out of the hand of Lucifer. Bob married a little tiny women, Irene, who is pleasantly mouthy or not so pleasant if you find yourself on her wrong side. To the astonishment of us all she tamed him.
A perfect Company president I thought, and to my sadness he passed away a few years ago. David is a stunt pilot, a builder of airplanes and a rebuilder of many classic planes. In the shop he handle the paperwork of complex government contracts saw to the buying if materials and the shipping of product. David never got to big to go into the shop and do the dirty or nasty job if it was called for, he was dedicated. He and his beautiful wife Linda ran the business from the office. The shop was run a certain amount with the idea that we should make money to be able to play hard. We Did! My partners were in charge of Airplane and motorcycle play and I ran the boat play department.
The first part of my job was to figure out how to do the machine work and for me that was easy. It came natural with very little thought. The hard and biggest job for me was how to work forty or forty five people successfully. Myself being somewhat introverted I had to step out of my own personality to even begin to accomplish that task

I had recently sold my Crocker Gull class ketch and was without a boat. I was working long hours in the Machine shop where I was shop foreman and had tried to put boats out of my mind. That proved to be more in the nature of ignoring a tooth acke. After a short time finding myself weak, I gave in to images of fine little sailboats that wondered through my mind like cows in a pasture. I first eliminated the sailing ships then the sixty footers and the thirty footers and settled. I was finally thinking in terms of something about 23 ft for my wife and I . Our teen age children were way beyond the age of being willing to go sailing with mom and dad except maybe on Saturday morning for a couple of hours. I had in mind a boat suitable for us right up into our old age. I thought I was a lot older than I was. I was at fifty, a mere lad as I look back.

I was thinking in terms of a wooden boat, shallow draft with a little bit of windward ability with the board up. Hopefully powerful to windward with the board down. I liked the idea of a raised deck to get comfortable living space to be gone a year at a time. I liked the little Yanmar engine for power and I had a preference for a ketch or a schooner. I have always felt that a sloop just can't carry enough sail. If racing and lets face it, if two sailboats are going the same direction and in sight of each other they are racing. A two masted boat running or reaching can pop out a mizzen staysail and pick up a knot. Not enough? Set a flat spinnaker and you are really moving. Any amount of wind at all and you are sailing beyond hull speed. Because your off the wind you are hardly heeling and sailing in most cases with nearly a neutral helm. A main boom end well past the transom on a boomkin with a good long bowsprit for good directional stability. Low rig to keep healing easy and a couple of topsails for the July, August doldrums.

We felt that if we wanted to go back to Bermuda with a centerboard slot that went all the way up through the boat. We could replace it with a ballasted foil shaped keel that could be slipped up through the boat and pinned in place. In shallow water it would be unpinned so that the keel could push up through and even hoisted from the mast to get off the bottom. Of course the boat would have to be designed to do that. It would not be difficult to remove the keel and put the centerboard back in for sailing n the the Chesapeake bay.