Building the Skoota Coach Launch

Not sure who else could've done it.  I got to the shop this evening, and found the strongback gone, and the hull sitting in a new cradle.  Must've been elves.  Port hull off the strongback I couldn't resist temptation and pulled the hull out of the workspace into the main shop, pulled the starboard hull out of its hidey hole, got some help with the deck, and viola!  It's a boat!  And everything fits (or close).   I've been trying to visualize the actual size - it's a lot bigger than I thought, and I'm quite pleased.  A lot of work yet to be done, but I'm pretty chuffed with where it's at today! Thanks, elves!!!

Progress Just because there's lots of dead air doesn't mean we stopped work!  A couple of key 'learnings' Once the competition season begins, it's a lot harder for a coach to spend several hours a day working on the boat. It's damn near impossible to take pictures and work with epoxy at the same time And when you work with epoxy, most of the 'work in progress' is hidden from view anyway. Putting the second hull together goes much faster than the first. So here we go... Port Hull We put the last panel on the port hull this morning.   As noted above, it did go significantly faster this time around. Panel screw clamped in place We learned a lot of tricks the first time around, and by measuring/adjusting our work from the starboard hull, we cut 2 months off the second hull's build! We also had several of our team athletes volunteer to help with assembly.  It was great to get them involved, and saved us a much longer night (or 2nd...

It's been a few days since the last update.  Lots going on in my other worlds, and also quite a bit of 'small work' in this one. After cutting away everything that didn't look like a boat, it was time to start filling things in.  The basic hull is quite strong, but the deck side and fittings have to be even stronger.  Imagine having a 140lb athlete putting all their weight on one knee and then on a 4mm bit of plywood - probably not a long term good prospect. Over the past two weeks, we've added additional stringers to the top deck (where the frames were bolted in, laminated plates for the fore and aft hull sections (including access ports), added pink foam for positive buoyancy, filled gaps, and reinforced anywhere we thought we might be weak. We also spent several hours doing take-offs from the starboard hull, updating drawings, and transferring to the port hull frames. Clamps.  Lots of clamps. The proof of doing all the cloning, copying and transferring is...

It's been a busy last 10 days or so, with not much happening on the build last week.  Brian spent some time fairing stringers and planing to the finished form, while I took athletes to Oklahoma City for US National Team Trials.  I'm pleased to report that two Twin Cities Paddlesports athletes qualified for the Jr National Team!  You will be able to read about that on tcpaddlesports.com. Meanwhile, we started the next stage of the build - paneling. We've opted for 4mm Okoume plywood, sourced here in the Twin Cities from Midwest Boat Appeal .  They are reasonable, and a pleasure to do business with. Tonight was a big night for us.  We finished fairing and planing, and called it 'good enough'.  It's level, it's tight, and it's faired well within the bounds of a little thickened epoxy. We started out by pulling patterns for the side panels.  Probably not an absolute requirement, but for the cost of roll of rosin paper, it makes things so much easier. ...

Note:  This build began with assistance from Richard Woods (https://sailingcatamarans.com ), who allowed us to acquire the plans and adapt his Skoota design to fit our build requirements.  We are feeding back our build to Richard for possible inclusion in a more formal offering of the Skoota "16".  Any inquiries about plans, costs, etc. should be directed to him, with our gratitude. Another note - most of this build is being done in metric.  However, since most of my audience is used to inches, feet and pounds, we'll express dimensions in those terms.  My apologies to those used to the better system.  Magic numbers 25.4, .0394, .454, 2.2, 1.61, .62.  Oh, and 42. The project You may have linked here from TCPaddlesports.com or our Facebook page.  Or maybe from some other post.  In any case, this will be the story (hopefully not too long) of building a new low wash launch for our canoe/kayak racing club. RIP "Murphy" our aging coach lau...