Workspace

The work shop area preparation took a little more work than I initially expected. The wall that needed opening up was not just a partition, it was load bearing. Now this was unexpected since the AI Domes  plans for our house don't show this wall being load bearing. A trip to the local lumber store for some 2”x10”x10ft lumber for a header, installed temporary bracing, install the header and I was ready to move on to building work benches. 

I really debated about work benches. In general the more the better given space, but specifically in this case is a bench long enough to work on full length parts like the hull sides, keel, mast and longer stuff like cross beams. Due to the shape of the dome basement I have an area that is 32ft long but only 12ft wide at the garage door side and 7ft on the opposite wall. So a 30ft bench 32”-36” deep will preclude building two hulls at the same time. My psychology is such that I'm loath to build one hull to the stage of moving it outside before beginning the 2nd hull.  So I've decided to build three 3ftx8ft benches that can be lined up and leveled for long work and when that is done moved back from the scared hull area.    Also I built a short bench for the table saw that will place it's table at the height of the benches, 36inch.

Spoke with Condon Lumber and my plywood should be here next week!
Also I just found out a sheet of Okoume 6mm weights about 18lbs while a sheet of Meranti 6mm weights about 24lbs, so for the full load of plywood the Okoume is closer to 350lbs lighter than the Meranti. Not only is the Okomue lighter it's a joy to work with, I've never seen nicer plywood, never any voids and beautiful when finished, very glad I went with Okoume.

Plywood

Today was the first buy of materials that will eventually become Tiki 30 #164. A few thousand dollars from my hands to Condon Lumber of White Plains NY hands and I own a stack of 29 6mm & 18 9mm 4'x8' B.S. 1088 Okoume plywood, to be delivered within two weeks. This generic Okoume is about half the cost of the Joubert I used building the CLC dinghy. I think this is a good choice as it saves over $1000 and the wood is to the same BS 1088 standard which includes no interior voids, passed the twice boil test, clear faces and the 9mm has 7 plys and the 6mm has 5 plys same as the Joubert. The other reasonable,IMO, choice would have been Meranti plywood. The Meranti also meets BS1088 standard and is cheaper but its denser so the total stacks of plywood weighs about 280lbs more. That represents nearly 10% of the unladen wait of #164 and I'd rather use that weight for an extra 30gallons or so of water.

Time for Action

Today it's time for action on the Tiki 30 #164 build. I haven't decided yet if I'll try to time this build it goes against my natural grain but it would be a nice data point. All of today's work was just applies to my particular situation. Removed drywall, move three receptacles, moved two overhead light switches, removed door and frame. Need to wait on pulling the stud wall until I get to town for some 2”x8” lumber for a header across the new opening.

At one point while measuring how the hulls would fit in the allocated space it dawned on me my garage door is only 80” tall. After looking at the plans for about a half hour I could not nail down the max height of the hulls. I know the max is at the aft end of the cabins but I couldn't get an exact number. So I call a nice guy, Marc, in central Florida who had shown Donna and I his Tiki 30 build this past winter. He was just getting to the shop to work on the boat and measured his boat. Came out to 79.5” with his boat elevated about 1.5” in it's rolling cradles. Whew, that make like easier. Still don't know how I'll flip the hulls to glass the sides and bottoms.

And finally Donna put the plans on large pieces of cardboard in the hope to keep them from getting destroyed during the build.

Site Selection:

I blew right past the May 1^st start, but then we didn't even arrive in Maine until May 9^th. Then there was and still is a long list of must get done items on our Dome house. But things have gotten a little less hectic and thoughts of the Tiki 30 come back. This picture gives and idea of the to be the site for the build of Tiki 30#164. Our dome house has a ruff diameter of 34 ft but the sides with entryways cut down that measurement. So the dimension from the face of the garage door to the opposite wall, which is through behind that stud wall through the door, is 31 ft 10 inches. From garage door to stud wall is only about 21ft, so some house remodeling will be the first order of business. The plan is to open up that wall about 7ft to the right of the door. The glass door will be reused in the main floor mud room.

 Next comes finding a place to keep my CLC Passagemaker dinghy.

Simplify, Simplify, Simplify

"Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand … Simplify, simplify." --H. D. Thoreau

The wait continues, Donna’s new 2nd Generation Catrike Trail has still not arrived at Mt Airy Bike. So we haven’t departed for Florida which means we haven’t left Florida to get to our home  in Maine the Tiki construction site. So I have been bent over the Tiki 30 plans for hours and hours over the last few weeks.

Every boat is a compromise naturally enough but I’ve found myself wanting more in the area of sailing performance out of my boats. But sailing performance is in near direct opposition to crew comfort. I forget where I read this and I’m in debt to the original author, “anything on a boat that doesn’t make it sail better, then by definition, makes it sail worse”.

Our first boat Tschuss, which was a Catalac 10M catamaran, sailed with two drogues in the water. Sure the three blade Michigan props made Tschuss a good motorboat but seriously detracted from any sailing performance. Our next boat Rubicon was a Heavenly Twins 26ft catamaran. Rubicon with an outboard that raised to the bridge deck and canoe hulls could sail circles around Tschuss. We lived aboard both and Tschuss was without a doubt more comfortable but I liked Rubicon immensely more.

I saw my first Tiki, I think it was a Tiki I didn’t know of Mr Wharrams designs in the summer of 2005, and I was in love. Here I was on this hideously complex boat, Tschuss, and there was that simple Tiki and it’s owners enjoying the same harbor. Now I’m reading about Rory’s “Cooking Fat” a Tiki 21 with just netting for a bridge deck and no motor and his amazing round the world adventure and cross Atlantic Jester Challenge races.  I really think that the best approach will be to keep changes to the basic Wharram design to the minimum, i.e. keep it simple!!

Yeah! got the call the Trike is in!!!! So no more Tiki updates for a few weeks when hopefully the build will be started:)

Can I really have refrigeration?

It’s been a rainy day so no trike riding. It’s been a day of design work. “Design work” a kind way to describe trying to put 10 lbs of sand in a 8 lb bag.  The TIki 30 was really designed as a tropical backpacking type boat. This makes sense since it can be disassembled and transported across a continent behind a small pickup truck. My problem is trying to put some more modern amenities in the equation. Adding a two burner stove or even an oven is trivial compared to adding refrigeration which is anything but trivial.

In this case I would like to have a small, approximately 5 cu-ft, ice box with Adler/Barbour Cold Machine refrigeration. I know that many long term cruisers do without refrigeration, heck some even do without a motor. But we’ve had refrigeration on our last two catamarans that we lived aboard from 2005 until last November. So I’m spoiled.

It is not an easy or cheap to add refrigeration. Here a a few things that need to be considered.

1. Spend over a grand to buy the Adler/Barbour compressor(CU-100) and evaporator(VD-150).
2. Find a well vented place to mount the compressor, preferably out of ear short. The evaporator will be in the Ice Box.
3. Design a 12 VDC battery system that has enough capacity to go a few days without recharge. We got away with 4 deep cycle batteries in the past. This will be adding to the boat probably 500 lbs in batteries, switches, circuit breakers, wire, etc. That’s 22% of the boats designed load carrying ability. Batteries and hardware will run several hundred bucks. And then find a place to put a few cu-ft of batteries.
4. Now design a way to keep these batteries charged when not at the dock. I’ve found that with a sunny day and under 90 degF ambient, my last ice box could keep cold with two 80 watt solar panels. But it’s not always sunny so the batteries are needed to carry through the less than sunny times. A wind mill would also help, since it does seem that when those cold fronts come through wind also comes with the clouds. The weight of a couple panels and a wind mill, cables, switches etc. can run about 50-lbs total.  And cost is again well over a grand.  And find a few sq-ft of space to mount the solar panels, without shadows. I don’t even consider running the engine or a generator since they destroy peace and quiet and have even higher life-cycle costs.
5. Next it would be nice when we’re at a dock if the batteries could be kept topped off using shore power, that will extend their lifespan and we could even run a toaster. So now I need to design an AC system with weather proof power cord, receptacle, circuit breaker, battery charger, wire, connectors, etc. Probably another 50-lbs of stuff and more than a couple Benjamin’s out of my wallet. 

So it probably costs 3 or 4 grand and adds about 600 lbs to a small boat. Damn, Donna and I could buy a couple of good beers every night for a couple years for that price and the only added boat weight would come from the extra pounds the beer will put on our bodies.

Wow, after typing all that up I’ve convinced myself that we need to learn to do without refrigeration, it’s just too expensive in cost, weight, and volume. A supper well insulated Ice Box will have to do. Plus this boat is not going to be a full time live aboard vessel, the plan is to cruise for 3-4 months a year.

Tiki is back on!

The rational half of my mind say "there is no time, a house to build, training for 2012 RAGBRAI" but then I see a picture of a Tiki and my mind immediately begins imagining white sand beaches and clear blue warm waters, and my irrational mind says "so what I WANT A TIKI 30!".
So I've been going over the plans again trying to see if I can fit the items we put in the "very nice to have" category.

1. A propane stove with oven,  a Force 10 compact would be nice.
2. Refrigeration.
3. Air Head composting toilet. 
4. In hull galley table. 

Now these hulls are narrow, I think pretty near a 10:1 length to beam. So after several drawings and discussions with Donna, the oven is out. Some type of smaller stove that can be moved from a in hull location to on deck location is in. Then I think I have room for the other "necessities".