The building of a sailboat ........

Our names are Carl & Jarl and this website details the story of building Rugludallur*, our sailboat.

Rugludallur is a "Hout Bay 33" designed by Dudley Dix.

Back in 2002 when we started the project we didn't have any experience building sailboats and our only sailing experience was in dinghies. This website is meant to help others building their boats and getting them afloat in the best way possible, we are not affiliated with any commercial entity and I hope that gives us an edge by offering sound advice and information.

Before building a boat one should think deep and hard about the motives and objectives, building a boat is not a way to get quickly or cheaply afloat, buying a second hand boat is much cheaper and quicker. For us it's not about the destination so much as it is about the journey, building a boat is a fun endeavour and I would recommend it to anyone interested in engineering that enjoys working with his/hers hands. Aside from the learning experience it gives one the opportunity to tailor the boat to ones wishes, these could vary from added bow strength for high/low latitude sailing to better lighting for the chart table.

Progress

Several things have happened since our last update, first we sourced a couple of parts including the rest of the steel for our trailer, most of the stainless fasteners and the rest of the stainless fittings and material for the boat. Most of the pre-work for the stainless is done and we have started welding major parts to the hull including the sliding hatch, hatch frames, windows and other things that are attached directly to the deck. In order to bend angle bars for hatch frames on the inside we had to class up our roller so we made a couple of extra wheels for angle bars and pipes, since it's mostly used for stainless and we were on a budget we used mahogany for the rolling wheels, hopefully this will leave the stainless surface in a pristine condition. The stern tube was welded using 309 MIG, we decided on a double pipe solution where a 316 pipe is welded to the hull with external threading on the end and a smaller diameter 318 pipe in contact with the seawater is then screwed in from the inside and only welded on one end by the prop, this should in theory give minimal distortion and maximum corrosion resistance with the option of changing out any parts in contact with seawater.

Work, work work

Still working on tanks and stainless components, most of the railing has been cut but needs to be welded to the hull. The sterntube went in last night and tanks should be finished in the next couple of days. Welding stainless components to the hull is made substancially easier by using MIG 309LSI wire with 98% Argon, 2% Co2 instead of stick welding but it's still more than 100 meters (300ft) of welding. Before welding everything we fitted the engine and made double sure everything lines up.

Last weekend we went out to the countryside to visit a farmer which had offered us wheels and front axles from old trucks to use for our boat trailer, using this and some I beams (IPE) we will be able to move the boat out and about for blasting and painting.

Considerations and options for paint systems and abrasive blasting have been taking up some time aswell, it now looks like we might do the whole thing ourselves if we manage to source components and build the equipment (blasting pot and cyclone grit recycler). We also took the time to sum up what we have learned about blasting and paint systems including a spreadsheet (OpenOffice Calc/Excel) to calculate quantities and prices for the paint, you can find the info under the Boatbuilding/Hull section. Hopefully we will also be able to post some diagrams for a blasting pot and grit recycler soon.

A whole lot of work

We have been grinding away (literally) and putting most waking hours into the boat, the steel work is progressing nicely, stainless steel work has started and we hope the hull with everything welded on will be done by the end of August. In recent day's we have been getting quotes for sandblasting and painting, as strangely as it sounds it looks like the blasting and painting costs about two times more than what we paid for all the steel! It's been a learning experience to read up on steel paint systems and blasting, different blasting media, standards for cleanliness and surface roughness. For applying the paint systems the airless spray guns are quite expensive when they have to be able to mix ratios of composite materials (epoxy) on the fly and pump paints with > 60% dry content. As always there is more to it than simply sandblasting and spray painting.

If everything gets sorted we will be able to move the boat outdoors by end of August and leave our current premises to save on rent.

Here is a recent rendering showing layout for some of the deck gear.

Pouring the Lead

We have now poured the lead into the keel, we used a kerosene burner from a Master blower with compressed air to melt up ingots we previously cast from scrap lead. Mostly everything went to plan but in hindsight we should have poured smaller amounts to further reduce the buckling in the keel plates. Another thing that we learned is that the scrap lead contained enough contaminates (tin, antimony, etc) that the upper surface was a couple of millimeters higher than what we expected. After the lead pouring plates were placed on top and welded to the keel plates, these will be pressure tested and topped off with diesel fuel to prevent any galvanic corrosion for occurring.

Here is also a fresh rendering with stanchions and pulpits.

"Watertight"

Everything has been welded together but since all joints need to be welded both outside and inside there is still some welding work left. Once all carbon steel has been welded and final grinding performed it will be time to do a thorough cleaning after which the stainless components will be welded to the hull.

Butt welding the deck proved to be tricky and required substantial bracing using ( strongbacks) and using a crude jacking device to minimize distortion from the welding process. We were able to source our preferred windlass for $300 on Ebay, a new Anchorlift Dolphin 1000 from 316 stainless steel arrived this week and so far looks very solid and of excellent quality.

Plenty of pictures have been uploaded to the gallery and the webcam is always up to date, soon we hope to release a time lapse video from the webcam showing the whole process in minutes, to be continued ...

Full steam ahead

Calli has been back for a while and Jalli's back is much better. All hull plates have been tacked in place so now it's just a whole lot of welding and grinding for the next four weeks or so, the first stainless parts were welded to the hull over the weekend, these consist of weld flanges attached to threaded pipes and will serve as throughhulls for all exhausts and pumps. The stainless is welded to the hull with a 309 stick electrode for better compatibility between the 316 stainless and grade A shipbuilding steel. To prevent the exhaust fumes from destroying paintwork we will be fabricating special elbows which screw on to the pipes but have another pipe inside for the exhaust (more details on that later). The stainless parts themselves are welded using TIG (GTAW) and acid pickled to remove oxidized material. We have added a whole lot of pictures to the Gallery and I urge people to check it out

Deck and Cabin done

After a pause due to a herniated disc (Jarl) were back at it, deck and cabin are now securely tacked, the cockpit won't be tacked until all work beneath it has been finished. Carl is heading off to the UK for a couple of days so there won't be much progress for the next couple of days.

Deck and Cabin Top

It's been a busy couple of days but things are moving rapidly, the cabin top is now fully tacked in place, so is the deck. Next we will be tacking the cabin sides and finally the cockpit at which point all external plates have been tacked in place. It's during this part of the construction that the CNC cut plates really save a whole lot of time and effort.

The turning

Tonight we turned "Rugludallur", hopefully this will be the last time it's turned 180°. The ground clearance for the sheer was less than 1mm, a bit of a close call but enough is enough.

After turning the boat we opened up a bottle of bubbly and contemplated the next steps.

Next up is deck framing and stringers after which we will plate all the topsides and cockpit.

Still waiting for the sterntube

We tacked on the starboard side of the keel today, now we just need to finish the welds around the keel and then it's time to turn the hull. Unfortunately the sterntube material got delayed further so we decided to go ahead and add the sterntube once we have turned the hull. Probably another day or two on welding total before turning. Meanwhile we bought a Wallas stove on Ebay, since it's a demo unit we got it for a nice price but we will need to pick it up in the UK.

Most of the hull has been welded now, we are still waiting for the sterntube material to arrive and once it has we can put the sterntube in place and finish the keel. In order to prevent crevice corrosion and pitting we decided to use stainless duplex 2205 (1.4462) for all exposed underwater parts, hopefully this will provide a very inert system with our 316 folding prop from www.seahawk.com.au

Once the keel is done it's time to turn the hull around and start building the deck and cockpit.

Hull plating mostly done

We have finished tacking all plates to the hull, except one side of the keel. We have started welding the strings to the plates, once that's finished we will start welding horizontal seams and end with vertical seams before turning the hull over and starting the deck.

Keel & Skeg

Non Radius sections, the skeg and half the keel have been plated, they are to be followed by the radius sections. It will be very interesting to see how the radius sections will fit since we pre-cut them and did strain analysis to get the best form. The time for turning the boat is rapidly approaching, hopefully we will be ready to turn by November 15th.

Building the skeg provided to be a challenge, getting it to form correctly into a symmetric hydrodynamic profile was tricky and needed things to be done in just the right order and a lot of bracing.

We have started plating the hull, the transom is in place and the stringers have been attached. Fitting the side plates is our current task, we are getting everything to line up before we tack them in place, unfortunately we realized that we made a mistake in orienting the plates when we cut them, the "natural" curvature of the plates is reverse on the far (port) side. Hopefully this won't have to big of an impact on the fairness.

We have also come of up with a new motto for the welding procedure just use LEAN methology, if it does not need to be welded now then don't weld it now.

The frames have been erected

We finished raising the frames and tacking them down on Monday (4th of August), There are plenty of pictures in the gallery and for the most up to date images feel free to check out the webcam, if you don't want to install the plugin for it you can always use the snapshot feature for a still picture. Next up are the stringers followed by the hull plating. All the frames have been slotted for the stringers and drilled so the bulkheads can be bolted to them with ease. The construction for this HoutBay 33 is a bit different from most because we are required to have transverse frames (local maritime regulations), because of this we welded the floorings straight to the frames and erect them with the frames rather than using temporary frames and adding the keel/floorings later.

We have been taking regular snapshots (1 min) with the webcam and will release regular videos as the building progresses, these should provide a very detailed step by step guide for how to build the boat.

We have finally finished building the CNC Plasma cutting table and cut all the components for the boat. The table is able to cut plates up to 2x6m plates (6x19'). You can see some pictures in the Gallery and we have uploaded all of our videos to Google Video video.google.com/videosearch

* Define:rugludallur, An Icelandic word best translated as weirdo, it is composed of the words Rugl (nonsense) and the word Dallur (leaky boat)