Sail plan - what to do?

The biggest question I've been wrestling with is what to do for the sail plan. The 16' plans call for a 90 ft2 stayed gaff rig. I'd much rather use a simple sprit rig, and the 13' plans use a 72 ft2 sprit rig. So I'm considering scaling it up to near 90 ft2 on roughly the same footprint as the 16' gaff rig. This allows me to accomplish several objectives: (1) Use a simple unstayed sprit rig instead of a more complicated stayed gaff rig (2) Use 12' spars all around, which I *think* will stow inside the boat (3) Add reef points to optimize sail area depending on weather.

In theory I'm not opposed to a more complicated rig. I've built two Penobscot 14' boats as Gunter-rigged sloops (stayed rigging). But for a Melonseed it just seems to me that I should choose more simple over more complicated.

Here's a quick sketch of my idea. If you see an obvious flaw in this idea please let me know! Just remember I'm interested in quick set, unstayed rigging, and ease of operation over top performance. I figure I have some extra wiggle-room since the lightweight hollow spars will keep down the weight aloft.

I'm leaning toward Douglas fir over Sitka spruce for the hollow spars. Where I live, clear d-fir and s-spruce are the same price, so there is no cost savings one over the other. But I'm thinking d-fir is so much stronger than s-spruce that for hollow spars it makes more sense to use d-fir. I welcome your comments.

The red lines show the approximate footprint of the 16' sail plan as stayed gaff rig. The blue lines show my idea of scaling to 88 ft2/68 ft2 reefed unstayed sprit rig. The smaller rig gets the clew & foot of the sail (and the boom) further up and out of the way of the crew.

Spar layouts

I also spent some time working out the details for the spars. I'll make them using the birds mouth technique. The birds mouth router bit from Lee Valley makes short work of this. I've made other spars this way and they turn out great. To simplify construction I'll not taper them.

Rudder & centerboard drawings

Barto's plans include scaled drawings of the rudder & centerboard on a 3-inch grid. So I transferred those grids to an AutoCAD layout and printed them full-size on a plotter. It will be easy to transfer these full-size plots to the glued-up rudder and the PVC sheet for the centerboard. After reading Roger Crawford's web site, I thought about how much sense it makes to construct the centerboard from 1/2" PVC instead of plywood with a lead weight, so that's the plan.

Building forms cut out

The building forms are cut out and ready to be installed on the strongback.

John's transom glued up

John's transom is glued up and sanded. It's 7/8" solid mahogany, from 3 pieces just over 6" wide each. This will look beautiful on his boat.

My transom glued up

My transom is glued up and waiting to be sanded. I will cover it with a piece of marine plywood after the cedar strips have been installed, and before the hull is sheathed in fiberglass. I've used this technique on two other boats, the Penobscot 14 (designed by Arch Davis) and a takeoff of the Rangely Lakes guideboat that John and I built from the offsets in John Gardner's "Building Small Craft" book.

My inner & outer stem completed

The inner and outer stem have been glued up on the jig. This is my stem. My friend is still getting out the strips of ash for his stem.

My inner stem on the jig

The inner stem is made from laminated strips of ash. Here they are glued up on the form.

Building two Melonseed skiffs, to Barto's 16' plans

A while back my friend John asked me to help him build a sailboat. We settled on the Barto 16' Melonseed. I started cutting out parts about a month ago and now it's time to start documenting the progress. I'll post pictures and questions and comments on the build as it progresses.

Shortly after I started the build, I realized I would like to build one for myself. So when practical, I am building two of some components. For example, I started with the stem and transom, so I have built my stem on the mold while he is busy cutting out the parts for his stem. I have built both of our transoms, although his is solid mahogany and mine is an ash frame that will be covered in marine ply. So they will both be the same boat with different trim.

Almost 15 years ago, John and I worked together to build a 15' row boat based on the Rangely Lakes boat from John Gardner's book "Building small craft". John proved himself a very capable craftsman. It was a pleasure helping him on that project, and I know this build will also be a great pleasure.