“And we sail and we sail and we never see land, just the rum in the bottle and a pipe in my hand…”
Finally completed the 3 coats of epoxy on the outside of the hull, and sanded off the drips (and most of the epoxy). The interior does not look as bad as it might. The hull was amazingly light to pick up, maybe only 20 - 30 lbs without deck, gunwhales, and other fittings. Upright, the impression of depth and freeboard is much greater, and it is clear that the fancy tapering of the planks will be invisible when she is in the water.
The Ulua Hawaiian sailing outrigger. Over 100 sets of plans purchased… how many built/building?
I will update and add to this this as I find out more. Here is what I know today. If you are building an Ulua, drop me a line!
As I write, the Ulua project is at the 1 year and 14 day mark. This weekend we glassed the vaka and applied two coats of epoxy. The shot below is a teaser for the end result. More details after the break…
Man that Xterra roof looks short. Ulua length = 18feet, beam with ama attached ~ 6 feet, i.e. somewhat larger than the car. Time for a RackandRoll?
Found on the Guillemont bulletin board. link
I am stunned. Mr. Hardie lives on the Big Island, and will get to enjoy his Ulua in its proper setting.
Not sure we are going to get to this level with the Ulua.
A new blog on indigenous boats is up, looks interesting. The author is an editor at International Marine, publisher of Gary Dierking’s book on sailing outriggers. Thanks to Gavin at intheboatshed.net for the find!
Now if only Bob will change his default font to a larger size so I can read it!
Patagonia- Hawaiian Sailing Canoes: Kane’ohe Bay to Hale’iwa
Watch as three- and six-person teams in Hawaiian sailing canoes race around the northeast corner of O’ahu. Starting at Kane’ohe Bay, the boats speed through the 40-mile course over sandbars and shallow reefs, through wind swell and changing winds to the finish in Hale’iwa. The six-person sailing canoes are 45-feet long with the main hull only 18 inches wide and are steered with a paddle. The three-person canoes are 30-feet long. Canoes hit speeds of 15 to 18 knots in wind and waves.
HIIAKA Maui Sailing Canoe
Hawaiian Sailing Canoes on KGMB9 News
Hawaiian Sailig Canoe Association gets coverage on the News by Liz Chun from KGMB9 News - she interviews Terry Galpin, Nakoa Prejean, Jane MCKEE … The association perpetuates this ancient Hawaiian culture by visiting all of the major Hawaiian Islands every year during its race series. They start from the Big Island got to Maui, then Moloka’i to Oahu and finally to Kauai… All Action footage filmed by Alex Reinprecht from Hawaiian Xtreme Sports TV.
Thanks to Anarchist kim whitmyre for the find!
is Yamila Diaz from last year’s SI Swimsuit issue.
The Ulua planking is complete, many months after I had thought it would be! I will post more pics and discussion later. Basically, in choosing to not just plank straight up the sides from the sheer I wound up perhaps doubling the work involved (or more). But, I think it will look nice in the end. Next: outer stems, fairing, glassing.
Slow but steady wins the race. That’s what I tell myself, anyway. After much internal debate, I decided to install a ‘chine plank’ in the no-man’s land between the keel planks and the rising parallel planks coming up from the sheer. The motivation was largely aesthetic, as was not crazy about how the planks on most Uluas seem so parallel and don’t express the sheer or rocker well, and partly practical as with each successive plank the ends required more and more edge set keelward which led to gaps, and my perception that the lines of the planks would seem to bend down (with the hull right side up) at the ends, just where I would prefer that they bend up.
The keel planks were installed so they lap on to the top of the stems, and then the sides were planked up from the sheer till they mated to the keel planks at the ends. The chine plank location was determined by setting it parallel at stations 9-10-11 and letting it fall fair to the ends, keeping in mind that an integer number of planks would be used in the resulting gaps where the girth was largest. In hindsight, I think it might be nice to have this chine plank fall to meet the point where the straight part of the stems run into the curved part that are part of the keel profile.
One upshot is that there are now two shutter planks per side, and the tapers on the ones being filled first are pretty extreme. The next to last plank had a 16:1 taper in the bow, and the narrow shutter plank is almost nothing but taper. Luckily, the planking up from the chine plank should lie fair with little edge set, and fairly short taper sections to match, at least for the first four of the seven planks that will fill the upper space.
Next: sharpen up the block plane for the final assault.
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