V12 Construction

I began building the V12 Sailing Dinghy on 5/25/02 with the aid of my father-in-law.
Because it is going to take me at least 1 1/2 years to build the 20 foot Vagabond, I decided to get some sort of sailboat in the water sooner than later.

I bought 3 extra sheets of 1/4" and 1 extra sheet of 3/8" Meranti for the Vagbond, therefore I figured that I could use these on this boat. I found an ad in Boatbuilder Magazine for Okoume plywood at M.L. Condron in White Plains, NY. It was a more expensive than what I paid for the Meranti, but a lot easier to get since I work only 45 minutes away. I picked up 1 each of 1/4" and 3/8" Moroccean Okoume.

I did a few things differently from my other 2 boats:

1. I tried to purshase everything locally
   Since I live near Raritan Bay, I have numerous marine stores & boat yards within minutes.
2. I switched to West System epoxy. (I'll continue to use the S3 epoxy for the Vagabond).
   My basic observations:
   - West System blushes more, but cures quicker than S3
   - West System pumps are better, especially in small batches
   - West System has way too much variety in fillers & adhesive compounds and is much more expensive. West System filleting blend (405) is too expensive. I ended up cutting it with some sifted sawdust to make the final fillets.
   - West System Microfiber (403) Adhesive needs to be almost as thick as the inside of Mounds candybar to not sag. Any over spill needs to be cleaned up before it turns green because it gets a lot of pock marks that need to be filled and/or sanded.
3. I'm going to build my own mast & sprit
   I wasn't going to do this at first, but once I went to the sailmaker's loft and he told me that it would take 3-5 weeks and $230 for the mast & sprit (aluminum), a hand-made spruce mast made from $12 in lumber. Total wooden mast & sprit cost: $25. This included the lumber, McCluskey Spar Varnish, epoxy adhesive & labor (My father-in-law's labor is pretty cheap!
4. I'm sewing my own sail (I'm still not quite sure how I came up with that being a good idea).
   I tried my local sailmaker who is handling all of the rigging, mast & sails for my Vagabond wonderfully. But when I pressed him for a sprit sail for a 12' dinghy in the beginning of June, he just laughed and said to check back in August. I also called Mack Sails, but they said 6 weeks and I would have to purchase it from bateau.com because of an exclusive agreement. I had no problems with getting it from bateau.com, I just wanted something before July 4th. After some research, I found a company called Sailrite. It turns out that they make sail kits for Bolger, Glen-L, etc. It also turns out that Jacques Mertens from bateau.com was already in contact with Sailrite for kits to go with his plans.
   
   I couldn't wait for their deal to get done, so I purchased directly from Sailrite. All I had to do was supply them with the luff, foot, leech, head and diaganol dimensions.
   
   I now have an "unsewn" sail sitting in my house. While everyone, and I do mean everyone, thinks that I'm nuts, it seems pretty straightforward. The kit is very simple and complete. Sailrite even hand-wrote some notes to me because I planned to use a sewing machine that only does straight stitches.

This is a shot of the boat after about 14 hours of work.

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