Almost There

Did a lot of work on the boat this weekend and I'm happy to say that its getting pretty close to done. This weekend I sewed the tramps, faired the hull, got the rudder adjuster up and running, made progress on the rudder gantry, and started the daggerboard box. There is some finish work to be done on all of this stuff, but I'm happy with where everything is. The only outstanding item is that I still do not have the 2mm push rod for the daggerboard flap. I may end up needing to build one, but that wouldn't be too tough. I'll work on getting some pictures up tomorrow.

28 lbs

Weight is everything on the moth. Heavy things don't fly. I've been trying to get a handle on the boat weight for a while but frankly I couldn't find a good way to accurately measure it, until today. With the aid of a few pulleys and some weights I was able to suspend the boat and check the hull weight. It turns out the total weight of the mostly finished hull is 28 lbs. I still need to do a bit of fairing and paint it, but 28 lbs is actually quite good for a home-built plywood hull. It is about 10 lbs heavier than the Mach 2 (~18 lb), but its significantly lighter than the Bladerider FX (~40 lb). This thing may actually fly.

Getting Closer

So I have been slowly progressing on this thing, but running a business, taking care of a two-year old, getting a keel boat ready to race, planning a national regatta, and building a Moth takes a lot of time. I'm not complaining, its all fun, its just hard to focus on one thing. Anyway, here's were we are. I have almost all of the parts finished for the rudder and tiller assembly. The rig is pretty much done. The hull is mostly done but needs to be faired a bit and painted. I'm waiting on some parts so that I can finish the daggerboard and main foil and I need to sew the tramps. I also need to get the misc. hardware and get everything mounted on the boat. And I need to build a dolly. It's really just a lot of little stuff at this point and I'm still hoping to be sailing in a month, but tomorrow its off to Seattle for the NOODs!