Building the Salt Bay Skiff as It Was Designed

[Charlie43]

As I've said repeatedly, Chris Franklin drew the Salt Bat Skiff to be a small, sloop-rig sailboat. He didn't draw a row boat. He drew a sailboat, and any departure from that result isn't a Salt Bay Skiff. It's a half-completed project.

So, what's needed to turn that half-completed project into a finished Salt Bay Skiff?  Some sails, some rigging, and a few other parts. I've got the daggerboard and kickup rudder from a Laser, as well as its spars and blocks, plus a new Opti sail and a used Bermuda sail  that I used to hang on my Sunfish instead of a lateen. So I've got all "sailing" parts needed except for a daggerboard trunk.

Some background thinking.

#1.  I think a Salt Bay is a decent enough hull for a single, casual, beginning rower, but a pig to row with a second adult aboard. It's not a Whitehall or a Wherry. But it's not a bad as flat-bottomed, single-chine hulls go and decent enough for fishing protected water, which is probably its best use if one needs a rowboat instead of a sailboat. Ditto using a Salt Bay as a single-person, trainer sail boat. It's not a Laser, a Force Five, an Olympic Contender, or even close to being a true trainer like a Lido, etc. But it's not a bad beginner sailboat, especially if not over-canvassed, and probably close in performance to an Optimist Dinghy, i.e., a bathtub of a boat that shouldn't be hotdogged unless one likes righting a capsized boat and bailing out a couple hundred gallons of water.

#2. I'm tired of seeing RiversWest butcher boat parts and then throw them together as if craftsmanship doesn't matter. Not a one of the boats built this past weekend would I want to take on as a completion project, because the foundational workmanship was so bad. But if I'm starting anew from Franklin's set of plans, --not RiversWest's hack job of those plans-- am I honor-bound to follow Franklin's lines and detailing as opposed to fixing what's wrong with his lines and detailing and building accordingly? Obviously not. He has no copyright on the hull form, nor do his plans come with a restriction that only a single hull can be built from them unless an additional designer fee is paid.

So, this seems to be the project. Build a Salt Bay Skiff--kinda, sorta-- but with a beginning sailor in mind, which means foregoing the sloop rig Franklin specifies in favor of a simpler rig, and opting for a daggerboard rather than leeboard he calls for.  

Charlie

[Charlie43]

Below is a link to a good tutorial on how to rig an Opti sail, which I think might be a good choice for powering a Salt Bay Skiff, for several reasons.

#1. Bought as  a 'practice' sail, rather than a 'race-legal' sail,  an Opti sail is hugely affordable at just $90 bucks, rather than messing with sewing a sail or resorting to using Tyvek.

#2. The spars would be simple to make and would allow for mid-boom sheeting, which I hugely prefer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOPTCXSuevY

[Charlie43]

John Ost has built more Salt Bay Skiffs as the sailboat they were designed and intended to be than anyone in the club, seven of them, in fact. So he's the person I'm depending on for feedback on my project. But, as always, if you ask two boat builders the same question, you're going to get at least there or four different answers, never mind that we each come from different sailing and boating backgrounds, which further complicates arriving at answers. So I should explain my sailing and boating background, because it informs how I want to direct this project.

I've been rowing small, classic, wooden, fishermen's skiffs since I was ten --seven decades ago-- but only began sailing post my college years in the mid-70's. Like most people who want to learn to sail, but lack a friend with a boat, I took a class. It might have been offered through the YMCA or the Berkely REI, and it took place on the San Francisco Bay in a Lido, which is a beamy, sloop-rig skiff often used as a trainer. The class was hugely helpful, because it emphasized the techniques needed to sail safely, such as how to recover from a capsize, how to heave to in a squall, and how to recover someone who's fallen overboard.

I saw the fun that sailing could be and quickly bought a boat of my own, a Sunfish, that I sailed in the Bay for a season before moving to K Falls. With the lake across the street from me and a neighbor's dock where I could keep my boat, I sailed nearly daily, year around, unless and until the lake froze over for the winter. Also, when I was living there, I crewed on Lightenings at the Weds night sailing club races or went out with a friend who had bought Hobie 16, despite not knowing how to sail. Later, when I had moved back to the Bay Area, I bought a Laser and sailed on Bay again, though not often, because a fully rigged Laser is more boat than my petite size can manage well. I haven't sailed since moving to Portland some 30-plus years ago except for one time in Rick Fry's Salt Bay, launched at Cathedral Park. But the skills are still there, and my opinions about what makes for a good beginner's sailboat have only increased, which is chiefly this main point.

The boat has to be as simple and low-cost as possible to build, rig, and use. 

I'm inclined to think that a cleaned-up version of Franklin's hull rigged with an Opti sail might be the best way to go. But I need to decide who is the intended final user of my reworking of Franklin's boat. Personally, I HATE trying to second guess what others might need or want (which are two very different things) But some guesses do have to be made, and I might as well base them on how I use a sailboat.

I do NOT sit in the center of the boat, even when I'm sailing down wind. Therefore, I do NOT want the thwart keyed into a frame, because I can't lean against the gunnel. I need a clear and comfortable back rest to either side of the centerline or else --which is my preference-- a wide and sloped to-the-inbd gunnel that's comfortable to sit on.  The SB is a deep hull. Sitting on the gunnel isn't practical, nor is needed if the boat isn't over-canvassed, which raises this question:

How much canvass is too much?

That depends on two things, right? The wind strength and the skills of the sailor. And, actually, the question of how much canvass to carry depends on a third factor, "How easy it is to recover from a capsize?"  Unless the hull is decked and compartmented fore and aft to create a minimalist cockpit, you do NOT want to have to be recovering from many capsizes in the course of a sailing afternoon. So, it is better to under-canvas this boat than the opposite. However, there is an escape clause that goes like this. The hull was designed to be sloop rigged. So why not add the possibility of adding a jib to the mainsail? But, as John pointed out to me, the designer himself says of his boat that 38 sf for the main and 12 sf for the jib is what should work well. And given that Franklin makes his living designing yachts, I'd be inclined to trust his judgment, at least initially.  That means an Opti sail for the main and sewing a jib, since I don't have a low cost source for them.

[Charlie43]

A good discussion of head sails. https://www.quantumsails.com/en/resources-and-expertise/articles/the-lowdown-on-headsail-options

Of special interest is this:

If your headsail is large enough to overlap part of the mainsail, it is classified as a genoa. Light genoas, or G1s and Number 1s, are designed to be deep and powerful in lighter winds to maximize drive, even at the expense of added drag and side force. Similar to a Number 1 genoa, the lighter jibs are designed to produce as much power as possible. But as the wind increases, these sails become overly powerful and create too much side force, and you will need to flatten the sails.

So, what seems to be most useful --IMHO, 'natch-- for sailing a Salt Bay isn't a jib, but a jenny. a sail I've never used, but need to learn to sew one.  In light air, run up the jenny. In heavy air, run under just the main.

Masts are easy to re-step. Daggerboards, not so much, though there are tricks. Using a 50sf, Laser 4.7 sail for the main would make for easy rigging and spar building. Using an Opti main and a jenny would complicate things a bit. But would it be possible to switch between the two rigs with the same dagger board location?

I need to make some drawings and to calculate lateral forces.