Our friends at Chesapeake Light Craft will soon be heading west for the Madison WI, and Port Townsend, WA boat festivals.  This is a great opportunity to save on shipping!

Save a bunch of money on shipping! Give us a call and we'll bring your big, heavy stuff with us for pickup in Madison and Port Townsend. Boat kits, big heavy items like rowing units, oars, even small orders of plywood, stuff that can be difficult (and expensive) to ship. Boat kit orders are due by August 16 so we have time to cut, pack, and stow in the rig. This offer's only good until space runs out. Call us today!

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Happy 2023 to all. Russell and I heralded in the new year with a day on the water in the PT 11. Every January 1st, weather permitting, The local Pocket Yachter's and friends make their way out to Rat Island in Port Townsend Bay. The craft lined up on the beach vary from sailing dinghies to row boats to mini camp cruisers. Everyone meets on the beach with snacks, cider and friendly greetings in praise of the beauty all around.

Thank you to Galen Piehl for the invitation and taking this photo of Russell and I, each on an oar, heading back across the bay. The other boat is the Scout designed by Brandon Davis, and Brandon on the oars.

Jan 1 2023 PT 11 Galen PiehlI took a few pics but was too busy rowing most of the time. A snowy white Mount Baker rises behind us and there were at a number of seals checking us out at any given time.

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A bit of snow in Port Townsend and things slow down a lot and, like so many, we too saw some record low temps for this area. For Christmas Eve we are back to wind and rain and all is green again around our house, the Salal and conifers having shed their blanket of white. Christmas treePC210791

We wish everyone a safe and warm Winter holiday season and a bright New Year. We are super grateful to everyone building the PT 11 and all of the good folks who participate in the production of our kits, who offer our books, and all who have shared their enthusiasm and friendship. The PT 11 has played a key role in expanding our circle of interesting and valued relationships. As a business, it hardly gets better than that.

Did you see Leo's look at choosing a dinghy featuring the PT 11 nesting dinghy?

In 2023, Chesapeake Light Craft will be adding the PT SPEAR one piece version of the PT 11 to their kit offerings. We made minor changes to the design and are doing a major update to the manual. The change simplifies the building of this boat. If nesting is not a critical feature for your purposes, you get the lines and the performance of the PT 11 in the PT SPEAR without all of the complexity of building a boat to cut in half.

TortPlyhullDSC_2202 (1)Russell has made a lot of progress on the Tortured Plywood hulls as part of a future trimaran and he has learned a lot about this esoteric boat building method.

He has also been helping out Leo on the Tally Ho project.

In January, we expect a whack of carbon tubes from Innovative Composites Engineering and a load of sails. Russell will be busy building sailing rigs into February.

Shipping and postage have really gone up this last year. For those outside of the USA who are interested in our EPOXY BASICS, SCARFING BASICS, and PAINTING PERFECTION print books, you may get better shipping on Amazon or the Bookdepository.com

For our US customers, you can find our books and many others by friends and family on our books page. We ship single books US First Class mail and for multiple books we can ship Priority or Media mail.

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Looking forward to 2023, Thank you again. We hope everyone can stay warm and healthy into the New Year. Joy to All. AEB 😉

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Leo, of Sampson Boat Co / Tally Ho rebuild project, has featured the PT 11 prominently in one of his excellently produced videos. We are a little floored by the feature and yes, very grateful. He surely would not have made such a great video (we think all of his videos are great) if he wasn't happy with his PT 11 and that makes us happy indeed. Thank you Leo!

PT Watercraft maintains an informational website about the PT 11 and the PT Spear and we are available to answer inquiries. Kit orders and kit production is now managed by Chesapeake Light Craft. We still sell our books, various small parts, and serve our pre-CLC customers directly. Sailing Rig production remains in our workshop in Port Townsend.

Leo's video also shows how one person can manage the dinghy from vehicle to beach launch. This is something we got asked about a lot but never managed to film so this is an important addition to the PT 11 videos already online. In case you have not already seen it, click on the image below.

If you are unaware of the Tally Ho videos, we recommend you start from the beginning and subscribe. Leo is a brilliant videographer. This skill greatly compliments his knack for explaining the processes of rebuilding this historic sailboat. Even more valuable in my opinion, is that he is documenting the evolution of learning things as you go that influence how such a project evolves, while showcasing the many skills, tools, materials, and talented people it takes along the way. The videos are  educational, entertaining, and very inspiring.   AEB 😉

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As previously mentioned, 2020-21 was largely spent reviewing our production process. Another redesign included the PT 11 foils kit. We took our ideas to Paul Bieker of Bieker Boats for his expertise with foil design. The new foils are thinner, using 18mm Birch plywood instead of 24mm Okoume. The Birch plywood is more dense, chosen for its strength at this thickness and not for it's looks.  The machined birch plywood is not as handsome for clear coating as the Okoume but we are quite pleased with the overall change.

Modifying the foils kits affected many other parts of the kit, so those changes are are reflected in a total rewrite of the foils manual and changes in the boat itself (the daggerboard trunk is narrower, etc).

Machining the daggerboard and rudder from high-grade plywood is a good way to produce very efficient  and relatively light foils. The process is far from easy though. It has taken much trial and error and a very good CNC programmer (Turn Point Design) to come up with the final product. The price of this foils kit reflects quite a lot of machine time for each set.

Left, the Okoume daggerboard blank. Right, the Birch Daggerboard blank
Left, the Okoume daggerboard blank. Right, the Birch Daggerboard blank
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Rudder blanks using Okoume on the left and Birch on the right.
Fore-shortened image showing the NACA foil shape with lines of tape.
Fore-shortened image showing the NACA foil shape with lines of tape.
PT 11 foils 2022, finished with Interlux Perfection.
PT 11 foils 2022. Painted foils look good!
Demonstrating the in-use position of the daggerboard using the trunk cap turndog over the fiberglass pin as a "hold-down" .
The new daggerboard hold down uses the existing trunk cap turn-dog and a composite "pin" that is bonded into the dagerboard.
The complete 2021 PT 11 foils kit as sold by Chesapeake Light Craft.
The complete 2022 PT 11 foils kit as sold by Chesapeake Light Craft.

The PT 11 sailing rig is one of our creations that we are quite proud of. The carbon tubes are engineered specifically for this rig and manufactured in Washington at Innovative Composites Engineering. ICElogoIt is fun for us to imagine our tubes along side Space-X & NASA tubes, and among top name windsurfer and paddle boarding tubes. Mostly we are proud that this quick-to-set-up rig, with sail and all hardware & rigging, weighs a scant 10.5 LBS.

Our boom attaches to the mast with a custom gooseneck. For years we have made these goosenecks out of vacuum bagged carbon & epoxy in a multi step process that included a lot of carbon dust, finishing, tapping, assembling, and hand stitching tubular webbing onto the forks for a soft contact point on the mast. OrigGooseneck-smallDSCN0643After hundreds of these, there just had to be a  better way.

In 2021, as we sought to offset increasing costs in general and reduce labor where we could, one of the things we did was redesign our gooseneck. After years of trying to think of a better way, Russell began sketching out a new design based on using 1/2" Delrin plate and CNC router technology.

The resulting gooseneck is clean, practical, stronger, and most importantly, much less labor to finish and install. The new goosenecks are installed by pouring epoxy around them. A tight fitting foam plug traps the epoxy. Speaking of tight fitting foam plugs; there are 7 plugs in the 3 tubes that these rigs are made from, 5 of them custom made of different sizes from dense rigid foam. Why? To keep them from filling with water and sinking of course. Why do we need 7 plugs to plug both ends of 3 tubes? The seventh plug is a secret. 😉

The new gooseneck, right to left: blank, blank with edges rounded, installed in the boom.
The new gooseneck, right to left: CNC machined blank, post-CNC blank drilled & edges rounded, gooseneck installed in the boom.

PT 11 sailing rigs are still produced by Russell and drop-shipped from Port Townsend. They can be purchased through Chesapeake Light Craft. Customers who purchased their PT 11 kits from PT Watercraft pre-2021 should contact us directly regarding PT 11 options. We have experienced periodic delays so lead times vary.

Happy Sailing! ...AEB 😉

Jzerro is the last Pacific Proa that Russell Brown designed and built for himself. After owning the boat for more than 20 years, a New Orleans native and seasoned sailor, Ryan Finn took over ownership of the boat.

{{ UPDATE: JUNE 2022 Latitude 38 article/ interview with Ryan Finn. }}

On March 21st, Ryan completed his New York to San Francisco solo voyage around Cape Horn in JZERRO, a 33 year old, lightly built wood epoxy boat, in an amazing feat of seamanship, a testament to wood epoxy boat building, and a real moment for Russell.

Photo clipped from original by Merfyn Owen
Photo clipped from original by Merfyn Owen

Curious?

See Ryan's FB page 2Oceans1Rock.  Sailing Anarchy thread following Ryan. Sail-world article. Sail Magazineincludes a pre-voyage podcast. Lat 38 articles. Youtube Channel with Jzerro videos.

A movie is being put together of the voyage. We are incredibly proud of Ryan.

Photo by Guillaume Beaudoin
Photo by Guillaume Beaudoin

If you don't receive Professional BoatBuilder Magazine, we recommend that you go to their site and sign up. The magazine has always been free for industry professionals but if you can donate to keep their operations running smoothly in this digital world, that would be great too. RBTaskSheetIntro

Last year, Russell was asked to write about epoxy and the editors decided to turn it into one of their featured Task Sheet formats. Russell is not comfortable in a classroom setting but he has received praise for his technical writing that has given many seasoned boat builders clarity and refinement on the subject of working with epoxy. Proboat has generously given us permission to post the task sheet here in a downloadable PDF.

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This first quarter of 2022 has been interesting for Russell and I here at Port Townsend Watercraft.

Chesapeake Light Craft continues successful production of the PT 11 Nesting Dinghy Kit. You can see the details on their page here.

What has changed?

PT 11 Nesting Dinghy kit packed for shipping from Chesapeake Light Craft 2022
PT 11 Nesting Dinghy kit packed for shipping from Chesapeake Light Craft 2022

There is a price difference from our previous rates. This was to be expected. For one thing, CLC includes the WEST SYSTEM Epoxy Kit that had been an option on our package. We are happy about this because we have always recommended WEST SYSTEM for this project. Anther big one is that our cost of the connective hardware doubled. They are, however, exquisite thanks to a local machine shop here in PT. The total kit price hike reflects both the inclusion of the epoxy kit and material price increases across the board from plywood to stainless steel. That considered, customer investment has not increased by much because we made efforts to streamline production of certain parts to offset those inevitable material price increases. Russell and I would have been hard pressed to continue production on our own with all this factored in..

CLC also has a well established packing system for their kits. This makes the kit package more manageable than our long and heavy plywood crate.

In our shop in Port Townsend we have finally been touched by the "supply chain delays" talked about in the daily news streams. A lack of sail cloth, delayed our sail production. We finally learned this after several ETA predictions that came and went without sails. We are assured this time that sails are on their way so we can ship out the rigs on order. (Talk about stress!)ptwatercraft.comRussell has been doing a deep dive into the boat building technique referred to as 'Tortured plywood'. One of the 3 foot models (of which there are at least 8 versions), have been translated into 27ft long hulls. This project has been both exciting and frustrating beyond expectation. More to come on that later.

Early stages of tortured plywood hulls.
Early and very deceptive stage of tortured plywood hulls. This technique is somewhat miraculous.
Jzerro 'flying' in Puget Sound
Jzerro 'flying' in Puget Sound

Those who know about Russell's earlier boats, including his windward proas, may have seen our videos of "Jzerro". We sold Jzerro a few years ago and of late, have anxiously followed the new owner Ryan Finn, on his massive journey from New York to San Francisco via Cape Horn. This last week, Ryan rounded Cape Horn successfully and has been flying northward at speeds from 9 to 19MPH on the edges of and through gales and rough seas. You can follow his tracker progress here.

Also see 2 Oceans 1 Rock on FB for descriptions of his journey.

 

More updates to come soon, including the 2022 Shipwright's Regatta this Saturday (Postponed a month due to a gale in the bay in FEB 26th. (there may be more than one PT 11 this year!) and an update on our new goose-neck design. AEB 😉