My good friend Arnt proposed we build a boat for my wife and I in his shop. We selected Paul Gartside's design #164 "Spartan II" so I purchased the study plans, and started estimating a bill of materials.

Ordered the plans, had them printed, and immediately started thinking about things we might change a bit! For instance: the cabin height could be a bit taller so we can sit up on the bunks!

The design calls for strip-building, 3/4" by 1-1/4" Western Red Cedar, glassed inside and out. We found some very tight-grained 2x4 green material at a local building supply, and purchased 17 10-footers and 17 12-footers. They'll have to be scarfed to achieve our desired length, a little over 21 feet. Totally stunning wood... there isn't much of this stuff left in our forests, so, worth every penny of their ridiculously expensive price!

Ripped it down to 3/4 by 1-1/2" ...a bit wider than the plans, but a much better cut out of the material. We'll see how difficult it is at the turn of the bilge, and perhaps have to rip a few in half at the sharpest turn. Then stickered and stacked them up in the shop rafters to air dry.

When Arnt bought his 23' gaff cutter ANJA, it had a solid fir mast that was smaller in diameter than designed in the plans. Finding it much too flexible, he build a new one, and hung this one up in rafters of his shop. We took it down and scraped off all the paint to see if it would work for our new boat.

After stripping the paint off it looked like it might be ok. However, it seemed to be made up of many pieces, so we ripped it down the centre on the bandsaw to see what the structure was. There was some rot in the bottom where the tabernacle hinge bolt went through, but the scarfs looked fairly good if we put in a couple of dutchman repairs into the few spots we didn't like. The plans for this boat call for a hollow mast of Douglas fir, so this might be just the ticket!

Once we achieved the desired sidewall dimensions for the hollowed section, we routed out and epoxied in a few dutchmans to the iffy spots of the original build. And, we cut the rotten bottom off and put in a nice long 12:1 scarf to receive a new butt end.

Arnt had been wondering what to do with this old chunk of fir... it's now going to be the base of our mast. It's a bit heavier than ideal, hoping it doesn't ruin the righting moment too much.

You'll note there are no wires in the mast... I've decided to keep the boat systems as basic as can be, I'll hoist an anchor light when I need one, and judge the wind strength and direction by analog means.

As per our regular practice, we use West System epoxy... wet out all surfaces with neat; then add appropriate thickener, in this case #406 Colloidal Silica. Not too much clamping pressure so it doesn't squeeze everything out!

Photos by William C. Weaver IV... William dropped by to get a few shots of the build, and found us planing the mast down to approximate final dimensions (before rounding).

While waiting for the paint on the lofting plywood to dry, we spent about a hour rounding the mast. The area in the photo is where it will transition from the 8 sided base to round. Just starting that job, there will be more to do on it, later. But now, lunch, then to get on with the lofting (if the paint is dry).

Laid plywood on shop floor, painted it flat white, laid out a baseline, waterlines, stations, and started to draw the lines at full size.

Lofted the halfbreadths, and checked the bodyplan against them. We forgot that the halfbreadths gave valuable information to the bodyplan, so had to make some adjustments to virtually every station. Obviously need more practice lofting!

More lofting, and then lifting patterns from the lines. We placed nails, sideways, with their heads on on the line we wanted to lift. Then we put doorskin ply over top of those nails, and stomped on them. Lifted the doorskin, put finishing nails into the impressions the nailheads created, put battens around them, drew the lines, and cut the doorskins out on the bandsaw.