Received the kit from CLC. It was shipped via FedEx as a 1200 lb pallet and several assorted extras. One of the photos shows the build space, which includes two 8-foot sawhorse tables and occupies about 1/2 of a suburban 3-car garage.

I pulled apart the pallet. The major components are all cut from about 9 full-sized sheets of Okoume marine plywood of various thicknesses. The parts have retaining tabs to hold them in the plywood. Once everything is freed from the sheets, there are some usable bits left behind. I have cut the biggest bits out of this waste and saved them. Then I organized all the parts and laid them out in some kind of order for assembly

Any stitch-and-glue boat beyond 8' long requires two or more carefully shaped plywood pieces to be glued together to form one long strake. Pygmy used to use just flat butt joints. CLC uses puzzle joints, which facilitate aligning the planks lengthwise and holding them in place while the epoxy cures. Careful attention must be paid to leveling the joint so there is no vertical misalignment. Here is the number one plank being joined.

There are 7 frames in the boat. All the frames have cleats glued to them to support the decks. The main deck is cambered athwartship, so the cleats have to be bent or shaped in some way to support the cambered deck. I did this by attaching small blocks to the frames and using those to bend the cleats into shape with C-clamps. I considered gluing the cleats onto the frames without bending them, but there was enough camber that I would have planed away more than half of the cleats at their ends. Some of the cleats had to be installed in places my clamps would not reach so I just screwed them into place temporarily.

Here I have begun to attach the first panels to the keel panel with copper wires. The whole assembly is wobbly and fragile at this point. Getting it into some semblance of its final shape is what is important here. Final alignment is done later. This step is very tricky if you are working alone, as I was. Clamps, tape, bungee cords, and ratchet straps were all used to get things in place for stiching.

Once the first plank is in place and fairly solid, the rest of the planks can be wired on pretty fast. The whole thing starts to look like a boat. It gives you hope that you will get through this build quickly. This is deluded thinking. It's exciting to see, but it is just a tiny part of the work to come. Here you can see some of the details of wiring planks on. In this design, there are 4 hull panels in addition to the keel plate.

It's traditional among boat builders to celebrate attaching the final plank by sharing a whiskey. In traditional boatbuilding, fastening the final plank to the hull is a little more significant than it is in stitch-and-glue projects. Here, the hull has its shape, but there is a huge amount of work to go on the hull before one really deserves a whiskey. Nevertheless, it's exciting to see the hull take shape, and that should be celebrated.

Bow and stern breasthooks are smallish triangular pieces of wood that reinforce the ends of the boat and provide a surface to support the deck in both areas. The CNC machine that CLC uses to cut its pieces only cuts normal to the surface of the work, so these pieces must be shaped to fit. It's a bit tedious to do this shaping with a lot of plane and rasp work with many dry fittings. The breast hooks are in a place where it is awkward to clamp them so they are screwed in temporarily while the glue cures.

After the whiskey buzz wears off, the rest of the work on the hull begins. Here I am tacking the frames to the hull panels by placing small fillets of thickened epoxy into the joints between the wire ties. The idea is to then come back, remove the wires, and add more fillets of thickened epoxy in the spaces where the wires were. I think if I were to do this again, I would just use a screwdriver to press the wire bridges into the angle and fillet right over the wires. On the outside, I would just snip the twisted ties off and sand them flush. Copper is plenty soft enough to sand. This would actually save a lot of time with filleting and pulling wires, but I guess it might look funky if you were finishing your hull bright. I will be painting my hull, so that isn't a problem.

Fillet the bow and stern joints with 3" of 9 0z. fiberglass tape. Although the plans don't explicitly call for it, I went back later and applied a bigger fillet and a wider layer of 6 oz. fiberglass cloth that was also tied to FG sheathing on the interior of the hull in both locatioins. I don't think it's possible to make the bow and stern too strong.

Once the seams and frames are all tacked with epoxy on the inside, the boat is flipped and the same is done on the outside of the hull. The edges of the planks where they meet other planks are rabbeted to form a shoulder. When the planks are aligned properly, this creates clean contacts with an overhang at the junction. Small beads of thickened epoxy are injected into these shoulders between the copper stitches to glue the planks together. This is only to tack the planks together; a smooth fillet of thickened epoxy will be laid over these tacks later. Once these tacks are cured all the copper stitches are removed from the hull and a smooth fillet of thickened epoxy is laid down over the exterior seams of all the planks. Then the boat is flipped again to continue work on the inside.

I built the centerboard trunk. CLC provides doorskin templates for cutting dimensional lumber (cypress) for the edges. It's fiberglassed inside and out.

Fiberglassing the inside of the hull is a little complex because the frames are already in the boat. Each section of cloth has to be custom-cut to fit. CLC calls for fiberglass on the inside of the keel plank and planks 1 and 2 only. CLC provides 8 oz FG cloth for this. I extended the glass up higher in a few spots where I thought extra strength might be needed. I now think that was a waste of epoxy and glass, and added excess weight up high in the boat. I wouldn't do it that way again.

The Guider has its rudder mounted in an inboard cassette. It's a complicated bit of building that is coming up, but here I am building the rudder trunk that the cassette will mount into. The rudder trunk is built much like the centerboard trunk. You use CLC-provided templates to cut out some solid timber edge pieces, then everything is fiberglassed, and the box is glued together. In order to mount the rudder trunk, you have to cut a big slot in the hull for it to sit on. There are alignment slots in the frames and tabs on the trunk to get into the right place. Then the box is filleted and taped in.

The Guider cockpit is fully enclosed with decks. These decks are supported by cleats on the frames and stiffening beams that run between the frames. Then the decks are dry-fitted to make sure everything is supported. The thin lines on the cockpit decks are the outlines of hatches that will be cout out later.

In the Guider the rudder, rudder post and tiller are all mounted in a cassette as a unit that inserts into a rudder trunk at the aft end of the cockpit. The cassette can be raised and pinned so it is fully down for sailing, or halfway pinned to act as a skeg while rowing, or fully raised for beaching the boat. The rudder itself is built up by stacking foil shapes cut from plywood. The stainless steel rudder post extends through the cassette.

The main deck is built up from three pieces per side, with puzzle joints and epoxy. Then the two sides are mated along the centerline. Finally, both sides are fiberglassed with 3" overlaps in the cloth. I used peel ply fabric on the upper side to get a nice smooth surface. I didn't have a table wide enough to hold the deck piece, so I used firring wood to support it during this process. I u

The rudder trunk is inserted through the slot I cut in the hull, as shown in an earlier installment. It aligns by way of notches in the frames. A small amount has to be trimmed off, and the rest is faired into the hull. The primary tool I used for this was a Japanese pull saw. After everything is flush cut and sanded smooth, the joint is reinforced with FG tape.

The centerboard trunk is slotted between two frames and is aligned by notches in the hull. To accommodate the passage of the centerboard, a slot has to be cut in the hull between the two inner walls of the centerboard trunk. I tried a variety of tools to do this, but finally realized the ideal tool for the job was a flush trim bit on my router. I chased this up with a roundover bit and then the joint between trunk and hull was reinforced with FG tape.

What followed was a lengthy process of saturating, fiberglassing, fairing, sanding the hull (so MUCH sanding, so MUCH DUST). Everything on this boat will be painted because I loathe varnishing. The only thing I did differently from the CLC instructions was to put lengths of Kevlar tape at the bow and stern for increased abrasion resistance. This process required about 6 weeks of work (June 15th - Aug 23rd).

Every deck is fiberglassed on both sides. There are 10 deck hatches on the Guider. Each one is scribed by CNC and must be cut out by the builder. I tried several methods of doing this, but I just came back to using a saber/jig saw, as everyone else does. Cutting the corners of the hatch cutouts is challenging, and I did not cover myself in glory here, but I got it done. Every hatch opening then has a hatch gutter epoxied to its underside. A gasket (weather strip) is installed on the underside of the hatch itself to make it all more or less watertight. The forward cockpit deck has an additional beam on its underside to reinforce it.

Initial paint on hull exterior. I briefly considered leaving the #4 strake finished bright. Then I remembered just how much I hate varnishing. Blue it is. I used Interlux Toplac Plus for all the paint. This boat will not spend extended periods in the water, so it seems fine to use topside paint for this rather than antifouling paint. I made a massive mistake here that will become obvious later.

All the interior locker spaces that are normally out of sight were painted to protect the epoxy, to make it more obvious if there is any wear in there, to make it easier to swab out, and because I like the way it looks. The paint is just a latex deck enamel in a color appropriately named "Pacific Storm".

Every hatch requires a stiffener under it to stand up to the load above. The stiffener is smaller than the hatch to make space for a gasket that will make the system (sort of) watertight. Also shown is the installation of one of the two mast partners.

I rolled a saturation coat of epoxy over the interior of the hull and touched up fillets I thought were inadequate. The footwell of the cockpit is enclosed, creating two sealed flotation chambers on either side of the footwell. Here I am gluing the sidewalls of the footwell to the deck supports. I will follow up by filleting the sidewalls along the inner hull and frames. I glued the mast step to the hull, and taped and filleted it for strength. I put an inspection plate in the bulkhead forming one wall of the big stern flotation chamber. I don't expect to use this for storage but I want to be able to air it out and possibly reach into the space to aid in later steps.

The aft cockpit deck and the forward cockpit deck are epoxied down to the tops of frames or intermediate cleat supports. You only get one shot at this, so it pays to dry-fit everything a couple of times, make some temporary alignment marks, get all your weights and clamps ready, and rehearse it. I brushed epoxy onto the undersides of the decks where they would sit on supports and then squeezed a thick bead of thickened epoxy down on those supports. Then the decks go in, alignment marks are checked, final adjustments are made, and then weights and clamps are placed.

in the bow a small deck is put over the flotation chamber to create the anchor locker. The anchor itself will be hanging from a pulpit on the bow. The rode will be stored in this locker, with two holes at the lowest points of the locker on both sides to provide drainage for any water brought up when the anchor is weighed. Also, I am terrible at cutting round holes. This one will have a round inspection plate installed. I am not quite sure CLC put this here, since there will be another way into that space. Ours is not to question why....

CLC calls for 200 Lbs of ballast for this boat, especially when lightly loaded. I worried and fretted about this a LOT. Finally, I decided to buy lead bricks from Roto Metals (https://rotometals.com). I had worried about shipping lead, but they just chuck each brick in a USPS fixed-price box and send it first-class mail. It seems a little unfair but.... Each brick comes pre-drilled, so I built wooden brackets and put stainless steel studs in them. Then those were attached to the centerboard trunk with ss screws, epoxy, and fiberglass tape. The bricks are mounted on the studs and held with ss lock washers and wing nuts (hex nuts shown in the photo were replaced with wing nuts later). I did it this way to make sure the ballast wouldn't shift if I laid the boat over, and to make it easily removable for trailering.

The two main cockpit decks are now epoxied to their supports. This is similar to the two other cockpit decks, except that these have no convenient spots to clamp them down. They are held in place with a bunch of weights ( lead bricks, steel plates, bags of sand). It's cold this time of year, and my workspace is unheated, so I draped it in plastic with a space heater inside. Then all the decks are filleted to keep water from standing anywhere and increase the strength of the join.

There is a yard and a boom for the Guider. The sail is laced to the yard but is loose-footed at the boom. Both spars are solid and built from glued pieces of solid wood; in my case, cypress supplied with the kit. The tapers for each were marked with full-size templates supplied by CLC and then cut with a bandsaw. After cutting the tapers into the blanks, the final profiles were worked in with hand planes. I owe much of the success of spar building (and many other things) to a good woodworking friend who has the gear and expertise. In exchange, I take him sailing. I think it's a win-win situation.

1. Laminating the blanks for the spars
2. The square blanks are planed flat on all four faces
3. The tapers are marked with templates (not shown), and then final shaping is done with handplanes and sandpaper
4. Just finished yard and boom (paint and rigging to be added later; watch this space)
5. Shaped spar and yard, with mast blank, sitting with the deck, awaiting more work.

The deck carlins are long battens sprung into notches in the frame inboard of the shear clamps. They support the inner part of the main deck. I had a little setback doing this because I didn't open up one of the frame notches sufficiently. This created an unfair curve in the port carlin and created a stress point in the timber. It snapped right at that stress point. I re-scarfed the carlin, opened the notch a bit, and reinstalled it successfully.

In addition to rocker fore and aft, the deck also has camber athwartship. In order to get a tight fit of the main deck on the sheer plank and deck carlin, they have to be planed so the deck sits flat on them. CLC provides a full-width template to help with this. This is a time-consuming process, but it pays to proceed carefully and thoughtfully here.

1. The template for shaping the sheer plank is shown at the top
2. I also found sticking sandpaper on long sanding boards to be very useful for small adjustment.

From about Jan 18 to Feb 6 was spent painting the interior decks, hatches, and the inside of the hull in the cockpit. Painting is tedious, but it pays to be careful. I used peel coat on all the surfaces when I glassed them, which gives a smooth surface at a macro level but leaves a fine matte texture behind that persists unless you actually fair the surface. Consequently, I didn't really get a glossy, mirror finish on the paint. I think it looks ok though. Everything was primed with two coats of Interlux Top-Kote Plus, and then three coats of Interlux Toplac Plus. I generally liked both products and found them pretty forgiving. The Toplac final coats were a shade called Icy Blue, which really seems white to me, but when it's right up against a true white, it does have a bluish tint.

The rudder blade is built of stacking foil shapes cut from marine plywood. A stainless steel tube for a rudder post slides through the top foils. Two small stainless steel rods are inserted through the rudder post and fit into slots in two of the foils to handle the torque from the blade. Small dowels are inserted into holes in the stack of foils to keep everything aligned.

1. Here you can see the way the foils stack on the rudder post. Also visible are the rods that translate the torque from the post to the blade, and the slots into which those rods fit.
2. The rudder blade stacked up dry. You can see the small wooden dowels that keep everything aligned.
3. All dry-fitted with clamps in place. It's always useful to dry-fit things and practice the procedure before you get epoxy involved.
4. All glued up and clamped
5. Rough rudder blade, glued and cured.
6. The blade cut to shape, sanded and coated with epoxy
7. The blade must be smooth and fair, so I have put medium-density fairing compound on it. It took several applications with sanding to get it satisfactorily smooth. The photo does not show its final state.

With the rudder blade done, I returned to work on the rudder cassette. Both sides are glassed and the rudder post and blade are inserted to check the fit. Then the cheeks, which sit on the shoulders of the rudder slot, are glued on.

1. Fiberglass cloth going on
2. cloth wet out and curing.
3. Rudder post and blade fitted to the cassette
4. Rudder assembly sitting in its slot in the deck/hull
5. Cssette cheeks being glued to the cassette.
6. It fits!

The next sequence was gluing the coaming and king plank assembly to the main deck. This was a big and quite difficult job.

1. Dry fitting with a few clamps. I didn't really have a big enough job table, so I used 1 x 2" strapping to support everything.
2. The finger joints on the coaming are quite delicate, and I broke one. I just glued it all back together, which seemed to work just fine.
3. Clamps and more clamps are required.
4. Cured and clamps removed
5. The deck was set on the hull to check fit. It really didn't fit perfectly. There are so many places in the whole build where things might be off a bit. It's going to be fine.

When I put the main deck on the hull, it was immediately clear it didn't fit well. The frames impose a significant camber athwartship. Having glued the coaming and king plank while it was off the boat meant the deck was essentially flat along that axis. I found I could remind it of its duty with a lot of weight and clamps to force it into place. The second problem was that somehow frames 1 (bow) and 7 (stern) were not sitting up enough. There was a 3/8" gap between the deck in frame in both places. The solution was to shim up each frame with a plywood strip to fill the gap. I used the CLC template to plane the shims to the approriate curve. I am not really sure what went wrong there but I assume I just didn't get the planks seated completely tight and so they stood proud of the frames? maybe?

1. Dry fitting the main deck to the hull.
2. With a LOT of weight and clamps, I was able to get the deck to conform to the camber of the frames
3. The breasthooks at bow and stern both needed to be shaved down to get the deck to sit flush on them. 4, 5. Somehow, frames 1 and 7 were too low and had to be shimmed up. Then I planed them down to conform to the camber template CLC provided

After fretting about alignment, fixing fit problems, and a lot of prep work, I finally glued on the main deck. When finished, there are no mechanical fasteners between the deck and the hull; you have to get it glued down securely in one take. There are no second chances.

1. It takes a lot of weight to get the flat deck pressed down onto the cambered supports. I used fender washers and wood screws to pull it down to the shear planks. CLC provides a gauge for locating these accurately. I couldn't locate the interior supports accurately enough, so there I relied on weight, lots of weight.
2. The inside clamps are pulling the deck down to the deck carlins
3. I used lead bricks, cast iron weights, and concrete bricks to make the deck behave. It seems to have worked!
4. The carlins, shear planks, frames, and breasthooks got generous beads of thickened epoxy on their tops so I sheeted the interior in case some wanted to drip down.
5. After removing all the clamps and fasteners, I ran my router on the edge with a flush cut bit
6. Since I am going to reinforce the Devil's seam I also ran a round over bit along the edges so the tape would lie down properly. I couldn't use the router too near the oarlock pads. I just left it sharp and didn't tape there.

CLC provides a template for the tiller shape. I cut it out with a bandsaw from a solid piece of Mahoganoid wood supplied with the kit. The edges were rounded over with a router, and then the piece was finished with an oscillating belt sander to remove tool marks.

Now that the deck is glued onto the boat, I need to reinforce the Devil's seam with FG tape.

1. Fill all the screw holes that had fender washers to clamp the deck down, sand them smooth.
2. Lay out the tape and practice the glue up steps. I decided NOT to cut off the tape selvages, dooming myself to more sanding. I just don't do well with loose tape edges. They always seem to end up fraying and making a nuisance of themselves.
3. Tape is down and curing.
4. I want this to be a very smooth deck so I laid down a thick coat of medium density filler.
5. Filler sanded, view from rear
6. filler sanded, view of deck
7. Rather than fairing the tape into the hull, I just feathered it in by sanding
8. A final coat of epoxy over the fairing layer. This is probably unnecessary but I didn't want any water to get into the fairing if the paint were to be gouged or something. Besides, I just love epoxy work....

What followed was 2 weeks of painting work. Masking, priming, painting, second coat, touchup, removing the masking tape, more touchup etc. I am not going to take you through the agony in great detail. I use Interlux Interdeck non-slip paint in sandy beige for the deck. If I haven't said so before, I used Interlux Sapphire Blue for the shear strake and Mediterranean white for the rest.

I wanted a break from painting, so I worked on FG for the pieces of the rowing seat and then getting the hatch lip installed in the anchor locker.

I hate varnishing. I love clear-finished wood, but the little time I have left on this Earth is not going to be spent varnishing wood. Everything on this boat will be painted, except the tiller, which will be finished with Tung Oil. The photos just show progress painting the coaming and king plank. Because the desk is non-slip, and therefore rough, I used the green painter's tape here. It's advertised for rough surfaces but is more expensive than the blue tape. It helped some but there was still some wicking of green paint under the tape. The solution was to mask off the coaming and paint over the green paint that escaped onto the deck. There are two coats of primer and three coats of Toplac Plus in Donegal Green.

The photos are about finishing up the anchor locker hatch. In 3 you can see how I painted latex over epoxy, and it looks pretty good. A while later, in 5 you can see a near-total failure of the latex to hold onto the epoxy. I am not sure what happened here. I have been painting latex over epoxy for decades and have never had a failure. Elsewhere on the boat, the same paint has bonded tenaciously to the exact same type of epoxy. I am not sure what happened. I stripped off the failed paint, primed it with Pre-Kote Plus and repainted. It is holding on fine after that. In 8-11 you can see the placement of the hinges, cutout for the chain, and the hatch dog. This hatch cover doesn't have a gasket seal because the anchor locker has drains on port and starboard to let water out.

I purchased the non-skid foam package from CLC. I like the idea, and I think it looks good. The semicircular cutouts are for the hatch pulls. It was pretty easy to apply but I should have thought it through a bit more and maybe dry fit everything. As it is, in some places I have had to trim the foam to make room for the hatch dogs (see 4). Also, I am thinking the screws for the hatch dogs will let water in, maybe not a lot and maybe not fast. With all the effort to have sealing gaskets on the hatches, this seems like bad design. Perhaps there is a better way, but not now.

I began installing various deck hardware components, including cleats, chocks, and the anchor pulpit. The main horn cleats, fore and aft, as well as the anchor pulpit, are through-bolted on the deck. They are bedded with 3M 4200 marine silicone sealant. The chocks are screwed into the sheer clamp and bedded with Dolphinite.

The rub rails are built up of three scarfed pieces of Mahoganoid wood that are primed and painted with Toplac Plus. The fasteners are screwed through the hull and into the sheer strake and bedded with Dolphinite. It was easy to place and fasten the rails in the middle of the boat because I could clamp them using the coaming. It was much more difficult in the bow and stern because there was nothing to clamp to. I had to get creative with bungee cords and the like. In retrospect, I think I should have started at one end or the other and worked towards the other end of the boat. I also should have asked for someone's help. This really isn't a one-person job.

1. Prior to scarfing, the pieces of the rub rail were given 2 coats of epoxy to seal the wood
2. Priming is not strictly necessary for paint adhesion, but it definitely helps to create a nice smooth finish
3. After final painting the fastener holes were pre-drilled and countersunk. The SS screwheads and the hole between the rub rail and hull will be bedded with Dolphinite
4. Clamping is easy amidships
5. Awkward to pull it all tight at the bow and stern
6. Finished! Not perfect, but good
7. Stainless steel half-round (channels, not solid) pieces are screwed into the rub rails for even more protection. The fasteners are bedded with Dolphinite.

The yard and boom were sealed with two coats of epoxy, then primed and painted in two colors (Donegal Green and Mediterranean White). Where I grew up, this was a common color scheme for boats that weren't playthings for the rich and famous. I always liked the way it looked. I switched to the darker Interlux primer in the hope I could get full paint coverage with fewer coats. I almost could get away with 2 coats of paint, but in the end needed 3, just like everywhere else.

The 17' mast on Kembali is a hollow box with solid plugs on either end. The staves are scarfed from 3 pieces of solid timber, into which the tapers are cut from templates supplied by CLC. Then 3/4" rabbets are cut into both interior sides of the front and back staves. The side staves are glued into these rabbets, and the solid end plugs are emplaced during final assembly. Finally, all four edges of the mast blank are rounded over with a router, and a slot is cut in the peak to accept the halyard sheave. It's all incredibly easy to do....not. There are a lot of pictures here showing most of the steps.

CLC supplies a 1/4" thick Aluminum centerboard blank, cut to shape, with a pre-drilled pivot hole. The build manual lays out how the tapers should be done to give the centerboard the proper hydrodynamics. The only problem was I had no clue how to work the aluminum. I tried to find a machine shop to do it, but it was too small a job and had too long a lead time. I ended up doing it myself with a cheap angle grinder (which died), a shinto rasp (an amazing tool), files, and a random orbital sander. I took the surface to 600 grit to make it nice and smooth. Elapsed time on the job was about 6 hours, spread over two days.

The CLC build manual says the centerboard should slide into place from above. Either I did something wrong in construction, or they were dreaming. There was no way it was going in from above. I thought about what to do for a long time. Early in the build, I had friends over for flipping parties, but at this stage of the build it was a very different flip. The hull now weighed 500-600 lbs, and it would have to be carried out of the build space and rolled very carefully. I didn't like that option, so I built gantries to lift the boat and slide the centerboard in from underneath the hull. I also figured gantries would be a good way to get the boat on and off its trailer as needed. The gantries were built with construction-grade lumber from Home Despot and fitted with chain hoists and webbing from Harbor Freight. In the end, they were a success. At this point I had no idea if the boat would float but it definitely could fly!