Building a better leeboard

The second major project needed to get 'The Rise' back in good sailing condition is to make a new leeboard to replace the one broken during the 2007 Everglades Challenge. 'The Fall' broke its leeboard while surfing into an inlet during the race, and 'The Rise' broke its leeboard while sailing in catamaran configuration after the race was over.

The Fall's leeboard, before EC 2007

Board construction, from West Systems

The quick failure of the leeboards led me to think the construction methods we used during the first build were inadequate. To speed up the build we made our leeboards with fiberglass covered plywood instead of the recommended laminated hardwood construction. The boards were plenty strong to take the ~60 pounds of force that would be applied to them (we stood on them to find out), so why did they fail? A little internet digging showed the error of our ways; this article from West Systems showed others had made the same mistake. While the plywood is strong enough to take the load, it is much weaker than 'solid wood' in fatigue - the internal layers which are facing the wrong way will slip and roll against each other. Crack propagation along the grain occurs much faster due to this effect. A properly designed hardwood leeboard places all the fibers perpendicular to the bending axis, eliminating this weakness.

Fairing the board using templates, from West Systems

Following recommendations from the previously linked construction tutorial, I'm building a new leeboard from cedar. I found a hardwood supplier near DC called Vienna Hardwoods where I was able to select one big board from which I can rip all the pieces which will make the leeboard blank. After the strips are laminated together I'll fair the board into a NACA 0012 airfoil profile. I'll start a new post once I get the hard part started. For now here is a picture of the Vienna Hardwoods warehouse (so much to choose from) and the very nice Spanish Cedar board I took home with me. It's an 8/4 (roughly 1.875" finished) by 5" by 13' board, which is about enough to make a leeboard and a half. In fact, maybe that's not a bad idea!

Step One: Build a Trailer

Original trailer with stock (tiny) towbar

Before any work started on 'The Rise' I needed to construct or acquire a trailer to move the boat around. For the Everglades Challenge in '07 we used SOS' Hobie 18 trailer with some 2x4 cross-members to haul both 'The Rise' and 'The Fall' on one trailer, with the amas and akas in a pile between the hulls. After the race, the trailer went back to beach-cat duty, and the hulls were trailerless again. I considered a couple options for building a new trailer. Eventually I decided to get the Northern Tool 4' Trailer and modify it to suit my needs. This would give me the all important Certificate of Origin to enable the trailer to be properly titled and registered.

Wa'apa trailer with MEGA towbar

The first step in modifying the trailer was to extend the towbar from the stock 5' to about 13.5'. This would place the CG of the boat slightly ahead of the axles to give the correct tongue weight. The trailer would probably have been lighter and stiffer if I used a pair of load bearing bars spaced apart vertically (a simple truss), but I didn't have a welder or the desire to overcomplicate things.The simplest solution was to use a single towbar strong enough to carry the loads. So the towbar was promoted from a 2.25"x2.5" partially closed U section with 1/8" walls to a 2.5" square section with 3/8" walls. I found a local steel supplier and bought a 20' stick of the desired section and had them cut it to the right length.

Once the trailer frame was built I could load the boat and figure out how to lash on the 'extra stuff': mast, boom, sail, crossbeams (akas), outriggers (amas), etc. The boat is so narrow the outriggers could be lashed beside the boat on the trailer's tiny 40" width. All the long skinny stuff just got lashed on top of the boat. I probably have a photo of the 'travel' configuration somewhere but I can't find it right now, so here is a picture of 'The Rise' on the trailer ready to launch at Washington Sailing Marina in DC.

You can see that I haven't put any effort into making wood/carpet bunks for the boat to slide on. Right now the boat sits right on the trailer frame. I've found that everything looks OK when the boat is sitting on the trailer or driving but there is nothing to help the boat slide on/and off when launching or recovering. That's something I plan to fix in the next month.

Crunch Time!

With the NCC getting closer I decided it was time to start a blog to document the (re)build of the Wa'apa sailing canoe 'The Rise.' Since the 2007 Everglades Challenge 'The Rise' and her sister boat 'The Fall' laid dormant while the members of Team SOS graduated and in some cases graduated once again. After a few years sitting idle I decided to pick one of the boats to get back on the water. Both boats had suffered some environmental damage from outdoor storage, but were in surprisingly good condition. I built a trailer which could carry one of the boats and started the journey up to DC where I started a new job as well. After about a year the stats are still pretty sad; the boat has been in the water about four times. Fortunately signing up for the NCC has given me more motivation to fix some crucial deficiencies; especially building a new leeboard to replace the one broken in the EC, and better attention to 'human factors' like adding hiking seats and a tiller to give us more options for moving our weight around the boat. Hopefully I will be posting more pics like this one (from the 2007 EC)!