This model is for sale for $2,000.00 + shipping.  The mast is deck stepped and easily removeable, so shipping should be in the $75 to $100 range within the continental USA.  The model includes the radio control hardware, radio, rechargeable NiMh batteries, a battery charger and a painted display stand. (3/17/09)

April 20, 07 - The model is now finished except for the mooring cleats and the jib track.  The weather was perfect today, so I took the boat out for its first ever sail.  It handled beautifully except for when the wind died.  I still have a lot to learn about sail trim on RC sailboats, but the boat generally went where I wanted it to and I managed to sail it back to where I was without any mishaps.

These pictures show the boat under sail this afternoon in Southwest Harbor, Maine.

Jan. 5, 06 - Just before Christmas I stopped by Morris Yachts and discussed building this model with them.  They gave me their approval on December 28, 05 and arranged for Sparkman and Stephens to release the drawings to me.  I got the required agreement/release forms from Sparkman and Stephens just after New Years and sent in my order for the drawings today.  I will start work on the hull as soon as the drawings arrive.

Jan 7, 06 - Today I decided to start work on some of the details of the model that I can build before I get the actual drawings.  I used pictures from the Morris Yachts web site to determine the dimensions of the mast.  I then built a box spar from 1/16" thick balsa wood.  The picture above shows a small portion of the partially completed 54" long spar.  The box spar includes the taper at the top of the mast.  I also filled the otherwise hollow spar with solid balsa wood at the points where the spreaders, upper shrouds and fore stay will be attached, as well as where the mast will penetrate the model's deck.  The next step, as shown above was to put a layer of carbon fiber set in epoxy on the aft face of the spar where I will build the sail groove.  Tomorrow, after the epoxy cures, I will build the sail groove, sand the spar to shape and start putting carbon fiber on the rest of the spar.  I am using full length continuous carbon fibers to make the mast very stiff.

Jan 10, 06 - The mast is now built except for a bit of surface fairing and painting..  The picture shows the 54" long mast leaning against a door.  The section is 0.4" thick by 0.605" wide.  I built in a groove on the aft face to attach the sail.  At present the mast weighs 73 grams or about 2.6 oz.  I expect that the weight after surface filling and painting will be somewhere around 77-80 grams.  The mast is quite stiff.  To test that I laid the mast across two supports 53" apart and hung a 1/4 pound weight from the center of the spar.  The mast deflected 7/32" in the athwartships direction and 4/32" in the for and aft direction.  This mast will be used in a double spreader rig, so I think that it will work quite well.

Jan. 13, 06 - Since the 10th, I have painted the mast and set it aside.  Yesterday the drawings arrived from Sparkman and Stephens, so I spent some time last night scaling the drawings.  Today I built the strongback and started cutting out the station frames.  I will finish the frames tomorrow and get started planking the hull.

Jan. 14, 06 - Last night I finished cutting out the station frames and glueing them to the strongback.  After working on a couple of other models this morning I planked the starboard side of this model down to the waterline.  Although it isn't obvious in this picture, the sheer and waterline planks are in place on the port side too.  I am planking this hull with 1/16" thick balsa in widths varying from 1/8" to 1/4" inch.  The planks are edge glued to one another and to the station frames with cyanoacrylate superglue.  Tomorrow I plan to plank the port side down to the waterline.

Jan. 16, 06 - Yesterday I planked the port side of the hull down to the waterline.  Today I finished planking the port side of the hull.  I will plank the starboard side from the waterline down tomorrow.  One thing to note is that I have not yet cut the transom off as shown on the plans.  At present the hull is planked to a "ghost station" located aft of the actual transom.  I won't be cutting the hull off at the transom until I have fiberglassed and removed it from the strongback.

Jan. 17, 06 - Last night I got ambitious and finished planking the hull.  After that I put on the outside layer of 6 oz. fiberglass cloth set in West System epoxy.  Today, after the epoxy was cured, I removed the hull from the strongback and then cut off and planked the transom.  Tonight I will fiberglass the transom.  Tomorrow I plan to remove the station frames and fiberglass the inside of the hull.  That will result in a nice stiff hull.  At present, with the station frames in place, the model weighs 308 grams.  I think the final weight of the hull itself will be in the 325 gram range.

Jan. 18, 06 - Today I removed the station frames and sanded the inside of the hull.  I then fiberglassed the inside of the hull.  The area in black a bit forward of amidships is where the keel will attach to the hull.  Similarly, the black cross aft is where the rudder post will be.  Although you can't see is in this picture, I put 3 extra layers of fiberglass around the keel base and the rudder post to stiffen the hull in those areas.  The fiberglass is laid from gunwale to gunwale as approximately 8" wide strips.  I am using 6 oz glass cloth for this layup.  Once the epoxy cures, I will trim the fiberglass and install the reinforcing grid for the keel.  The next step after that will be to fill and fair the outside of the hull.

Jan. 21, 06 - For the last couple of days I have been filling and fairing the hull.  This morning I started putting on the first coat of primer paint.  Since filling and fairing involves a lot of waiting for fairing compound to cure, I also got started building the keel.  The first syep was to cut out the shape of the keel on a piece of balsa to serve as the center plane of the keel.  I did that and then put a layer of fiberglass both sides of that piece of 1/16" balsa.  After that I cut out the NACA foil shapes for different locations on the keel, glued them to the centerplane and then planked the keel.  When the keel was fully planked, I sanded it fair and then put fiberglass on the surface.  The picture above shows two views of the keel after is has been shaped and fiberglassed.  The left hand view is a side view of the keel.  At the top of the keel you can see where the center plane extends above the keel proper.  This part of the keel will penetrate the bottom of the hull and be fiberglassed into the hull with several knees.  The right hand picture shows the top of the keel.  You can see foil shape of the keel fin and the centerplane quite well.  The next step on the keel is to fill/fair/prime the surface.  I will complete that before I attach the keel fin to the hull.  The final step in building the keel will be to attach the beaver tail lead bulb.  To do that I will cut away the keel shaping on the bottom of the keel along a line that will conform to the top of the bulb.  I will leave only the fiberglassed centerplane, which will penetrate into the bulb.  The bulb will be attached to the centerplane with two bolts that will pass through the bulb horizontilly.  Once the bulb is attached, I will fair the contact with the keel fin to get the keel ready for painting.  I will wait until the model is complete except for the bulb before I cast the bulb because I need to know the weight of the finished model without the bulb before I can determine the final weight and resulting dimensions of the bulb. However, based on the weight of the hull so far (440 grams), what I expect the rest of the model (deck, cabin house, mast and rig) to weigh, the known weight of the RC electronics and the displacement of the model, the bulb will weigh between 2.25 and 2.5 pounds.

Jan. 21, 06 (cont.) - This afternoon I put the first coat of primer paint on the model.  The picture above shows the primer painted model.  Near the bow, you can also see the keel fin with its first coat of fairing compound on it.  The purpose of this coat of primer is to give a uniform surface color so that it is much easier to spot flaws in the filling and fairing.  Tomorrow I will start the cycle of spot filling, sanding and repriming that will continue until I have a flawless surface on the hull.  Since there will be lots of waiting time while fairing compound cures and paint dries, I will also get started building the deck.

Jan. 26, 06 - Over the past few days I have been working on filling and fairing the hull.  I have also gotten started on the next few components of the model.  Monday of this week the radio control electronics arrived.  After I checked them out, I laminated an instrument board for the RC servos, battery box and radio receiver to be mounted on.  I also laminated a carbon fiber control arm to attach to the sail control servo.  As shown above, I also put together a jig to build the deck on.  The next two pictures also show other things I have been working on.

Jan.26, 06 (cont) - This pictures shows three things I have added to the hull.  Just below the top edge of the hull you can see the sheer clamp which I have installed and epoxy coated.  At the aft end of the hull, you can just see the knee I put in to attach the back stay chain plate to.  Finally, in the center of the picture, you can see the central spine of the keel fin.  The spine passes through a 1/16" wide slot I cut in the bottom of the hull.  I initially glued the fin to the hull with cyanoacrylate (CA) super glue.  Next I sealed around the edge of the slot with polyester fairing compound.  Finally I put two layers of 6 oz fiberglass tabbing in epoxy on each side of the keel fin spine to hold the fin in place.  Tomorrow after the epoxy cures I will glue in three floors on each side of the spine.  Those floors will also be glassed to the hull to provide a strong, stiff attachment of the keel fin to the hull and to transfer keel loads to a large part of the hull.  Once the floors are in place I will flip the model over and fill the small gap between the top of the keel fin and the hull with thickened epoxy to further stiffen the keel mount.

Jan. 26, 06 (cont) - Here is the hull with the keel fin installed.  The green blotches on the hull are fairing compound applied to the last few surface flaws on the hull.  Because this is a sailing model, it was necessary to increase the area of the keel fin to increase the lift it generates.  The keel on the model needs to generate proportionally more lift than the keel on the real boat because of a scale factor.  The scale factor comes into play because while the wind loads on the sails scale directly with the decrease in sail area from the real boat to the model, keel lift does not because the speeds the model will sail at are much less than those the real boat achieves.  Since keel lift is related to boat speed, the model's keel with generate less lift per unit area in a given wind speed than the real boat's keel.  To compensate, the keel area is increased.  I did that by deepening the keel, while retaining its form for the sake of appearances.  As on the real boat, there will be a beaver tail shaped lead bulb attached to the bottom of the keel fin.  The bulb on the model will account for just over 50% of the total displacement.  I decided to use machine screws to attach the lead bulb to the keel fin.  So I filled the bottom 4th of the keel fin with solid epoxy.  When that epoxy cured, I drilled and tapped two holes for #10-24 machine screws in the bottom of the fin.  When I cast the lead keel bulb I will drill two matching holes in it for the screws.

Jan. 29, 06 - Since my last update I took a couple of days off to work on other projects.  I did, however, install and fiberglass the keel floors that brace the keel spine, stiffen the hull around the keel attachment and spread keel loads over a wide area of the hull.  I also went shopping and bought the lead I will use to cast the keel bulb.

Jan. 31, 06 - I ran out of balsa sheet, so I had to wait for a new order to come in before I could finish the deck.  The balsa arrived today, so the deck is now built and has a layer of 6 oz. fiberglass cloth curing on it.  Tomorrow, after the epoxy cures I will flip the deck over and glass the understide of the deck.  On another front, I laminated the carbon fiber/fiberglass tube for eht rudder post this afternoon.  I will install it tomorrow.

Feb. 6, 06 - Over the past few days things have gone quite slowly because I came down with a terrible cold.  I am almost over it, so I have finally gotten a bit more work done.  As you can see in the picture above, I have now built and installed the rudder.  I used the same NACA foils for the rudder that I used for the keel.  The rudder has a central balsa plate to which I glued the NACA foil shapes.  I then filled space between the foil shapes with thickened epoxy.  That gave a heavy rudder, but I wanted it to be heavier than water so it wouldn't float and jam against the underside of the hull.  I made the 3/16" stainless steel rudder post from a 6" long 1/4" stainless steel bolt.  I machined the shaft of the bolt to 3/16" and then laid up the carbon fiber rudder tube on that shaft.  The 3" long threaded part of the rudder post was set in the thickened epoxy that makes up the body of the rudder.  The rudder tube is epoxied to the hull and has two knees supporting it.  At the top of the rudder post I attached a brass control arm that I made by silver soldering pieces of brass together.  The control is attached to the rudder post by a 1/16" brass pin that passed through the tubular part of the control arm that fits over the top of the rudder post and the post itself.  That pin was silver soldered in place.  You can also see the mast support beam that I laminated from balsa and fiberglass.  That beam is located at station 4.  At present it is just epoxied to the hull.  Tomorrow I will glass in two knees to provide more support for that beam since it will carry a good deal of the mast and rig loads.  The next task is to mount the servos that will control the rudder and sails in the hull.  After I do that I will install the deck.

Feb. 11, 06 - I am finally mostly over the rotten cold I have had for the last 8-9 days.  Consequently, I managed to mount the radio control servos in the hull.  Moving from left to right in the picture above, you can see the rudder post with its control arm.  That control arm is connected to the steering servo with a brass rod.  The batteries are located under the steering servo.  Forward of the steering servo is the sail control servo with the carbon fiber reinforced sail control arm I built.  Forward of the sail control server is the radio receiver.  The white wire coming from the receiver is the radio antenna.  Right now, the antenna is led into a tube that is glued to the inside of the hull right under the sheer clamp.  The sail control lines (sheets) will be led from two eye bolts inside the hull (bow and port side about half way between the sail control servo and the transom) through eyebolts on the ends of the seil control arm to fiarleads through the deck and then to the main boom and the jib clew.  You can also see the laminated deck support beam that will support the mast loads.  It is fiberglassed to the hull and supported by a knee at each end.  The deck for the model is at the top of the picture.  The perspective of the picture makes the deck look too small, but I assure you that it is the right size.

With all the sail control hardware the hull now weighs 1,050 grams or 2.31 pounds.

Feb. 25, 06 - I have been working on other models for the last two weeks and haven't spent much time on this one until the last couple of days.  As you can see I have been working on the deck.  This picture shows the deck with the almost finished cockpit, cutout where the cabin house will be and the forward hatch.  I have also built the fiberglass steering pedestal, although I haven't installed it yet.  In this picture the deck has been temporarily screwed to the hull.  The cutout where the cabin house will be is there to permit access to the radio-control electronics.  You can see the control sheets  through that hole.  I am using Marlow 2 mm doubrade tweaking line with te core removed for the sheets.  I will be building the cabin house so that its top can be removed for access through this hatch.  The forward hatch is a real hatch to provide access to the point where the jib sheet is attached to an eyebolt epoxied to the hull.

Feb. 25, 06 (cont) - Here is the underside of the cockpit.  It is shiny because the balsa wood is coated with epoxy to seal it.  The white tube is the fairlead for the mainsheet.  It passes through the cockpit sole and rises to the level of the cockpit seats.  That is a modification to the design because this is a radio control sailing model.  I will install a false main sheet traveller track between the cockpit seats to brace the main sheet fairlead tube.  I originally planned to bring the main sheet up through the forward end of the steering pedestal, but there wasn't adequate clearance over the top of the rudder post to do that.  Over the next couple of days I will be installing the chain plates on the deck and then epoxying and screwing the deck to the hull.

Feb. 27, 06 - Yesterday I glued the deck and cockpit to the hull.  To do that I first coated the mating surfaces on the bottom of the deck, the sheer clamp and the mast support cross beam with unthickened epoxy.  As soon as I finished that I mixed microfibers into the remaining epoxy until the misture had the consistency of thick peanut butter.  I then spread the thickened epoxy over the sheer clamp and the top of the mast support beam.  Next I put the deck in place and screwed it down with 20 #4 stainless steel screws.  After I put the last screw in place I covered the deck with waxed paper and then put 40 pounds of sand in 1 gallon zip lock bags on the deck to "clamp" it in place.  This morning I removed the sand bags and screws.  Next I sanded any excess epoxy off the model.  I spent most of the afternoon building the cabin house and cockpit coamings.  As I mentioned above, the top of the cabin house will be removable and is built with a flange that fits snugly into the cabin house sides.  After I took this picture I filled the screw holes and the gaps between the deck and hull with thickened epoxy.

March 11, 06 - I have not been working on this model much lately because I had to get a couple of other models finished up to meet delivery dates.  However, I have now done the calculations and to determine the weight for the keel bulb.  With that weight in hand I designed a keel bulb with the right volume and made up a plug from which I will make the mold for casting the lead.  The picture above shows the keel bulb plug in place.  Note that the bulb plug is just held in place with double stick tape and is not properly aligned.  The picture also shows that I have faced the cabin house so that you can see the ports.  I have a bit of work to do on the cabin top and in the cockpit, but I expect to finish that in a few days.  When that is done I will paint the model.

March 14, 06 - Over the past couple of days I have finished facing the cockpit and the cabin top.  Tomorrow I will finish building the companionway slide and then primer paint the deck, cabin house and cockpit.  The gap between the cabin house and the cabin top will be closed when the cabin top is screwed down.  That joint will also be covered by the teak eyebrow.  Last night and today I made the plaster of paris mold for casting the lead keel bulb.  I will let the plaster mold cure over night, then I will bake it to get rid of excess moisture.  I expect to cast the keel bulb toward the end of this week.

March 26, 06 - I haven't put much time in on this model lately, but I did get back to it over the weekend.  I have finished building the cabin house and cockpit and primer painted the deck and cabin house.  Yesterday I got my propane torch out and cast the keel bulb.  In this picture you can see the plaster of paris keel mold behind the model just ahead of the keel.  I went pretty basic for the bulb casting.  I used a tomato soup can for my crucible because it was a one piece molded can and couldn't leak on a seam.  I melted the lead with my propane torch and poured directly into the plaster of paris mold.  I was pleased with how well the casting went since the last lead casting I had done was in junior high school.  You can see the 2.7 lb lead bulb on the end of the keel fin in the picture above.  The discoloration on the bulb is a bit of polyester fairing compound I used to fill some minor imperfections.  As noted above, the bulb is attached to the keel fin by two #10 machine screws that are threaded through the bulb into the bottom of the fin.  Right now the screws are temporary since they were just a couple of galvanized steel screws I had lying around.  Tomorrow I will run over to the hardware store and get some stainless screws to permanently attach the keel.  When that is done I will fill the small gaps where the fin penetrates into the top of the bulb.  Once the bulb is permanently installed I will start painting the model.

April 8, 06 - Since my last update I have mostly been painting the model.  The deck, cabin house and cockpit now have their basic white paint on them and I have put the final coat of primer on the bottom.  Today I sprayed the first coat of blue paint on the topsides.  Over the next few days I will paint the contrasting non-skid on the deck and finish the topsides (finish coat of topsides paint and boot stripe).  Note that the model is sitting on the keel with no other support in this picture.

Dec. 21, 06 - Wow, has it really been eight and a half months since I updated this model.  Well, last spring I got really busy with other models and since this one is just for fun, I set it aside.  Earlier this month I got back to it.  Since about December 10 I have put five coats of Interlux Brightsides Flag Blue urethane on the topsides, painted the boot stripe with Brightsides Matterhorn white, painted the contrast color non skid on the deck and started installing teak.  As you can see, I now have the teak eyebrow on the cabin house and the toe rail on.  I started the cockpit coaming and will finish it tomorrow.  Once all the teak is on the model I will start varnishing.  I expect the teak to need about 7-8 coats of varnish.

Dec. 24, 06 - I have now installed the cockpit coaming, sanded the toe rail to shape and finished planking the teak cockpit sole.  This morning I finished building the companionway doors although they won't be installed until I finish varnishing them.  Last night I put the first coat of varnish on the cockpit coaming.  I will put the first coat of varnish on the toe rail and the second coat on the cockpit coaming tonight.  The only teak work that remains is to build the two dorade boxes.  The next phase will be building and installing deck and cockpit details (winches, wheel and pedestal details, cleats, jib track, toe rail chocks, deck hatches, chain plates, etc.).  I will also start building the hardware for the mast and boom soon.

Dec. 29, 06 - I now have 5 coats of varnish on the toe rails and 6 on the cockpit coaming.  It looks like I will need 1-2 more coats of varnish.  In addition to varnishing, I have machined the Anderson 40 winches from 316 stainless.  The winches are hollow to reduce weight.  I have also made up the chain plates.  You can see the aft and starboard side chain plates.  They are just sitting on the model now, but I will mount them when I finish varnishing the toe rails.  The chain plates are made up from 301 stainless.  Since these chain plates will bear real rigging loads, they were assembled by silver soldering using a 70,000 psi solder.  To attach them to the deck I silver soldered a #1-72 threaded stud to the back of each chain plate and made up stainless backing plates.  When I mount them I will caulk then with 3M 4200 to prevent leaks and make the attachment to the deck a bit stronger.  This afternoon I started building the boom and spreaders.  Like the mast, the boom is a balsa box beam with an overlay of carbon fiber set in epoxy.  The spreaders are solid balsa with an overlay of carbon fiber.

Dec. 31, 06 - For the last two days I have been applying the carbon fiber to the boom, spreaders and mast crane components.  As of this morning everything was carbon-coated.  The picture above shows the two sets of spreaders set end-to-end to show how much they are swept back.  Below the spreaders is the boom and finally are the pieces I am using to build the mast crane.  After I took this picture I sanded everything fair and applied a coat of fairing compound, which is now curing.  The spreaders are built from 1/8" solid balsa with an overlay of carbon fibers set in epoxy.  Tha boom is a box spar like the mast with solid balsa where the main sheet and vang will be attached.  In addition, the end of the boom where the gooseneck will be attached is filled with solid epoxy, which I will drill and tap for the gooseneck fitting.

While the epoxy has been curing I have also started building the tangs to attach the shrouds and fore stay to the mast and attachments fo the spreaders.  All those parts are made up from stainless steel.

Jan. 7, 07 - This week I have been working on the rig.  I first finished the spreaders and boom and painted them along with the mast.  On wednesday I received tooling via UPS and got started building the rig.  That involved building 8 stainless steel turnbuckles (they are 1-1/8" long and 5/32" in diameter, except for the turnbuckles on the intermediates, which are 3/4" long and 5/32" in diameter.), 1 stainless steel eye fitting for the top of the back stay and 19 stainless steel fork fittings to attach turnbuckles and wires to chainplates and tangs.  All the parts are made from 030 stainless steel.  The wire is 304 stainless.  All wire fittings are silver soldered to the wire as are the forks attached to the lower ends of the turnbuckles.  The 220 lb test wire is the weakest part of the rigging.  You can really see how much the spreaders are swept back.  That mast stood up just fine without the back stay, although it was a bit springy.  Now, with the back stay, lowers and intermediates in place the mast is very rigid.  I now have a new respect for riggers.  Tomorrow I will install the boom and vang.

Jan. 10, 07 - This week I have been working on the rig a bit more.  Monday and Tuesday I built the gooseneck and boom vang.  Last night I painted the bottom.  Today I installed the boom and did a bit of cleaing up of the rig itself.  If I had the sails, I could take this model out for a sail today.  The next steps will include sewing the sails and installing the rest of the deck details, such as the wheel and pedestal hardware, the fore deck hatch, the port lights and some hardware on the mast.  I may also shorten the back stay a bit since it is right at the limit of the turnbuckle to get it tight enough now.  The sails are the big item remaining since I have never built sails before.  The main for this boat will have 5 full battens.  I guess I am in for a bit of a steep learning curve in the area of sail making.

Jan. 11, 07 - Today I made and installed the ports lights and the companionway slide.  I also made up the gold cove stripe and installed it.

Jan. 11, 07 (cont.) - This picture shows the cockpit a bit better so that you can see the companionway doors and slide.  The picture also shows the backstay turnbuckle and the primary winches well.

Jan. 15, 07 - Over the weekend I didn't work on this model much, but I did build the binnacle, compass and wheel.  The wheel is not permanently mounted in this picture.  Right after I took the picture I removed the wheel, sanded it down and revarnished it.  I will mount it tomorrow.

Feb. 6, 07 - Since my last update I haven't been working on this model much.  What I have been doing is designing the sails.  Last night and today I built this camber board for building the main sail.  The main is 43.5" on the luff and 14.5" on the foot with an area of approximetely 375 square inches.  If you look closely at the camber board, you can see the a straight line near the sails leech that shows how much roach this sail has.  You can also see 5 horizontil lines where the 5 full battens will be.  I plan to build the sail in 5 panels with one reef at the first batten.  Now all I have to do is get up the nerve to cut some sail cloth.

Mar. 5, 07 - Since my last update I have made the jib and installed it on a roller furler.  I have also put silicone gaskets on the removeable cabin top and forward hatch.  Today I installed the feed through for the jib sheet and put the sheet on.  All that I have left to do is to build the main boom bail, build and install the main outhaul and build and install the chocks and cleats.  Then, as soon as the weather improves a bit I can take her out sailing.
 
 
 

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