Dale

Inspiring stuff, as usual. Thank you for keeping us posted.

Most of Skerry's plywood decks are in place now, the exception being the side decks along the cockpit. They are cut out ready to by epoxied, but I'm holding off while I do some other work in the cockpit. I'm heavily into fiddly bits like cabin shelves and storage lockers at present - all incredibly time consuming, as I'm sure all will appreciate. There's not really much to show photographically but I'll try to get some updates posted in the not too distant future.

Regards to all
Richard

          Thanks for that run down on your latest sail Dale. With the short waves and unpredictable gusts Cold Lake does sound quite a challenge for sailing. I'm wondering if you have in mind one day to go further afield with Alistego and perhaps sample some sailing on a larger body of water ?
          The wing waving is a unique acknowledgement. There's no doubt about it, the EM attracts attention wherever she goes. We have just been over to West Aust. for 10 days to catch up with our 2 sons and the growing family. While there I spent an afternoon with my EM friend. Being early in the season the boat was still at home and we didn't go sailing, but we had a great time chatting boats. His boat catches the eye wherever, and even when left unnattended he has returned to find a love note, e.g. "I love your boat", on board !
          He has changed his halyards so they are controlled from the cockpit and is very happy with the change. He often goes sailing by himself, and off the coast takes bearings and plots his position on the chart. He then gets great satisfaction from confirming the result with a hand held GPS. All good fun. Next year I am planning to make our annual pilgrimage a bit later, perhaps late October so that with a bit of luck we may go for a sail.
          Richard, you are coming along nicely with your aft deck in place. When at Fremantle I got some bits and pieces for the boat. How much easier it is to actually see what you are buying instead of relying on a photo and description by mail order !

Good reading there, Dale, Bob and Richard. We were away last week, but without the boat.
Even tacking with the mainsail, we have found we have to be doing at least 2.5 knots before she will go about. We have had to gibe her round a few times, but that has worked OK.
The name is painted on now. I'm still getting used to it!
Cheers,
Ian

Hi guys, I have just purchased the plans for No 80 Eun Mara so I will be asking for your expert advice over the next months /years. My very good friend is a chap called Derek Jolley who has built some top class wooden racing dinghys, he also owns and races a 1936 Windermere class 17 on Lake Windermere, so I am fortunate to have his expertise. So I will look forward to your messages when I am trying to unglue my fingers and can't tell my DWL from Sheer due to too many pints of home brew....hic

Hi Neil,

Welcome to the Eun Mara community. So Iain is up to 80 plan sets sold! Awesome news.

It sounds as if you're ready to begin your Eun Mara journey. Check in often, let us know how you're doing and if you like, email some photos (link on alistego.com), and I'll be happy to put them up on the site to inspire even more new builders.

Good Luck!

Dale

Neil

Good to hear from you. I look forward to hearing how you go!

Just out of curiosity, where are you located?

Richard

Hi Neil. Welcome to our group. I am assuming that your Lake Windermere is the one in the Lakes District of England. What a beautiful place it is. My wife and I have stayed at the Youth Hostel at Hawkeshead, and walked over the very same hills and looked over the same idyllic waterways of the Swallows and Amazons children in the Arthur Ransome books.
          As a child I read as many of these books as I could lay my hands on. I loved the shape and design of their cute lapstrake wooden boats. I think a seed was planted then. In retirement now I have re-read a couple of them. I suspect that my admiration of Iain Oughtred's designs had it's beginnings back then.
          What a place to build and finally sail a Eun Mara ! Good luck with your build. Keep in touch and we will help as we can.
          Here's a question I have been wondering about. Has anyone with a completed boat ever experienced any slop coming over the top of the outboard well ?
                                             Cheers, Bob.

Thanks guys for your replys, I live in a village called Withnell in rural Lancashire which is just an hour away from the English Lake District. Sailing on Windermere is gorgeous but you can put more tacks in on a Sunday afternoon than you do on a circumnavigation and the winds are something else, you can be on a run and the guy 2 boat lenghts away has been turned around and is close hauled. I will be taking the Eun Mara on the sea and racing in the winter series on Lake Windermere.... should be giving some plastic fantastics a run for their money!!!

Hi Neil, good to have you on board ,you would have to be keen to race in the winter in the Lake District. Then we're spoilt out here in Oz. At least you don't have to have an ice-breaker bow as Dale does.
Bob, re you're comment re slop on board through the outboard well. Not as yet!! We have been out in reasonably choppy water and the bouyant design of the canoe stern seems to lift at the right time to prevent any wet stuff coming aboard from the outboard well. Only time and greater experience will tell.
Well the wheels are back on the trailer and the HM is all set for the next season,(time, granchildren farm, coastal patrol etc permitting.
The Narooma wooden boat festival is on again in November so looking forward to a great w/e with like minded souls.
Enjoy the boat building experience Neil, I know we all did and some of us still do. Cheers Alec.

Dale, have you tried easing the mizzen before tacking? Just release the sheet then push the tiller over. Sailing a Caledonia Yawl at last year's Small Reach Regatta really made me realize how much the mizzen affects control of the boat.

Hi Steven,

Good to see you're still checking in now and then. Yes we always ease the mizzen before tacking. In fact the mizzen sheeted in hard will keep her from getting any farther through a tack than head to wind.

It's been quiet around here lately. Everyone in the southern hemisphere must be out enjoying the warm spring weather? I'm afraid our weather this fall has gone all to heck with way too hot weather in late September to 15+ cm of snow in very early October. It's all melted away now and we're having actual autumn (highs of 13 degrees C) conditions now. This is my favourite time of the year because all of the insects are now gone and we can be out and about without being accosted by them.

Keep well all, and I hope you have/had a great sailing season this summer.

Dale

Hi Dale and everyone else. We don't ease the mizzen on the Heather Mary when going about but we do back the jib to help her round. Maybe we don't have the mizzen so hard on, although it is almost block to block on the sheet.
It may be that the outboard rudder has a bit more power when turning the hull. I'll take more notice now its been raised.
We have the Narooma Wooden Boat Festival this weekend, a chance for wooden trailerable boats of various designs to get together. Not too many yachts last year, mostly small inboards and steam boats.

Alec.

I am giving serious consideration to building Eun Mara. Does anyone know if there are kits available. I am in the U.S.A. so an American supplier would be my preference. I am also curious if anyone has done a cutter rig on Eun Mara. I just completed a small cutter and I really like the look of the cutter.

Dave

Hi Dave,
Welcome to the group.
I don't know of any kit-makers for Eun na Mara, but you could ask Duckflat Woodenboats in Australia.
The new book about Iain Oughtred refers to an alternative cutter rig for Eun na Mara, but I think this is a mistake, as is the index reference to page 152, which should be 155, and the reference to "Avery Brice" on page 93, which should be Brice Avery. The alternative rig that came with my plans is for a sloop, i.e., one head-sail, no bowsprit, so it loses much of its character. I haven't heard of a sloop version being built. A cutter rig would be more interesting. It takes us about four hours to rig and unrig ours (the red one called "Islesburgh"), including the mizzen . She's definitely a cruiser, not a day-sailer. However, once she's set up, I really like her, including the mizzen.

Hi Everybody,
We got back last week from a tour of our friends and relations in the North Island.
This weekend just gone we have taken our boat in a local race from Port Chalmers, which is about halfway up the Otago Harbour here, to Warrington, which is along the coast to the north of Dunedin, a total distance of about 23 nautical miles. We had to go there and rig the boat on Friday, and stay the night in her, to sail on Saturday. We had a fair southerly wind out of the harbour and a good reach along to Warrington, and back to the harbour entrance, which is fairly narrow, but then a strong southerly front came through and we failed to tack against it, so we rolled around quite safely outside the entrance while we took the sails down, then we radioed race control and motored back to Port Chalmers, the last boat back. Our GPS recorded our moving average speed as 3.9 knots. We stayed another night, hosed the boat and trailer and unrigged her, and came home on Sunday. It was good, but it's quite a big effort just to go sailing for one day. Regards to all,
Ian