Chesapeake Light Craft Community Forum forum

Peter, thanks for the info and the pics. Very helpful. Looks like your cypress spacers are much thicker than mine, I was thinking about gluing/epoxy two cypress boards together to get the spacers a little beefier.

I adapted my SailRig to fit onto a Storer “Viola 14”, which, like the Mill Creek, has a large open cockpit. It was originally on my Woodduck 12. The cypress spacers do not have to span the entire cockpit. They just have to sit on top of the side decks. You can see the spacers on the photo. Mine were probably too high, but I wanted to make sure that I could sail the boat without the side hulls constantly being immersed in the water and creating unnecessary drag.

Where is it and what is meant by 1/2 finished?

I have a half completed Chesapeake Lt 17 kit that I purchased many years ago. Obviously I’m never going to finish it. Is that something someone might be interested in having and finishing for themselves?

I know the Sailfish well. My aunt built a plywood one ages ago and I learned to sail on it 50+ years ago. Look elsewhere in the forum archive for discussion on a side loader for car topping dinghies. I made one for the skerry out of scrap lumber. May be some pix still in there. I was able to use it to solo load the skerry on a CX-5.

David, I have both a heat gun and wood blocks (with plastic tape). I actually used the blocks to attach the butt blocks and flatten the joint but neglected the outside edges . I also just received a shipment of microballoons from CLC as suggested by Mark Nye to fix yet another issue (gaps in the deck/shear lamp and a low point in the foredeck. I will be painting the hull and edge of the deck. The “screws” are nails but I guess look larger since it is a close up and I zoomed in. I did use a nail set to get the nails below the surface. Some of them wouldn’t’t budge. Thanks! Rob

You should definitely try to fix this before applying fiberglass. First try to get the two pieces aligned by heating gently with a heat gun and then applying pressure across the joint maybe with a block of wood (protected with some plastic or packing tape) under a NRS strap. Then fill the gap with a mix of epoxy and microballoons I make sure you remove all those screws and fill the associated holes

I am not sure if I need to fix this issue before laying on the fiberglass to the deck. I am not sure if I should sand or if the fiberglass will hide. Thanks.

I am building the SailRig for my Mill Creek 16.5. There are NO details on attaching the aft aka to the Mill Creek 16.5 over the open cockpit. I was able to figure out the aft aka is 48 inches from the fore aka, but the details on the spacers and how they interact with the coming is completely missing. I figured I would cut a notch for the coming, but the cypress blanks that CLC provided is not long enough to fit the width of the Mill Creek 16.5 (roughly 48 inches from the front of the nose block). I’m thinking of doubling the width of aka spacers to provide more stability and strength. Any one have any experience with a Mill Creek 16.5 and the SailRig? Pics would help a lot. Thanks in advance.

ditto to the final approach you came up with - micro balloons for both

Hi Robert, I really appreciate your reply! I’ve been able to awkwardly muscle a 12 foot Sailfish atop my truck but the Skerry sounds like another beast, altogether. What I didn’t mention in my post is that I’ll be building a teardrop soon and am trying to figure out a safe way to pull that with two kayaks atop it, and the to-be-built Skerry and Kaholo on top of the truck. Good problem to have! May need to draft a second car/driver on my camping trips! Thanks again. Patrick

Mark, I will be painting the front of the fore deck so I can use the micro balloons for both the gaps and the slight depression. It is very slight but I’d rather not have water collect there. Thanks. Rob