Building a Searunner 37

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to build your own boat? To read drawings, cut wood, assemble parts. To work when it is just too cold, or too hot, or too wet.Too difficult for you? Read on to see how one stubborn guy, with not much talent, no time and less money, managed to build himself a pretty nice Searunner 37. 

It took me two years to get up enough nerve to start this project. I lived in Edmonton, Alberta. A fair distance from the ocean.I wanted a large trimaran to sail around the world with my family. I did not have enough money to buy one, so...lets build one. Not in Edmonton. 

Although, I mapped out a route to the Artic ocean from Edmonton and I could get the boat there if I did not mind a portage of 22 miles about half way to the ocean. They told me that they take 50 foot barges over the portage all the time. Thanks, but no thanks. Guess we will just have to move to Vancouver. My wife, two boys, our dog, and I loaded everything up in a U haul and our station wagon and headed to Vancouver. 

There starts the adventure. Did I enjoy this effort? You bet I did. Would I do it again? I sure would. It is the greatest feeling of achievment to be able to point to my boat, and say "Yes, I built it".

Memorial

I would like to dedicate this site to the memory of Dan Ryder. A boat builder, a sailor, a friend. I miss ya Dan.

Strongback

I was always afraid of building a "strongback". It seemed so precise, so exact. Only allowed 1/8 of an inch out of level or alignment over 40 feet. My God! How can I ever do that? There was as much fear about building this thing as there was about building the whole boat. 

Like everything else, follow the instructions; ask questions and it all comes together. I used a water level and a lot of measuring to get it straight. 

Float frames

As you can see, I got the float frames up and some of the stringers installed. Made a couple of mistakes in cutting the notches for the stringers, but one of the great things about a wooden boat, you can fix your screw-ups. 

Frames are made out of 1/4 inch Fir plywood and the stringers out of KD Fir. The stringers were scarfed to make pieces long enough to go from stem to stern. The stem is made from 1/2 Fir plywood

Barnstone Island

I started to build my boat with two other guys. One of them was building a 36-foot Cross tri and the other was building a 55-foot Cross tri. We needed lots of room so we rented a "barn". This barn was 110 feet long, 50 feet wide, open span, and open on one end. Temperature became a problem near the middle of the winter and work stopped for a while. I am sorry to say the 36-foot Cross only lasted about 4 months. One day we came in and he was attacking it with a chain saw. Now that is scary stuff! The 55-foot Cross is still there. Ran out of money a long time ago, but still trying to get it done. Big boat, small budget just does not work 

I learned my first universal truth about boat building in that barn. If you intend to get lots of work done, it is more important to be close to your project then to have cheap rent. We only paid 100.00 a month for the barn in 1985, split three ways. Unfortunately, it was 20 miles from my house, on an island, accessible only by ferry. 

I got two floats built that first year. It looked like this was going to take a while. 

I could not handle the drive to the shed any longer. I was wasting a lot of time in going back and forth. Reluctantly, I decided to move. 

By this time, I had two floats built. The did not have any glass on them, but the skins were on and they were sturdy enough to move. 

Now where am I going to rent a truck that will take two floats, that weigh almost nothing, but are thirty some odd feet long. There was only one truck available in all of the Vancouver area that I could rent and drive myself. Everything else was too short, or tractor trailer combinations, that I did not have a license for. 

Got a truck and a few friends and we loaded the floats up, by hand mind you as they could not have weighed more then a couple of hundred pounds, and headed out for Triangle Road. 

Triangle Road

Well, here we are, Triangle Road. This is a boat building community that had been active for about 20 years when I arrived. There were 22 sheds in the yard, and the most diverse group of individuals that you could ever imagine. Each one would be a story in themselves. 

Some people lived in their sheds, some came to work on their boats every day, some came on the weekends, and some never came. Conditions were very different from what I had been accustomed to. 

One outdoor portable toilet, for the whole yard, and it was a mess. The seat was broken, the wall was broken, and the part that held the seat was coming away from the wall. Would I fall in? How do people stand for this? At least it was emptied occasionally. 

Power was interesting. One panel for the whole yard. Everyone just ran a wire from the panel to their shed. Some under the road, some over the road. Whatever worked. There were no regulations. You need power, you hook up. Fire hazard, you have no idea. When it rained, the panel got soaked because it was in the “Mast Shed”. This was a building about 50 feet long that the whole yard had access to for long projects, like masts, etc. Since this shed belonged to no one, no one fixed it. The roof leaked, the walls were falling down, the floor was mostly gone, but people still used it by putting plastic up over their work. If the Hydro guys saw this panel, they would have ripped out the power right then and there. 

I was on the opposite side of the yard, so my power had to cross the road. Rather then go over the road, the power was laid under the road, in a piece of plastic hose. Every once in a while, the hose would get wet inside, the power line would blow up and I would be with out power till I fixed it. I measured the power only once. It was so low; I don’t know how stuff worked half the time. I measured 90 volts at the plugs in the shed. It was murder on the power tools. 

Triangle Road shed

Well, here we are, my boat shed. This shed belongs to Roger Tailor. He built three self designed trimarans in it, Warren Denny built his Bob Harris designed trimaran in it and now I will build a Jim Brown designed Searunner in it. Wow, what history. What a responsibility to carry on such an illustrious career for this shed. Of course, I was the only multihull in the yard, so you know all the stuff I had to put up with. 

The shed is about 50 feet long and 30 or 35 feet wide. When I moved in it was not clear span, but had pony walls down each side about 8 feet from the sides. That was not a problem at the time. I will figure out how to assemble a 23-foot wide, solid wing deck boat in here later. 

Please note the “Boat Builders Truck”. Not only did I have the perquisite beater truck; I had two of them, just in case one gave up the ghost. You can not build a boat without a truck. Maybe you should buy one now, even before you buy the plans for the boat. If you can live with one of these trucks, you can build a boat.

 

John and Roger

When you build a boat, you drink a lot of coffee or beer or whatever, depending on the amount of money you have, I guess. In my shed, it was coffee. There was always someone dropping in for a gab session and some coffee. 

The guy on the left is Roger Tailor, the owner of the shed and the builder of three self designed trimarans. The last was a 40 foot, open wing deck, 50 foot wing mast, named “Atta-A-Mun”. Something to do with atta-a-boy. 

The guy on the right is John Messenger. John built monohull dinghies, catamaran dinghies, cedar strip canoe hulls and finally, a mold for panels to build a 40-foot catamaran. He and Geoff Kidd worked in my shed for a few months to build the panels for Geoffs 40-foot cat. 

The busiest time for visitors was in the summer on the weekend. One Saturday in August, I had 14 different visitors drop in to say Hi, and have a coffee. It’s really hard to get much work done with this many interruptions. Would I change that next time and not allow access to my shed by all the curious people. Never. I loved all the talk and ideas that flow from these bull sessions. I am sure a lot of my ideas were formulated during these discussions. Lots were down right arguments. They were fun too. 

Geoff's mold

Geoff Kidd wanted to build a boat for himself. Now Geoff is rather large, 6 foot 6 and as luck would have it, he married a wonderful girl who was 6 foot 3. For these two people to enjoy a modern multihull, it would have to be quite large. 

Geoff looked around, bought a few study prints, and even bought a set of plans from one designer. After very careful scrutinizing of the plans, it became apparent that the boat was just too small. Berths were not long enough, not enough headroom in the galley, companionways were too cramped, and the head…forget it. 

So Geoff and John put their heads together and came up with a plan for a 40-foot catamaran that would be designed to their specifications. 

This is the start of the whole thing. John built a temporary addition to my shed to work in. Boy, temporary was right. You can not build anything out of K3 board and expect it to last. It did last long enough to build this mold and pull 10 panels off 

It was an education watching them do this. Cutting pieces of door skin, layering up a panel, vacuum bagging the panel. They used four layers of 1/8 door skin to make ½ inch thick panels. Did you know you can use old refrigerator compressors for vacuum pumps? One on each end of the mold sucked that panel down like nobodies business. 

Geoff is just putting the finishing touches on his and Margaret’s boat and hopes to have it in the water soon. By the way, the berth looks to be 8 feet long by 8 feet wide with 4-foot headroom. 

Back to the shed

Back to the shed. This is a view of one of the benches that fit along both sidewalls. I don’t know about you, but I seem to be able to fill all available space with something before too long. I try to tell my friends that “If you have not used it in the last 6 months, you don’t need it”. Fortunately, I never take my own advise and continue to find tubes of bedding compound that are solid because they have been there for years, bits of sandpaper that have absolutely no use, and pieces of wood that I just know I will need someday. 

Even with these benches, I had to build more. No, not because I got more junk, but because I had to build very large parts, like main strength bulkheads, centerboard box, centerboard, etc. Think of it, bulkheads 23 feet long and 7 feet high. Made out of many parts, all have to be epoxied, assembled in the right order and then fastened down till the epoxy cures. You need lots of space for this operation. 

Speaking of space. If I can only convince you about only one thing…make sure you have lots of space. There is nothing worse then to have to work in cramped quarters. I was very fortunate in this building venture, to have lots of free space around my work area. It was a little tight above the boat, as you will see later, but for the most part, I loved the extra space. 

Float skin

Here is a float being made ready for glassing. With the Searunner design, there is some latitude in shaping your chine lines. In the construction manual written by Jim Brown, he suggests a large radius on the float and main hull chines, to increase the strength of the chine and to make it much easier to glass the chine. 

You may notice throughout the site, I have struggled to maintain the sharp, angular look of the chines. I love that severe, Teutonic look of the Searunner and there is no way I was going to spoil that by soften the lines by rounding off the chines. Please Jim, don’t be offended. 

The skin is 3/8-inch fir plywood on the bottom of the float and 3/8 inch fir plywood on the hull sides. Each chine was glassed with an 18 oz. roving on the inside and two layers of 6-oz tape on the outside. The floats are glassed with one layer of 6-oz cloth, cut to overlap the chines. Therefore the chines end up with 4 layers of 6-oz. cloth on the outside. 

As an after thought, I put some glass on the inside of the outboard side of the float, between frames 4 to 8. I figured if I was going to be hit by someone, this would be the place it would happen. This was not called for in the plans and I now think it was a waste of time and material. 

Main strength bulkheads

See, what did I tell you. Not one but two benches 30 feet long. To support the bottom of the bulkheads, I had to build temporary extensions on the benches. When the bulkheads come off…Hey, more places to put stuff. 

The main strength bulkheads are made from KD, S4S dimensional fir lumber. The number 4 bulkhead is skinned with 3/8-fir plywood and the number 8 bulkhead is skinned with ¼ inch fir plywood. The interior structure is epoxied and fastened to one skin. After that has had time to cure, the other skin is epoxied and applied to the top surface. To foil any would be thieves; I painted my wife’s name, my two boys names, and my name on the inside surface of both bulkheads. Only I know in what section they are located. I figured if I had to identify my boat, this would be a novel way. 

If you look closely, you will see very little structure on the top of the bulkhead and not a lot more on the bottom. Because the bulkheads are designed to have tremendous strength in only one direction, you have to be very careful in handling them. You can not pick them up from the ends, but must always stand them up and make sure they do not bend in the middle. 

Gunter

Here are the two main strength bulkheads, finished and stored till I need then later. They are epoxy coated on the outside and painted with a temporary coating to protect the epoxy from the sun. 

In the foreground, you will see a workbench and a couple of centerboards. I had the great fortune to watch a master craftsman work on his boat in my shed. Are you beginning to think my shed is the temporary home of all wayward boatbuilders who might be looking for a place of their own. 

While Gunter was waiting for a shed to come open in the yard, he started to do some of the small parts on his Kurt Hughes designed catamaran. Now Gunter is German, a tool and die maker and he sure knows a thing or two about building things. I watched him build two of the most beautiful centerboards imaginable. They were identical, down to a tolerance of 1/32 of an inch. He would spend hours and hours making sure they were just right. Was all the care necessary? For Gunter it was. That is his level of craftsmanship, no matter what he is doing. I don’t think I could have devoted that much effort myself.

 

Main hull frame

And what do we have here? A frame from the main hull, number 2 to be exact. We are moving right along aren’t we. You may notice the color of the fir plywood the frame is made from. A little information on this material is in order. 

This was a type of fir plywood made exclusively for the road sign industry in the Province of Alberta. Now Alberta is not a place any self respecting sailor would want to be caught in, especially in the winter. Because of –40 degree temperatures in the winters, wild wind and ice storms, + 100 degree temperatures in the summer coupled with dust and sand storms, the highway sign industry had to design a very strong and resilient material to make their signs from. 

One of the plywood mills took up the challenge and produced this material. It is called Crezone ply and is excellent for boat building. Crezone that is ½ inch thick is 5 ply, all equal thickness. You can not find ½ inch, 5-ply fir for sale in BC anymore. If you go to a specialty store, you might find some, imported from somewhere and at what cost? 

Crezone also has a layer of very porous Kraft paper applied to one side. I was very skeptical of this paper when I first saw it. I thought “What kind of bond am I going to get on that stuff?” I epoxied a few pieces of wood to a piece of the Crezone, a couple on the paper surface and a couple on the bare plywood surface on the other side. After a few days to cure, I tried to remove them. Not going to happen. All four pieces would not move. I took a hammer to them. The pieces on the bare plywood broke the first and second layer of ply away without breaking the glue line of epoxy between the wood piece and the plywood. The pieces on the front, on the Kraft paper, did the same. It was obvious that the Kraft paper was porous enough to allow the epoxy to flow through and attach to the wood behind. 

I found out later that the Kraft paper was the secret of how this plywood could maintain such a durable surface in all conditions. My main hull, wing decks, cabin top, etc. are made from this Crezone. 

Main hull frames bow

I've done it again. Built another “strongback”. I had to produce another one for the main hull frames. Wow, this one was done on an uneven floor. I thought I was good to do the first one on a cement floor that was level. This shed has a sand floor with ¼ inch plywood on top of the sand. This was a whole different ballgame to get this one level. 

The Searunner plans give you full size drawings of all the important parts. It is relatively easy to trace them on to a piece of plywood, using nails, and a batten, and then cut them out. Also on the drawings, are all your lines and points for alignment and set up. 

I marked the centerline on all the strongback cross pieces. Then I marked each frame with a horizontal line, that was indicated on the plans, across the bottom of the frame. This line was responsible for my vertical height of each frame. All frames had a vertical line from top to bottom of the frame. This centerline of the frames was my guideline for my fore and aft alignment. 

Now all I had to do was screw each frame into the strongback, making sure all the lines met at all the right places. 

By the way, do you use dry wall screws? Dry wall screws are the cheapest, easiest, throw away screws you can buy. Once I started using dry wall screws, I never used another nail. You can get fine or course thread. The course threads are the greatest for woodworking. They are very sharp, easy to start, Phillips drive, and cheap.

 

Main hull frames stern

Here is a view of the main hull frames, from the transom. Notice all the ventilation holes in the frames. These holes would allow free passage of air, from one compartment to another. 

The transom was interesting to build. Although you can not see it in these pictures, the transom has an outside curve of about 4 inches at the bottom and more at the top. This all had to be built out of individual pieces of wood, sanded and shaped to allow a smooth curve for the plywood skin. 

All frames are ½ Crezone fir plywood. Most larger frames have a 1 X 4 KD fir edge piece to add thickness to mount the stringers into. All glue used to attach frame edge treatment and to attach stringers was Systems Three epoxy. Each frame has been coated with epoxy. 

Stringers bow

This is a view of the main hull bow with stringers attached All stringers were 1 X 2 KD fir S4S lumber. Stringers had to be scarfed to achieve the required length. I tried to put the scarfs on frames to add a bit of strength and backing to the scarf and to eliminate any hard spot between frames. Sometimes, If you get a hard spot in a stringer, it will not bend exactly the way you want it to and you will have an uneven surface to mount your plywood skin to. This will produce an unevenness on the outside of the boat and will be noticeable when the finish is applied. 

All notches in the frames were cut with a circular saw. Makita makes the greatest tool for this operation. It is called a “Panel saw” It has a 4 inch blade and the saw is very small and light. It will only cut 1.5 inches deep, but that is all I needed. It sure was a lot easier then trying to heft a big skill saw up to the top of the main hull. 

To cut notches this way, you just set the depth of cut on the saw, and then take a few cuts between the notch lines. The edges of your notches will be perpendicular to the edge of the frame. Perfect for a boat with chines. Most of the notch will be removed with just a few cuts. If there is a little left, you can remove it with a chisel or pliers. 

You can see a couple of backing blocks installed between stringers that form the chine. At this part of the boat, the plywood gets a little testy about fitting correctly and will need lots of area to fasten to. This area is also exposed to hitting objects in the water. With additional material in this location, you will not suffer a break in the boat skin if you contact a log or other debris while sailing.