In the beginning

In 1981 my wife to be and I finished a Hughes 31 fiberglass hull, and cruised the BC coast; in 1986, we finshed the interior of a 39ft steel hull, sailed to Hawaii and honeymooned through a couple islands. Then life happened - two kids and jobs taking us across Canada separated us from ocean capable boats. But going offshore in dependable boats was in our blood, and the vision of sailing to Tahiti just wouldn't die - so in 2001 we began building the hull that will finally do that - in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario. Construction continues today, in Campbell River BC - so we might not be in Tahiti yet - but we're getting closer!!

March 2018 update - came across Indonesia and the Indian Ocean late 2017, stopped at the top of Madagascar for a couple weeks, then ran down the Mozembeq channel and rounded Africa in Dec. It was a busy time, and DreamCatcher performed superbly under a wide range of conditions - saw white water to my knees at the mast in the Mozembeq, 200mile days in both Indian and Atlantic oceans, spent days under spinnaker working to keep my babe moving in very light winds.

Left Capetown mid Jan 2018, bouncing off St Helena and Fernando de Noronha islands as we ran up and across the Atlantic, landing in Barbados. Going to slow down now, and spend two seasons cruising the Caribbean before doing the Panama Canal. It’s an amazing life.

Nov 2016, Brisbane Australia.....not all that far from New Zealand! Spent bulk of the cruising season in Fiji, finishing with a pretty quick run through Vanuatu and New Caledonia. Boat doing great, still a stand out amongst the cruising fleet.
- if you want to keep up with our travel detail, look for Norm Facey on facebook - waaay easier to do updates with pics with marginal internet.

April 2016, Whangarei New Zealand aboard SV DreamCatcher....It still floats! Did Marquesas, Tuamotus, Tahiti thru to Bora Bora, Cooks, Beverage Reef, Nuie, Tonga and then down to New Zealand. Boat is great - though I do wish I'd gone with unpainted aluminum from a maintenance perspective (find I have to go around monthly to deal with paint chips to keep her rust free).


I loved building, and enjoy telling people "we built this boat" - but take a good look at the price of used boats before you start..... consider boat hunting in the Caribbean, and just sail a nice solid boat downwind - can save 10 years of building!

Plating the hull


May 27th 2001, Sault Sainte Marie Ontario
- starting Deck Plating

Having fought the transom, I wanted to ensure we got the alignment right on the hull from the main bulkhead back - that would re-establish confidence that we weren't building a twisted monster - so we laid the aft deck plates as a way to both square the centerline and close the perimeter loop.

There were lots of contact points to determine alignment - flat across main bulkhead, perimeter against frame edges, 3 long straight longitudinal plate seams, and the final big arc of all plates to the transom. 

 During this phase, we could not stand up top to manhandle the plates - there wasn't enough rigidity yet. so we had to center our lifting points. Here's a steel eye tacked at the balance point, with a plate clamp on the back edge to allow rope guidance.  One good tack can withstand about a ton of steady pull - done along just one edge of a steel eye, a quick whack with a hammer sideways will break off that same tack. Useful whenever a tugging/lifting point was required.

And here's the proof of our work to date - the back seam pulled up effortlessly, and matched end to end with no grinding, and no gap. Perfect alignment.




Back to sassy!





The following week we added the fore deck plating - butted up P&S against main bulkhead, pushed sideways against cabin side framing, lined up frame against scribeline - and outer edges were dead on.  Tack and keep moving!


In no time we were at the bow - and the structure stiff enough that Henry was comfortable poising for a shot - while hanging onto the crane.... no trust.




With the deck plating in place, and the hull starting to line up - and stiffen up - we added the stringers. This was a bit fussy, as they wer all cut to shape, so there was a lot of sorting to do in order to find each stringers' components - we then placed them in the hull loose, wanting to wait till we had the hull plate on before welding. Even now you can see some nice fair hull lines developing










Somewhere in there the pilothouse top & sides fell into place too




First Hull Plate - June 21st 2001

Had to start somewhere - felt the most comfortable starting at the back and working forward. The deck plate was a little wavy/flexible still, so we developed the technique of ling up the hull plate (including in this case pulling it into the frames with our big clamps) getting one top corner lined up & tacked - then lining up the next tack 4-6" further down - and if the deck seam was fair - zap - and move on - otherwise, we'd go up/down on the A-frame crane till the deck seam was good - and then zap - move on. Could get into a good rhythm with one welder and a craneman. Deck came out looking great.

 Didn't show it before, but we were prepping all plate prior to placing - grinding bevels to inside (and we learned to place the plates scribemark side in - really helps with frame alignment)

here we are hoisting a longer midship plate - note the use of a spreader; it kept the longer plate ends from flopping around, providing a more stable lift.

again, we'd start by lining up the top aft corner, and work our way forward, tying into the deck using the reference scribe line (accuracy was awesome)






bow plates  were just more of the same, though more of a curve - long plates.
And after 50 ft, when we finally get to the bow and pull everything together, it's bang on. 

Note no nose cone - that detail started after this version (this is hull #2 ofthe V495 series!)


























More to come

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