Flyer drawing...

I haven't found a great drawing of these boats yet. There is a drawing of Sumatra, a Flyer II that the Choey Lee Asociation uses on its T shirts, coasters etc. At some point I would like to draw one of these myself that uses the boat's original plans as a guide. I don't intend on just reproducing the boat plans but to use them along with some photos as the starting point for a final drawing. Above is a composite of two of the plans that CL sent me. Its of a earlier version of the boat so there is no dog house. I understand that CL no longer has plans of the other versions such as the III's and II's. I would like to add the dog house to this and other small changes to make it looks closer to the boat I have .

Another Flyer for sale...

Found a new Cheoy Lee Frisco Flyer in Washington. Its a '66 and seems to be in great shape from the pictures. Although, I would always like to see more).

Looks to have teak decks, fiberglass hull which is expected and also a fiberglass cabin house and cockpit area, both mostly surfaced over with wood. Looks to be mostly original although some things appear to have been replaced or rebuilt over the years such as the "new" grab rails (the truth is they could be ten or even twenty years old at this point) on the cabin house, the boom is hard to tell if it is original or not, (my guess is that it is not because I seem to remember that even while the Pacific Clippers had a boom set up that looked like this, the Flyers, even the 66's had "boom furlers"), the cabinetry down below looks from the pictures to be rebuilt as well. The cushions are also "new". All in all though, from the couple of photos they had on the site, it looks to be either in excellent shape or really well cared for.

The price seems fair to me too. Check it out for your self.....


http://www.boats.com/listing/boat_details.jsp?entityid=18029681



I can't really tell if there is a Dragon on this boat but I would guess that if there was one, they would have shown it in a photo.

Mast cont....

Not much new to report here... I have the sail track off, all the pieces are epoxied back together and its just about ready for "the big box glue up". I still want to get a couple of long strips of carbon fiber tape on the inside of the mast and I haven't been able to find it at an affordable price yet. The carbon fiber was a great suggestion to stiffen up the mast. After that, I'll be ready to wire the mast, fill the top of it with crumpled and strips of "tin"foil (another great suggestion from friends, family and the Woodenboat Forum) and then I'll finally put the box back together.

Until then it waits...

Mast started...

Finally started on the mast this weekend!

When I had the boat and mast delivered here last January, the mast (because it was left outside for years) literally fell apart when it was picked up. The only thing holding it together was the hardware. There were plenty of jokes about scrapping it and using the wood from the old mast to make new fly rods for fishing. Well, a year later it's finally on its way back from the dead.


The construction is simple enough. It's essentially a long oval box with the Port and Strbd sides wider than the leading and the aft sides. All four pieces are each made up of two staves scarfed together. The scarfs are staggered so that no two joints line up. Once all the pieces are together, the inside is a hollow with the exception of a piece of blocking at the foot of the mast and another in the center where the spreaders are. The blocking is just a piece of wood to create more rigidity in an are in which needs more support than the rest. The blocking in the middle was the only place in which there was any rot, so this will be the only piece that will need to be re-made. But not today.



Basically all we did today was a lot of talking and planning. We eventually decided on a plan to put it all together again by joining the Port and Strbd pieces first, then to do the same to the forward and aft piece. (The aft piece also holds the sail track. The sail track unfortunately goes right over the scarf to be re joined, so the whole track will need to come off before doing that one. ) Today we sanded and cleaned the scarf joints, applied just West System on both sides, then mixed up a batch of West with filler added. We made sure the edges were straight and clamped everything down for the night. This is what it looks like night now.














I hope to get all the scarfs "glued" back together in the next couple of days, then build/replace the piece of blocking that rotted, next get the wiring squared away and then when I'm ready to put the box back together I'll have to get a bunch of friends together to help out.




It's winter in NH so people are a little "boat starved" and willing to do just about anything to be around boats, they'll even drink beer while watching epoxy dry...