Team Seacats

FINALLY! After weeks of watching the breeze ruffle the yard cover of my new (to me) a-cat for the last couple of weeks, I had a day to take it to the lake. I’ve sailed on an a-cat only once and it was in really light and patchy breeze a couple of years ago. The breeze was set to be a nice 8 to 10 knots on my home lake (Keowee) this past Saturday and with butterflies of excitement in my belly (geesh, am I 10?) I hooked up the boat trailer and headed to the lake at 7am. After fiddling with the boat and sorting out some of the setup for an hour and a half, I wheeled it down the ramp, where I began to realize some of the shortcomings of the current setup for single handing….the beach dolly. It was impossible to put the dolly under the boat on my own and even more ridiculous to extract them by myself (and get them on the beach) once the boat was in the water. The sailing was magnificent and I’m really happy with the boat.

Another thing afforded to me with this long weekend was some free time to work in the shop (of which I have had NONE in the last several months). After seeing what one of our local a-cat sailors had come up by scavenging pieces of an old MC Scow dolly, I pulled out the resin, fiberglass, and one of two old fiberglass windsurfer masts I’ve been keeping around for just such a project.

The goal is to build an extended handle that attaches to the middle of my standard, single axle – two wheeled, dolly. This extension will have an upright fitted with a small cradle that will engage the dolphin striker on the boat. The idea is to place the upright on the extension so that the axle (and cradles) are behind the center of gravity of the boat and a bit of the forward weight supported at the striker. The boat will sit off the ground pleasantly while on the dolly and the grip of the upright on the dolphin striker eliminates the need to tie the dolly to the boat to keep it from sliding. The big advantage of this is that with the dolly sitting at the water’s edge, I can lift the bows of the boat onto the cradles and slide it up to until the striker rests on the upright. Once on the dolly, I can wheel it away and do all this without needing a second pair of hands. I am contemplating an addition to the dolly with a foot operated latching “spike” that I can quickly drive into the beach so the cradles will stay slightly in the water waiting for my return.

First, I needed to make some fiberglass tubing to build the attachment on the dolly for the mast. Using some thin 2mil plastic, I wrapped the dolly axle and only taped it on the extreme ends (so it’s easier to remove later). Spraying the axle with some lubricant before putting on the plastic will also help in removal (though I didn’t do this). I then wrapped about 12 layers of 6oz fiberglass wetted with epoxy resin. Then I wrapped it very tightly with vinyl electrical tape which provides some compression and leaves a really nice finished surface.

Next, I took the windsurfing mast, I cut it in two (it used to be a 2-piece mast, but I couldn’t separate the halves), and sanded the bigger lower section until I had a very slight taper. Using the same technique as on the dolly axle, I wrapped 12 layers of 6oz cloth and epoxy resin around the mast and wrapped with vinyl tape. Once cured, this one separated easily because of the taper.

Now I needed some fiberglass plate to make some gussets so I vacuum bagged 4 layers of 17oz Knytex and some 6oz scraps left over on a piece of Lexan plastic and cut to shape.

Now, I mitered the extension tube/socket to fit the axle tube using a rather impromptu method with a slightly undersized hole-saw and then some sticky backed sandpaper wrapped around the hole saw to widen the miter slightly.

Once that was done, I tacked everything lightly together with some super-glue and then filleted all the joints with a thickened mixture of epoxy and cabosil and let it bake in the sun to cure. Once cured, I plugged the openings with anything I could find laying around (making up any gaps with vinyl tape) and setup one wrap of 17oz Knytex. This one needed to be vacuum bagged; not necessarily to make it lightweight or for strength, but to make sure the knytex conformed tightly to the compound shape of the assembly. With more thickened epoxy and cabosil in the tight corners I wetted out and laid in the Knytex over the assembly (this is a great fabric for this application because of it’s unique 45 degree knitted weave, it conforms easily to compound shapes).

After a little sanding (not much at all), some primer and paint, the socket to the axle was ready to receive the extension and have a hole drilled for a bolt to hold the extension in place. I will eventually rivet this to the dolly axle, but will need to wait until the whole assembly is together and under the boat to get the angles correct.

Up next, the assembly of the extension, handles, and upright for the dolphin striker.