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Comment by Don Wakefield on July 3, 2010 at 8:51am

Hi Chris - I have a copy of Roger's book, never dawned on me that his drawings included the side and transom cutout data.... so I looked and sure enough on page 227! Thank you! Will enclose couple pics from yesterday (7/2/10)

, just finished the bottom paint, and will attach some U-bolts to bow and stern and see if I can use them for hooks to raise the whole boat from the garage ceiling rafters and simply rotate the boat and set it back down on a dolly or something. I'm still learning about how to navigate on this website.

Comment by Chris Patterson on July 2, 2010 at 1:34pm

Don,
I don't really have "stitch and glue" Rapid Robert plans. I have Roger Fletcher's book which gives me the layouts for the stem, sides, and transom. I cut all of those out and then screwed the stem and transom to the side panels keeping the boat upright. That gave me the general shape. I did it this way so I could experiment with that shape and see what would happen if I tried to make the bottom wider, etc. I opted to go with traditional bottom width in the end, it just looked better to me. I used some temporary bracing to hold it in shape while I "lifted" my 4x16 scarfed bottom panel up and screwed it to the stem and transom. Drew some lines with the pencil, pulled the screws, and cutout the bottom panel. The picture above is when I started using wire ties to reattached the bottom in preparation for epoxy.

All in all it worked well. Probably seems like a lot of extra work over the "temporary frames" method others have used but again I wanted to experiment. Half the fun is tweaking isn't it?

Let me know if I can answer and other questions. I have been following your build as well. I like the idea of a jet boat engine on something like a Rapid Robert. That would be cool!

Chris

Comment by Don Wakefield on July 1, 2010 at 10:11pm

Hi Chris -- am about half way done with a wooden boat that I started in mid March -- framed and substantial fiberglass to buffer the 80HP Yamaha jetski pump and motor that I am incorporating into the boat.... This boat is going to get heavy, already I can only barely lift one end now so it must be about 400 lbs already.

Just thinking of my next project and I think I want to go ultra-light so the stitch and glue design is foremost in my thoughts...... Can you tell me where you got the plans for this rapid robert -- or how can I develop them myself?? The thought of developing the cutout for the sides and bottom blows my mind.......

I probably won't complete my current project for several months, but would like to look forward to a building a stitch and glue "rapid robert". Thanks for any help, Don Wakefield