MAGIC's Craig

Me 'ats off to you!! Amazing and delightful, Keith

To John and both Keiths, my thanks for your thoughtful compliments. I have been very fortunate to have had her support and interest for over a half century. And for those folks who also checked in, we do really appreciate your endorsements. They serve to inspire the work and for me try to make the photos useful (and entertaining). Craig (and Vicky!)

To wind up this month's posting, I continued to build out the interior of the pilothouse while Vicky leant her talented and steady hands to some detail varnishing. A brass bezel was made for the engine instruments Vicky also detailed the varnishing of various topsides bits of mahogany. And as you can see in this photo to the left, controls and instruments are being placed. A cove between the house and the level of the deck is curing. Hopefully, unlike the first attempt, this cove will only glue to the house and not the deck. So step up and take a look. That will do for now. Thank you for following along. Craig

April 2, 2025 update: Prior to permanently closing over the raised portion of the house above the forepeak, I made provision for the speaker which is used to fool you into thinking this wee craft has a Gardner diesel in it. A hole was drilled from below for the body of the speaker and a guard bent up to protect the projecting lower portion of the speaker whenever the PH module is removed from the deck. The cabin top was then planked over with basswood, faired and sealed with 'glass/epoxy. The next task on my list was to begin the construction of the window framing for the pilot house. Upper and lower plates (head and sill?) were laid out and shaped to lay above the curved vertical face of the pilot house. The upright window jambs were fashion from some teak and made with tenons top and bottom. Corresponding mortices were cut into the plates. This somewhat wobbly construct was then braced up and glued together. When set atop it's future location, I realized an oversight on my part: the window framework tilted aft a bit rather than presenting a vertical face to the elements. For most of it, the tilt was not a problem but the after jambs had to ultimately be cut free of their tenons and re-aligned to vertical to deal with the doors. A yellow cedar header was laminated up and glued to the head plate, beveled to follow the curve of the overhead plywood from the main cabin. The door framing was gotten out of some of that lovely Cuban mahogany and they were glued into place, reinforcing the re-positioned after window jambs port and starboard. As mentioned earlier, the whole pilothouse module is removable by lifting it out vertically. And the next photo gives an idea of basic area of the interior of the pilothouse. The final picture before I break this post up into two sections to keep it manageable shows the forward curved faces of the PH with a laminated moulding curving around the forward portion. Then we will visit the interior of the house. More to follow...

Oh, well...Can't have a CG fellow arrest the model for the color of the light board backs...back to flat black - whenever I get to them . Craig 😉

Well, one learns something everyday...I have sailed with many black and natural finished light boards, but not white. Perhaps they were finished thus to avoid excessive glare from light scatter when on deck. (I note that it doesn't seem to help in fog or rain.) This use of white light boards, however, does make some sense and so I shall follow your logic with the light boards on TWILIGHT when I get to mounting them. Thanks again for the thorough research on all aspects of your model(s). Craig

We also found that heading "uphill" (north) from California or Baja was very rarely an easy passage. We resorted to following the clipper route well offshore to get to Washington or British Columbia when sailing to minimize those tough slogs you mention. Fortunately, we are now "anchor down" and when the storms come arcing in from the Pacific bringing strong winds and tumultuous seas, we are grateful to tuck into the library, by the fireplace while Ballou, the cat, sleeps atop my sextant case.

Thank you for the compliment. There is definitely a recognizable "style" to the boats developed through hard-won experiences which must be capable of handling the often not-Pacific conditions. Since we had planned to use this craft for our liveaboard Pacific NW cruising home, the style seemed to make sense to me as her designer and it's also fun to develop for me, the (model) builder.

Simply magnificent!!

My guess is that it should - especially at your scale of work - and this was my first intro to an actual piece of the wood. As a boat designer and builder over the years, I had read of it and wondered what made it so highly esteemed. Very special timber.

March 6, 2025 Update During the weeks of February, the cabin top of the stern cabin was completed. The "flow coat" of epoxy and sanding filler was applied, scraped down and then block-sanded. The cover over the steps down into the stern cabin was fabricated, scribed to the curving cabin top, checked for proper angles and bonded in place. The cabin top was then primed and painted. The hatch was cut in the cabin top. Corner supports for the hatch were glued to the undersides of the beams and carlins. A mahogany molding was fitted just below the transition from the cabin sides to the aft cabin top And if you were laying down in the bunk when you took a photo looking forward, here is the current view with the hatch open: Moving to the bow area, I decided to modify the fore cabin's original arrangement due to possible access requirements to the R/C wiring at the bus bar. A cabin sole was mocked up with card and then cut from 1/16" birch plywood. Then, card berth-shaped panels were cut out and temporarily tabbed together (after a fair amount of fiddling). A more thorough card joinery exploration followed and I feel that when the time is right, this will serve satisfactorily for patterning the actual birch ply construction of the V-berth area. So, (finally!) work commenced on the actual pilot house unit. R/C access drove the decision to build this as a vertically removable unit and a horizontal sole was cut out as the base on which to erect the structure. The forward face of the pilot house has a curved, upright shape, so I laminated a pair of "plates" to support the 1/8" th. vertical basswood staves which would form the face of the curve. While the lower plate simply glued down in place onto the ply sole, the upper plate needed support while the staving was glued on. Some of this support was derived from the lower cabinetry for the navigation station /steering wheel structure while the after edges of the upper "plate"(carlin?) were supported on a pair of temporary card pylons. The quarter-circle hole will provide the entry down a curving set of steps (not yet built) into the fore cabin. The faces of the pilot house joinery were paneled with 1/16" Cuban mahogany, a chunk of which was kindly gifted to me during my visit last summer with Roger Pellet. It apparently came from an antique bit of furniture which Roger collected many years ago and it has a lovely grain and color. My thanks to Roger! At the forward end of the pilot house structure is a lower portion of the house for deck access, ventilation and light to the fore cabin below. The curving face of this extension was built up with staving similar to the main portion of the pilot house and the sides fair back into the line of the pilot house sides just forward of the location for the (future) pilot house doors P&S. Along about this time, while making up a card template for these PH doors, I noticed an error by the designer: The doors, as drawn would have been all of 5'-6" tall. (I had a few choices thoughts for the designer's ineptitude) . So the boatbuilder conferred with the designer and *we* agreed to a solution: Raise the height of the pilot house sufficiently to provide for 6'-3" (scale) doors. While this modification was ongoing, hanging knees of AYC were glued in place to support the 1/16" ply extensions as well as the the sub-ceiling above. The vertical panel at the upper aft end of the pilot house was glued in to tie the raised cabin sides together with the correct rake. (The designer slunk off, mumbling about, "nobody is perfect! ...Sniff...) Onward. Rummaging through my parts bin, I located the ship's steering wheel and temporarily mounted it in place to check for sufficient clearances from the joinery. To finish up this post today, here is an image from just forward of the future pilot house windows, looking aft into the as-yet un-built main cabin. Apologies about the various wires photo-bombing the picture. Thanks for looking in. I do appreciate your support and comments. Until again, Craig

Given how small they are relative to the hull and the probable cruising speed of the yacht, I imagine that they were probably not particularly successful in attenuating the roll. However, knowing that they had been installed (expensively, no doubt), perhaps the owner(s) just "felt" better.

Yes, I think that we shall have to place a crew member in the pilot house and another in the galley...and a cat somewhere in the way.

Thank you, Keith, Gary and Roger for your compliments/support. I appreciate your visits to the tale. We are proceeding in the "boatshop" a little more each day. Craig

Yes, John. that is the plan - and the primary reason for that cabin top "hatch" - though based on past boat experiences, whether full scale or a model, it's also never a good idea to totally block access to any space. It may take someone's smaller hands....