Another DIY Yacht Builder

wkearney99 · **Posted:** Sun Jun 02, 2013 10:14 am

TX H210SS wrote:

Yep...and the rotary drill bit invention has been a little useful too....in car air filtration.....rail mounted cameras....he was a thinker

Not just a thinker, an actual implementer of the ideas. Shame the poor guy lost his marbles at the end. But if you're going to go crazy I suppose it's better to be rich and able to afford whatever nonsense suits you.

298VISTA2000 · **Posted:** Mon Jun 03, 2013 6:28 am

Is this the beginning of the end? It appears the Flying Hawaiian has sprung a leak(s).

The Flyin Hawaiian has been relocated a 150 feet or so from the gas dock to an end tie that I'm almost certain belongs to the yacht club. I think they limit use of it to a couple weeks. Also located behind the boat at its new location is a small 14-16' runabout. This is likely the tow boat that will take the Hawaiian to its next temporary home. Meanwhile, Hot Rod is attending to clean-up of the build site.

An interesting little detail emerged in some of the photos taken since the Hawaiian has been launched.

Or it could be nothing? This shot, taken while the boat was still at the gas dock shows a hose of about 3/4" in diameter hanging out one of the operable ports on the port side. Looking across the harbor at the "yacht" in its new location there are now two hoses exiting from this port.

Here is a good synopsis of what is going on:

Billy, he appears to have only taped the external seams with 1 layer of chopped strand mat about 6 inches wide. The inside of the hull is painted in epoxy after it has been assembled. The vast majority of timber is simply joined using a battery drill, using steel screws, carriage bolts and tin joist hangers. There doesn't appear to be any epoxy used in the boat as glue, apart from a couple of isolated areas, where it looks like he had a wet brush handy at the time.

Now that the stringers in the floor are submerged in rising bilge water/hosedown water/rainwater, the fact that they have not been glued to the hull will cause the next problem. They have only been painted with epoxy on the three visible faces, not the bearing surface against the hull. Water will now enter both the plywood and the stringer, swelling both. This will pull the screw heads deeper into the substandard plywood, creating cracks in the external paintjob/epoxy coating, causing more water to enter the timber. The frames and stringers are substandard timber, not suitable for housing construction.

Substandard timber is timber cut from logs where the grain is exceptionally knotty or not straight. Because the grain is not straight, the only way of air drying it is to tie it up with plastic banding as soon as it leaves the saw/planer, and leave it in the yard to dry, banded. The effect is that pieces in the center of the pack rarely dries sufficiently. Timber density often varies considerably within each piece, meaning that as it dries, it shrinks at different rates. This means that each stud is a slightly different size to the next one, and sometimes over its own length, it varies as well. Knots make it very weak. Sometimes its so bad that you can drop the end of one from a height of 5 feet, and the stud will break across the knot.

When you buy a banded pack of substandard stud timber, the only way of telling it is substandard is to look for the knots and the stamps. In the pack, it looks exactly the same as house grade stud timber, BUT IT IS A LOT CHEAPER.

When you cut the bands, stand back. All the pieces start to spring apart. You have to use it up really fast because it starts swelling, cupping, twisting, bowing, bending, straight away. The center of the pack is the worst because it is less dried. Thats why Rod has used so many short pieces in the boat, including the step chine effect, and why he had to rip down the studs into half their size to make stringers that would be more inclined to comply with the plywood. You can bet that the surface in contact with the plywood is "off saw", not planed, so there is plenty of capacity for bilgewater water to enter it. Now here is where it gets interesting.

When immersed in just a small amount of water, this type of timber goes absolutely nuts distorting itself. Its not just the substandard plywood he has to worry about. Its what the timber is going to start doing to him now that it is getting wet.. I built a double carport out of this stuff and within 6 months, it was out of control. I binned the whole project.

His side deck and rear deck cambers say that rainwater will run aft along the cabin side/deck join, down the stern stairs, and onto his aft deck, where it will run into the boat through cracks in his stairs, and under the sliding patio door. He would have discovered this when he hosed down the boat.

The scene downstairs will be horrific, with everything bending twisting and swelling, seams popping, screws submerging.....

298VISTA2000 · **Posted:** Mon Jun 03, 2013 6:31 am

ric · **Posted:** Mon Jun 03, 2013 6:45 am

Is this a joke??

rpengr · **Posted:** Tue Jun 04, 2013 9:16 am

ric wrote:

Is this a joke??

The "Home Depot / How to build a yacht" is a joke.

The 65 foot Catamaran built from 3/8" CDX plywood is real...but yes it is a "Joke" also. It just seams that the guy who spent the last 2+ years building it does not realize it.
http://forums.sailinganarchy.com/index.php?showtopic=126442&page=18 for more info.

ric · **Posted:** Tue Jun 04, 2013 11:01 am

He's going to kill someone.

Joe · **Joined:** Tue Sep 18, 2012 4:47 pm **Posts:** 83

Wow, the substandard wood thing blows my mind. It looks like it would have possibly been OK with the correct construction. Too bad he blew all that money!

wkearney99 · **Posted:** Tue Jun 04, 2013 11:56 am

ric wrote:

He's going to kill someone.

Hopefully not anyone other than himself. Not wishing that on him, of course. Just saying let's hope his nonsense doesn't end up causing harm to others life or property. And that his insurance pays back the cleanup and rescue costs.

Bliss36 · **Posted:** Tue Jun 04, 2013 12:04 pm

wkearney99 wrote:

ric wrote:

He's going to kill someone.

Hopefully not anyone other than himself. Not wishing that on him, of course. Just saying let's hope his nonsense doesn't end up causing harm to others life or property. And that his insurance pays back the cleanup and rescue costs.

I have to wonder if that thing is even insurable. I would assume insurance would require some kind of inspection or certification of a home built yacht before offering coverage?

wkearney99 · **Posted:** Tue Jun 04, 2013 12:09 pm

Sometimes there's homeowner umbrella liability policies involved.

But I'm guessing the company would fight mightily against claims given the nonsense involved in that construction.

boater · **Posted:** Tue Jun 04, 2013 1:11 pm

Apparently this thing worked out: http://www.absolu80.com/en/
( so far )

TX H210SS · **Joined:** Thu May 27, 2010 9:10 am **Posts:** 1488

Substandard or not, that much lumber and hardware had to be expensive. Seems a rebuild of houseboat hull would a been cheaper and the hull would a been tested already.

I'm no sailboat expert and sure no boat designer..that's why I bought mine. However seems that heavy of a boat would need more sails than the Mayflower though. I do hope it works out for him, but I see your point. Boats are like planes...if they fail they go DOWN. If your assessment is right then the tow will be a catastrophy with added weight and weakened joints of soaked plywood.

erie cruiser · **Joined:** Mon Jun 06, 2011 6:40 am **Posts:** 68

298vista, you have had me hooked on this story from the beginning, please keep posting updates. I now log onto this site hoping to see more news on this boat.
Thank you

298VISTA2000 · **Posted:** Tue Jun 11, 2013 4:31 am

This "yacht" is still floating but HotRod is getting kicked out of the marina so we will finally see if it is seaworthy.

Lib at Large: Father-son finally launch the big boat they hope to sail to a better life

By Paul Liberatore
Marin Independent Journal

Posted: 06/09/2013 05:24:00 PM PDT

James Lane, right, and son Michael Johnson stand on the deck of their homemade catamaran on Friday, June 7, 2013. They built the boat at Loch Lomond Marina and finally got it in the water after working on it for more than two years. They plan on sailing the boat to Hawaii and are looking for sponsors. (Frankie Frost/ Marin Independent Journal) Frankie Frost

THE "FLYIN' HAWAIIAN" isn't exactly flying. But at least it's floating.

And that's saying something. A lot of people around San Rafael's Loch Lomond Marina were betting the homemade 65-foot-long catamaran would sink like a brick as soon as it hit the water.

But there it is, a beige behemoth bobbing at the end of a dock lined with sleek sailboats and streamlined motor yachts.

Fifty-one-year-old James "Hot Rod" Lane and his 28-year-old son, Michael Johnson, have been laboriously building the eight-ton, twin-hulled craft over the past three years, most of that time in the Loch Lomond parking lot, becoming an ongoing object of curiosity in the bayside neighborhood.

James Lane points to a photo of his homemade catamaran on Thursday, June 6, 2013, in San Rafael, Calif. The photo was made as Lane and his son, Michael Johnson, built the boat at Loch Lomond Marina. They finally got it in the water after more than two year's work. (Frankie Frost/ Marin Independent Journal) Frankie Frost

After working around the clock, they finally launched their dream boat in the middle of the night on Memorial Day weekend, 18 months behind schedule.

"It was 2:38 a.m. when we splashed," Johnson said the other day, standing amid a hoarder-like clutter of tools and materials in the vessel's unfinished main salon.

Were they excited to finally get it in the water?

"We were exhausted," Lane groaned. "We were nervous wrecks. We haven't had a day off in three years. My girlfriend thinks going to Home Depot is a date."

There is no controlling the tides, but Lane and his son were relieved to launch when everyone else was asleep.

"He didn't want a crowd around because a lot of people doubted him," said Patrick Crowley, manager of Andy's Market in Loch Lomond. "It was questionable whether it would float or not. I questioned it myself, but he made it happen. I think anybody who can make their dreams come true is pretty cool. So far he's a winner."

Originally from Iowa, Lane, described by one local as "a character and a half," is a salt-of-the-earth guy who's been struggling to keep body and soul together in the small Sierra foothill town of Paradise, in remote Butte County, where more than 12 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.

"My boy was working for Wal-Mart and I was doing contract labor," he said. "I've done a lot of things trying to figure out how to make money in America. It was making me crazy trying to figure out a way to get out of the workforce."

When a wealthy friend told him he could escape from all that by building a boat and sailing to the Hawaiian island of Oahu, where the good life awaited him, he scraped together $15,000 and started working on his one-way ticket to a real paradise, not just a nominal one.

"We can live aboard our boat for about $40 a month," he contended. "No PG&E, no water bill, no garbage, no problems. You just gotta be committed to wanting a new lifestyle. I don't want to be stuck doing the same thing for the next 30 years."

A homemade light made of scrounged parts is attached to the deck of James Lane's homemade catamaran on Thursday, June 6, 2013, in San Rafael, Calif. Lane and his son, Michael Johnson, built the boat at Loch Lomond Marina. They finally got it in the water after more than two year's work. (Frankie Frost/ Marin Independent Journal) Frankie Frost

A jack of all trades, Lane envisions himself and his son building boats for a living on a plot of land he says is waiting for them in the shadow of Diamond Head.

"This is the beginning of my adventure to make some real money, to be able to relax and live life, to enjoy it," he said. "It isn't about the money, it's about the lifestyle."

Lane designed the "Flyin' Hawaiian" himself, despite his relative lack of knowledge about sailing and boat building.

"I'm a new mariner," is the way he puts it.

His huge catamaran has never been under sail, and may not be for a while longer. While the bulk of construction is done, the finishing work lies ahead. At this point, the interior is without windows, wallboard, flooring, you name it.

"We did this with no budget," he said, pleading for help from anyone willing to donate parts, materials or sponsorship money. "Loch Lomond has been very kind to us, but we've got to leave here by June 14. We're out of money and out of rent and we still have a little more work to do. We need a place to tie the boat up for a couple of weeks."

As the "Flyin' Hawaiian" inexorably took shape in the marina parking lot over the weeks and months it took to build it, folks on the waterfront who watched its progress with interest couldn't help but admire the father-son team's determination, tenacity and commitment to a vision of a better life.

When they at long last sail through the Golden Gate on their trans-Pacific odyssey, new-found friends like Keith Fraser of the Loch Lomond Live Bait Shop will be pulling for them, wishing them Godspeed.

"It's been fun to keep an eye on the project, and hopefully it's coming to fruition," Fraser said. "I'll be interested in following their travels. I have confidence they're gonna make it. I wish them nothing but good luck."

Contact Paul Liberatore via email at liberatore@marinij.com; follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LibLarge. Follow his blog at http://blogs.marinij.com/ad_lib.

230 Mike · **Posted:** Tue Jun 11, 2013 10:44 am

Wait - he's going to try to sail that to Hawaii!!?? Hope he has a lifeboat and an EPIRB.

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