I am starting to build a Jimmy Skiff II in my basement (yes, I can get it out the door - on its side). I have built several other boats, but never below our living space. I would like to reduce paint fumes migrating into the house above when the time comes for finish work. No, I can’t paint outside. The HOA doesn’t allow boats in the yard, grrrr. Does anyone have experience with using acrylic paints on a trailer boat - i.e. no long periods in the water?
Thanks,
Ray
For a primer I have used System Three Pennant primer successfully on a number of different boats. Water based, two part. No fumes. As for a finish coat I think an acrylic exterior paint should be just fine. Exterior trim paints from any major paint vendor (e.g. Benjamin Moore, Sherwin Williams) last for years and years outside. I have also wondered for years whether a top quality interior water based enamel such as Benjamin Moore Advance would work on a trailered boat.
I’ve used exterior latex house paints above the waterline on trailered boats and they lasted several years and were cheap and easy to re-apply. I’ve never tried them below the waterline so I don’t know how well they’ll last there.
Alternatively, look for a 2-part, cross-linked, water-based linear polyurethane paint. System 3 used to make one and it also had no fumes and low toxicity. They’ve discontinued it for some reason but there may be other manufacturers of a similar product. The key is 2-part water-based. That means there won’t be volatile organic compounds.
Laszlo
Laszlo, I used the System Three topside paint on a kayak. Great paint. When they discontinued it I reached out and the reason they cited was that they could no longer source the raw materials. I have not found an alternative. There is a brand of two part LPU paints made by the Italian firm named Milesi. US Distributor is Atlantic Plywood. Primarily designed for spraying cabinets.
Thanks for the leads.
Thanks for the tips.
Raymond,
Our Peeler Skiff lives on a saltwater mooring all summer in Narragansett Bay. We used Interlux Brightside on sanded and prepped fiberglass (no hygroscopic high-build primer) when we built her in 2014. It lasted 10-years just touching up dings.
When we repainted her in 2024, we used TotalBoat Wet Edge Topside paint, which amazed me with its exceptional self-leveling characteristics.
Anti-fouling paint is applied every Spring directly on her coarse-sanded fiberglass and epoxy bottom sheathing.
We’ve been very satisfied with the durability of her topside paint and she still looks new. The New England sun is less destructive than the sun south of the Mason-Dixon Line.
We paint her in what is effectively a garage. The TotalBoat paint and thinners were not particularly offensive if your basement has a window or two you can stick an exhaust fan in.
Hope this helps.
Dick,
Thanks. I’d not heard of Total Wet Edge. I might give that a look. A box fan in the doghouse door, even it is far from my workshop area, and some plastic to close off the door to the upstairs might work.
Thanks,
Ray
P.S. Despite my email address, I now live in Maine, so the Southern sun, which I battled for years on the brightwork of my Cheoy Lee in Charleston, is not a problem.
Ray,
I’m a native Rhode Islander. I live in Massachusetts and keep my boat in Wickford Harbor, RI.
I’ve also lived in Kittery, and South Berwick, ME. I once single-handed my Pacific Seacraft Flicka from Portland down to Point Judith, RI.
I’ve been using Interlux since I was a kid working on my Dad’s boat (I’m 78) and Brightside is a great product.
I was very impressed by Wet Edge and how much time its self-leveling properties saved us. My grandson and I painted the topsides and interior in one day (we’d already sanded and prepped the week before). My daughter had applied the anti-fouling paint to the bottom later that week.
Good luck!
Regards,
Dick
https://www.jamestowndistributors.com/product/brand/totalboat-page
Dick,
That sail from Portland to Point Judith must have been a memorable experience! Sailing a Vivacity 24 from St. Petersberg, FL to Charlston, SC. remains a shining memory, even it was way back in the 80s. It wasn’t a singlehanded sail though. I made that trip with my wife who was my regular sailing companion until back problems put her ashore in the 90s.
Ah…a Flicka. They have long been on the short list of boats I thought about getting after I lost my much-loved Cheoy Lee Offshore 27 (aka Newell Cadet) to Hurricane Hugo when the entire marina in Charleston was destroyed. I fell in love with the Flicka when I first saw Bingham’s design in long lamented Small Boat Journal. Shortly after I lost the Cheoy Lee, work took me to Arizona for 33 years. For a time, my sailing was only on fresh water; in a Chrysler Mutineer I owned for 30 years at an Adirondack lake where I spent part of every summer so I could be near my parents who aging, and sailing on a lake north of Phoenix in a Santana 21, then a Nimble 20. Sailing past sahuaro cactus is a truly strange experience.
About 10 years ago I had the opportunity to deposit the Nimble with a friend in Bowdoinham, Maine, and sail there for a couple weeks in the summer for a few years, until health problems put sailing in his review mirror. Now that I’m living full time in Maine, I’m building the Jimmy Skiff to explore the Scarborough marshland near Old Orchard Beach, and maybe some Maine lakes, as well as looking to buy a ballasted sailboat I can use in my old sailing grounds between Casco and Penobscot bays.
Like you, I’m 78. I’m thinking that something smaller than my CL 27, which I singlehanded around the SC coast in my 40s, is in order, although it’s hard to turn away from Cape Dory 27s which have the closest hull configuration to the best handling boat I ever sailed - my Cheoy Lee.
I almost scratched the itch for a catboat when I looked at 17’ Herreschoff America in NH a year ago. However, the first thing I have to do is find a place to moor/dock a boat before I buy one. This summer, during my 5th visit to the Wooden Boat School in Brooklin, ME, I will take a catboat sailing course instead of a building course. I’m rigging the JS with a lug sail, so I’m thinking that a catboat course might help me better understand how to make a 4-side sail set well, even if it is not a gaffer. If I get the JS done in time, I might tow it to the WBS to try it out in the protected harbors there.
Sorry to bend your ear. I get going about sail boats, and I don’t know when to stop.
Best,
Ray
Ray,
I had taken the Flicka up to the Portland Boat Show at the request of Pacific Seacraft, in '85. Two of my work friends crewed on the way up and committed to the trip back to RI. 2 weeks later when it was time to take her back to Point Judith, they both had other plans.
I had to get her back to the marina so I single-handed her. On the way home, as I was crossing Massachusetts Bay, a pod of Humpbacks joined me for about 30-minutes. Looking into a huge brown eye from about 8-feet and having it look back was a transcendental experience!
That same boat, Chloe is now in Warwick, RI. She still has the name we christened her when she was delivered from the factory.
She’s a phenomenally seaworthy and comfortable boat. I had her out in a full gale in Vineyard Sound (had to get her to Newport for the Newport Yacht Club’s annual Labor Day Race to Block Island. The Coast Guard was out shooing boats back into harbor. They circled us, sitting comfortably in the cockpit, waved a greeting to us, and went on their way.
In 1995, my new bride wouldn’t even step aboard, so I had to sell her.
Cheers,
Dick (my middle name, Dad was Bill)
Dick,
Thanks for the link to those pictures. She is beautiful. Just the color and set up I would have wanted. Isn’t it amazing to look into the eyes of cetaceans? Looking up from underneath, from a fish eyes view, a boat is just a shape above. Yet dolphins, and I suspect whales, know two things 1) there is a creature of interest up there on that shape, i.e. another mammal, and 2) that creature is likely in the cockpit. Why else did those dolphin swim alongside my cockpit, rolling ever so slightly so they could look me right in the eye? When I looked into those eyes, I was certain there was somebody home, somebody who was at least as intelligent and conscious as me.
In addition to having dolphin swim with me when I was sailing in southern waters, I learned that when I was overnighting at anchor in one of the many tidal creeks of the Low Country, if I tapped on the hull below the waterline (the cockpit of the Cheoy Lee was low enough to do that), dolphin would come to visit. I was sad to leave them when I moved to Arizona. So, I got my one and only tattoo, a dolphin on my arm. Silly, maybe. But they always made me feel blessed by nature, and I wanted to remember that.
Though she loved sail cruising, my wife (now deceased) had to give up sailing for health reasons. So, I did a lot of single handing. My current wife is not the outdoors type. So, if I get a boat that can safely take me into the big bays of Maine, it will need to be one I can comfortably and safely single hand as I move toward completing my 70th circuit around the sun.
Do you still get to sail these days?
Ray
Ray,
Unfortunately not! I’m married to a woman I’ve known since the 8th grade. We remet at our 30th high school reunion and were married 5-months later. We have a wonderful life, but she will not even step on a boat. That’s why I sold my Flicka.
I really missed being on the saltwater, so in 2013 I bought a Peeler Skiff kit. We built it in a friend’s barn and launched it in 2014 (his wife is my oldest friend in the world and he and I were drafted together in '66). They knew how much I missed the water so they offered their barn and their help to build the boat.
We named her “About Time” and she lives on a mooring off Narragansett Bay at our eldest daughter’s home off Wickford Harbor, RI.
We use her for Striped Bass fishing and for just enjoying the Bay. We’re a short hop from Newport and Bristol, and a pleasant day trip to Point Judith or Block Island.
All the saltwater loving family members use the boat and my daughter, son-in-law, and grandsons help with the boat maintenance—and I go fishing with my friends,
I really like the Jimmy Skiff and personally I’ve been thinking about building a Welsford Sherpa for sailing the Bay. I’d like to teach the interested grandchildren and our 17-year old great-grandson how to sail.
If you’re interested, I’d be happy to take you out on the Bay with “About Time”.
Cheers,
Dick
Dick,
I’m glad you are back on salt water. We seem to have some similar boat tastes. I gave some consideration to the Peeler Skiff when I was deciding on my next boat build. I looked like it would make a good Casco Bay, visit-the-islands boat. But I opted for something I could sail, at least in sheltered waters. The people at CLC were very supportive of my plan to rig it with a lug rather than leg-o-mutton sail because I wanted a rig I could drop into the boat for rowing, making it a true sail and oars boat. It’s a trade off for performance, but it might be O.K.
Your comment about the Welsford Sherpa caught my eye. The last boat I bought to sail in Arizona was a Sanpiper 565 - a Canadian built, 17’ cruiser/racer with a worm-gear raised, ballasted daggerboard; a most unusual arrangement that left it very low on the trailer. Nice for towing and launching. Unfortunately, I never had a chance to sail it. COVID hit, my wife passed, and I ended up in Maine. I turned my share over to my boat partner. The person I bought it from, had purchased it in Vancouver Island specifically to sail the Queen Charlotte Islands. After a couple months he towed it back to Phoenix where he had moved to be close to his daughter.
The point of telling you that, is he is an experienced small boat cruiser who knows John Welsford, has written for Small Craft Advisor, and built one of the earliest Sherpas. He was extolling the boat to me, particularly its TTW number (i.e. Time to Water). As a trailer sailor, easy launching and rigging are high on his list of priorities. He judged the boat seaworthy enough to carry him and his camping gear on along-shore, sail/oars trips. His plans were to give up his other small boats (I think he had a Caladonia and a WWPotter) and just have a Sherpa. Given that the hull which JW designed in 2002 became the prototype for the immensely popular SCAMP he designed in 2010, I think you could have a great time with that boat, grandchildren included, for not a lot of money or effort.
I live just up the road these days from the boat designer/builder/kit-maker, Clint Chase. He specializes in Ian Oughtred boat kits, as well as his own designs. As a serial boat-builder, I might be tempted to use proximity to build on of Oughtred’s Nordic-hulled boats…
Thanks for the invitation to take a ride in the Peeler. I may very well take you up on that come warm weather. It might help me decide if that might be the boat for my coming years. Once I get the JSII in the water, or acquire a coastal sailing boat, I will be more than happy to extend a similar invitation.
Best,
Ray
Ray,
I think we do have similar tastes and we both have made similar compromises, necessary to the realities of our lives, in our boat choices.
I was interested in the original Jimmy Skiff because of its sailing capabilities. I chose the Peeler Skiff because it had twice the carrying capacity, seating, and had the necessary speed under power to meet my family’s recreational needs. Unfortunately, even if you added a centerboard, rudder, and lug rig, it would be a miserable sailor.
I’ve been looking at the Welsford Sherpa because she looks rugged, seaworthy, and would be small enough to keep at my daughter’s. It’s funny, in 1987 I spent a couple of months in New Zealand and Australia on business. I loved New Zealand and I understand why John Welsford boats are seaworthy and sturdy. If it were practical for my life, I’d start building a Welsford Pelegrin in a moment.
Before we bought the Flicka, I had built a 14-foot Amesbury Skiff with a sprit rig, daggerboard, and rudder—roughly equivalent to the Jimmy Skiff. It both sailed and rowed well. I gave it to a friend, who worked at Woods Hole, after we bought the Flicka.
I have very fond memories of Casco Bay. The summer after I graduated from high school I spent working on Casco Bay harvesting Irish Moss. We used to take it to a collection station on Orr’s Island.
We lived on a 18-foot French-built plywood hard-chined Corsair sailboat moored in a cove in South Harpswell—tight quarters for three of us.
Stay in touch.
Cheers,
Dick