Here's a dumb project.

I'm a catsailor. I'd actually put that in front of being a cabinet maker, and short of gender, I'd say its the thing that determines me the most. The only reason I show up to do my miserable job, is so I can get on the water.

The trailer I use for carting my boat around was severely lacking in storage space. So I whip'd up a new sail box out of plywood.

I've got about 18 hours into this monstrosity, I burned through about 12 sheets of 1/2" Menards plywood, and a few 2x6's. Going to drop it off at my brother's and paint it at his place this week. I still need to make a couple of doors, and a finish up the lid that goes across the back.

Originally I wanted to have this made out of diamond plate aluminum, but I figured it'd cost me probably $4k to do it, so I'm going to hold off on that for a while until I'm feeling richer. As is, there's about $600 in material here. yuck

Im waiting for the other guy who saws the box in half with you in it.
you dont have any oceans in minnesota, shouldnt that be on a warm climate ocean somewhere?
maybe its time to move the shop.

btw, my definition of a dumb project is when you build something for someone and accept low payment.

That's a great project Karl. Happy Sailing!

Have you been keeping up with the Americas cup?

Karl hey neat idea. I am a former cat sailer too until i got married.
Used to sail Dart catamarans offshore down off the south east coast of South Africa. Wild water also near Cape Town.

Back in those days we had our cat sit on rollers for each hull mounted on a cross beam of tubing across the trailer. This raised the hull and in turn the height of the trampoline and we then had space for a welded metal coffin type box under the tramp between the hulls for storage of nappy and lifekackets sails and battons. Coffin type particularly suited the sails going in all nicely rolled up in their bag for next time.
It was a little inconvenient to store stuff that was non boat orientated given access was best when cat was off trailer but that also worked in our favor from a weather and most important in our case theft point of view.
Coffin also helped with making trailer more ridgid.

Do you sail competitively like in a league at a club?

Would you like to have a real cat sailing adventure that would require travel and sailing for around 6 days one after the other? If so pm me and i will let u know details.

I like your box cause it also helps deflect wind when towing and protects those hulls.
Must weigh quite a bit what is ur tow vehicle?
Back in day we would double deck cats and tow with a Ford Transit van all decked out to sleep in at the regatta. them was the days.

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I think that looks great, Karl. If you want to see dumb projects, you should take a boo in MY shop....

Looks good Karl. Room to sleep in it too eh?

I don't think that's a dumb project. It's a great place to store your trolling motor and water skis.

Not planning on sleeping in it, though it may happen. lol

I race. Quite a bit actually. Next week in fact I'm going to the National Championship for my class of boat which is in Florida this year. Last year I got sixth, and I was seriously robbed of a few places. Light air, and I ended up in hole with zero wind in a couple of races. Should've finished the event in probably fourth, or maybe third. It was frustrating, cold, and raining the whole time. yuck.

I use a diesel pickup that's been hopped on a little bit. at least 300hp and 600 ft/lbs is enough to tow anything I need to.



Got a couple of coats of paint on it tonight. Two nights ago I sealed it up with thinned out epoxy.

The front is going to get covered in the roll on bedliner stuff. The can I had is no good. Opened it up and it had pretty much solidified.

Looks good! It's great to have a passion, it definitely makes the miserable job more bearable. Have fun using your new apparatus.

Its almost done. I need to put the lid on tomorrow and mount some latches and that's about it. The lid has not been painted yet, but it has a coat of epoxy on it, and should be fine. I need to run to LaCrosse Wisconsin tomorrow and pick up two other boats for some friends that I need to bring south with me. The lid will just have to be painted after I get back home from Florida.

The doors were hastily painted, and never sealed in epoxy. I'm sure I'll be remaking them in no time because of that. Not a huge deal, takes less than an hour to make a couple of simple doors like this.











The inside of the lid. I may have to remake this as well, which is kind of a bummer. It fits, but its tight. I'd like to have a little bit of wiggle room to help with things wearing against one another while going down the road. Its real simple how it was built, I just used a 1"x3/4" piece of soft maple to build up the edge of the plywood, then routed a roundover into the plywood. The problem is the left and right edges were supposed to get a 3/4x3/4" piece to leave more room for the gutter around the lid, but didn't. Doesn't matter right now though, I don't have the time to do anything about it.





This is my boat when its one the water:








and since you really can't tell from the pictures, I thought I'd pass along a tid bit of handiness that I used. The panels for the very front would've been very difficult to mitre together. Obtuse angles, and not much to nail or glue is a recipe for PIA work. I didn't even bother. Its got a backer behind it which is just a 2x6 with the appropriate angle cut on it. It would've needed that backer regardless. The rest I just filled with Bondo and faired it out. I figured, why not? Its getting painted anyway. It was pretty easy to shape it into a radius as well with the sander so its got a little smoother line in front there.