Documenting the build of Mon Tiki by Captain David Ryan and crew, right here on the East End in Bridgehampton and Montauk!
This week’s project is refreshing Mon Tiki’s deck, all 500 square feet of it! Mon Tiki is decked with Blue Star meranti planks (aka “Philippine Mahogany”) supplied by Riverhead Building Supply. Tom at the Montauk RBS hand selected each plank for us. We chose Blue Star because it’s sustainably grown, long wearing, and takes a…
It was a perfect shirt-sleeve October day here in Montauk today. Even if MON TIKI had gone straight to the bottom I don’t think that could have ruined it.
But MON TIKI didn’t sink.
She swims!
How nice is it to be on the water again!
The surveyor was by today, impressed with the build, but a little puzzled at how to arrive at and justify a valuation. Insurance value is typically arrived at by looking at comparable boats, but MON TIKI is a one-of-a-kind vessel. But I’m sure he’ll get it sorted out. After all, he’s working for me (that’s…
For me this deck is what makes MON TIKI special. At 38 feet and 8,500lbs displacement, MON TIKI is a relatively modest vessel. (For comparison, our previous boat, a Catalina 38 monohull, weighed in at just under 16,000lbs.) But there’s nothing modest about the nearly 300 square feet of deck space she boasts. MON TIKI’s…
Moving MON TIKI from our potato barn boat shop in Bridgehampton to the shipyard in Montauk Marine Basin took all of Thursday and most of Friday. But once we got there, and will the help of the yard crew and a fork lift, it only took a short while to get the akas dropped into…
Wood and aluminum have similar strength to weight ratios. The greater thickness per given weight makes wood stiffer and more damage resistant in smaller scantlings. Aluminum is (with proper corrosion protection) lower maintenance and can be manufactured in longer lengths than are available in clear lumber. Both wood and aluminum can be machined with ordinary tools, but wood is easy to glue; welding aluminum is a specialized trade, the work has to be done in windless conditions so the weld can be bathed in argon gas to prevent corrosion from infecting the weld.
Today was moving day at the boat shop: This is the port hull getting strapped onto its dollies: We made a plywood railroad: One hull completely out of the barn (my wife was pressed into service for the move): Both hulls roughly positioned: Happy skipper: On technology, a reminder: Mon Tiki is the first lashed-hulled…
Last week we got the hulls up on dollies, and then got the hulls far enough apart to dry-fit the akas. This boat is going to be big!
March in the boat-shop in a four minute slideshow, narrated by Captain David Ryan:
