Is that a Del Sol pulling it?!?! That’s awesome
I love my teardrop for it being so lite.
I think it’s a Pontiac Fiero
Ahhh that would be fair, does have the pointy ness more than the Del Sol
Yeah, that’s a 1986 Fiero SE (Notchback body style). When I built my teardrop, I had a dry-weight goal of under 700 lbs for the entire camper, including battery and mattress. It weighed in at 698. I towed everywhere with the Fiero, and everyone who saw it loved it. That car, sadly, died a horrible rust death under the body panels. It was set up for track racing with poly suspension, front/rear swaybar upgrades and handling kit, and a Camaro 3.4 pushrod V6 through a 5 speed manual.
The engine and transmission live on in my 1986 GT (fastback), as do most of the suspension components, and the teardrop has since been sold.
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Neat! I’ve heard they were a lot of fun, never had the pleasure.
I wish I had more pictures of the boat, Dearg (means red in Gaelic) in action. This is just from the first launch, a quiet day in September. I sailed about a half a dozen times this season in mostly light conditions. We took it out twice in high 20 knot winds right before Thanksgiving and it was a blast but the mast was creaking and we were the only boat in our bay. Since this was my first build I was a wee bit nervous…
I definitely learned a lot from this project – it looks stupid simple but it took a lot of time. On the one hand I kind of wish the rig was more high tech, efficient and stronger but the genius of this concept is the overall low-budget. Typically 60-70 percent of a boat budget goes to the mast, sail and hardware.
This goes without saying but to anyone who may be working with epoxy - don’t ever think you can skimp on protection. I had a near miss with a severe skin reaction at the end…I am pretty sure it was from Interlux two-part paint which I will never use again, and that is perfectly fine. But I love and rely on West System Epoxy for a lot of woodworking and carpentry stuff – I do not want to be sensitized and deprived of using that. There is a reason that veteran boat builders kit up fully!
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Lovely job. Congrats on getting her in the water!
I would have to dig deep to find pictures of mine, but I built a Bolger Gypsy back in the early 2000’s. Mast there was two 16’ 2x4’s from the local lumber yard glued together then cut to a taper on 4 sides. Sprit was 2x2. Made the sail myself from white polytarp. Definitely not the lion’s share of either material costs or labor. Even made my own oars from scratch.
This image is from Wooden Boat magazine - mine was open, not decked in like this one but the colors are close:
I’m embarrassed to recall how long it sat in the garage stuck at one step or another mostly because I didn’t trust myself to dive into the next thing I’d read about but never done myself. I did finally get it finished and actually did sail it a few times.
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that’s fantastic!