First off, many thanks to Big Tom for extending his expertise and sharing his personal library of boatbuilding literature with me.  At this point I certainly can’t say that I lack sufficient boatbuilding references to figure out what I need to.  The bigger problem is finding the information I need within the materials I have.  Easier said than done.

Current reading list

The biggest issue I am currently trying to solve is that I am having the mast stepped (installed) and all of the standing rigging made in July/Aug of this summer and there are a lot of preparations that need to be made to the boat between now and then.  The standing rigging is basically all of the “cables” (technically wire rope) that connect the mast to the hull and “ropes” (technically halyards) that allow you to raise the sails.  This is not to be confused with running rigging, which is all the other “ropes” (lines/sheets) that control the sails while underway. Since the mast has never been installed I need to figure out the exact placement for it, the keel step, the deck hole, and all of the chainplates.  I also need to calculate the strength required for each of these things as well as a number of other related things.  These sorts of things are typically calculated well before a boat is ever built, and indeed they likely were in this case as well.  The problem is that I don’t have any of those calculations, all of which were made prior to my birth when the terms “Watergate” and “Reaganomics” were still in vogue.

On a brief side note, I apologize in advance for getting into nerdy boat terminology.  Maybe I will devote a page to boat vocabulary someday.  Until then, please continue to google terms or ask me for clarification.

Now that everyone has their boatbuilding terminology handbooks at the ready I’ll dig a little deeper.  I currently know about 70-85% of the dimensions I need to calculate the placement and strength of all the chainplates that connect the standing rigging to the hull.  The frustrating part is that the remaining dimensions I need to figure out require an intimate understanding of the hull’s displacement, righting moment, and other important design dimensions that can’t be easily derived from other known dimensions.  This means that I have to go back to the drawing boards (literally) to fill in these gaps.

Fortunately I had a recent major breakthrough when I was able to get in touch with Lee Creekmore’s wife Abby.  As the name implies, Lee is the son of Ray Creekmore who originally designed the hull of ‘ol Creeky (and had the same nickname).  After some digging in their attic, Lee and Abby were able to find some original blueprints for the Creekmore 45’.  I can’t tell you how exciting it was to lay hands on original drawings with various notes and scribbles from the design process.