I wanted to finish building the boat and go sailing before I headed off on an extended trip to the UK. Much as I would like to stay and go sailing the boat is packed away until I return later this year. At least I know the boat is as finished as they ever are and that I could not be happier with the result of about 1000 hours work spread over a period of almost two years. Well almost two years minus 4 or 5 months of assorted travel inside and outside Australia.
Two more sleeps and then off I go to the airport.
Saturday, 19 April 2014
Packing Up the Mainsail With a Folding Mast.
The advantage of the folding mast arrangement is speed when packing up or rigging when going sailing. I took some photos showing the steps in packing up with the boat on its trailer in my backyard. First photo shows the sail flaked down on the boom with the gaff lowered on top of it. The lazy jacks make this quick and easy; the luff flakes down nicely without assistance, the leech needs to be helped with one hand while lowering peak and throat halyards with the other. The sail is bundled up and tied with a number (about 8) shock cord sail ties.
As the mast is lowered the bundled sail falls down and rests on one of the side seats. The mast sits on the crutch at the transom. The bundled sail is now raised and tied up to the folded down mast with two pieces of hook and loop tape. Note that the furled jib, halyards, topping lift and side stays are still in place making an untidy mess.
A few more shock cord ties are put on to bundle up the jib and all those ropes. That's it for the main mast, main sail and jib.
When launching the boat the process is reversed and, with a bit of care, the mast goes up and the lines fall into place without getting tangled.
I had more difficulty with the mizzen because it didn't want to go into a tidy bundle ready to be stowed in the boat for travelling. I have solved this by adding simple lazy jacks so that the sail and gaff can be lowered onto the boom. Flaking the sail is a bit fiddly but the lazy jacks help a lot with this. Once that is done I list the whole bundle of boom sail and gaff parallel to the mast and tie it all together with more shock cord ties. Lift the mizzen mast and bundle out of its box, lay it diagonally across the seats and tie it to the centre thwart.
Strap the boat to the trailer and drive away. It took longer to write this post than to do the actual packing up!
As the mast is lowered the bundled sail falls down and rests on one of the side seats. The mast sits on the crutch at the transom. The bundled sail is now raised and tied up to the folded down mast with two pieces of hook and loop tape. Note that the furled jib, halyards, topping lift and side stays are still in place making an untidy mess.
A few more shock cord ties are put on to bundle up the jib and all those ropes. That's it for the main mast, main sail and jib.
When launching the boat the process is reversed and, with a bit of care, the mast goes up and the lines fall into place without getting tangled.
I had more difficulty with the mizzen because it didn't want to go into a tidy bundle ready to be stowed in the boat for travelling. I have solved this by adding simple lazy jacks so that the sail and gaff can be lowered onto the boom. Flaking the sail is a bit fiddly but the lazy jacks help a lot with this. Once that is done I list the whole bundle of boom sail and gaff parallel to the mast and tie it all together with more shock cord ties. Lift the mizzen mast and bundle out of its box, lay it diagonally across the seats and tie it to the centre thwart.
Strap the boat to the trailer and drive away. It took longer to write this post than to do the actual packing up!
The Jib Halyard
My jib is hoisted with a halyard that is tied off to the pin rail at the base of the mast. I had difficulty putting enough tension on the halyard and the luff of the sail bowed out. I tried using a truckies hitch to pull down harder on the halyard; this helped a bit but there was too much friction around the pinrail and where the rope crossed itself. Finally I did this:
Now I can get enough tension on the jib. It still bows out a little but I am satisfied with the result. In the photo I have tied it off on two pins to make the setup clearer; in actual use both black and yellow lines would be tied off on the outer pin.
As an aside; when running downwind, with the boom out as far as possible, the boom hits the halyards which is not a good thing, My partial solution to this is to use the outside pins for the halyards that have the most tension and the inner pins for the lightly loaded tail of the lazy jacks.
From left to right, the peak and throat halyards, two spare pins, tail of lazy jacks/topping lift and the jib halyard.
Now I can get enough tension on the jib. It still bows out a little but I am satisfied with the result. In the photo I have tied it off on two pins to make the setup clearer; in actual use both black and yellow lines would be tied off on the outer pin.
As an aside; when running downwind, with the boom out as far as possible, the boom hits the halyards which is not a good thing, My partial solution to this is to use the outside pins for the halyards that have the most tension and the inner pins for the lightly loaded tail of the lazy jacks.
From left to right, the peak and throat halyards, two spare pins, tail of lazy jacks/topping lift and the jib halyard.
Ballast Tank Inspection Hatches
I put inspection hatches in the top of the ballast tanks so that I could get at the pivot bolt for the centreboard. This seemed like a good idea at the time because it would avoid cutting holes at some future time if I needed to get at the bolt. Now I am not so sure and, if I were doing it again, I would have made the tank tops solid.
I used these hatches made by Nairn. The lid screws in and is transparent. It was quite interesting to watch the tanks fill up when the boat was launched.
The transparent lid is strong but the white plastic ring isn't. I stepped on one of the hatches, fortunately while the boat was on the trailer, and the lid broke the threaded part of the ring away from the surround with the screw holes. If the boat had been in the water I would have had a big problem!
I removed both the hatches and cut the remains of the broken ring so that I could see how it had failed. Here are a couple of photos. First photo shows what is left of the outer part of the hatch.
The next photo shows a cross section of the outer part of the hatch. You might need to enlarge the photo to see the crack across the narrow corner. The plastic at that point is only about 1.5 mm wide and is certainly not strong enough to stand on, at least not when it is poor quality plastic.
I used these hatches made by Nairn. The lid screws in and is transparent. It was quite interesting to watch the tanks fill up when the boat was launched.
The transparent lid is strong but the white plastic ring isn't. I stepped on one of the hatches, fortunately while the boat was on the trailer, and the lid broke the threaded part of the ring away from the surround with the screw holes. If the boat had been in the water I would have had a big problem!
I removed both the hatches and cut the remains of the broken ring so that I could see how it had failed. Here are a couple of photos. First photo shows what is left of the outer part of the hatch.
The next photo shows a cross section of the outer part of the hatch. You might need to enlarge the photo to see the crack across the narrow corner. The plastic at that point is only about 1.5 mm wide and is certainly not strong enough to stand on, at least not when it is poor quality plastic.
I went looking for a better type of hatch to put in the existing holes. Needless to say, the metal hatches were too small! I now have two new hatches but I had to enlarge the holes slightly.
These hatches are made by Armstrong, click here for more info. They cost about 4 times the original Nairn hatches but they are more than strong enough to stand on!
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