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Rudder Pt II (III and IV to come I guess)

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" Hopefully can finish up fairing tomorrow" I said, four days ago! Turn out that the I beam mod took a lot more sanding and reshaping to get back to a good shape, probably about four hours total with three layers of epoxy filler in there. But finally it's ready to skin again.... That join isn't great but hey most of these are cored in foam the strength will be in the three layers of carbon cloth the top part of the foil is going to end up with.
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Repairing the rudder

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Having decided to repair the rudder step one was to get the main stock rebonded. To do this I embedded two pieces of spruce. Rather than sand down the prior paint I decided to just pull off the carbon skin. This pulled the top layer of the spruce too leaving it pitted and rough so I filled the whole top. With it looking like a rudder again I sawed it into two pieces.... This is in order to work towards the final aim of both restoring the shape and also making the foil a LOT stronger than it was before. Aims are: Remove that big hole. It was way too big! Instead bond the down-haul into a smaller hole. Turn the foil into an I beam with carbon cross sections Thicken up with carbon skin from plan 1 Cutting the foil in half was a prep step towards step 2. To finish up I added two layers of carbon with an ash strip (about 1/8" thick) to replace the wood removed in the cut. Hopefully can finish up fairing tomorrow and get the foil skinned...
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Last thing on the list... break it

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I had a scrappy piece of paper with my final "get it on the water" checklist and Vida added her own item.... I'd always joked with the kids that Farrout would get broken and repaired many times, partly just to get them used to the idea that this was fine (like capsizing, or falling off your bike). Anyway.... To work off some Jetlag I took Farrout for  a lovely winters day sail. By the time I got on the water the wind had died down a bit from it's midday peak but it was still strong enough to have us skipping across the harbor. First things first I needed to do was test some of the changes I'd made. Improvements to rigging setup:  Great! Fast setup of shrouds, quick attachment of rudder, boat breaker line just the right length. Took 20 minutes to rig and next time will be quicker as it's tuned already! New Zhik sea boots: Comfy, but not the extra grip I was hoping for. Going to have to extend the foot rests higher to get better purchase I think....
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Upgrade to control lines

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One big annoyance from my first few sails has been the combination on continuous lines and rail mounted cleats. The cleats are uncomfortable to sit on and much worse kept coming uncleared. The main cause of uncleating being over exuberant use of the continuous lines pulling on the backside of the far cleats. Once the cleats on the rail are undone you have to reach them to recleat, likely a problem as your weight goes to the wrong place. Looking at rigging pictures I found images of Daryl’s Farr on face book where the cleats were centerline and led through eyes at the rail. This seemed to fix all my primary issues so I decided to copy.  Original layout: Removed and holes filled. Also marked out an extra area for more non skid: At this point I commented on Daryl’s picture and he replied that he no longer ran lines through the eyes, but instead to low friction rings on elastic. As I thought about this made a lot of sense as it would allow more control from outboa...
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Sailing Vid!

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Some light air sailing from last weekend.
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Next round of improvements

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Had another sail, this time with some wind. Still not on the wire though (I blame my weight, well, also the wind). Almost capsized a couple of times due to slips, or messing up with the long tiller extension. Came back with a few more projects. My hands were weak after three hours of sailing, and my legs bruised (find myself kneeling a lot in lighter air). [ Done ] Rework outhaul so it doesn't rub against the vang [ Done ] Raise the trapeze rings so I can crouch/wire in lighter air [ Done ] Improve travel on the vang, I two blocked it at one point [ Done ] Add ratcheting block to the mainsheet system Add non skid to a couple of sections Seriously consider foam pads in areas on the deck! In general though my first set of improvements (mainly the new smaller lines!) worked well. Some of this is already done. New lines to the left below, old to the right. MUCH cleaner now! The new sleeve on the boom worked well, though it may need some reinforcements ...
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Splicing overview, and D-Splicer FTW

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I've been splicing lines for years now from a first rough double braided eye slice years ago ( this video was my tutorial, dude is awesome!). Mainly these days I find myself working with stripped lines for lightness and just accept that I need to resplice every so often. The difference is the splice used - a brummel lock splice - takes less than ten minutes to complete - in the video linked it takes three and a half minutes but then you need to whip them to stop the tail working loose. Splicing is something I often do watching TV in the evening. Anyway, I digress! For Farrout I've been doing three types of splice: The brummel lock splice for line segments in the vang, downhaul, outhaul and also the mainsheet end. Locked brummel loops (see this hammock video ) to attach blocks Continuous Control line splices like in this video , so that my lines don't have ends. Over the years I've moved from my original aluminum fids to this stainless set by R...
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