Beta testing

-
Sail four coming up tomorrow but again looks likely a light air affair. Fingers crossed a little more puff than last weekend....

Did a few projects based on my first sailing.

1) Going to extend the rudder hinge to go through the tiller to speed up rig and de-rig. Because this will weaken it a bit in an already weak zone I'm first going to add a reinforcing sleeve. This project will go into the next week but at the end of it I'll be able to remove the rudder without taking the tiller off.



I also decided to add a boom sleeve to stop the mainsheet snagging my neck. Couldn't see any off the shelf ones so ordered some sail material (both see through and dacron for edging) and double sided tape from SailRite. This made a pretty nice sleeve we'll see how long it lasts.


Perhaps most importantly I reduced all the control lines from 1/4" to 5/32". These match the blocks and run a LOT better. Given that I also swapped back to low friction rings for the vang (2 plus the 4:1 tackle to get to 16:1) and it all feels pretty good now. That's the red below.



A new ratchet block (40mm T2) is ordered for the main. When it arrives I'll replace one of the above blocks with the 29mm T2 and probably replace the two large outhaul blocks with some 18mm T2s to see if that solves a small rubbing problem.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Next round of improvements

-
Image
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 yet.
Read more

Upgrade to control lines

-
Image
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 outboard.
Read more

Repairing the rudder

-
Image
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
Read more

Album