Leaderboard

HI Guys, I sewed the sails for my boat using a regular sewing machine that I picked up used and a Sailrite kit. I didn't trust myself with designing the sail myself since shape is so critical. If I was a production sailmaker, there's no way I would tolerate the regular jams and snags that I encountered, but we got the job done. For about the first 1/2 of the project I tried very hard not to put any little white creases in the nice dacron sailcloth, carefully rolling and clothespinning sail material to pass through the gap between the needle and the body of the machine. A cardboard tube, like from a carpet roll, would have been helpful to control all that cloth. Eventually, I gave up on trying to make it pristine. Less stress, more fun. Bob

I actually have two masts. The wooden one was made from Doug Fir and is one piece. 12 sided birdsmouth. It was something I designed and built. The other is made from aluminum to the plans. Remarkably, both weigh almost the same amount, which from memory I seem to recall was around 17 pounds. I could be wrong about that one. I have two sail rigs for this Spindrift. The stock sail and another I had built, which is a standing lug rig. The main claim to the latter is I can hoist or douse the sail while on the water without having to step or unstep the mast. For that rig, I only use the two lower sections of the aluminum mast. Of the two, I'm thinking the stock rig would win most of the races, but in cruising mode, the lug performs well enough. Come to think of it, I also have a third rig.......a leg of mutton sail made from plastic tarp material. It also works OK, although not as well as the other two. It can be used with either mast. It can be raised and doused while on the water, but this sail cannot be reefed. When the wind gets up, you better be paying attention and have your hand on the sheet. The stock and lug both have one reef point to help calm things down when the wind is up.

Either of the masts should be easy enough to step using a line from the block on the fore part of the mast used to tension the sprit. A line to the bow or deck in front of it to hold it in place. The difficult part might be getting it started up from horizontal up to about 45 degrees. I was thinking you could raise the mizzen first and use the sheet for it to raise the main mast most of the way up. Reverse it coming down. On masts and such, I have built a birdsmouth wooden mast for my Spindrift. It was not that hard. It can be built to not bend that much (not be floppy), but as Graham pointed out to me once, wood is not consistent, thus it is hard to engineer a wood mast. Two of us can try to make it the same way, but since the wood we would use would not be the same, we could easily get different outcomes. Metal masts, however are predictable. So my plan is to make mine from all aluminum stock.

Consider milling the the two gunwales (heaviest boards in the kayak) into I beams. This was a common practice in older high performance aircraft where weight and strength were very important. This was done to the wing spares with great success and a part where failure was not an option. You would leave the gunwales at full size where the frames and lashings need to be. You would need the largest diameter router bit you could use so the radius on the webb where you lash the framing would be as big as it could be. You could easily take 1/4 of the weight of the gunwales away and not lose any strength. Think ounces and you"ll lose pounds in the end.

Hello, Glad to see the board is still up and running. Still have my Weekender "Island Girl" but I haven't sailed her in two years.