Leaderboard

Hi folks, updates on the sailing rig. As you know if you saw my pics thread, I used the design as a guideline, with apologies to the very talented designer. Most of my major modifications were around weight and the ability to use parts from an ilca rather than building them. Last weekend I had the chance to finally do the rigging. Currently, using a very old ilca 7 (standard) rig and sail. 0deg rake from the design, although I made my deck able to rake several about 12mm aft and 4mm fwd from vertical. Weather helm is reasonable, although the raked laser rudder is not ideal. Windesign rudder gudgeons through bolted with Sikaflex. All fittings on the boom, and most on the mast, replaced with dyneema strops. Vang and Cunningham now run down to the base and onto the daggerboard cleats. Major change was to widen the top of the daggerboard trunk and built it out of curved foam to take an ilca board. This was a pain and more or less requires vacuum bagging. The seat is omitted and I sit on the top of the trunk when rowing (perfect for me). Tomorrow I will swap out the 7m rig for the radial/6m rig and a new to me sail. Total cost: - 200€ std mast, boom, (very old) sail, rudder, tiller - 30€ new tiller extension - 90€ used ilca 6 mast base - 50€ used ilca 6 sail in great condition - running rigging left over mostly from other projects Yesterday I joined a snipe race without asking, in about 12kts of wind. I was significantly faster downwind, rather slower upwind. Still working on perfecting the vang and traveller, as these are quite important on this bendy rig. 10/10 would do it again, easy to find parts all over the world and more time going sailing

A couple other thoughts: I'm really glad I built the 11 and not the 9 or 10. The extra capacity, freeboard, and stability has been great and it's not much bigger on deck. We can sail with 2 adults and 2 kids, and motor with 5 adults And for future searchers: the Spindrift 11n nesting dinghy fits absolutely perfectly on the Sadler/ Starlight 35 foredeck, inside the (still usable) handrails, just forward of the mast and spanning the forward hatch .