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Showing content with the highest reputation on 05/11/2017 in all areas

  1. Hi all, Here are some pictures and a quick write up of the sprit sail I made last year for our spindrift. One picture shows the sail furled up by letting the snotter go and wrapping the sail up with a bungee. This is from short camping trip we took at the west end of Kamloops lake last weekend. Why I wanted to have something that would: Use a short mast and spar that would be easy to pack up and haul Be quick and easy to set up Be easy to sail Be easy to get out of the way if I wanted to stop and fish Be easy and cheap to make with readily available materials - this was a "proof of concept" and not intended for long term use How was interested in a balanced lug rig (and still am) but had trouble figuring out how to do it. In the end I read more about sprit rigs and, after getting a bit hooked on some of those youtube videos of Thames barges, decided to give one a go. Since it is an experiment I've used very cheap materials and I'll see how the set up lasts, then replace it with some better when I've learned more about it. For the first go I downloaded the free plans for the D4 dinghy (http://bateau.com/freeplans.php), and scaled up the sail dimensions to get a sail area about the same as the stock sail. I got a decent quality tarp from Princess Auto, laid it out using the existing edges where possible, then used double sided carpet tape to make the remaining hems. When I was all done I did sew the edges, but I'm not sure that was necessary or better - the carpet tape was pretty good stuff. I reinforced all the corners with three additional plies. I got two 12' 2x4's from a lumber yard, ripped four square sections from them and glued them together to make the mast. I used titebond 3 to glue them. I made the mast round with a plane and spokeshave. The bottom section where the mast fits into the boat got lots of attention and is pretty round, the rest of the mast got eyeballed. The sprit is the remainder of one of the 2x4's the mast is made of, the snotter passes though a hole near the end of the sprit then is fastened to a clam cleat a little ways up the sprit - it hasn't come loose yet. Initially I used some cheap blocks from Princess Auto for rigging, but I've since started using a couple of nice blocks I got from a real sailing store, quite an improvement! So I have about $70 in the two blocks, and $45 in the tarp, wood and cordage. Observations 1. At first I didn't check sail's centre of effort. I have done since, and it is further back than the stock sail design. Though it is not terrible, I do find the boat tends to round up in gusts a little more than it really should. 2. We reefed the sail by connecting the sprit to a grommet halfway down the leech, then bungeed the peak to the tack. This arrangement worked well, but the wind quick got weaker and the reefed sail shape was not very efficient. 3. The loose footed sail is great in flukey winds when you want to row for a stretch and leave the sail in place. Also good for sailing with little kids that don't appreciate getting wacked on the noggin. 4. The loose footed sail has a lot of twist. I don't have the experience to say what effect this has on performance but we did make almost five knots with one adult, one child and camping gear. I may try adding a sprit boom at some point in the future to see what difference that makes. 5. The rig is very quick to set up and take down, and easy to brail up if you want to stop to fish, for lunch etc. 6. So far this is working really well for us and I would do it again, but next time I will pay more attention to COE, and will probably get something from Sailrite that isn't green on one side and brown on the other. At the time I chose the better quality tarp over the better looking one! 7. I did this as an experiment, but both sail and mast seem to be wearing well. I used them all last summer, and I expect to get this summer out of them too. On average I get out about once a week from May to September. I sail on lakes and rivers in interior BC, and don't sail in very high winds. I hope this has been of some interest and/or use. Matt
    2 points
  2. You're getting close. Nice work. Paint soon!
    1 point
  3. Time to add more pictures. For nonskid, I bought a quarter-pint of SoftSand rubber particles (coarse grain) which is enough for a quart of paint. $10. I'll post pictures when I'm done with it. Here are the glued seat tops, ready for installation. I sanded the epoxy where they contact the stringers in preparation for gluing. While they were dry-fit in the boat, I used a staple gun to hold the panels together in their positions while I glued the butt-blocks in-situ. I glued the butt blocks by laying some 3/4" solid wood covered in plastic across the stringers and put the butt-blocks on top of the solid wood and laid the panels on the butt-blocks with some weight to add clamping pressure. Gluing the butt-blocks in-situ maintains the dry fit. Finally gluing-down the seat tops. I did it just like Alan did in his CS15 video, using brad nails where I felt space between the seat stringers and the seat tops. Here, applying epoxy from a squeeze bag and spreading it with a West 809 spreader was very effective. Say what you want about 5 lb dumbells, but you never know when you'll need them. This is a picture of the staples used to maintain the spacings from the dry-fit. Current status: seat tops and foredeck have been filleted and taped. I just leveld the boat fore and aft with a water level (clear acrylic tubing attached to the bow and where the transom meets the gunwales with water poured up to the level of where the gunwales meet the transom) and a $30 laser level, finding a 1/8" disagreement between the two methods. I put the Beckson deckplates in with epoxy. After painting, I need to check the compartments for air tightness. Does anyone have a good method of doing this? The last thing I need is for this boat to sink. I think Don(?) mentioned filleting with a plastic spoon on another thread. I tried this with the seat tops and foredeck. It's an excellent way of getting the epoxy out of the pot and onto the boat and creating initial fillets. It's particularly good for scraping off the lines of excess epoxy created by filleting. I found that the spoon didn't give enough volume to the fillets for an the angle of plywood I was trying to fillet. I still had to go back and add volume to the fillets with a B and B filleting stick. Still, the method speeds up the process greatly and makes it much easier to do the final cleanup of epoxy with a putty knife.
    1 point
  4. The obvious answer is "Because it's my boat and I want to have fun with it - I didn't make the plywood either! (or the epoxy, etc.)" If someone really wants to be a purist they're going to have to scrape out a dugout canoe with a sharp rock and chew up some tobacco to stave off rot (or something like that). That's a perfectly valid way to go but it's not a requirement for a good boat.
    1 point
  5. Aft deck on and drying...kinda glad I bought the 25 ft run of bungee when I only needed 4 ft. ?
    1 point
  6. Any updates Bob? More pictures please. Sounds like a cool project. My S11 wears a strange looking Green and Brown tarp loose footed spritsail. I gave it a go for various reasons and it's been fun so far! I just bought a couple of real sailing blocks for it and doubled the cost of the entire rig - mast, sail, cordage included. Matt
    1 point


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