waynemunro

thanks guys, glad you like the pictures. I am looking forward to sailing with Robbo and Sharon (yes, that is his wife out there on the foredeck), I suspect that they are going to expand my sailing experience vastly as I get talked into going out in conditions that I would otherwise cower from... a process that Buck started earlier in the year... these fine sailors will make me a confident captain yet

... and here are a couple more. The full set of online photos can be seen at my website:http://www.waynemunro.com/grw/wayne/2004/2004_08/jeroboam_launch/dir_med_70.html [attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

I was lucky enough the weekend before last to attend the formal launch of Robbos weekender Jeroboam, I think he has been a little busy with his work since to make formal announcement on here, so I thought I'd share a few pictures that I took of that day. As you will see the wind was blowing a fair clip that day, and he was a braver man than I to do his launch in those conditions, but it went off wonderfully, and Jeroboam looked perfect on the water. So big congrats to Robbo, the third Kiwi Weekender skipper. [attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

could be quite the interesting time at the NZ messabout Buck, you with your weekender, skipjack, amphora, me with weekender Amphora, and Robbo with his weekender. Guess it is not going to be too long before you start your Vacationer, to round off the set ?

looking good buck are we going to see it at the nz fleet meeting next year ?

A wonderful craft, congratulations!... I must get mine finished over winter. Wayne

Hey Buck, the mod looks interesting, I wonder if it could be made a pop-top, so that you don't have to raise the boom. like those trailer caravan thingys . Wayne

That is a great list that you have Phil - a fair mission that you have set yourself there - good luck with it hunting licence for orcs... I don't think there should ever be any impediment to wiping out their nasty little lives.. they may have looked great in the film, but they can be pretty hazardous when you run into them in the wild.

just found this page, on high lakes: http://highestlake.com/highest-lake-world.html if I got my weekender helicoptered up to 'crater lake', and could handle sailing in the 60 degree Celcius waters - then I could bag number 33 in the world... however, it seems doubtful that either I'm going to pay for that, or that the authorities would allow it

phew.. well I think we will consider ourselves not even in the running down here then whats the air like up there Phil ? wonder if you get less boat speed per knot of wind..

I ave just checked the altitude of the lake on my topomap, and it is 680m (2230 ft), wasn't able to find another local lake higher.. so I guess that will stand as my personal record for a while

well, I'm glad that you are not all bored yet as for the orcs and elves, sadly there were none to be seen about the place on that day, rumour would have it that most of them were at the oscars. There is actually very little sign of even the filming that took place up there, I beleive that even the road that they put in up to the mound was put back to how it was beforehand, the grass that they removed was cared for in a seperate location, and then replaced afterwards.. scary. I am not too sure why the location is quite so barren, though it is not quite as bad as it looks, there is the odd stand of trees around the place. I suspect it is a combination of altitude and climate, but I would guess that altitude plays the larger part. I think this lake has been known to freeze over in very cold winters, one of only a handful of easily accessible lakes which do it.

ok, I promised myself that I wouldn't bore you people silly with more pictures of the places that I manage to find to dump my weekender in the water... however, I couldn't resist this one. We were across at a little lake called Lake Camp in the weekend (about 1.75 hours drive from Christchurch NZ), a few miles up the road is the small hill where the Golden Hall was built for the filming of the Rohan sections of the Lord of the Rings... wind was light, but we still tootled around nicely. [attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

Hi Knut, I don't think I can be imaginaing what you talk about, if i allow the spreader to rotate, then won't it just rotate until the shroud lines up with the connecting bolt. and no, didn't go near the water on the 60 knot day, though if I had not been busy I would have taken out the land yacht and it would have been wonderful.

yeah, its all your fault Buck In reality I do of course have you to thank for giving me the confidence to head out in the higher winds - which is lucky as it seems to be all we are getting around here at the moment (day before was up over 60 knots I think). I'd also like it noted that I was looking for the nice 10 knot day John B: I think I must have something wrong with my geometry somewhere, as when I pulled up my sail before the gaff would actually be tight between the stays on both sides, without any wind, the stays were preventing it turning significently with the wind. Capt Jake: Good Luck with yours - I think I have figured out how I am going to modify mine, just a quick fix for now, see if ti works then tidy it up - worst case I'll have to make a new taller mast and go back to the old way. I think my spreader is a bit wider than it needs to be, I'm going to drill new holes and mount the stays in a bit, then run lines from the old holes to a mounting near the top of the mast (or maybe a cap), and drill out the top spreader hole to allow the spreader to rotate a little. I think this should reduce the loads considerably, and since it broke in conditions approaching what I think the maximum would be that I'd be out in and still took a couple of hours to go.. if I take a reasonable factor off the loads, I should hopefully be ok.

Hi Bill, Glad that you like them, though I would like to say that the day seemed much rougher when out there than what it looks like in the movies, I think the camera might have been put away for the larger waves the camera belongs to the cameraman rather than myself, and is a canon digital ixus s400 (not sure what they are called in the US - digital elph ?), it is a lovely little camera and yes he does have the underwater case, which is a bit of a marvel in itself, as it still lets you adjust all of the camera controls, a nice bit of design. as it is primarliy a still camera its movie facilities are not quite that of a proper video camera (can't zoom while filming, no dynamic exposure adjustment, 3 min max length), but is good enough in my book. I haven't done much editing yet (the files on the net are straight out of the camera), just tried to have a go using some software which came with my video card, but not a lot of luck yet. I think I might be trying to make the files smaller than they probably should be.

here is a page with some small digital movies which were taken from my weekender yesterday, they are pretty rough yet (and the file sizes are on the large side), as there has been no editing done. I may get around to converting them to smaller files... but probably won't be for a few days. http://www.waynemunro.com/movies/

oh well.. I'd be the last to claim that I knew what I was doing... though with the benefit of hindsight I know enough mechanics that I should have been able to see that this was going to be a problem. I'll re-think and maybe do some calculations for the repair. on the lighter side I guess I am now right up with the NZ americas cup team.

oh, we took a couple of movies during the sailing too - hopefully I should be able to add a link to them tommorow for those with a bandwidth surplus. Wayne

great day out sailing down here, first day out testing the new spreader that I had put on during the week. My gaff had been getting caught on my shrouds and was not turning much to the side. I had decided to put on a spreader to move them out a bit at the top. Sail started off excellently. the wind was predicted to be around 10 knots but was significently more than that, I reckon at least 20, but we headed out anyway - me, another two adults and one young'un. The sailing was going wonderfully, the spreader working great, the wind was piping, and the swell coming up (around 3 ft), we heard a small creaking a couple of times, and put it doen to maybe one of the cable clamps slipping a bit and kept on going.. .. anyway to cut a long story short, a couple of hours later there was a bit of a 'crack' and a glance up at the top of the mast revealed that all was not rosy - it seems that the extra torque applied byt he spreader put significent side forces on the bolts through the mast and the top section of the mast split down the middle... oh well not the end of the world, we dropped the main, and motor sailed back with the outboar and the jib. returned without problem but the waves seemed much worse when not under sail (I know people have said that before, but I have never beleived it) anyway, repair shouldn't be too bad - glue it back together with epoxy, and some form of strapping (maybe a stainless steel band) to stop it happening again... unless anyone has a better idea. there should be a couple of pictures below , sorry that I never took any of it before I wrecked it. [attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

I wonder when there is the peak loading on the stays. The first think I thought is that it will be when sailing across the wind in a gale, with three of four crew sitting up on the edge of the boat (insert appropriatte sailing terminology), even then I wouldn't expect the loads to be all that high, just needs to be enough to conteract the righting moment from that weight, plus whatever it takes to tip the boat over to the heel angle (not all that much force on an unballasted boat). Then I was thinking that there might be another crittical point when catching an accidental jibe in a strong winf, the boom whips through, the mainsheet is out, and its only the boom hitting the stays which stops its progress.. I reckon that might put a fair strain on the system. I think if I was holding a large stick and wanted to break the attachment of the stay to the weekender I'd have more luck hitting the tightened stay sideways than by hitting the top of the mast sideways jsut thinking aloud however.. I should state that I like the two stays for purely aesthetic reasons.

yes, I tend to agree with Mark on the march to march thing.. or maybe even april-april ? And Frank, you were a cutie.. easy to beleive that little kid grew up into the debonair mel gibson-ness we saw recently

All this talk of the amphora got me all curious about it, so I ordered a second hand copy from Amazon. It arrived today... and what a wonderful little book. The picture of little Mike on page 14 contemplating his pile of lumber is lovely I might have a go at whipping up one of these, looks like a lot of fun... I just needed a tender for my weekender.. and I reckon I will be able to rip around with my 3hp outboard on it. Perhaps I could give it to my neices and nephews for xmas.. or maybe I should just give them the book.. and a pile of lumber. So thanks to Mike and Peter for another nice design. (I was tempted to scan in the picture of Mike for the board, but that would be breaching copyright.. I think)

Hi Nora Lee, life is often a lot of fun down here, I think that is one of the reasons that I am still here rather than abroad. However I only mention the highlights on the board.. I still seem to get stuck working during the week when the weather is good outside.. and doing house maintenance when I could be working on more fun projects (and I admit that I have a little list of things to do which should have been done while I was building my weekender.) As Johannah said the blue sailed boat is Bucks, and I agree it does look quite striking with its coloured sails, I think that when it comes time for me to replace my sails then I'll get some nice red/burgandy ones from somewhere. I went for a sail yesterday, drove about an hour to a nicer sailing location (Akaroa harbour) than where I have been going and got some lovely winds in the 10-15 knot range. It was best sail yet and my sailing confidence is slowly getting better.. I felt in control at almost every point this time. I too have Buck to thank for sailing lessons which have helped me feel confident about putting my weekender in the water. I don't have any photos from yesterdays sail yet as I didn't take my camera, but one of the passengers had one so I should have some within a few days. I think NZ is a great place for a visit, well the foreign visitors that I have always seem to have had a good time here. Anyone passing through Christchurch should get in contact and I am pretty sure we could arrange some sailing action Glad that you are enjoying the photos Greg, I take a lot in the hope of getting the odd good one, then put a portion of them up on the website. A little over the top sometimes, but the digital camera makes it so much cheaper than the old way.

that is quite possible actually, I have not thought to look, but I think when I was building mine was a few degrees back of what it was supposed to be. will have to have a better comparison the next time they are beside each other. some of the pictures with the two boats looking like they are floating near one another are a little deceptive as they are both resting on their keels a bit as the water is on the way out. And I think bucks is leaning to the left while mine is leaning to the right.. and with the camera angle not coming from exactly at right angles that may affect the apparent mast angle.