waynemunro

yes, I think so. I have drawn a quick sketch, please forgive the crudity of the image, hopefully it will get the point across..

sorry to dredge up this old thread, but I was thinking about the mast the other day when cutting out my one, and I was wondering if anyone has considered putting a rotational spring into the hinge joint? I would be surprised if this is an original idea, but have seen no discussion on it. I would have thought it would be possible to design a joint which has a sufficiently strong spring that pretty much balances the mast when it is folded down, and the pre-load could be worked so that it has minimal force on it when the mast is up, surely then putting it up and down would be a breeze... and the system need not be that heavy so there are no weight problems as with a couterweighted system ?

I came across this picture on the net, these are the chain plates for the mirabella-V. Thought it amusing that each one of them probably weigh more than a completed weekender (and cost more). I am sure that you have all heard of this yacht, 247ft LOA, 48.5ft beam, should be a nice ride when it is going

that is very cool - congrats. now i want one on the front of mine...

I looked around to buy some closed cell foam for mine, but found that it was very expensive.. would have ended up being one of the major costs of the boat - tried to buy some 'noodles' but as we are going into winter nobody has them in stock... ended up using 'polystyrene' sheets, which sounds like it might be the same as the syrofoam you are talking about ? managed to score the sheets (6' x 4' x 1") for free from a recycled materials place, and put them in today, the sheets cut easy, I was pretty round, but you are not going to be able to see it, so I don't think it matters. was a little concerned about individual layers sliding back and getting in the way of the steering and generally making a mess, so got half a dozen bamboo skewers and stuck them through all the layers - they are not going anywhere now. I made sure to put the layers vertically too, so that if water does happen to get in there it can drain out easy enough.. hopefully.

I must agree, I have a half share in a small powerboat - I guess it will be a good safety for that first sail once my weekender is in the water.. and on all the windless days we can rip up the calm water with wakeboards and waterskiis...

Hi Pat, I would love to take robbo out, but I suspect it would be best to wait until the boat is finished hopefully a couple of months away... and as for the 24 hour flight, its only a day .. one day of complete irresponsibility for your own needs.. a day of relaxing and dreaming in a compact but comfortable airline seat ....

Yes, very cool to have another weekender builder in town. I've invited Robbo round to have a up close and personal look at what he has to look forward to.

I'd like to second Bucks invite to NZ. Baring major catastrophe my weekender will be well finished by then and I'll be there. I don't think anyone would be dissapointed with a visit to this little corner of the world.

Sounds pretty cool to me

I have to admit that I found the imperial units to be a bit awkward. I have never worked in other than metric before, though rather than converting the plans I went out and bought the imperial measuring tape (had to go to three different stores to find one). And while measuring you can find me spending a few seconds thinking about each measurement, and trying to remember how many more of the little notches is 7/16 over 1/4... Also it seems that a lot of the plywood sold down here is in metric size, 1200x2400 mm, rather than 4' x 8'. However the place I got my marine ply from seemed to sell in imperial sizes (or actually 1220 x 1440), which I am sure saved some minor adjustments during construction.

excellent - good that everyone thinks of boot polish when they think of New Zealand. I am reminded of this image:

I just remembered another great score that I got in the weekend. I have been going on about the boat that I am building to just about anyone that will listen and it has paid off - The uncle of the girlfriend of one of the guys at work turns out to have a 38 foot yacht , which he races. He has just replaced his Genoas as they were delaminating - he was about to burn them when he offered them to me... and I thought - worth a look. Now I don't know squat about sail materials but I figure a slightly delaminating piece of sail cloth should be just about as good as a tarp.. right ? Anyway, they arrive and I unfold them all over the drive for a look and some quick measuring. Looks like one of them is only deminating near the top, and there is enoough material in the lower 2/3 of the sail to cut out both the main and the job for the weekender - should even be able to use the existing corners (they looked to be within about 10 degrees of the right angles.. wonder how picky I should be here). So I guess the moral of the story is don't forget to annoy everyone that you know about your boat as you just don't know what free stuff will fall across your path. (have had offers of bubbly for the lauching too) not really autralasia specific I guess, unless the proportion of sailors in the general population is higher down here, increasing the chance of this sort of giveaway... ? Wayne

yeah, a capital K for Kiwis .. nice. (and for our American friends, a Kiwi is a small flightless bird, the national bird of New Zealand, not the small green fuzzy fruit which is so often confused with it. Kept coming across this when I was living in the UK). Not sure if it would be worthwhile having a seperate information set for NZ, our plywood probably comes from similar places as I don't think any is made in this country. As well as that the other 25 people in NZ that have plans for the weekender seem to be keeping a pretty low profile and for the record (and without any regard to spelling).. the woods I am using for my little boat are: keel: plywood - okhoume marine ply (couldn't find good timber at good price, and was impatient, if building again I would probably spend longer looking... but then maybe not, I am not a patient person when waiting to start a project) rest of ply: meranti marine ply stringers etc (all wood except spars): kahikatea (NZ white pine, was recommended by builder friend after talking to boat building mates), really happy with this wood, nice to work with, and seems to hold a screw like nobodys business, hasn't split at all on anything yet, even when I just clip the stringer with the screw. only failures have been when overbending a double kerfed stringer whilst not waiting for the glue to dry between the two pieces attaching to it (deck-transom join) mast etc: North American Oregon, this was the recommended wood from the above mentioned boat building people. A little hard to get here though, really only seems to be had through recycling yards. However last weekend I did find a nice chunk of it which is now in my garage. (9 inches by 4 inches by 14 foot 10 inches, for $NZ100, seems in good condition, but I haven't cut into it yet) screws: all stainless steel countersunk square drive woodscrews. Found a place that would sell to me at trade, think it has cost about NZ$150 for all the screws so far, and I bought a couple of hundred more than in the plans on each size. (note that I am up to the cockpit seats and just ran out of the 1 inch screws (which I bought 1500 of), so I went and got another 500 (included in the price above), I think I must be putting in more screws than the Stevensons . I would like to note that these square drive srews rock, so much easier to use that posidrive or flathead, I recommend them wholeheartedly. Glue: Norstik 221 Gap filling epoxy (glue made in Blenheim, NZ), didn't do a lot of research into this glue, had a nervous time a couple of weeks ago when someone on the formus mentioned that gap filling epoxy is not good for making joins.. had visions of my boat falling apart as soon as it hits the first wave... however have since talked to someone that has a bit to do with this glue and he reckons it will be fine... phew... back to sleeping at night. and I think that is about it... haven't got to paint and glass yet, and to be honest have no idea.. probably will just go out and buy the first thing I come across - going to have to get some soon to seal the inside of the seats before I close them up. Wayne

I actually transferred the video to a divx file myself so that I could look at it on the computer, to save wearing out the video going back and forth. Divx is a highly compressed video stream for playback on a computer, the files from each of the tapes fits onto a single cd (so 2 cds overall), if you are interested in it I could send you copies of these Mike. Quality would not be quite as good as a conversion to DVD from original stock however. Wayne

hmm, A timely posting, just did two rubrails last night, going down now to make sure that there are some screws through the scarfs... cheers.

Yeah, I would second Buck on this one, sounds like a good idea to me. More plans in NZ than I would have thought. People might be more likely to actually get around to building them if they thought there was someone within reach who could tell them to "don't worry about it... just do it and see what happens" whenever they get to a hard bit. Bucks encouragement was invaluable to getting my momentum up initially.