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markfitz

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Everything posted by markfitz

  1. Hi everyone, Just a quick question - this is the first winter we've put the boat up as "finished" but I'm not sure what to do with the sails. The boat is parked on the trailer in an unheated garage. Should we take off the mainsail and store it folded up, or is it ok to leave it lashed on? These are sails we bought, so I just wanted to make sure the cold won't mess them up.
  2. John, what's that tent on legs that I (think) I see?
  3. Ah, thank you. Makes perfect sense now. Last time we were at the lake I was looking at some guy's sailboat and I think his was built with a furler from day one because it looked like his forestay was a hollow aluminum tube and it just spun the sail up. Thanks for the link. Everything costs a fortune when you tack the word "marine" on to it, doesn't it? :shock:
  4. We started making the "real" rigging for the weekender this week and I have a dumb question. We bought some SS turnbuckles from Duckworks http://www.duckworksbbs.com/hardware/rigging/rl335/index.htm and they have a little hole in the center. Originally I was thinking I could stick something through the hole to tension the turnbuckle because they are pretty slippery and not octogonal like the hardware store stuff. But then I read that it's for safety wire to keep it from turning, but I figured that's what the lock nuts were for. So how the heck are you supposed to tighten and loosen these things? And what is that hole for anyway? The other thing we realized is that if the turnbuckle mounts right on the chainplate, we no longer have the means to fasten the blocks needed for the peak halyard and the jib clubfoot. How is that normally handled? Thanks again.
  5. Just to close this thread, I went to Target and purchased two Embark premium exercise mats in grey. They are squishy closed cell foam with a smooth skin and they are a little over a half inch thick. They are 70" x 24" so you can carve one up pretty nicely to make both a seat and a seat back for the weekender. They were $24.00 each. A little pricey but still cheaper than I could custom order from any of the foam places. Thanks for the help. I'll let you know how they work next time we get out.
  6. Thanks so much for taking the time to take the pictures. I appreciate it. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by a "flat plate" on the sail. I assume there's some swivel at the top as well? What does that consist of? Just a purchased swivel like the ones duckworks sells, or something else?
  7. I'd be curious about adding that block. I've thought about it, just to get an extra 4 or 5 inches in the boom height. Let us know if you try it!
  8. Welll.....I know you say you don't want to yank the mast again, but Barry suggested I take another look at my mast box angle -- we ended up tipping it forward 3 degrees, and it made a world of difference in the boom height. Might be worth checking out. Here's the thread -- mast picture is at the end: http://www.messing-about.com/forums/index.php?topic=7388.msg65378#msg65378
  9. We found around here (upstate NY) the cheapest, straightest grained semi-soft wood was tulip poplar. No knots whatsoever. A little harder to work with than pine, and we twisted the heads off our fair share of brass screws, but it seemed to work well and was available in long, clear lengths.
  10. I like the rectangular ports. How'd you fasten them on there? What's sort of mast is that? Birdsmouth or just rounded and tapered? Are those sails homemade? Looks great!
  11. I got the ss 1/8" cable and the rest of the stuff, but the thimbles look tiny. They're 1/8" but small enough so the cable isn't very easy to get around the bend, especially since the 7x19 stuff is pretty springy. Is that normal?
  12. Barry, that's what we're using now, but they're small, and when you have to move quickly, you lose track of them, so we wanted to just be done with it and make something the full length of the seats. I saw one weekender that had cane seats -- now that's thinking ahead. The west marine ones sound good except they are a bit too wide and short. Lewis, thanks for the link. That wasn't one of the sites I was on, because I was looking for something I think called flotex and they didn't seem to have it. If the gym stuff will work, I think they might be able to cut it pretty close to the right size/shape. Summer furniture pads might be a good idea too, never thought of that one.
  13. One other thing that got bruised the last time out was my bony butt. So now I'm trying to find some 1" closed cell foam or something to make some seats for the weekender. I've checked a few online places, but I was wondering if anyone here has gone through this exercise already and can save me some trouble? I thought about carving up a couple of yoga mats, but they're only about 3/8" thick and I was hoping for something a little thicker.
  14. Barry, any chance of looking at some close-up pics? I'd love to see more details on the mechanism for the furling spools.
  15. Thanks guys. I just bought that cable from Amazon, and the swaging tool and all the rest from duckworks. Picked up some of those SS turnbuckles while I was at it. Spent all my lunch money for the month. And Jeff, thanks for the advice. I think the problem was my gut really didn't have anything to go on (until now!)
  16. Is this the stuff I need? http://www.amazon.com/Stainless-1760lb-Strength-SF12579-Length/dp/B0013HJYZ6 http://www.amazon.com/Campbell-Chain-18In-Swaging-7679038/dp/B002BW2M1U/ref=pd_cp_hi_1
  17. based on that chart, Hirilonde, I'd say we were probably looking at: 17-21 Fresh Breeze. It seems like more when you're in a little boat. Dale, is there a furler (homemade or otherwise) that will work on the weekender? How does a downhaul work? I assume it's another line that runs to the bottom of the forestay and back? Lewis, thanks. I will check out duckworks rigging wire. That price doesn't seem too bad. Would you recommend using something other than those cable clamps?
  18. We decided to take the Weekender out yesterday because the weather report said the winds were going to be 5-10mph and we figured it would be another easy day of practice. When we got there, the lake had whitecaps, and the foam was spraying off the top of them. Someone more knowledgable than me said that meant you were looking at 12-15 knot winds. We decided we'd wait it out a bit and see how it went. About 30 minutes later, the whitecaps were quite a bit less, but it was still blowing pretty good. It was steady at least, and not really gusty. We figured we would get the boat ready and by that time we hoped it would have mellowed out a bit. It really didn't, but we had a few improvements we wanted to test (replaced peak halyard blocks with one double block, for one...and it's a good thing we did) so we decided to go for it. The first problem is that on this particular lake, the water level is lower than normal and the dock next to the ramp is about 3 feet above your boat when it's in the water, so it's very hard to control when the waves are coming in and the wind is blowing. The second problem was that the wind was blowing from North to South, and we were at the south-most end of the lake. We only have a 47lb thrust trolling motor. It got us out of the launch area (barely) and using top speed, we were able to put a little distance between us and the launch. We were getting slammed around pretty good. We dropped the rudder, and then I attempted to put the sails up. I discovered it's a lot harder to climb around on the front of the boat raising sails when the boat is bobbing like a cork. Somehow, during my initial try, one of the mast rings got jammed in the gaff jaws, so we had to drop it back down again and sort that out, all the while being blown quite briskly back where we came from. We put a little more distance between us and the shore and tried again. The trolling motor was coming out of the water because of the chop, so it wasn't quite as effective as it had been the last two times. We raised the main sail, and raised the jib and we were off on quite the ride. I thought when the wind first caught the jib it was going to rip the clubfoot right off it snapped over so fast. Things were ok, though. We were mostly in control, and we raised the trolling motor and got it out of the way. We headed out, and the first thing we realized is that we desperately needed some weight in the front because the boat was pounding quite badly, and we were getting pretty wet from the spray. Once we tacked and headed in the other direction, it got better since we were more surfing the sides of the waves than trying to pound through them. We were perhaps three miles away from the marina and heeling over pretty good when one of the port shrouds snapped. At the time, I couldn't tell if it broke or just came out of the cable clamp, but it at first glance it looked broken, since the clamp was still tight on the hanging shroud. Afraid a second one might go, we got the boat in irons and decided we should drop the mainsail and see what was what. That was a bit more difficult to do while the wind was whipping everything around, but finally, we got everything gathered together and the cockpit was now full of boom and sail. Not a lot of room to move about, that's for sure. I was very glad we replaced the peak halyard block, because without being able to drop the peak halyard so quickly, I don't think it would have been much fun trying to do this. Upon closer inspection, I determined that what had happened was an issue with our hardware store vinyl covered cable. The clamps were tight, but when under this sort of stress, the wire came out from inside its vinyl covering and worked its way out of the clamp. So that bit in the weekender instructions about not worrying about stripping off the covering before clamping didn't really work out for us. We couldn't really affect repair on the water because we were getting tossed around too much, so we decided to head back. I dropped the trolling motor, preparing to motor back, when I realized that we were moving much faster than the motor was capable of propelling us using the jib alone. So we used the jib to sail back. Luckily the wind was blowing in the right direction. Of course, even though the lake was pretty much empty, 4 other boats decided they needed to be out of the water at the exact time we did, and since they were power boats, they blew by us, and now we had to try to circle around and wait until they were loaded up and out. We couldn't do that with the jib flying, so that meant another monkey climb over everything to drop that. For some reason, dousing the jib is always hard to do. The clips don't want to slide freely on the vinyl covering, and because of the way it's fastened to the club foot, it only wants to come halfway down without binding up until you untie it from the end of the clubfoot. The clubfoot connection was mangled and bent, so that's another thing that needs to be repaired. I was thinking ditching the clubfoot altogether, and working up some sort of furler, but I don't know enough about sailing this boat (or sailing in general) yet to know whether this is a good or bad idea. We finally made it back in, and that was another minor disaster. The wind was still blowing so strongly that there were swells. Apparently, between swells the water was low enough so our rudder hit bottom. Since the boat wasn't moving forward so much, instead of the rudder popping up, it hit vertically and lifted the entire rudder, tiller and rudder box out of the gudgeons. No damage to speak of, but we didn't really expect to be chasing that around outside the boat. It was so rough that it was almost impossible to keep the bowsprit from slamming on the dock, and the entire boat kept wanting to turn sideways in the launch area. I made a heroic leap from the boat to the dock with a rope tied to both ends of the boat, and then sat down. It was finally under some semblance of control. My father was climbing out of the boat and a swell made him lose his balance -- he reached out to a shroud to steady himself and we were down two, and he almost took a swim. The mast was now listing quite badly to starboard. He banged up his knee pretty good. At least I was able to keep us from the complete disaster of washing ashore. We were glad when we finally got it back on the trailer in one piece. Today, I have a stiff neck, a stiff back, and a bruise on my knee that I have no idea how I got. I don't know about this sailing thing..... :smile:
  19. You guys..jumping out of boats that aren't even sinking. I don't get it.
  20. Konrad, you have a point but...I just hate to see nice wood get chewed up. Al, the rubbery boot I ordered is basically the same idea...the other problem I seem to have is that the pad eye I put on the stern is too fat for the block I have, and it causes the block to jam up.
  21. Thanks guys -- yeah, they're dacron and I don't feel confident trying to do it myself, but I'm glad to know it's possible. Thanks for the book offer, Tim, but I think we'll probably just drop them off somewhere this winter. We went out again yesterday and it was sooo still. Good practice setting up and tearing down though! So far the hardest thing has been keeping the bowsprit from ramming the dock, and climbing back in the boat after you jump out. I thought I was going to have to tow my father around for an hour because the rope ladder wasn't cutting it!
  22. our purchased weekender sails don't have any reef points -- is it possible to add those after the fact? I assume I would have to figure out where they needed to be and then take the sail somewhere to be modified? I searched around here for the topic and every time I got my hopes up, the links were broken. Thanks!
  23. Thanks, that does help. Every spring I found at the hardware store was either too small or too stiff to actually work. The pipe cap looks pretty good! I'm still waiting for my parts (Don't you hate places that say stuff is in stock, then call you and tell you that they've ordered it, and they should have it in a week or so?) I'm hoping the new double block will help and we won't have to decrease the diameter of the line.
  24. Sure is pretty. I think a canoe is my next project. Either one like that or something skin on frame for lake/camping use. I like the looks of that prospector with the sail, too. Thanks for the link!
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