Spindrift 9N #1579 build

[Bryan Rolfe]

I bet it was very satisfying to see if it fit on deck the way you hoped! I'm looking forward to that moment as well. 

Maybe you've seen it, but Florence has an A-frame and deck brackets that they use to stow their dinghy:

 

[Lille Ø]

Today we got to do the first "production" trip with the dinghy. We rowed across the bay to fetch our mainsail back from the sailmaker.

 

The oars kind of suck, but otherwise the boat is going fine! We should get the new oars sometime next week.

 

After we got the sail back to the big boat, we took a thermos of soup and another of tea with us and went for a short exploration of our home bay. We stopped at a mooring ball of a neighboring sailing club for lunch.

 

While figuring out the lifting arrangements and the best way to assemble the dinghy on board (standing on the transom seems to work well), we also took the chance to measure the weight of the dinghy:

14kg for the bow section

22.5kg for the stern section

So 36.5kg (80lbs) for the whole dinghy

 

We did this with a luggage scale, so precision won't be amazing. But that sits right inside the 34-41kg window stated by B&B, so seems about right.

[Aphers]

That has to be one of the fastest builds I've seen. Well done.

If you think rowing is fun, wait until you get your rig sorted

[Alan Stewart]

Great job, I like that bright fendering!

Thank you for weighing the boat, so few builders report back their weights. 

[Lille Ø]

 

18 hours ago, Aphers said:

If you think rowing is fun, wait until you get your rig sorted

That's certainly a priority now! I've been going over the Europe dinghy class rules to see what we need to change.

 

Seems to include:

* Shorten the boom by 44cm

* Shorten the mast by 45cm

* Move gooseneck attachment higher, and adjust sail entry gate accordingly

* Get rid of the upper bearing ring as it is too wide to fit on our king plank

* Figure out where and how to cut and sleeve the mast for storage

 

 

[Lille Ø]

We've been busy with projects on the big boat (annual engine service, dropping the mast for standing rigging replacement, re-coring the forward hatch, etc).

 

Now we finally got the chance to move forward with the Spindrift. The big part was installing the mast step, and modifying the king plank for the Europe mast. Here's a test fit, the mast still needs to be shortened:

 

As is traditional, we installed a coin in the mast step. The 2024 German two euro coin features the white cliffs of Königsstuhl. Very fitting, as it is often the last sight of Germany for us when we head out to sea...

 

We aim to have the mast ready for the weekend. We should get an old Europe dinghy sail to modify then.

 

Our oars also arrived. I would've ordered a little bit longer ones, but the Finnish company sadly only sells this model into Germany. But on the positive side, they fit perfectly inside the bow section.

[Lille Ø]

The paint is finally dry, and we were able to test the running rigging setup. Now we know what dyneema we need to splice to make it work. Mast and boom have now been shortened and various hardware riveted on.

When we got the mast up, it however became apparent that we made a dumb mistake: the Europe dinghy mast needs to rotate, and the current setup with the king plank doesn’t allow that. So we’ll need to widen the hole there to fit the Teflon ring that came with the mast.

 

Yesterday we held the traditional naming ceremony for the dinghy. For that we dressed the boat pretty.

 

Pretty good turnout, and a fun party! The president of the Berlin sailing federation gave a short speech, and we did the naming rituals in both Finnish and German. So, introducing Spindrift 9N #1579, Isosaari:

In the other news, we just received an old Europe dinghy sail that we should be able to modify to fit the boat. Really looking forward to the first test sail!

[Don Silsbe]

Looks like that was quite a good party!  What is the meaning of or the reason for choosing that name?

 

[Lille Ø]

7 hours ago, Don Silsbe said:

Looks like that was quite a good party!  What is the meaning of or the reason for choosing that name?

 

Isosaari means “big island” in Finnish, just like the name of our big boat, Lille Ø means “small island” in Danish. Isosaari is also an island fortress and guest harbour outside of Helsinki in the Gulf of Finland.

[Lille Ø]

After several delays and other projects (we had to rebuild the cockpit floor on the big boat), on the long Easter weekend we could finally give the boat a proper spin.

 

First of all, the deck mount a-frame setup works. No movement despite washing the decks in 30kt gusts

The staysail clears the dinghy with no issues when tacking.

Today we are rafted in an anchorage, and this gave the perfect excuse to take the Spindrift out for a spin.

Quite light winds, but the dinghy sails very nicely!

We'll need to still install the cam cleats for the sail controls, and find some battens.

[Lille Ø]

We've been now under way for three months. As expected, the dinghy has gotten a lot of use especially here in Scotland. We've sailed it to pub several times, and rowed to various shore-based adventures. As we had some guests visiting, we also found out it rows pretty well with three adults on board.

So far we've found that the best way to assemble the dinghy is upright with the stern section tied to our inner forestay. This way we've been able to do it in winds over 20kt.

Instead of a bridle we also deploy and hoist the dinghy vertically with a halyard tied to the painter.

You'll see a lot of the dinghy in action in our June video (Finnish audio but with subtitles):

It is soon time for some paint repair, as some of the rocky landings have left scratches in the bottom.

[11N1683]

Hello,

 

just wanted to say thanks for the inspiration, stole your firehose idea to great success (used contact cement though!)

I think we almost crossed paths at the makerspace but I'm now way south in the warm! If you get down this way DM me.

[Lille Ø]

On 10/24/2024 at 9:01 PM, 11N1683 said:

I think we almost crossed paths at the makerspace but I'm now way south in the warm! If you get down this way DM me.

We've also made our way south since that post. Right now in Canary Islands.

 

Here are some pictures of Isosaari in warmer places:

[Bryan Rolfe]

Love it. What are you guys' long term cruising plans? If you make it to the pacific maybe we'll cross paths and compare dinghies. 

[Lille Ø]

2 hours ago, Bryan Rolfe said:

Love it. What are you guys' long term cruising plans? If you make it to the pacific maybe we'll cross paths and compare dinghies. 

Next step is Cape Verde, then hopefully Caribbean. Then, we'll see. Right now the trip is kind of open-ended.

 

We also realised recently that when packed on deck, the dinghy makes for a handy "bow solar arch". We have 2x 100W panels mounted to it. Very convenient, as sailing south all other panels are shaded by the rigging much of the time.

 

[Bryan Rolfe]

This is a really good point that I hadn't fully considered. We currently have ~750W installed, and have a few options of where to put a little more, but "deployables" were something I was budgeting at another 200W or so, and this would be a perfect place to put those. 

 

We haven't fully decided whether we'll go electric outboard or just a small 2 stroke, but if we go electric we'll want as much power as we can get. 

[Aphers]

On 11/4/2024 at 5:30 PM, Lille Ø said:

Next step is Cape Verde, then hopefully Caribbean. Then, we'll see. Right now the trip is kind of open-ended.

 

We also realised recently that when packed on deck, the dinghy makes for a handy "bow solar arch". We have 2x 100W panels mounted to it. Very convenient, as sailing south all other panels are shaded by the rigging much of the time.

 

We did the crossing a couple of years ago. Look us up when you get to the Caribbean!

[Lille Ø]

On 12/7/2024 at 11:23 PM, Aphers said:

We did the crossing a couple of years ago. Look us up when you get to the Caribbean!

Sounds like a plan! If weather cooperates, heading west from Mindelo on Jan 2nd.

 

[Lille Ø]

We just published a little YouTube video about our dinghy, showing both the construction and bunch of "in action" footage:

 

Spoken Finnish, with subtitles in English.

[Lille Ø]

Inspired by another Spindrift on this forum, we built a standing lug rig for Isosaari. While it doesn't point as high as the old Europe rig, it is a lot quicker to set up. And sailing without a boom is much easier when two of us are on board,

 

Both mast and the sail material came donated. Big difference in stability with this carbon mast compared to the aluminium.

Brailing line makes it quick to get the sail depowered and out of the way when approaching a dock.

Some in-action footage in:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv-CamkgyzU