Fence Test.

So here she is tensioned up against a fence.  I was amazed how stable the spreaders became once there was some tension on the whole rig.  I feel pretty good right now, like I’m at least heading down the right path.

Here are all the Lewmar purchases I could dig up in my bag of Lewmar goodies.  You can see I’m starting to undo Dave Bolyards fence with all the tension, and I’ll have to whack that back into place after I’m done. 

My Brother, Jeff and Dad came to the boat this afternoon to help.  My Dad sanded the recently painted brush strokes on the deck and my brother and I measured for all the standing rigging.  I have not seen him in a year, and we are all pretty excited to have him back for the next week or so.  I probably won’t get anything done tomorrow.  Have a nice turkey day.

-Ryan

Bench test.

Today I’m going to tension this puppy up horrizontally so I can measure for the standing rigging and check some of the fittings under some sort of static load. 

Please excuse me for using the word “puppy”.

-Ryan

Hinges, hinges, hinges!

See, hinged spreaders.  Will it work?  Not sure.  Does it look cool?  Hell yeah!

I’ll be spending all of tomorrow making temporary vectran rigging so we can step the rig and measure for sails. 

-Ryan

Bracket, brackets, brackets!

Strapped down the little bits with uni.

Then laminated them to the mast.

More later.

-Ryan

Stuff Part 2

So the brackets are roughed in.  I’m working on some other projects for the chainplates inside the boat, but I won’t show those until they are further along.

You can see they are not all lined up perfectly, but they ar not all the same size at this point.  My goal was to get them so they are angled upward correctly.  Now I’m going to laminate these parts to the mast and build up the laminate to twice what it is now on the brackets.  Then I’ll shape them and make them pretty and stuff.

-R

More stuff.

I’ve got a good solution for the spreader brackets. 

I’ll laminate that little bit onto the mast and call it a day.  Below are the rest of the brackets and the gooseneck fitting, curing over molds.

My Dad helped me yesterday too which was nice.  I had him cut off about 15″ of canard (daggerboard).  After sailing the boat for several thousand miles I feel I just don’t need the whole thing.  I have a fixed keel with a forward canard, and the old length was just under six feet. 

-Ryan

Getting Settled

I’ve been running around catching up with people as I haven’t been here for a year.  It’s nice to see everyone, but I also feel a lot of pressure to get on with the job at hand.  In Fort Myers I had no social obligations, and I’m trying to get that bit over with in one shot this weekend.  I did manage to get some work done the other day with my Dad, who did some taping off for painting while I made a prototype part for the spreader attachments.  Here is a photo:

Yes it’s ugly, but I just wanted to go through the process to see if another option revealed itself.  I have no intention of attaching that part to the mast, and now have a much better game plan for the spreader brackets.  I’ve become a firm believer in modeling the part first before jumping in head first.

-Ryan

The eagle has landed.

We arrived yesterday afternoon.  I parked the boat between an old I-14 I used to own, which has had some damage from hurricane Ike, and a Wavelength 24, which is the keel boat I started racing on forever ago.  It’s funny how much less boat there is with the Wavelength than the Mini, even though it’s 3 feet longer.

Here is the view from the deck of Myrna Minkoff of Lake Pontchartrain.  Thanks to Dave Bolyard for finding me a spot at Pontchartrain Yacht Club.  I look forward to launching here.

-Ryan

Drive, yawn, drive. Hey, the Vendee started today…

Tonight I’m sleeping in a Hotel 8, watching C-Span, and looking forward to getting Myrna Minkoff to Dave Bolyard’s loft (Ullman Gulf Coast) tomorrow afternoon.  The Vendee Globe started today, and I’ve been bugging friends such as Katie Ambauch and Jan Brandt to read the results to me over the phone.  The whole time my Dad and step mother would suffer quietly while I geeked out about results.  Results, which this early in the game are almost meaningless. 

 

However, let’s put our hands together for the current VG leader, the lovely Safran.

-R

Next stop, Louisiana

Took about an hour this morning to check some bend characteristics of the new mast.  This is why I chose a small D section. 

The rest of the day was spent packing up.  She’s pretty much ready to hook up to and roll away, once the Excursion is packed with all the gear.

More later.

-Ryan