More time in the studio.

I love working under a roof.  Next time I do this I’m renting a warehouse so I can live and work around the clock.  At the moment I can only be at Cat 5 with a chaperon because of insurance issues.  This is good and bad, because I’m forced to use volunteers during the weekend, but bad because I cannot stay there putting in 18 hour days, which I would love to do right now. 

Today my long time friend and default brother Daniel helped me.  He spent the whole day preparing the bottom a bit and making backing plates, while I solved some rigging problems. 

In the following picture you will see the jib lead system.  I’m using a 6:1 for the inboard lead and a 3:1 for the outboard with the 1/8″ Samson AmSteel that I just received.  I’m using different purchases because the jib is always trying to pull outboard anyway and when you are sheeting that far outboard the loads are usually less than they are upwind.  The question is how well it work in the mid range setting.

And now for the forestay adjuster.  As a forestay I’m going to test Samson AS78 which is basically SK78 Dyneema.  This will allow me to bring it all the way to the deck and aft with an eye splice and thimble.  It will cascade twice from there to make a 4:1 purchase that is adjustable from a clutch on the cabin top.  The reason I want to bring it all the way to the deck is so there is no enlargement of the stay above the forestay attachment with either multi part purchases or thimbles.  I suspect that would create problems when reefing the jib and probably force me to detach jib hanks in order to lower the jib to the deck. 

This is just a temporary setup to get the spliceing lengths sorted out.  I need to order a couple thimbles from Precourt for the final product.

And just in case anybody was curious what I do when I cannot work on my boat.  Well I was stuck with the family for Christmas and my Aunt Katie brought my Mom a Poodle calendar, which she does every year.  My Mom has poodles, which drive me crazy, so I went through the entire calender and added people’s eyes from a Vanity Fair magazine.  This poodle has David Schwimmer’s eyes.  I also ate a bunch of stuffing and turkey.

Bye now.

-R

Merry X-Mas!

I’m in Fort Myers, FL visiting my family.  It’s a lot of fun to see my Mom, Sister and Brother.  I’m now fat.  Before Leaving Louisiana I received an early Christmas present from Samson www.samsonrope.com .   This is the initial general rigging.  A lot of 12 strand Amsteel (dyneema) and AS78 for making loops and other rigging tid bits.  Also 500 feet of 6mm Warpspeed for halyards, all white with black fleck (dyneema with polyester cover).  I’m using dyneema everywhere because it is more reliable than vectran.  You can tie it in knots, you can leave it in the sun, you can bend it a million times and not worry about it exploding.

On a funny note one of the many little things I requested was 75 feet of 1/8″ dyneema,  and Samson decided to unload a reel of back order that was sitting around the warehouse.  So instead of 75′ they sent me 3,280′ feet of black 1/8″ dyneema (the bottom reel in the picture).  That should last for a while.

Have a safe holiday.  I’ll be back in Louisiana on the 26th.

-Ryan

Untitled

 I had help today with the boat from my Dad and good friend Daniel.  They taped off the topsides for painting.

 Meanwhile I ground out a rebate for the speedo in front of the canard case, and one aft for the depth sounder. 

Then Daniel and I worked into the night attaching more deck hardware.  One of the problems with doing all the deck hardware at one is that I don’t know where everything needs to go yet.  For instance I’m not quite sure what solution I’m going to use for the below deck purchase system to pull the mast forward and aft.  I think that will be the last bit to go on when the mast is finally stepped.  Whatever I end up with it has to be very strong, because the load on the rig is quite high at the deck partners.

-R

Unwanted discoveries.

Well actually, it’s good we found it, but I didn’t want to add anything to the work list.  Clark’s partner’s, Royden and Sean, found some cracks in the bottom radiating from the canard case.  I saw them, but just assumed (probably out of laziness)  that they were just cracks in the fairing compound.  The guys at Cat 5 suggested that it might be in the laminate so I ground a section out to discover they were right.  (see below)

So Clark prescribed my grinding off the skin in those areas and relaminating them with carbon.  I’d doing the prep work and Cat 5 Composites is doing the lamination and vaccum bagging. 

  Myrna came with the typical mushroom throughhull fittings which always bothered me, so this gives us a good oportunity to make the speedometer and depth sounder flush mounted.  I’m really trying to spin this to myself.

-Ryan

Home coming at Cat 5 Composites.

Well, we are back at the place it all started, Cat 5 Composites.  Clark Thompson (my co-skipper from the 1-2) lined it all up and we will be painting the bottom inside.  That’s right, we are finally going inside!  I’ve had enough of the fickle weather.  Before we go inside though I need to finish sanding the baltoplate copper bottom off, which is really fun, so we can put the new e-Paint on which will be white and really nice looking.  I’m also fairing the bulb a little just to fill the hallows and gouges from oyster shells. 

Doesn’t that look fun?  That’s copper dust, which is really great for you!

And here are my creepy neighbors.

They are called IOR boats.  A half tonner and a quarter tonner according to the ancients.  Actually they were both Katrina boats given away.  The white quarter tonner “Looney Toons” was donated to myself and Clark to play with a while back, but we were so busy with Myrna Minkoff that we never got around to fixing her.  All I did was remove some bottom paint and drill a 1.5″ hole behind the keel so she would drain after the frequent rain showers we get down here.

One day.

-Ryan

Snow day.

It snowed today in South Louisiana.  Very unusual for this place.  Of course that means the whole state of Louisiana shuts down.  I was supposed to drive Ms. Minkoff across Lake Pontchartrain today, but there was too much question about whether the bridges would be open, then I found out Clark’s guy’s were all taking the day off.  So, resigned myself to indoor heating and will have to do it tomorrow. 

Kind of cool, but I hope I never have to see this while I’m sailing. 

-Ryan

Bits and pieces.

I worked well into last night to get some fittings properly installed in the cockpit last night, because I knew that it would rain all day today.  So this morning my friend Pat and I un-stepped the mast right before the rain came.  I’ll de-rig it for the experts to finish, and get Ms. Minkoff prepared for a road trip to New Orleans to do the bottom at Clark Thompson’s shop, Cat 5 Composites.  That trip will happen on Thursday. 

Right now I’m doing some drawings for Dave Bolyard and Dave Ullman, who are together at the Ullman Sails Meeting in Dallas.  Hopefully the upwind sails will be designed by the end of the week.  Beyond that I’ve been trying to finalise the branding on sails and hull with Sevenstar, who are shipping the boat.  I’ve been shopping the material around trying to find them the best price, and sending e-mails to some car wrapping places for doing graphics on the hull.  That’s what rainy days are for though.

It stands.

Well it’s up.   My friend Jeremy and I stepped the mast yesterday with a borrowed gin pole.  It was no problem to step, and much easier than the old heavy aluminum mast.   By moving a set of shrouds inboard as I have I’ve changed the sheeting angle of the jib from 18 degrees off center to 12, which I hope will improve our point ability.

Here it is with the mast upright, all the way forward in the deck partners and headstay at it’s shortest length.

And here it is with the mast raked all the way aft in the deck partners and the forestay eased out.

Because the carbon mast is a lot stiffer than the aluminum one, I can’t induce as much pre-bend in this mast as I could with the ali rig.  This will effect my ability to flatten the mainsail as much as I used to be able to do when the wind picked up.  However because of the adjustable rake, I will be able to move the center of effort aft in light air which should help prevent the lee helm Myrna gets upwind in less than 5 knots of wind.  I will also cut the spinnakers for this mast aft position so I can squeeze in a bit more sail area with the weight a bit farther aft.  For regular upwind work and close reaching I will set the rig in a more vertical position.

-Ryan

Mmmm…

Not too much happening today.  I finalized some sponsorship stuff with Sevenstar Yacht Transport www.sevenstar.nl/,  mailed in some stuff to Artforms www.artformsinc.comto have the new t-shirts made and wired 500 Euros to Classe Mini for next season.  Around lunch time my Dad and I headed down to the boat to start installing the deck hardware that had been dry fit.  That meant making compression posts out of G-10 tubes and cutting out G-10 backing plates for all the new little bits.  All these little things add up time wise.  Having my Dad’s help here was great as he did most of the cutting out parts while I figured out where they all went. 

Me making compression posts.  (See Lia, pictures of people doing things and stuff:)

We beaded a bunch of stuff today for the traveler and runner system.  It will probably be too cold tonight for it to cure, but should be fine tomorrow around lunch time.  Once it’s cured I’ll tighten up the nuts so there is a good barrier of sealant between all the mated parts.  When It’s cold I use  Bostik Marine 920 www.bostik-us.com because it cures in colder weather.  When it’s hot out I use 5200 because the Bostik kicks too quickly in the sun.  All of this stuff is really tenacious, but it’s perfect for offshore work. 

(Pic of my Dad grinding on G-10)

 

Then we came home to have Egg Nogg Daiquiris (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daiquiri) with the family.  Those things are potent.  Just another example of Gulf Coast awesomeness.

We are going to try to step the mast tomorrow.  We have been waiting for the water to rise, but it keeps getting blown out of the lake by strong NW winds, so we are going to step it right on the trailer.

-Ryan

Traveler detail.

Yesterday I spent about three hours at the dentist having a tooth prepared for a crown. It was super fun!

Anyway it was also rainy all day, so I didn’t get much done.
However here are pictures of the traveler control lines.

In the first picture you see the setup all tensioned up with a line running to the end of the traveler attached to the triple block that goes to the cleat. I’m not exactly sure yet where that line will terminate but it will be something like that.

In the next picture you can see the line slackens as you ease the car to the end without offering any resistance for dropping the traveler. That’s a good thing.

Thank you Lewmar for all the toys to experiment with.

-Ryan