S2 6.7 Junk Rig Conversion

  • 11 Nov 2021 07:33
    Reply # 12118280 on 12117257
    Deleted user
    Scott wrote:

    I cleaned out the crack around the rudder. It all seems to be substantial foam or glass after the first 5mm or so. Last night the temperature dropped to 28F. I need to keep a close eye on the weather forecast and the thermometer in my garage. I hope there is still time left this year for mixing epoxy outside.

    Edit: I need to find a way to be in New Zealand by this time of year. A much bigger boat, maybe.

    Hard to imagine the temperature getting so cold that epoxy work needs to stop, I don't think that would happen anywhere in New Zealand. I live in the north of the country and although where I live early morning temperatures in the winter can get down to zero degrees Celsius, it does not stay that cold for long with daytime temperatures during the winter up to 15 degrees or more Celsius. So provided I use a fast hardener epoxy work is possible year round. When I was building my catamaran which was mostly outside, only part of the structure had a roof over it, I kept building and doing epoxy work throughout the winter.

    I did for a while live in one of the coldest parts of New Zealand in the bottom of the South Island in an area known as Fiordland, and sometimes day time temperatures hovered at or just below zero degrees Celsius, but then there were also a lot of much warmer days. I do remember one day flying from our home city of Auckland back down to Queenstown which was our closest airport to where I worked and lived, and I went from a temperature of 14 degrees Celsius in Auckland to minus 4 degrees in Queenstown just two hours later, but that was very alpine. That was in June which is right into the depth of our winter. You definitely need to be able to fly south for the winter!

    Yep, if there is a crack in the rudder blade I would just patch it up and then not worry about it. Put the extra money towards the next boat.

    Last modified: 11 Nov 2021 07:35 | Deleted user
  • 10 Nov 2021 21:31
    Reply # 12117257 on 12113681
    David wrote:

    [...] You will be descending very quickly into winter, and down here in New Zealand we are finally starting to get some summer like weather and are looking forward to summer holidays and lots of sailing within the next 7 to 8 weeks. 

    I cleaned out the crack around the rudder. It all seems to be substantial foam or glass after the first 5mm or so. Last night the temperature dropped to 28F. I need to keep a close eye on the weather forecast and the thermometer in my garage. I hope there is still time left this year for mixing epoxy outside.

    Edit: I need to find a way to be in New Zealand by this time of year. A much bigger boat, maybe.

    Last modified: 11 Nov 2021 01:22 | Anonymous member
  • 09 Nov 2021 18:48
    Reply # 12113681 on 12113583
    Deleted user
    Scott wrote:

    Hi David,

    Thanks for the response. I think the upper part of the rudder is solid glass and polyester and I suspect the lower section is fiberglass with a foam core. Being unsure is part of my problem. I don't know if the 'soft stuff' in the lower section is foam and is expected to be soft, or if it is soft because it has deteriorated.

    I was calling the section that is generally underwater the 'red' section and the part that sits above the water in the rudder head the 'white' section. I guess it is more like a section with remnants of red paint and not really solid red. I attached cropped and labeled photo.

    That rudder blade looks to me like it should still be very substantial, and if there is no real flexing or bending in it I think it should last a long time. For the size of boat and the shape of the blade it will be of fairly robust construction. I would have thought the area where your rudder is most likely to fail is at the hinge point and the upper rudder, that is where I would be looking for any signs of failure. So if it were me I would carry our any essential spot repairs to the blade, and check the upper part of the rudder, and save myself a lot of money. A good way to check the overall rudder structure is with the boat out of the water and the blade as much as possible in the lowered sailing position, grab the bottom of the blade and try and move it from side to side. If there is no excessive flexing in the structure then it should be fine, especially considering the size of boat. The foam core of the lower rudder blade will be soft. If the blade is not unduly heavy, and does not have a lot of water seeping out of any cracks etc, then there has probably been little water ingress. But even that should not matter, the strength of the blade being in the fiberglass shell, and even old fiberglass does not deteriorate unless it has osmosis which would be unlikely for your colder climate. The only other thing which would cause the fiberglass to delaminate and fail would be impact damage.

    I know it is very easy for me to say this being thousands of miles away. You will be descending very quickly into winter, and down here in New Zealand we are finally starting to get some summer like weather and are looking forward to summer holidays and lots of sailing within the next 7 to 8 weeks. 

    Last modified: 09 Nov 2021 23:48 | Deleted user
  • 09 Nov 2021 18:17
    Reply # 12113583 on 12112173
    David wrote:

    [...]Is your rudder of fiberglass construction, and maybe with a foam core? I could not see anything in the photos which indicated a serious problem The strength of the rudder would be in the fiberglass either side. 

    I couldn't quite see where the red section is [...] 

    Hi David,

    Thanks for the response. I think the upper part of the rudder is solid glass and polyester and I suspect the lower section is fiberglass with a foam core. Being unsure is part of my problem. I don't know if the 'soft stuff' in the lower section is foam and is expected to be soft, or if it is soft because it has deteriorated.

    I was calling the section that is generally underwater the 'red' section and the part that sits above the water in the rudder head the 'white' section. I guess it is more like a section with remnants of red paint and not really solid red. I attached cropped and labeled photo.

    1 file
    Last modified: 09 Nov 2021 18:18 | Anonymous member
  • 09 Nov 2021 06:22
    Reply # 12112173 on 12111113
    Deleted user
    Scott wrote:

    A couple of times this summer, while moving through a narrow channel with confused waves, it occurred to me that it would be very, very, bad if my rudder failed right at that moment. 

    With the boat in storage the rudder is now in my garage for inspection. I added a photo album showing the current state of my rudder. I chipped away at the outer layer with a pick in a couple of locations. In general the 'stuff' under the cracks in the white section are solid and very difficult for me to press into with the pick. The 'stuff' under the crack in the red section is soft and easy for me to dig out with the pick.

    I also took some measurements to get a quote for a professional replacement. The quote came back at something like half the amount I paid for the boat.

    So I am trying to decide between a few options.

    1. Pay over $2k for a new fiberglass rudder.
    2. Pay a little less for an HDPE kick-up rudder.
    3. Grind out the cracks in the rudder until I hit something solid and then use thickened epoxy plus fiberglass to repair it.

    I don't think can make my own new fiberglass rudder. I think this would be so time consuming that I would not be able to finish any other boat projects this winter. 

    Does anyone have an opinion on this rudder? The price seems good, but I wonder if plain HDPE will be rigid enough. Over time I imagine it could bend back and forth and eventually fail.

    This is not exactly a junk-rig specific topic, but I enjoy interacting with the people here in our little junk rig cult more than the sailing community in general. :)

    If no one has an opinion to share I will try to find some other S2 6.7 owners.

    I do have some rudder experience in that just 8 months after we returned to New Zealand on Footprints following our offshore voyage to New Caledonia an incident occurred which lead me to inspect the condition of her solid timber rudder, and I found that a large part of the rudder stock was full of rot, and had no doubt been in that condition during our two ocean passages, so of course there were panic thoughts of 'that could have failed mid ocean'. I think the thing that saved our bacon was the fact that there was a solid 25mm thick teak rudder cheek glued to each side of the rudder stock. Anyway I made a new rudder and in the process improved the shape of the rudder which was very beneficial to the handling characteristics of 'Footprints'.

    Is your rudder of fiberglass construction, and maybe with a foam core? I could not see anything in the photos which indicated a serious problem The strength of the rudder would be in the fiberglass either side. If the rudder is fiberglass, and there were concerns about the condition, and it were my rudder, I would carry out fiberglass repairs to the existing rudder. If there were areas of concern I would grind back to clean fiberglass, with tapered edges, and then re-laminate with fiberglass to strengthen the area of concern. I would not use epoxy for this, but rather polyester resin which would have been used in the original construction. If you were really concerned about the rudder condition you could seriously sand back the outer surface and then laminate on a couple of layers woven rovings, using polyester resin, and over the final layer apply a layer of peel ply to give a smooth almost paint ready finish surface. But that rudder should still be very strong given the size of boat, and certainly you should not need to splash out hundreds of dollars on a new rudder.

    I couldn't quite see where the red section is, There looked to be some damage at the bottom of the rudder which is to be expected for a boat of that age. The rudder could also be hollow being made up of two halves glued together. If there were any splitting or separation of the join that would be very easy to repair by grinding back a layer and then applying a couple of layers of fiberglass tape,

    Last modified: 09 Nov 2021 06:37 | Deleted user
  • 08 Nov 2021 21:03
    Reply # 12111113 on 6872873

    A couple of times this summer, while moving through a narrow channel with confused waves, it occurred to me that it would be very, very, bad if my rudder failed right at that moment. 

    With the boat in storage the rudder is now in my garage for inspection. I added a photo album showing the current state of my rudder. I chipped away at the outer layer with a pick in a couple of locations. In general the 'stuff' under the cracks in the white section are solid and very difficult for me to press into with the pick. The 'stuff' under the crack in the red section is soft and easy for me to dig out with the pick.

    I also took some measurements to get a quote for a professional replacement. The quote came back at something like half the amount I paid for the boat.

    So I am trying to decide between a few options.

    1. Pay over $2k for a new fiberglass rudder.
    2. Pay a little less for an HDPE kick-up rudder.
    3. Grind out the cracks in the rudder until I hit something solid and then use thickened epoxy plus fiberglass to repair it.

    I don't think can make my own new fiberglass rudder. I think this would be so time consuming that I would not be able to finish any other boat projects this winter. 

    Does anyone have an opinion on this rudder? The price seems good, but I wonder if plain HDPE will be rigid enough. Over time I imagine it could bend back and forth and eventually fail.

    This is not exactly a junk-rig specific topic, but I enjoy interacting with the people here in our little junk rig cult more than the sailing community in general. :)

    If no one has an opinion to share I will try to find some other S2 6.7 owners.

    Last modified: 08 Nov 2021 21:05 | Anonymous member
  • 08 Nov 2021 20:49
    Reply # 12111075 on 11134770
    David wrote:
    Scott wrote:

    .

    David: Thank you for sharing your observations about my rig. I welcome any and all suggestions for improvement from any JRA member. If anyone thinks some part of my boat is ugly, please let me know what I can do to improve! I would like the finish on the tabernacle to look a little nicer, but I don't really know how to improve it.

    It is not about ugly but more about helping where I can see the rig is not working the way it should, and it seemed to me that the middle of those upper 3 sheeted battens was being pulled more than the battens above and below, which would suggest that the sheetlets are incorrectly set up, and to me, too short. But you have had only one season of sailing whereas I had 'Footprints' with her junk rig for 12 years so in that time one learns quite a lot about how these sails should work. By the time you have fiddled for a couple of seasons you will have figured things out. But the important thing is that you are enjoying the boat with her new rig.

    Your tabernacle is always going to stand out because it is quite a significant structure on such a small boat. Maybe painting it the same colour as the rest of the deck will make it blend in more? 

    Hi David,

    I suppose ugly was not really the right word for me to use. Anything that is not working correctly looks ugly to me. I thought the extra pull on that batten was some expected part of the 'anti-twist' behavior of the sheets. I am appreciative when you and others point out something that is wrong with my rig.

    The parts of the deck and cockpit that I painted last year looked much nicer, out in the sun, than the old gel coat. It was also MUCH easier to clean the bird poo, and whatever else, off the new paint. I am planning to paint the tabernacle, deck and cockpit this winter. We will see if the plans work out.

    Last modified: 08 Nov 2021 21:09 | Anonymous member
  • 02 Oct 2021 06:32
    Reply # 11134770 on 11133128
    Deleted user
    Scott wrote:

    .

    David: Thank you for sharing your observations about my rig. I welcome any and all suggestions for improvement from any JRA member. If anyone thinks some part of my boat is ugly, please let me know what I can do to improve! I would like the finish on the tabernacle to look a little nicer, but I don't really know how to improve it.

    It is not about ugly but more about helping where I can see the rig is not working the way it should, and it seemed to me that the middle of those upper 3 sheeted battens was being pulled more than the battens above and below, which would suggest that the sheetlets are incorrectly set up, and to me, too short. But you have had only one season of sailing whereas I had 'Footprints' with her junk rig for 12 years so in that time one learns quite a lot about how these sails should work. By the time you have fiddled for a couple of seasons you will have figured things out. But the important thing is that you are enjoying the boat with her new rig.

    Your tabernacle is always going to stand out because it is quite a significant structure on such a small boat. Maybe painting it the same colour as the rest of the deck will make it blend in more? 

  • 01 Oct 2021 16:21
    Reply # 11133128 on 6872873

    Thank you for the suggestion Arne.

    Yesterday I went out to the boat and tried to rig up something with small blocks for the sheetlets. I think the lower span with two blocks looks OK. Trying to use three blocks for the upper spans did not work so well.

    I am still planning to haul the boat for the winter on Sunday, so I will need to wait 7 months or so before I can try again. I will likely try to make a soft euphroe following your write up.

    David: Thank you for sharing your observations about my rig. I welcome any and all suggestions for improvement from any JRA member. If anyone thinks some part of my boat is ugly, please let me know what I can do to improve! I would like the finish on the tabernacle to look a little nicer, but I don't really know how to improve it.

    Last modified: 01 Oct 2021 22:18 | Anonymous member
  • 30 Sep 2021 00:31
    Reply # 11129789 on 6872873
    Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Scott,
    It appears that you have the same friction problem as I detected on my Ingeborg this spring. If you reread that write-up and in addition check this year’s appendix to it, you will find that I replaced that single thimble up there with a ‘soft euphroe’. This has cut the friction enough to make the upper sheetlet set well.

    Arne


       " ...there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in junk-rigged boats" 
                                                               - the Chinese Water Rat

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