Sail over to Tallinn went okay. Close-hauled for most of the trip, except for the last 10 miles (around 140 in total). All in all the sail worked well. Didn't experience any problems with the hinges, they articulated exactly as they should. Interestingly, the performance seemed noticeably worse on the "bad" port tack. People usually say it doesn't matter much, but I really thought it did and this makes me want to complete the upgrade to a wing sail some time in the future (next summer probably). I can reuse all of the battens and hinges so it's just a matter of building the noses and adding some canvas around the front part of the sail.
Some problems:
- The starboard lazyjack grommet was ripped out of the canvas but fortunately the port one held so I could jury rig it to the aft end of the boom, which worked fine for the rest of the trip. Need to further reinforce the triangle that holds the jack.
- The dyneema I used for the batten parrels loosened up the constrictor knots so I had to tighten them once. I will need to change them to either double constrictors or lock the ends somehow.
- The sail has chafed at the batten pockets where the battens rubbed against the mast. No surprise there, I had intended to add some doubling (and plastic hose around the batten for dampening noise) but simply forgot about it. Easy fix.
- The dog house and cockpit sides oscillates/flexes in response to the mast when running into waves. I found it somewhat concerning. Even if it holds now, GRP becomes brittle over time if allowed to flex like this right? Also, methinks something like a knockdown might rip off the whole dog house, which is not a particularly pleasant prospect. The dog house is made in a single GRP laminate, so it might be a solution to laminate a new inner layer of GRP with something in between, to form a sandwiched construction. Maybe also add a partial bulkhead ahead of the companionway, which would also enable me to move the galley there from its current position forward behind the main bulkhead.
Ash: I actually had some spinnaker cloth that I indended to make a telltale or two from but I forgot it in Finland. The canvas is regular polytarp, cost me a whooping €55 for 85 sqm of it. Now that I know that the rig works I might invest more money for some better canvas. Given my experience with this one I could probably knock up a new one in 3-5 days.
Dennis: Here's the CAD drawing I made of the hinges, which was used to machine them.
Arne: I hadn't seen Victor's cones, they're quite similar to mine except that mine are longer, the ends are 10 mm in diameter. Mine have a hole in the center as well, and the battens are tied to each other using dyneema in a figure eight. Everything held together during the trip but I need to take out a batten or two to check for chafe as I can imagine the edges of the holes in the aluminium can be quite rough on the rope.
I'll upload pictures of the different build phases to my blog probably some time during the weekend.