Annie has quite enough to do, if Fanshi is to be sailing this year. I offered to make a set of battens, from the 38mm GRP tube that I can get in the UK (there doesn't seem to be a source of equivalent quality in NZ) and Annie has kindly permitted me to do so.

The sail is to have hinged battens, with the panels cambered forward of the hinge and flat aft of the hinge. Both Annie and I are in favour of a sail that is flat in its after half, believing it to be better behaved than fully cambered panels, so all the camber is to be formed in the forward part of each panel.

The batten tubes need reinforcing in way of the hinges, to resist the tendency to burst the tubes. I have done this by first laying up a length of Kevlar tubular braid, then putting on a binding, or whipping,  of glass roving, then turning the Kevlar braid back over the glass to enclose it, wetting it out, and winding a length of peel-ply tape tightly over the layup until it is cured. Annie will probably wish to fill and fair these reinforcements, then paint the whole tubes, to keep the UV at bay.

The hinges are turned from 30mm dia nylon 66 bar, glass filled. Both tubes and hinges are cross-drilled at 5.5mm dia, using a bench drill, V block and vice to get the holes central. The holes in the hinges are then opened up with a tapered hand reamer, so that the centre of the hole is still 5.5mm dia, but when assembled, the tubes can take up an angle of 10˚ in the vertical direction as well as 12˚ in the horizontal.

My experience on Tystie was that the battens will tend to misbehave if only permitted to articulate in the horizontal plane; and my experience on Weaverbird has been that though the upper hinges are under compression, and the lower hinges are neither in compression nor tension, when on the wind, all the hinges are tending to pull apart when on a run in brisk conditions. It is difficult to get fore and aft lashings tight enough to resist this, so I have gone back to the bolted hinges that I used on Tystie's battens, but with this extra degree of freedom.

As a bonus, having the battens hinged will make it a lot easier to ship the bundle of finished battens from the UK down under to NZ.

David wrote:

The cockpit looks Absolutely Fabulous!

Well, someone had to say it. 

Why thank you, kind sir.  I couldn't resist the teak backrests; however far more to the point is that at least as a place for people to gather, it works.  Until the engine is hanging there, the rudders fitted and I'm sitting at the helm, I won't be able to tell you whether the rest works - but I'm hopeful. At anchor, I spend a lot of time in the cockpit, so I'm pleased that it is going to be a success for that.  I want to have a Lakatao-style shade-cloth canopy over part of it, but I shall have to do it slightly differently, because the whole boat is so much smaller.

TibVim update : Teak is beautiful, Varnish is marvellous !

Annie wrote:

Well, I drank my friend's bottle of Bollinger last weekend.  Many thanks, David (yet another David in my life!).  I've never had 'Bolly' before and it was absolutely, mind-bogglingly delicious!

I have updated my blog so that you can all gasp in awe at the cockpit.

The cockpit looks Absolutely Fabulous!

Well, someone had to say it. 

Well, that list of remaining work is very short compared to what you have already achieved to date. A lot of the jobs are short term goals such as making squab covers which well help you feel that all of a sudden you are rushing towards completion of the project. I think a bottle of bubbly at this stage is very well deserved!