Hello Hello,

While I was sleeping / painting Shoestring's decks you worked hard on it.  I am really grateful. Thank you, thank you !!!

It is getting exciting and daunting but it is great to see the rig and the boat hull - even if it is 'not working' so to speak. Waiting to hear what the rake on Arne's proposal will achieve. 

Thanks Arne for all the drawings - it looks beautiful already. Imagine once she starts actually sailing. Paul offered to drop the Pete's sail plan into CAD so if you could send me your 'template' he can work on it. Thanks. 

I am getting some notion of the challenges I presented you with.  Sorry.

Am here with PJR studying it from page 90 onward to make  more  sense of it all. Sure Roger and I will discuss your comments over dinner tonight. Pete is away sailing - will update him on the developments once he is back (end of the week).

One thing seem to be clear to me:  It would be better  not to have a heavy (wooden) mast.  I like the idea of a wooden boat - wooden mast. Pete offered to help to make it, so I took him up on this, thinking it would be  'fun' too! I am happy to go with a composite mast. We could still have some 'fun' building a wooden top.

What would be the optimum mast diameter x thickness? Francis  might go offshore one day (not sure if with me in it!) so I'd like it to be extra strong. 

I read Arne's article on masts and calculations. I will work it out but would like your expert view on this.  

Paul suggested 110 diameter x 5mm.  

David said 100 diameter x 3mm.

Why don't I want to move the mast forward?

I understand that some structural deck reinforcement in forepeak would be required as well as adding a mast step. At this point there is no keel but just boat planks & 'ribs'. So the reinforcement would require to have a vertical 'leg' supporting the deck. This 'leg' would come right in a middle of a bunk, which is not ideal. 

I am not sure if this substantial reinforcement is required for a lighter mast I am now going to put in. If I can get away with making a heavy reinforcement internally then I don't mind so much where the mast is going to go. 

Any views on this reinforcement issue? 

I am checking with Murray (Francis's boat builder) to see what he thinks - re reinforcement. The boat is still in his yard. Its  transport is taking longer than expected....

Much appreciate all your help. 

Ahoy from  stillwaters of Stillwater !

Linda

Linda - why don't you want to move the mast to its logical position as you originally planned?

The head of the sail that I drew is 2.14m and the top batten is 2.57m long. Yes, the lower four panels can have the same 3D camber built in, maybe 8%, decreasing in the upper two panels.

I'm talking about WP_20170203_17_41_06_Pro.jpg which is the only other rig I'm aware of. It's a picture rather than a drawing, so I can't make a CAD drawing without being given the dimensions. My objections to it (without being able to be sure, because I don't know the dimensions) are:

• The parallelogram panels seem to be of different widths. There is no good reason for doing this.
• The luff lengths of the top two panels are too long. This makes the panel diagonals grow too short, resulting in excessive stagger. The luff length should either be as short as is practicable, as in PJR, or longer, as in Weaverbird's sail, to get the length of the diagonal correct.
• The sail is set too low on the boat, and will give trouble during a strong wind gybe with the tack getting dangerously low due to the large balance.
• The batten rise does not seem to be enough to get the diagonals of the lower panels correct.

Hello David,

Just got back from a gardening expedition and stopped off at the beach for a swim - bliss! 

I looked at the PJR Fig 15.1 & 15.2. I still would like to have a last panel sheeted in when reefing. Would this be possible?

Annie - great question, thanks. I was wondering about it too. 

Thanks!

Linda

The top batten is rarely sheeted, and on most rigs, included this one, it cannot be sheeted. It would cause problems, and solve none. If it's blowing hard enough to need only one panel, the top batten is lashed down - see PJR fig 15.1 and fig 15.2

Sorry, I'm not going to attempt to draw out the rig that you've made a model of, because a) I think it's not a very good rig, and b) I don't have enough information.

In NZ, tapered aluminium tubes seem to be hard to come by, so a hybrid mast is going to be the easy option: 5 or 6m of 100mm diameter x 3mm wall, with a wooden topmast extending it to 8m.