Now I can turn my attention to the spars. I have decided that if I am to be able to sail with this rig on Tystie into my dotage, I have to make the whole thing as light and also as strong as is possible. It isn't possible to buy a suitable spec and temper of aluminium alloy here in long enough lengths; not is it possible to buy pultruded GRP tubes in long enough lengths. Wood is too heavy.

I have ordered several megabucks worth of carbon fibre braided sleeve. I'll have to do some trials before settling on an exact specification for the spars, but the basic principle is that several layers of the braided sleeve (which is like the braided outer of a braid/braid rope, but much bigger) are slid over a foam mandrel, wetted out with epoxy, pulled tight and hoisted to a vertical position to cure. 

Nothing will happen until after the NZ rally, because I want to sail alongside Footprints with her new rig, and my old rig; before taking my old rig off and starting on the spars. I'll keep you posted.

Cutting and hemming batten pockets all day, and adding a fender made from car seatbelt webbing with a piece of closed cell foam 20mm x 8mm underneath, to each of the forward ends. Not easy to do, but the softening of the contact against the mast makes it worth while.

Panels three to eight all seamed up.  The hard bit is to get the overlap in the broad seamed part right. I kneel on the cloth, with my knee on the inner end of the broad seamed triangle, and my knee acts as the former around which I pull the cloth into a smooth straight triangle and rub down the double-sided tape. When done, the edges of the cloth should be in a straight line, and sometimes this takes two or three attempts before it's right.

We finished cutting out and taping panel eight and the sleeve for the yard.

Then, before lunch, a row out to Tystie to fetch the power adaptor I'd forgotten (when will all countries standardise on the same power plugs and sockets, I wonder?) and to fetch a batten, for the size, and to measure the yard and boom.

After lunch, sewing. We seamed up the top two panels on each sail.