(16) Sailing lessons and the end of the season time

Well after two weeks sailing I brought her ashore yesterday... probably the shortest sailing season ever!! Its time to take the lot off again and get the boat tucked up for winter and finish off all the painting and other jobs that I did'nt get around to..
But it served its purpose, the rig works really well running and broad reaches... pointing up? nah! its easier to put the engine on!!

 

Some of the simple lessons learnt..

• Make sure all the control lines are running freely before hoisting the sail.
• Try not to raise (or lower) the sail in one hit, do one panel at a time and take up the slack in the control lines as you go.
• Stow the loose lines into buckets or bags or whatever in the cockpit at all times, otherwise it will end up looking like a rats nest, and not being able to reef the sail (not good news in a squall!!)  and a half strangled dog is an unhappy dog!
• It took me ages to adjust the lines properly so they do not snag the lazy jacks (or each other)... each time I thought I had fixed it I found another snag... next time I will not attempt to assemble the control lines until I have launched the beast and she's swinging on the bouy... then I will do one line at a time fully raising the sail each time to check its OK...
• Its not as easy to see if the sail is set right... on a convensional rig, the luff  (t' the front edge of the sail) flutters when you are too tight to the wind... with all the battens there aint no flutter it just loses speed..
• On a conventional sail you pull in the main sheet (the rope that attaches to the back of the sail, the main control, really) when the sail is full, you give it another tug in and its bingo...off you go!  Basically, if the sail looks right it usually is right!
• With the junk rig the secret is to let the main sheet off, when the sail is not filling it just rotates like a weathercock (no flutters or thrashing about), you then pull the mainsheet in until you can feel the sail bite..the boat leans over a little and away you go... you do not give it another tug or the sail will stall - much scratching of head and wondering why you have slowed down and going sideways (weird!)  So, as the sail always looks right, its more the case that it has to feel right!
• As I expected, pointing up to wind is not as good as a bermudian rig, but saying that, the cones in the battens do make the sail curved and the result is not bad at all... also, the fact that you can alter the position of sail in relation to the mast (forward, backards, tilted, to one side or central) results in being able to adjust the centre of effort and so improve the pointing (I'm going to have hours of fun?!)
• I was amazed how settled and comfortable the boat felt... under engine alone, Bobtail is (frankly) a bloody cow, lurching all over the place like a drunken old whore!! ..... very quickly I found that once you are on a good steady run, by simply adjusting the control lines you can perfectly balance the boat, to the degree where at times I did'nt have to touch the wheel, a little tweak of the main sheet (or moving my position) was enough to steer with... unbelievable!

 

So was it worth the effort?  a big YES!!!! The results a far better than I expected and although I will have a few improvements I want to make, they are not significant, for example:
I will replace the main halliard with 8mm braided dacron rope (easier on the hands and less friction).
I will also put seperate block and line attached to the main halliard set up, so I can lower the whole lot to the deck...at the moment, because its a 4-1 arrangement the rope attaches to a becket on the top block, so you cant replace the rope without climbing the mast or removing it, not good!
I will beef up the lazy jack lines too, to make it easier to handle...
In the cabin I intend make compartments in the control rope stowage area to avoid tangles...

 

The one thing I am not entirely happy with is the way the sail lowers into the lazy jacks.... the front end does'nt catch all of the sail, about a foot of it flops around a bit so, unless you go out on deck and lash it to the boom, it looks like a load of untidy washing flapping around. If it was simply cosmetics I would'nt be concerned but my fear is that in very windy conditions, the sail wind could lift and fill the sail..not good news when you have reefed down?! You will recall that having to go out on deck is on my definite no no list, least of all when it is blowing a hooly!! So I will have to come up with something, I have tried moving the lazy jack front line forward a bit, but then the yard gets tangled up in it... which is even worse!! maybe I need to consider having a longer yard so it overhangs more? its a winter time hmmmmmm and reflect jobbie ?!

 

So thats it folks until next year ... I hope you found it interesting and if you any suggestions please let me know!!

(15) Launch and sailing

Well, as the weather finally settled down after the hurricane residue, there was a window for a couple of weeks with force 3-4s and reasonable conditions...still on springs too, so I thought, sod it forget all the cosmetics like painting, anti-fouling, cleaning up the mess etc etc.. the kettle works so lets get her in the water !

The problem having a mud mooring is that I get about 2 - 3 hours either side of high water, so to do day sailing (i.e getting back on the same tide) and not mooching around in the dark means it has to be a spring tide ...
For the non-boaties: tides (and weather!) dictate everything... the spring tides occur every two weeks, shortly after the full and new moons. Portsmouth Springs high water is around mid-day and midnight. Each day the the high water point is about 45 minutes later, until it becomes Neaps for a week, when the high water is about 6 am/pm.. very interesting is the impact of weather fronts too... when you get a low pressure front the water is not pressed down so much, so when a storm comes through the high water can be anything up to 2 metres higher... hence sea flooding and boats snapping their moorings etc etc ... interesting eh?

Enough of that! back to the plot... so I launched on the tail end of Spings and spent the next week (during neaps) at Port Solent Marina and then come back on the mud mooring for the next spings.. Port Solent is great but my mooring was right next to the restaurants: the smells coming over were wonderful and drove me bonkers! but at £16 a night ? what a nightmare!

Anyway, it meant I could get in a couple of weeks sailing before I would have to bring her ashore again because my insurance only covers April- September on the mooring (which is exposed to westerlies.. not a good place to be during the Autumn/Winter!)

So how did it go? amazing ....once I got the engine going!!! The bloody starter would'nt work.. my friend Bernie-the-Bosun" said have you tried shorting out the solenoid... now he could have been talking Urdu cos  me no understandy electrikery and such things! What it amounted after a demonstration is poking a screwdriver across thesolenoid terminals...after a squirt of 'starter gas' into the air intake (the pre-heater glow plug was'nt working either)... resulting in a gert great flash of sparks, a meter long flame out of the air intake and the engine exploding (literally) into life... what jolly fun!!

The launch day started as a Force 3 from the east (great) .. everything went fine.. I was on my own, chugging around the harbour, by this time the wind built up to a Force 6, my plan was to start gently but I thought Sod it I have to try out the sail... getting it up was hard work (even with a 4-1 halliard) but I got there, leaving the bottom panel reefed.. It went like a railway train ... on the beam reach (the fastest point of sailing, the wind coming in from the side) I was hitting 6.8 knots .... which does'nt sound much, but for my boat thats its top possible speed..
Another little note for the non-boaties: unless a boat can plane over the water, the speed of a displacement boat is dictated by its water line length... the longer the boat the faster it can go (there is a formula but I wont bore you).... what it amounts to is that you could have the biggest engine you like going full tilt and all it will do is push the boat down into the waves: it ain'nt going to go any faster moosh!!

After a couple of weeks I think I am starting to get a feel for the rig, it is very different to sailing a bermudian job..  I did'nt get any photos of her sailing but here's a few taken on the mooring:

(14) Control lines sorting out the jumble!

Excluding the mainsheet/sheetlets at the stern, there are nine (yes 9!!) control lines that are passed through blocks on the deck eyebolts fitted next to the mast. I will put in some photos in later,but in the meanwhile they are:

• The main halliard.. for hoisting and lowering the sail... 
• Lazy jacks: two lines (port and starboard) combined to a single line on the deck, they act as the topping lift and to catch and gather up the sail as it is dropped and support the reefed bundle when it is stowed. They need to be fully adjustable to to take up the various angles the boom may take depending on how the sail is set up... .
• The yard parrel.. this is fitted next to the halliard block and positions the yard towards the mast...
• The boom lift.... this is connected to a loop of webbing that passes around the mast below the boom that  holds the boom to the mast and with the lazy jacks, positions the boom vertically...
• Two Luff Parrel lines.. these are lines that pass through a series of blocks connected to the front (the luff) of the yard, battens and boom and then pass round the mast to position the horizontal position sail and allows the sail to be set up at different angles to the mast ...
• The tack line... a line between the boom and the deck, to keep the boom from lifting up when the sails are reefed.
• The balance line, similar to the tack line, but adjustable to pull the boom towards the mast, used to centre the sail over the boat when on a down wind run..

Some may not be needed, but until I have sailed the beast it's better to have an overkill and be able to remove them later if they are not needed... but whatever the result is, they have to be sorted out and run through to the cabin.... cos it's a real jumble sail....photo time!!!

The "before".... looking out to the deck.
















So the idea was to beef up the bulkhead, then drill some holes line them with 15mm copper pipe and pass the lines through....  the pipes are angled upwards so the water/rain will drain to the deck not the cabin....

The port side... these are the the lines that pull up the sail... the "up" lines... halliard and lazy jacks.. I also fitted a small winch mainly for lowering the halliard for reefing... if there is a lot of wind, the pressure could cause the line to snatch and give a bit of rope burn !

The lines are run to a couple of  6" cleats... these run along side the pilot seat (removed for now!!)

The starboard side is for the rest of the control lines ... these all pull down so not muck risk of snatching... you will see that each has a seperate cleat (not all fitted yet for the eagle eyed!!)

The lines will fall into a well next to the all important (repositioned) stove for t' kettle. with the fridge below for t' beer... all within reach of the pilot!! I have not made up my mind but each line will probably be on a hand-line type gizzie to avoid tangles!!

When the sails are down and its time for nibbles it has a handy top for the dishes of hor'de'derveries ... whatever they are called!!...

From the outside.... starboard side, pipes glassed in, before tidying up the holes.... looks 'orrible at the moment but all will be 'tiddly' when finished...

The deck hasa now been tidied up, I found that adjusting the lazy jacks is hard work when the sail is stowed so I added a 3-1 arrangement... easy job !!

(13) Control Lines - main sheet and sheetlets

I have now fitted the control lines and a bit of playing around before I launch.. so I will not assume anything until then but some observations, first the main sheet...
The main sheet set up is more complex than the normal single on a bermudian rig,  seperate lines are needed to control the yard, boom and each batten (referred to as "sheetlets") and in turn, by a series of blocks, to the main sheet, this seems complicated but are:
(1) Full reefs. When want to fully reef down (or stow the sail) you could simply release the halliard and the lot will fold down like a venician blind, good in an emergency, but if you did this there is a good chance that the sheets and sheetlets will tangle up and rehoisting will mean going out on the deck to sort the mess out... which defeats the aim of  not needing to leave the cabin.. so the sheet should be pulled in at the same time.
(2) Partial reefs, as the weather picks up the great thing of this type of reefing is that because of the simplicity, you just let go a panel at a time... you not need to anticipate the what sort of reefing you will need before you set off (as you would do with a bermudian jobbie)... cool eh? But what I am not sure of yet is if the weight of the battens (etc) that have been dropped is enough to hold it down or if the downward pull on the each sheetlet progressively holds the yard/batten down ?
(3) Finally, when sailing and you pull on the main sheet ,the same pressure needs to be applied to each sheetlet to avoid twists.
There are so many versions on how you can set it up, I have decided to keep it simple and see what happens... photo time!!

The new stern arrangement to keep the main sheet blocks and lines above the hood... I had two plates welded on to bolt the contraption to the pull-pit and enable the fitting of two wire strops to give a bit of lateral strength...

A close up showing the wires etc...



























A close up of the deck fittings:

The sheet needs three seperate blocks on a mount (made from bolting a couple of aluminium angles together)....

Drill some holes add some shackles to attach the blocks and with a couple of "U" bolts, the lot was fixed to the stern gizzie..

I will add a picture of how the sheets n' sheetlets later!! In the meanwhile this is what my grandaughter Mia thinks about it...

(12) Fitting the sail and string... lots of it

Sail made... check.
Battens fitted.....check
Ropes .....

At the planning stage I drew up a "Rigging Warrent"... a simple spread-sheet ... to work out how much rope, blocks, thimbles, cleats etc.etc. I would need.... again the good old Practical Junkrig shines with examples and advice on rope sizes .... I supplemented this with some other improvements I picked up from the Junk Rig Association publications.... and trotted off to the goods old boat jumble and about 200mrs of string and other bits of hardware... it was go,go,go time...

After much fiddling about it was ready to hoist:

The big hoist...

Please ignore the tea stains down the side ... clomping around decks and cups of tea do'nt go together mate!!!

At this point there are just the "lifting" lines: halliards, lazy jacks and boom hoist.. I will go into the control lines later.....

Meanwhile, back to the sewing machine, I was very impressed with the idea of a combined sail catcher come lazy jacks come boom cover... so I bought 4mr acrylic canvas (1.5mr wide), 2 x 2mr zips, 3mr of 2" velcro and after only 2 days slaving away (I had thought it would take a couple of hours?!) ... total cost? about £80 ... it looks like this:

There are two pieces, one which is a square shape, the sail-catcher, that is permanently attached to the boom, the top of the catcher has zips inside and is reinforced with two wooden battens (1 1/2" x 1/2" coated with GRP) these are slotted into batten pockets and then tied to the lazy jack lines (through eye-lets):

When it is fitted it looks like this (ignore the white PVC, this was my temporary cover to keep the sails dry during the showers every 5 minutes!) also the lazy jack lines are temporariliy lashed to the catcher's battens...

The 2nd piece, the boom cover,  is zipped to the sail catcher when its "time to go home and drink beer and prattle on about sailing to your mates time" the shape is so...

When fitted together it looks like this...

 After the two bits are zipped together the front piece hangs over the sail, everthing, lines included are tucked away nice n' tidy and the two bottom seams and ends are closed by velcro strips, the final thing looks thike this:

One point to note... on conventional bermudian rigs the catcher is the full length of the boom, in this design it is only 1/2 the length of the boom....

why is that then, moosh, says you ?

Because, matie, the boom on a junk-rig is is fully adjustable, says I, the whole sail can be slid sideways, when running down-wind it is centred over the boat......none of that awful, dangerous, pitching and rolling rubbish you get with the bermudan set up where the sail is on one side of the boat.... so, if you had a full length catcher it would rub against the mast ? Yes/No? simples!!!

Now you are getting the idea why the junk rig is an advanced form of sailing compared to the conventional sailing arrangements!!!!