paxfish
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Posts posted by paxfish
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Agreed on all points.
I'm going to mess with rudder depth a bit more this weekend.
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We also shortened our rudders.
Now that is interesting. Did it affect weather helm?
Tell me about your thought process and the result. I sailed in light air yesterday with the rudders halfway down and found it to be fine. I am going to try in heavy air (when some comes in!)
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No problem at all!
I sincerely appreciate you guys watching over me as I figure out this Southern hemisphere contraption!
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Glad you're here. I've been the new guy for several months and fear that I have been starting to get on everyone's nerves!
Your turn....
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Martin -
I did read that article and confirmed that there is Ackermann compensation built in. By referring me to your excellent article, are you suggesting that it may be incorrect and perhaps caused this failure?
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EXCELLENT! I knew I put this post in the right place!
Short Term fix under way. Full rebuild using the tips provided here is scheduled for my winter (5 months from now).
As interest, Ackermann is built in. That little 10cm tab where the tiller crossbar mounts takes care of it.
Also, upon closer inspection this morning I found that the line that limits the travel of the rudders was broken. I think the builder put it there to "keep it real" during a tight turn. It limits travel to about 45 degrees. This may have been the spark for the failure, though I realize that the cassette was somewhat under-built. I replaced the line with a bit of Dyneema.
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Thanks Fellas.
My current plan is to:
1)Grind off the paint
2) Wax the rudder blade, cover it in wax paper and slide it back into the rudder head to get everything lined up.
3) Repair the cracks with epoxy and 404 filler.
4) re-glass the Gudgeons.
5) Cut away the thin cheek panels, and glass in new ones.
6) Fair and paint.
Anybody want to add/remove steps here? -
I come before you humbled yet again. Perhaps I'm pushing this boat a bit harder than the previous owner?
During a gybe yesterday at about 8 knots, I heard a POP and lost most of my steerage. We quickly got the motor going and dropped the sails. We anchored up in the lee of an island, secured the blade and motored home. We may have hit something - there has been a bit of debris out there this week due to big storms. Great! Another project!
I'm guessing the lower gudgeon is designed to break before the rudder blade in the event of an impact.
The rudder blade blew out the back of the lower gudgeon and twisted the upper gudgeon severely enough that I think I need to reglass it as well. The cheek was badly torn on one side. There are several pictures here: https://imgur.com/a/V0pZ4
I need short term fix to get up and running for the long weekend coming up. A longer term fix can be discussed further down this thread. I'm not sure of the process to rebuild this thing, but am certainly willing to try. How would you tackle this?
The rudder blade is undamaged.
The drawings call for 200 strands of gunstock for each gudgeon, 1135 triax for the cheeks and 3 layers of triax between the upper gudgeon and tiller.
I'll post this on boatdesign.net also, but I think a lot of you guys have actually done this work on this type of boat, so I figured this to be the best place!
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Very cool, Martin. Looks like the fairing job paid off and the gloss is great!
After going through all that, what were your final lessons learned with regard to prep, paint and application?
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Ed - I was curious as to what the edge of your tramp looks like. Do you have a pic handy?
Here is how the 6mm glass rods on the inside edge pocket flex when under load (I'm standing on the tramp) - they distribute the load among many attachment points. Again, I think that 12 mm pvc would also do a nice job here.
Let us know what you end up doing...
As interest, the guy who built my GBE/Wildfire glassed a 3cm ledge of cedar along the inside gunnels through which the outer tramp edge is through bolted. It seems to be holding up well with no rot after 13 years. There is a very thin 3mm or so aluminum strip along the top. The tramp material is folded three times at the edge, a hole melted through with a hot phillips screwdriver. Through bolt is 6mm +nylok nut and everything well caulked with 3m 4000 series.
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Here in the US, I got mine at the Home Improvement Store. They are about 6 mm diameter and are know as "Driveway Markers"
In retrospect, I think that 12mm PVC would work just as well or even better (assuming your edge pockets can handle the extra diameter)
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EXCELLENT! I suppose that sometimes the best action is "don't look up!"
I did run out and buy several lengths/diameters of PVC this morning. I want to enter a cruising class 18 mile race in July, and need at least a modicum of sail trim. So I'll keep fiddling with it.
The NOR calls for roughly 10K upwind, 10K downwind and 10K of reach to the finish. Rinse and repeat on Day 2.
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So, Tennant described building battens in the plans using lengths of PVC pipe and inserting a smaller diameter pipe in the aft end to stiffen the leech. No dimensions or anything. Sort of a trial-and-error process I suppose.
Right now, I have some pretty floppy glass battens that tend to reverse-camber toward the leech when I put the boat under pressure upwind. I have attempted to mitigate this by stiffening the existing floppy battens with some additional Hobie battens along the after portion, In one batten, I did the PVC pipe thing and that seemed to create a better, but not great shape. I've reduced the issue by about 50%
What are you guys using for battens? I have fairly large batten pockets that can easily handle PVC pipe of roughly 3cm diameter. When you have a sail built, are the batten specs called out by the sailmaker?
Again, My sails were sewn by the builder in his basement and I'm looking for an interim solution for the next year or so after which I hope to buy a new main.
If it isn't obvious, my goal to improve upwind performance.
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Thanks Guys - those comments are very helpful.
(composing next question./...
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Guys - Are you actively rotating your wingmast on various points of sail? Similar to our Hobie 16, my Wildfire/GBE mast seems to find a happy spot on it's own without me having to adjust the line on the rotator.
When I say happy, I mean that the backside of the mast transitions nicely into the leeward side of the sail at various points of sail. Are there any issues with this? Certainly, on a broad reach, I can see that the leeward shroud (Dyneema) is touching the mast at the hounds (although from deck level, no apparent chafe.)
Do you all see any issues with this?
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Terrapin got about 10 hours of use this weekend with various day sails up to 10 people. Remarkably, nothing broke! And I've pretty much determined that investing in new sails is worthwhile.
Despite her crappy main, we hit nearly 17 knots. The little kids had a blast hanging their heads over the from crossbeam while going fast. I was interested to see how, with all that tramp space, everybody uses up all the real estate! Here's a pic taken by one of my guests. Some brief video to follow.
My respect for Mr. Tennant's design continues to build....
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That looks really nice! Martin, in your long boarding efforts, was there a net gain in filler used? I wouldn't mind going through the effort on mine, but worry about cutting into that first layer of glass. How far did you take it down before laying on filler?
We are looking forward to seeing the final product!
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Thanks Again Martin and everyone for the advice.
I have since removed many of my grommets and inserted an 8mm fiberglass rod along the edge of the tramp. It is somewhat flexible, but definitely helps distribute the load across many points. My hope is that this will get me through the season, after which I will remove the tramps and completely resew the edge with more rows of stitching and perhaps including a PVC pipe rather than the fiberglass rod..
At any rate, it is far better now, with minimized stress points. More importantly it has a much more predictable tramp response which is nice when you are maneuvering about.
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A buddy of mine from high school (35 years ago) moved to Columbia River gorge after college - big sailboarder and now kiteboarder. His brother built this kite for a pretty cool trimaran:
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All fixed, but not yet faired. I'll try it out this coming weekend....
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I guess 40 years of boating may not eliminate dumbshit maneuvers. Complacency? Whatever...
I set the autopilot for the middle of the channel, and headed forward to drop the jib. A sneaky 2 knot current running perpendicular to my path proved my undoing. I looked up from my task to find a marker 20 feet off my port bow. What the hell? These are plastic cylinders, maybe .5 meter in diameter and may 1.5 meters tall. I ran back to the helm, but too late. It bounced down my port side (leaving no marks....)
The rudder, upon grabbing the channel marker's mooring chain, slowed me from maybe 9 knots to 6 before twisting, cracking and releasing the boat. Fortunately, the lower half hung on. After some grinding, the internal glass ibeam appears to be intact. It is still fastened to the skin even right at the break area.
I have removed all the damaged glass (skin mostly), tapered the break on both sides and am placing in several tapering layers of 6 ounce and 10 ounce glass over the area. I want it strong, but not bullet proof. It would appear that Mr. Tennant designed these things strong enough to be stable, but no so strong that the gudgeons get ripped out of the transom when hitting something.
And for that, I am grateful...
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Thanks for that CLIVE! I'm chomping at the bit up here and your video does not help the situation!
And I agree, More cowbell ! (VIDEO!)
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Loose Goose/Quadprint
Dayum! That's a serious traveler. I thought I was hot chit with my 12 footer....
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Really Nice work there Martin! I'm betting you have some UV protection most of the time.
Here in the US, my tramps are exposed to UV year-round. On the advice of the previous owner, I used Gore Tenara thread on the tramp re-sew. Pricey, but it is said to outlive the material....
Webbing-loops sewn to stout sail-cloth:
Poly-mesh is folded around the tramp edges before the sail-cloth is sewn onto it.
/Martin
School me on an offwind sail...
in MarineTalk
Posted
Guys - This forum really is a locus of performance multi info. I appreciate your input.
After about 25 daysails on Terrapin now, I'm thinking more about my tasks over the winter in rigging a sprit and buying an offwind sail. I want to buy one sail, and hopefully be able to single-hand it up to 12 to 15 knots max TWS. Above that, I won't break it out unless I have crew.
Under main and blade jib, I currently can get to 90 AWA before the boat speed starts to fall off. In 12 to 14, that means I am only about 20 degrees from dead down wind. Not so terrible.
I would consider a code Zero, but my experience crewing on an F-28R was that our assym spin smoked another F-28R similar boat with a code zero. 20 minutes on a 15 mile broad reach though pretty close to 90 AWA.
So, for my 8.5 GBE-ish cat - What downwind sail should I get? Primary use is 40 daysails a season, half single handed, a couple of races per season. Sprit will be 2 meters long. Spinnaker halyard exit just above the hounds (not a mast head spin.).
My gut says a modest assym on a furler, but which one? Where does a "screacher" fit into the mix? Is it just an A3 assym spinnaker? A fuller code zero?
Here's a light air look at Terrapin. This is an example of our common summer daysailing conditions...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhjhQmLYNpc