Arwen's meanderings

Hi everyone and welcome to my dinghy cruising blog about my John Welsford designed 'navigator' named Arwen. Built over three years, Arwen was launched in August 2007. She is a standing lug yawl 14' 6" in length. This blog records our dinghy cruising voyages together around the coastal waters of SW England.
Arwen has an associated YouTube channel so visit www.YouTube.com/c/plymouthwelshboy to find our most recent cruises and click subscribe.
On this blog you will find posts about dinghy cruising locations, accounts of our voyages, maintenance tips and 'How to's' ranging from rigging standing lug sails and building galley boxes to using 'anchor buddies' and creating 'pilotage notes'. I hope you find something that inspires you to get out on the water in your boat. Drop us a comment and happy sailing.
Steve and Arwen

Sunday 22 May 2016

Quite an adventure

i think this is one well worth following. Here is the link and I have added it to my blog roll as well

https://kingsglobaladventures.com

6 comments:

Peter Spear said...

HI Steve,
i am a friend of Rob Ditterich who inspired me to build a Navigator "Felicity"- see his blog for pics. etc.
Rob thought we may have a constructive discussion about the crease-free setting of the standing-lug mainsail. I gather from the literature that this is a perpetual challenge, but I've attempted to solve it with an outhaul to tension the foot of the sail. This has helped but, as the pictures show, it's not entirely effective when close-hauled. Have you had an issue with this? Looking forward to hearing from you, (and meanwhile enjoying your blog!).
Regards,
Peter Spear.

steve said...

Oh where to start. I'm tied up with seventeen hour days until weekend Pete...exam season....manic but next week on Hal term. Can we discuss then? Is that ok?
Steve

robert.ditterich said...

Steve, it was Peter's lovely boat that featured in my post on the Geelong Wooden Boat festival. You commented on his rigging and expressed an interest in discussing some of his methods. Hope you survive invigilation and marking.

Unknown said...

Sure Steve,
When you are ready. (After next week we'll be away for a couple of weeks in Central Australia, so be patient if I'm slow to respond!)
Peter.

steve said...

Will respond at weekend guys. Almost there!
Steve

steve said...

Hi peter.
Finally found some form of sanity again. I love your navigator. So simple and classic. Been looking at the photos on line again. My crease seems permanent in varying degrees. I am no expert at sailing having transferred from a mountaineering background. I understand John's analogy about the handkerchief and pulling it in different dimensions to get creases but try as I might, that crease never fully disappears and I don't know sufficient about sail design or sail tuning to do justice to John's design. I can alter where I tie halyard on top yard, crank on and off tension downhaul on the luff and fiddle about with adjusting the sprit boom at the mast but nothing seems to happen. I could do with someone helping me through the sail trimming, use of the sprit boom and its positioning on the mast and tensioning again. John and Joel Bergen have advanced me quite a way but I forget and fall into bad habits or I didnt fully understand the points that they were articulately and simply explaining to me in the first place ...I sort of get it when they explain it but then out on the water............um! Physics, maths, engineering and design principles are clearly not my forte!