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

Tuesday 22 December 2015

Picavet planning..........

Designing a lightweight  picavet is exercising my mind at the moment. Here are some initial thoughts.

I have some 4mm ply. If I cut the picavet out of a 10" square piece double thickness and then drill holes along the arms to reduce weight, I could then use small galvanised eye hooks instead of pulleys.

The GoPro could lie face down on it with the lens poking through a pre cut hole. Some small half inch side strips forming a square into which the GoPro sits could be lined with some thin foam pieces to act as a cushions. A small backing plate strip with foam backing could be secured across the back of the GoPro with lightweight butterfly screws and nuts. An alternative could be some Velcro straps that have been screwed to the board. The whole lot could be attached to the kite string about 30' down so that the kite already has some lift in it when picavet is attached. I could use simple lightweight carabiners and twist the line around them several turns.

Alternatively, I could just drill through the centre where all arms meet and push through a 5mm bolt and screw and glue a GoPro mount to that. This option would allow me to alter camera angle better. Sounds simpler. I could also leave the backdoor floaty on as well. Wouldn't be much protection for the camera other than the waterproof housing though.

More musing needed......cuppa, toast, marmite........chair in front window overlooking the valley, village and moors.........

1 comment:

Alden Smith said...

Ah yes - musing and day dreaming - great for solving problems (And planning sailing adventures!) Merry Christmas.