8 years ago
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About Me
- steve
- A welshman displaced to wonderful Plymouth in SW England; a novice sailor, motorhomer and boat builder with a passion for all things to do with the sea. Follow my journey as I learn to sail Arwen, grappling with charts, tide tables and passage planning so that I can become 'a dinghy cruiser' And by the way, just occasionally, little snippets about our travels and adventures. Subscribe on this blog and at www.youtube.com/c/plymouthwelshboy for videos about dinghy cruising. I look forward to hearing your comments, tips and thoughts.
My Blog List
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Bill’s Small Sailboats - The Future - Regular readers will be aware of the lack of recent articles. My custom for many years has been to post to my websites (no longer active) and to my ...
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England and St George's day - The red cross on a white background, national flag of England has recently come under abuse by the British Olympic Association and Nike's design for t...
2 days ago -
The Van de Veldes: Greenwich, Art and the Sea - My last art post was about the simply awful Hogarth exhibition at the Tate, which was just terrible, having no interest in art or Hogarth or historical ...
1 year ago -
A fluid life - Almost two years ago I was standing on our station platform, nervous and masked, heading for eight days quarantine in Yorkshire before starting on my five ...5 months ago
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FOR SALE - Sailing Just For Fun: Rare opportunity to own wooden gaff cutter Shoal Waters. Owner retiring. New sails. Yard trailer. Spare original sails. Ghoster sail....
6 months ago
Popular Posts
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If you search a few posts back you will see that I built a new outboard engine maintenance stand. I based it on plans off the internet but ... -
What I was aiming for was something like a cross between this……. and this...... But what I got was this………… Not... -
How do you keep busy during a lock down? During the BIG lock down in spring, I cut and constructed 35 wooden garden steps with gravel infill... -
Below you will find information to help you, should you decide you want to give it a go. There are photographs from my strip-down along wit...
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You can see the video about changing the impeller, the gear oil and the shear pin below. Below is a photographic summary of how to cha...
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The stand is finished. It didn't take as long as I was expecting - which means all the plans I have listed for occupying myself during ... -
Southpool Creek is a lovely 2 mile jaunt from the busy Salcombe fairway. A ria (flooded ancient river valley) of farmed hills and shorelin... -
A quick winter project is a second galley box for Arwen. The first galley box project can be found here https://arwensmeanderings.b... -
The two galley boxes alongside each other for the first time. Slightly different heights and widths for various reasons which I won't b... -
I’ve been thinking of putting a tent on Arwen but I can’t afford to get one purpose built so I’m going to have to improvise. There are two ...
11 comments:
The increased downhaul tension made a noticeable improvement. Can you tighten it a bit more? If your yard were just a bit more vertical I think the crease would disappear.
Hi Joel - hope you are well and enjoying retirement. yes is the answer. i moved the downhaul tackle again today to create a bigger gap between the blocks in front of the centreboard case inside the cockpit. i am hoping that this will enable me to give the final 2 or 3 inch pull needed to bring that top yard more upright. hopefully this will also firm up the leech as well. thanks for all your help as it was your first thoughts that got me moving on this - much appreciated. How did port townsend festival go? It is on my list for a visit!
Thanks, Steve. I've never been better. The festival was great. I didn't bring Ellie because there was so much I wanted to see this year. I may next year. I spent quite a while looking at and trying out rowing boats. I am tempted to build a wherry or similar boat and try completing the Seventy48 race next year. It's a race human-powered race from Tacoma to Port Townsend, 70 miles in under 48 hours. Winner gets about $10,000. There's no way I'd win of course, but finishing it would be quite an accomplishment for most of us. Sunday, the last day of the festival, the wind really started blowing hard and stranded all the boats in the harbor. I had the pleasure of meeting Paul Mullings and his wonderful wife in person at the festival. Paul was visiting from New Zealand. Hope you can make it someday! That would be wonderful.
now that is an awesome challenge. here's me about to grapple with building a set of oars........honestly!
the race sounds very fun in a masochistic kind of way. i used to run mountain marathons back in my twenties.........your seventy48 has the same feel about it....completley bonkers but just got to be done :)
i have been following Paul's visit via FaceBook, he clearly had a great time. It is definitley on my list and I will get there. And anyway, have to come, I owe you a few beers for all your help and encouragement!!
Downhaul made a big difference... for the rest, I noticed your reefing line was quite tight? could try loosening that off? I also still think in light winds it might be worth trying letting off your outhaul an inch or two... in a decent breeze then the wind is going to flatten out any wrinkles and you could whack it back on again then.. just some thoughts... fascinating stuff!
I've actually removed reefing lines and substituted hooks on lines attached to sprit boom. absolutely agree about snotter being loosened more - good tip - thank you.
how are you by the way?
Hi Steve,
Looking at your photos, I think I see your mainsail halyard runs through a stainless steel loop, around the mast and down to the forward end of the yard. I think that is a big mistake on your rig. This is frequently done on a balanced lug rig where the yard is more horizontal and it works great for holding the yard close to the mast. But on your rig, where the yard is nearly vertical, this will not work. Wrapping the halyard around the mast will prevent your yard from going as vertical as you need it to eliminate the crease.
Instead, attach the halyard directly to that stainless steel ring. Do not lead the halyard around the mast or to the front of the yard. Next, make a loop of Parrell beads, just like you have at your tack. Attach the loop of Parrell beads to the stainless steel ring and around the mast. Keep the loop as short as possible. That will hold the yard close to the mast. Now the yard can go fully vertical. You will be able to adjust how vertical with your downhaul. Adjust downhaul tension until the crease disappears.
Hi Joel. That is exactly how I did it originally and the problem is that the yard wouldn't come down. It got stuck half way down the mast. It stopped the flogging but just wouldn't come down, binding each time. I then sailed for a bit with a loop of rope instead of the parrel loop - this loop was looser - and so the yard dropped easily but it flogged to one side constantly.
With this latest system, the flogging has stopped and it doesn't bind when it drops between the lazy jacks BUT I think you are absolutely right in that now it won't raise as much into its vertical position as it did. Michael Storer suggested doing it this way to me and thus far it has been the easier of all the systems I have tried. I noticed last night, on another video I am in middle of editing now, that the tack parrel bead loop catches on a mast side cleat when I haul the sail up thus preventing it from getting all the way to the top or to its vertical position. So I am about to remove offending cleat (which was only there for me to tie the anchor light halyard to) and then try it one more time. if that doesn't work, I will try your parrel loop approach immediately afterwards as I have a spare parrel loop on board in the tool spares bag. I did wonder whether the current line between rings was binding but Michael and one or two others implied it wouldn't - so being rather dim in all matters related to sail trimming and setting up, as everyone now knows, I just thought 'what the heck - give it a go'.
i have to say that now I'm beginning to rather enjoy the experimentation with different configurations. Each time out presents new surprises and glimpses and I have begun to finally understand some sailing skills based on trial and error and learning by doing....thanks to great folks like yourself who have pushed me out of my comfort zone.....so I appreciate all the help and advice and if i can get out this Wednesday, will try what you say and report back.
quite looking forward to doing what you suggest and seeing what happens - thank you Joel, I do appreciate your help - you, John and my friend Dave have really made me sit up, stopped me becoming a lazy sailor satisfied with status quo and helped me get a better understanding of the rig I am using. Really do owe you a few beers!! whats interesting is that each time out, Arwen feels faster, picks up the wind better etc. 'Marginal gains' is what Matt Syed one of our famous sports journalists and coaches calls it and he's shown it to have huge benefits on the performance of some top football, rugby and cycling teams over here.
will be in touch....and once again - thank you :)
I suspect the binding when lowering the sail would be caused by the parrell loop tightening and binding around the mast as the yard goes to horizontal and/or the parrell loop not sliding easily along the mast. If so, loosen it up a bit, add more beads, and check to ensure the loop doesn't tighten when the yard is rotated vertical to horizontal. Keep in mind the mast is larger in diameter lower down. Add as many beads as will fit so there are beads all around the loop. I don't bother with knots between each bead - seems to work better without them for me. Attach both ends of the parrell loop to the stainless steel ring on your yard, or to the ring using a swivel shackle to prevent tightening, rather than attaching each end of the parrell loop to two seperate points on the yard, which would bind for sure.
I'm not sure if I understand the "flogging". Is that while sailing or when raising/lowering the sail? If it's the former, then lots of downhaul tension, and the steps you've taken to improve that, should do the trick.
...all good Steve.. enjoying the tussle with your rig... fascinating stuff!
Ok - first up then - remove cleat and see if what I've done so far works and yard reaches top, stays close to mast and falls easily; and that tension ins applied thus removing crease
second up, if that fails, new parrel bead loop attached to swivel clip; remove mast cleat and try this one
i have a hunch that one of these two methods will be the one that cracks this once and for all
of course after this, I just have to learn how to trim the sails appropriately - (imagine huge sigh of resignation at this point over my own dumb stupidity)
thanks Joel. Glad you are enjoying my pain Steve - hahahaha :)
Thanks for the support guys - appreciated
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