Thread: Dutch GIS in Raid Caledonia

Hello Joost!

great to read about your presence and results in the Raid Caledonian! Your report on the sailing qualities of the GIS makes me feeling even more glad I choose this design. CONGRATULATIONS!

(I am trying to convince my wife to participate in the Finland raid in august. not much movement there.)

I cannot open the pictures you have send in the first posts. Can you send them to me, specially if you haven any about the broken frame and the rudder. As I am in the last stage of building - painting (did the first layer of primer wednesday, which is, except for varnishing the rudder) I can still make some adjustments if necessary.

Once again: great post! Thanks!

Ab

Hello Ab,

Thanks.

I might be participating in the Dorestad Raid later this year in September 9-13 (Groene Hart, the Netherlands). Maybe an option if you fail to convince your wife to participate in Raid Finland (which is a very long distance driving and includes a ferry)?

I have not posted any pictures with regards to this post (links to the Raid Caledonia photo's were inserted by MIK).
If you check flickr however, it will show you my rudder box. 2 bolts should be added to the rudder box which have to go through the tiller and the bottom wood reinforcement and the rudderbox stock (the plans show these bolts as well).

If I would have put these bolts in place we would never had the problem (crack stopped at the rudder fitting bolts). With normal sailing conditions I am convinced the cracht would not have happend either without the bolts in the box.

The frame brake might be due to the woodgrain running in the wrong direction. If you want to reinforce these, MI'K's suggests to add glass to the back side of the frame making a laminate.

Please let me know if you need me to explain anything further.

Best regards,

Joost

Forgot to insert the Flickr link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37084156@N07/

Regards, Joost

Some nice pics of the 2009 event have gone up on the Sail Caledonia site

http://albums.phanfare.com/2963156/4...ageID=71028397







Brian

Brian,

Great fotos. The GIS looks like she was happy and calm. How was the crew? Lovely slide show too. I wonder if they had the perfect sound track... maybe this:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v28is4jFWeo"]YouTube - Celtic Woman - Caledonia[/ame]

Or this <G>:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL2XSW2rJwk"]YouTube - Pinetop Perkins and LA Jones - Caledonia[/ame]

Another question: what was the little Lug Yawl #9 with the mossy green sheer stripe? Also very pretty.

Thanks for posting, and kudos for the fine performance in a demanding event!

Repair report:

- The crack in the top of the rudder box has been repaired by gluing it with epoxy resin. I first put in some epoxy and distributed it in the crack with a piece of paper. After 15 minutes I added more and put the clamps on.

After close examination of the rudder box last week, I discovered however that there was not only a crack in the top part of the rudder box but also that one of the reinforcing pieces of wood glued on horizontally lower on the ply rudder box had cracked for 2/3 of the length. Good thing that I only noticed it then, because if I had seen this on Loch Ness, I probably would have given up on that race!

This split was also glued using the above method. Later this week I will put the bolts through per MIK's plans through both the tiller and the wooden reinforcements which should hopefully prevent any future damage to the rudder box.

- The crack in the front frame has been glued back using epoxy resin.I also applied some light glass to the back side of the frame to prevent any future splits if accidently giving it a knock with an oar.

- Wanting the boat to look good (I know, I am too much of a perfectionist ), I have re-varnished the cockpit floor (2 quick coats after a good wet sand). Raiding in Scotland is a lot of fun, but it wears the floors out quickly due to the fine grit lying around everywhere that sticks into your shoe soles.

- Some damage was done to the top of the mast by the block attached to the yard biting in the mast's edges. The damaged areas were sanded flush again and re-varnished followed by a light sand of the whole mast and one new coat of varnish.

The "block eating the mast" problem was already noted before, and halfway through the raid we swapped the block for a piece of 6 mm dyneema rope (see attached picture). Plenty strong and there is not much, if any, sawing action going on, the hailyard not stretching at all (dyneema as well). We use a 29 mm Harken carbon block in the top of the mast, so hardly any friction when hosting the sail.



Still in the works:
- new tiller extension (piece of rope slacks too easily) using a metal joint
- new stiffer boom allowing to set the sail loose footed, trimming options and faster reefing
- new yard (beefed by 5 mm in diameter up to counter stesses caused by the new boom being less flexible

The GIS was indeed very happy on the Scottish lochs! And so was her crew!

Viola (my crew) was at times very cold due to the typical Scottish weather: 10 degrees Celsius, lots of rain and lots of wind.

I was concentrating too much at either rowing or sailing to care much for the weather.
But we both enjoyed the experience tremendously.

The GIS behaves so nicely that she gives her crew a lot of confidence (at least she does that for us!). Even when truly overcanvassed on Loch Ness (which is a very big stretch of water in force 5) she is a very predictable and stable boat (definately when one considers that the GIS is "only" a big dinghy). We never came close to feeling she could not easily handle the conditions we encountered.

Kind regards, Joost

Yes, that matches my experience as well. Even as a very inexperienced sailor, I've had ours out in some pretty brisk conditions, and I always felt like she was taking good care of me.

Really nice both Joost and David. I hope my Goat comes out as nice.

Originally Posted by Joost

Still in the works:
- new tiller extension (piece of rope slacks too easily) using a metal joint
- new stiffer boom allowing to set the sail loose footed, trimming options and faster reefing
- new yard (beefed by 5 mm in diameter up to counter stesses caused by the new boom being less flexible

Maybe instead of the metal joint use one of the polyurethane joints. They do mean you either need to use an aluminium tube tiller extension or put a piece of aluminium tube on the bottom end of a wooden tiller extension. Cheap, super reliable and don't ever jam. Often they are stiff enough to prevent the extension from hanging down into the boat and getting caught under the gunwale when gybing (or something)

Yard - Having two might be an interesting comparison. Would be great if you get on the water the same time as Soling.

MIK

Joost lets compare notes on spar bend. Many of your enhancements I would like to do as well. What have you decided for boom dimensions. I like the idea of a loose footed main with outhaul adjustments and jiffy reefing. I also like the idea of a stiffer yard. 5mm more? What wood are you using? I didn't see any chatter on boom/yard dimensions, Michael are you involved?

Is the boom square with nice roundovers? Lets figure out dimensions and talk about wood types. I usually bump up my dimensions 3-4mm for Spruce.

Joost, you have an eye splice on the yard now? no block?
Clint

I'd be interested in the results of this discussion also. I was hoping to use a loose footed sail but was thinking of the L-shaped boom. However, I don't think I'll make the yard thicker as I would still like it to flatten the sail in the gusts.

cheers,
clay

Hello MIK, Clint and Clay,

I already bought the metal joint ages ago when shopping for all the bits of pieces for my GIS last year. So I will probably end up using that one: an aluminium tiller doesn't seem to look "proper" on the boat with all that varnish. But if this set up fails, I will resort to an aluminium one.

The beefed up yard comes from a discussion we had with regards to using Brian's lug rig set up on his scow on the GIS back in August last year:

https://www.woodworkforums.com/showthread.php?t=77738&page=3

MIk than advised to beef up both the yard and the boom if using both a downhaul and a kicker due to the higher stresses. I will probably experiment with these as well next to loose footing the sail.

The new yard and boom will be made of oregon pine just like the old ones (made according to MIK's plans). I will increase the diameter of the yard with approximately 5 mm. The boom is the L shaped prototype (at least I believe it is a new invention) and I will let MIK discuss that one.

I will try to get the wood for the new yard and boom this weekend (I have tried the local stores this weekend but couldn't even get some crappy wood to make a rough boom for testing only). So I will do some driving to get the correct wood this Saturday.

Fabrication might take a while as I am travelling for business next week. Hopefully the new boom and yard will be finished by mid July for testing! Having 2 yards and 2 booms should allow for a lot of testing fun!

I can post feed back on spar bend if you let me know how you want me to do this…

Would love to try out the different rig set ups with SOLing. That would give back immediate comparison feed back.

I am using a 6mm piece of dyneema now which is attached to the yard per a prussik knot. I just feed the halyard through the short loop. It seems to be working well so far: no visible damage to either the loop or halyard.

Kind regards,

Joost

Hello Joost,

read the posts about trying out different types of rigging. I would love do do some tuning together, as soon as my GIS is launched. One more fairing, one undercoat and two coats of the final color to go! Als the name was decided on!!

I thought of making a loose foot on the mainsail too, as I have sailed on "platbodems" in the past and donot und understand, why it was not adopted to the GIS. But I did not want to change things before sailing the boat and learning, how she reacts.

(I am still looking for a spot in the South with water and a beautiful mill...)

greetings

Ab