Thread: Hello, new GIS build by Simon in ST Pete FL

Hi Bruce, yes I used the Storer clamps. Worked well except in the very bow. That's where I got frustrated with the seat cleat sliding around and generally misbehaving so I used 4 screws. With all of the bulkhead screw holes to fill what's 4 more. I'm sure I'll regret saying that.

I'm not sure I follow how the gunwhales are going to fair up. Right now when I clamp up the gunwhale strip there are flat spots at the mid seat sidearms. Even when I double up the strips using the inwhale to stiffen up the structure, some of the flatness remains. So if I unclamp everything, smear it with epoxy and reclamp, I'm going to set those flats forever. What am I missing?

Hi Simon

Good man!

There is a kink that happens at BH3 which will iron out when the gunwales/inwales go on. The tension pushes the transom into it's correct orientation which makes it go away. But there is nothing wrong with using the strapping to help things along either (I used similar strapping to eliminate twist in my hull). It must just be that the gunwale timber you're using has less spring in it than most.

Don't forget the uprights on BH4

It's looking great

Howdy,

The arms on Bhd#4 when the seat top is fitted!

The unfairness - usually having the gunwales clamped on temporarility when the bulkheads are glued in will make sure everything is at the right angle. If this was done the discrepancy will be hard to spot

The thing is that a bump in the curve of the gunwales is MUCH harder to spot than a flat spot in the hull. A flat area will not be possible to spot if the interior is varnished. If it is a problem when the undercoat goes on the outside there is a possibility of some discreet filling.

However you can use force - straps or spreader bars pushing the boat out - or an extra piece of gunwale used temporaily on the outside of the gunwale to make sure it runs fair. - to get everything right when the gunwales are glued on. Do a dry run to see if you can set it up to work.

Best wishes
Michael

Originally Posted by Boatmik

The arms on Bhd#4 when the seat top is fitted!

Yes! Sheesh, I had forgotten already!

I used a combination of a spring-stick and clamps with reach-sticks. The spring-stick is doing most of the work:



On my latest build I used spring-sticks exclusively but needed push bars to keep the cleat from rising above the marked glue line.

Spring stick, brilliant! Did not think to do it that way. Screws worked just a bit more filling to do later.

Lots of little jobs getting done so I'm just about ready to glue the seat tops.
A while back, while browsing the isles of oddball "tools" at Harbor Fright I stumbled upon an adjustable circle cutter that would be perfect for drilling the mast holes. It appears that this tool is made by drunk monkeys as I had to go through the whole stack to find a straightish one. But it was something like $4.99 and if it worked it would save a ton of sanding the holes to size. The tool is awful to set to the desired diameter and so that both arms are equidistant from the center but once set up it did a surprisingly good job, especially for the price.

It's time to order the sail. Duckworks will most probably be building it.

I've been following the different rig and sail threads and am not sure if there is concensus on the sail upgrades from stock. This is what I'm thinking of ordering, would love some input. Keep in mind that I'm a light crew (140lb that's like 10kilo I think ) and will singlehand at times.

1. Add a reef half way between boom and stock first reef. Is this optimal or would evenly spacing the 3 reefs make more sense? Since sail power increases as the square of wind speed, it seems like progressively larger reefs make sense. I'm sure I'm over-analyzing this.
2. Loose footed boom.
3. Stiffer than stock yard. I'm not ready to take the all carbon plunge. Carbon is very cool but I like the look of wooden spars on this boat. I have a huge roll of carbon tow that I will experiment with to stiffen the wooden yard. I will do this as scientifically as possible and report my findings. The question I hope to answer is how much unidirectional carbon needs to be added to the wooden yard to increase the stiffness vs added weight. I'm hopeful that using unidirectional fiber on the top and bottom puts all of the carbon where it can do the most good and rely on the wood to keep the relatively thin carbon laminate from buckling. Shooting for about 25mm deflection with 10kg load which is half of what my yard is now.
4. Battens. I really like full battened sails so am inclined to include them. My understanding is that they flatten and depower this sail which may come in handy singlehanded. It also seems like they would make reefing easier. That is certainly true on other full battened sails I have reefed. Any downside to the two battens?

Thanks everyone

Hi Simon

I think you have a basic idea of what you want and need, so I think go with what your thoughts. However, I have some of my own thoughts which you may take on board if you wish.

1. The first reef. I think the general consensus is to make the first reef smaller, so about 300mm will be fine. I wouldn't bother with the top one unless you think you there is a good chance of being caught out in a gale.
2. Loose footed/stiff boom....YES.
3. Stiffening with carbon tow. You will need a lot of carbon tow which means a lot of epoxy (more weight aloft) unless you can vacuum bag it. I added 120m of tow for little or no effect, so I think you will need at least 720m to stiffen your yard. If you want a stiff yard for a cheap price, go with either aluminium or add 10mm to the plan diameter.
4. Fully battened sail. This adds considerable expense for not much gain for this type of sail. My sail shape is mainly derived from leading edge curve, but it is also broadseamed. This seems to be sufficient (It does have leach battens though). It's usually recommended that you remove/insert the battens every time you sail, so you need to decide if you want to go sailing quickly or spend more time rigging. However, they do provide a means of adding or decreasing power if you like to fiddle (more tension = more power; less tension = less power etc). Peter's boat (Gruff) has battens, but MIK has reported that they didn't do much and so they were hardly ever used.

I hope this helps.

Hi Bruce, the feedback is very welcome.

1. To clarify are you saying make the first reef 300mm smaller?
2. Something is not adding up, in a previous post you mentioned that you added 80m of 12k tow not 120, can you clarify? 12k tow is about 1200m for 1kg so add 600m tow with a lean %50 epoxy ratio ( I will vacuum bag) and you have 1kg of uni carbon laminate where all of the fibers are working in the direction to add stiffness. Ian's yard weights 1.15kg and some of those fibers are off axis and therfore contributing less to stiffness. So adding 720m of uni the yard should be much stiffer than Ian's.
3. Do you think that the battens would make on-the-water reefing easier? I leave full length battens in my other sails all the time and love that the sail sausage is easy to handle and the sail cloth does not get wrinkled. Having said that I like your leech battens. Hmm what to do...

Hi Simon

Yes, it was 80m. I thought I'd used 2x60m reels but only used 1 and 1/3 reels, so sorry about the confusion. In which case to get at least a mm layer I think you will need 400-480 metres of tow (5-6 layers). As such I don't think it's a very efficient way to go, but I don't want to discourage you altogether as we don't really know what the outcome will be! Unidirectional tape/cloth will be better if you want to go down this route.

Obviously, full length battens need to be parallel to the boom to facilitate reefing. I'm really not the correct person to comment on this as I'm a notorious non-reefer! As for the position of the first reef, I recall that there was some consensus that the first reef could be somewhat smaller than the official plan. Perhaps someone who made that mod could chime in here? However, there is a thread on that somewhere but I just can't find it.

If you don't mind paying for the batten pockets, there is no harm in including them.

The battens tend to depower the sail - so you can pull them out for full power.

One of the normal big advantages of the full length battens is that they make sails last longer because of no flapping. However the lug sail doesn't have any roach so it doesn't flap much anyhow.

I think the carbon is a blind avenue for too limber spars - as it is a diameter problem, but caused by more flexible timber.. Carbon cannon overcome insufficient diameter - or at least that is the lesson I extract from Bruces trial.

Best wishes
MIK

I'm doing a terrible job of keeping this thread up to date. The Goat is coming along slowly but has sped up immensly in the last few days as I have moved her out of my friend's garage and under a temporary shelter in my back yard. Hopefully I can churn and burn and get this thing launched.

The new boat shed



Got the front and rear seat tops glued and filleted, daggerboard case is in. Leaving the center seat off for a while longer to clean up sand underneath.



Set up a jig for my plunge router to cut the inwhale spacers to length with radiused ends. The jig centers a 3/4" (19mm) cedar strip under a 3/4" diameter bit. Note the stop which guarantees each spacer is cut to same length without crushing the tips.


Took a while but all the spacers are cut and finish sanded, ready to be glued in.


More pics and details on my blog

Originally Posted by SimonLew

I'm doing a terrible job of keeping this thread up to date. The Goat is coming along slowly but has sped up immensly in the last few days as I have moved her out of my friend's garage and under a temporary shelter in my back yard. Hopefully I can churn and burn and get this thing launched.

The new boat shed



Got the front and rear seat tops glued and filleted, daggerboard case is in. Leaving the center seat off for a while longer to clean up sand underneath.



Set up a jig for my plunge router to cut the inwhale spacers to length with radiused ends. The jig centers a 3/4" (19mm) cedar strip under a 3/4" diameter bit. Note the stop which guarantees each spacer is cut to same length without crushing the tips.


Took a while but all the spacers are cut and finish sanded, ready to be glued in.


More pics and details on my blog

You are making great progress. Your plywood has has some nice graining on the interior. Do you plan to vanish the interior and leave it clear?

I only see one small detail in your last picture that needs addressing.

Your wine glass is empty!