Thread: Sydney Oz Racer

it made me think of all of those too!

What a shame that cat sailing and windsurfing both became crazy techie and expensive. Aint gonna happen to the Ducks!

They brought huge numbers of people to sailing ... then lost them again.

But so much nice nostalgia in those colours. Maybe you can rent it out for the Mardi Gras parade?

MIK

I put the boat in again yesterday. What seemed like a nice 5 knot breeze just of the pontoon (sheltered nook in Yowie Bay) turned out to be 20-25 knots from the SE out in the open water. Putting the intense breeze for a test sail aside the OzRacer was not so fussed by the chop and white caps and planed admirably upwind. When sheeted in and with me hiking aggressively the nose comes up a fair bit and the boat planes on the the section from roughly the centerboard back (as long as the hull is flat). I can confirm that my boat is faster than a Manly Junior upwind as I sailed straight past one.

I would say that this is the strongest breeze I would dare sail the OzRacer in as the mast was bending quite severely and had some weatherhelm. On the strongest gusts (30+ knots) the mast was bending so far back (and hence the CEO) that the boat would round up and get stuck in the Irons.

To put the wind into perspective there was race being held by the Port Hacking Sailing Club which I think they abandoned. There were PAcers and NS14's capsizing left, right and center.

This was the first sail with the new pride sprits'l and boom. Needless to say (and in the image below) it will be the last sail with that particular boom which wasn't quite up to the task. I'm going to order some 40mm aluminium section now to make a replacement.

Setting up the snotter arrangement


Tensioning the snotter and flexing up the mast.


Underway. You can see my mainsheet is caught around the boom here, took a bit of convincing (ie shaking) to sort out. I also need to increase the length of my traveler as its to short and I can't sheet the boom in close enough to get maximum power. Not that it was needed yesterday. Also note the PHOSC just across the bay.


Mainsheet sorted out now and heading out towards the mouth of the bay. it looks calm and sedate here as it is protected from the south, but just around the corner!


And the boom which gave away during a big gust. I managed to limp back downwind by sheeting in. I actually managed to get the OZRacer to plane on the way back without the boom! Time to call capral for an aluminium replacement.


Hopefully I will be able to get out on the water again on Thursday afternoon.

Howdy,

I can't tell from the pics, but did the split follow the direction of the grain ... it kindof looks like the grain wasn't straight ... but I can't quite tell.

At the standard size the booms have been pretty reliable over dozens of boats.

BUT it was a fair bit of wind!!!

Michael

Hi MIK,
I have attached a pic which shows the failure of the boom. I think there was simply to much force on it and something had to give. It was really windy.



I made a replacement up with some 40mm, 1.6mm wall aluminium section. This seemed to perform pretty weel yesterday afternoon in the gentle 5-10 knots. There were some stronger gusts maybe getting up to 15 knots. I managed to get the boat planing once on a squirt of breeze.

The boat went well, but par for teh course wit a new setup something had to give. This time the islet in the clew ripped out. I suspected that this might be a weak point and I probably should have sewn a stainless ring attached with some webbing in the first place. I'll fix it up tomorrow if I get time. I will probably use some of the seatbelt style strapping to reinforce the clew and then punch in a bigger islet, or I will get some webbing and a D-ring and sew it in as recommended in "The Sailmaker's Apprentice".

I'll also take some more pics of the model 12fter. I have some Bunnings vouchers so I might get some supplies and start to build a proto soemtime in the next couple of weeks.

Tim

Originally Posted by tpb03

...or I will get some webbing and a D-ring and sew it in as recommended in "The Sailmaker's Apprentice".

Me likey! I considered using this technique on my lugs'l, but I couldn't rationalize the need (yet?). You clearly have a need to distribute stress better so I say, "bravo!" I would suggest you consider doing all three corners at the same time. Wouldn't it suck if you did the clew, only to find the new weak link in the system becomes the tack? Just a thought...