Thread: second hand boat stuff from a JW Tread Lightly - to destroy or not

Hi Peter,
Hasten slowly.
Years ago I destroyed a wooden boat that was full of rot (A Hartley TS 18) and the second hand stuff was worth very little.( I still have some "might be handy oneday" bits). So dont destroy a sound boat because it didnt fit your needs.
Why wont the centerboard go right down? That will have a big affect on sailing ability, probably the main reason the boat doesnt go upwind too well, but if it still went upwind and was tackable then that is a plus, it means you can sail anywhere you want to go.
How did water get in? Leaks or spray/rain? If paint has lifted it will be easy to scrape off and see what timber is like underneath.
You have an issue with the mast, well all masts weigh a bit, and all small boat sailors get practice at the caber tossing thing. I have never seen a TL so I dont know how others do it, have you had a look at the Welsford builders group at Yahoo? jwbuilders : John Welsford Builders
The low aspect rig is how the boat is designed to work and doesnt necessarily mean low performance. Fix the centerboard first.
A boat with a bunk, galley, space to sit and have coffee will be much bigger and heavier than Tread Lightly and have a heavier mast and will still take an hour to set up and pull down plus launch and retrieve time. Have you considered a boomtent?
So dont make a rush decision.
Keep the boat under a tarp to keep the rain and birdshit out.
Have a practice rig / unrig at home to get the process sorted. KEEP LOOKOUT FOR POWER LINES.
Hope this is some help
Tom

Michael Storer tells a tale of one of his designs which wasn't built to plan.
It sailed like a dog.
Purely because of the "improvements" made by its builder.

Fix the known issues with your TL & review it.
Fix the centreboard.
Lighten the mast.
Sort out the connections between spars & mast.
Get someone familiar with the square sail to look at its cut & set.
It should point a lot better than you describe.

Maybe it still won't suit your requirements.
Sell it then as a going concern, & get something which does.

Or sell it now to someone who wants it & is willing to tweak it,
and get the boat you want.

my 2.2c worth.
AJ

Hi Peter,

I feel your pain- when something's not right it just changes your perspective.

I have looked at TL- over the years i've looked at hundreds of designs. its concept is a seaworthy cruiser for one and while the design seemed slow to take off, I understand it and its smaller sibling, SCAMP has now developed a following.

Welsford, like most designers develops boats for his local conditions- I gather these are high winds and some heavy seas.

I have a friend who build a beautiful Pathfinder, but its draft makes it a pain to sail in Moreton Bay, or the Pumicestone Passage, so it stays indoors most of the time and he's designed and built a series of boats more suited to his requirements. I have one of them.

There will be someone who wants your TL if you decide its not for you - however, as you rightly say, there is likely to be a financial loss involved- but sometimes that happens.

Have you spoken to the previous owner and or builder? Did you have a test sail when you bought it? There may be some tips to make rigging/unrigging easier and quicker- one of the advantages of a lug sail should be simplicity.


I assume the centreboard (off-centerboard?) is laminated ply? If so its fairly easily reproduced - removal and refitting may be more of a challenge. Did you get the plans with the boat?

The easy solution to a solid timber mast that's too heavy may be an aluminium one.

Poor performance from a balanced lug may be as simple as looking at the for/aft placement of the yard and luff tension. Look at Mik's articles on this subject and the you tube vidios on Ross Lillistone's site: re sail set up and controls on Phoenix 111.

In terms of water ingress and discolouration- it may pay to show it to a boat buider or restorer to get an opinion on exactly what's going on- or not.

Whatever you do- don't write it off and leave it to the elements. For example, trailers are very easy to sell, but if you do this you will severly limit your options.

I suggest you listen to tomtre and B.O.A.T and store it securely for a while and think about things when you've had a chance to put the whole situation into perspective.

Steve.

Just to keep all in the loop

I have repalced the trailer eletrics with sealed LED lights and new 5 core wiring, put the coupling higher, so thats fixed

I looked into an Al mast but after doing some maths, an unstayed Al mast comes out almost as heavy as a wood one, so no good going there, and stays dont really work on a lug sail. Looks like a Carbon mast at 2.3K dollars, main benefit is much lighter and easier to step. I weighed the mast and it comes out at 15.7kg. It does not sound a lot, but stepping it solo is hard work. Sounds a lot of money,,, but over 10 years. I will probably have to reinforce the bottom 5ft with some extra cloth (fiberglass/carbon), as a stayed mast is tapered, and carbon tubes are not. This allows me to use a narrower tube (cheaper and less windage)

Have seen blogs for 2 other TLs, got some ideas there.

One thing is to turn the anchor compartment into a buoyancy compartmnet (easy fix). Being shoal draught (beachable), the anchor is not used as much as other boats, so will wrap anchor in cloth and store under floor boards.

I worked out that the bottom yard of the lugsail is meant to be attached to the mast, this makes it more controllable, and I think moves the mainsail back a few inches, fixing the weather helm issue.

I think I have worked out how to fix the centerboard, I think it is the wood where the pin pivots in (need to replace that). Remove some screws and I should have access.

Other ideas, a few options really

i can fix up the boat and sell it

I can modify the boat


I want to remove the cabin (3 peices of ply and open it all up), make a big open boat like Scamp. Leave the cabin where it is but give it no back (just sides and top). The wood on the starboard side can go (opposite the board) - board is Port side, this will open the boat up more.

More floor boards so that the front of the boat is same level as cockpit floor (raise about 5 inches), I can store water, anchor under these boards.

Other ideas, increase top yard angle a bit (i have dacron and sail twine laying around).
Removing the 100kg of lead from where it is and moving it to the bottom of the skegs (I dont like where it is now). I need to melt down the ingots and make long narrow strips of lead to do this (use a concrete mold)-yucky job but not impossible

A removable cabin (not sure about this). But if I have no cabin forward I can get something that provides a lot more security. Not a super hard job, main downside with a cabin is more windage.

Boat did travel well reaching and in strong winds. Whatever I do, fixing the board and some little fixes are well worthwhile. Bigger fixes maybe. The prevoius owner has alzheimers and i bought it off his wife who did not know a lot.

I went to Yaringa today, they have space where I can do work on the boat for a few weeks for a modest amount of money. Idea is to go at it full time for a few weeks and then finish the job.

I think the rot is superficial (assume so), grind/sand it back then re-epoxy. I put in a bung under the cockpit and plywood was totally dry. (good news). What happened was that water got into the cockpit because tarpaulin did not cover it fully, then filled up and went into cabin. Thats why I put the bung in the boat, under the cockpit floor, so no water under the cockpit floor.

I am going overseas for a few weeks, so can go full time at these changes after that. Maybe I am daft, not sure. The overall concept as it is at present just does not work for me. It can be a steady sound daysailer of a boat (like Scamp) and sleep under canvas occasionally, that is fine, or it can have a cabin and be a microcruiser (but coastal,,, and nothing ..repeat nothing extreme,,, just when the weather is good).

Whatever happens, less weight up high, and more weight down low as a general rule cant hut. Stability is not bad, just want to have a bit more margin there.

I took some photos the other day, so can upload those plus some diagrams of what I intend to do in a while.
Apart from the mast, main downside is time (which I have plenty of at the moment)

Doing some basic fixes and selling it is an option, whether many people would be interested i dont know. Maybe with time setup time can be improved. The boat was able to go upwind just with no board (this is a plus). Also it self steers meaning that I almost fell asleep on second day. maybe poor upwind performane on first day was board not deploying fully. I do realise that i should have bought a capable dingy cruiser, but what is done is done

peter