Author: Yrvind

The hatches below the bed are now funtional. As a quicker alternative to the knot for closing and opening them. The pictures below show a gadget consisting of two textile eye loops connected with butyl rubber band.

The pictures below explain the function.

The textile eyes in place around the three cleats.

From hatches I have moved on to work with the center board. Below is a picture of the centerboard inside the centerboard case with its lifting and downhaul mecanism – it is not weighted and will have to be pushed down -. It is hanging in a string being weighted. Unfortunatly the scale did not fit into the photograph – well may be fortunatly because it is at 38 kilos a bit overweight.

Next step is to fine tune the mechanism to make it run smothly.

Janneke has been of great help the past month. Tomorrow she takes the bus back to Holland.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind.

When I scaled up the mock up of the steering arrangement from 1:2 to full scale 1:1 I realised I was on the wrong track. There where to much interference of the different functions.

One of the desirable properties of my version of the dubble rudder configuration is that I hope to be able to use it as a brake running before strong winds I therefore like to use large rudder angels.

There is also a swimming ladder and arrangement for a foil to be driven by wavepower. This has also to be taken into consideration.

Below is my latest solution. A tiller with lines did not give large enough rudder angels. A quadrant would give large enough angles but would require the steering lines to be in tension at all times otherwise they would jump out of their tracks.

My arrangement looks a bit like a quadrant but is not. It has blocks fastened on each side of rudderplane enabling me to get large angels. Also that takes upp the big forces as close as possible to their origens enabling me to have thinner lines.

Below are some pictures. They should be self explaining. Only one side is done on the mock up as the two sides now do not interfere with each other.

In the middle will be the bathing ladder. To make it wide enough I will widen the platform by 11 cm each side to get a total ladder width of 44 cm.

Click once or twice on the pictures to enlarge.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind

After a nice sailing holliday Janneke is going back to Holland, to her garden, violin and cat.

I have to return to my project Yrvind Ten so with sorrow in our hearts we are selling our beautiful Västbris.

She is good quality built on the island of Orust with teak interior and lead keel. She sails very well.

She has a new mainsail 2013 and a new rolling furling jib 2012. In addition there are also an older spinnacker, genua and mainsail in good condition.

The upholstery is new and she is generaly kept in nice clean condition.

She is a good alternative to an Vega for an exctended cruising for a person that wants a smaller boat.

She is 6.15 meter long, has a beam of 2.12 and a draft of 1.1 meter. Her displacement is 1.6 tons 50 % of that is in her full lenght lead keel.

Below are some pictures. Click once or twice to enlarge.

For more information call Yrvind at +46 70 620 05 50 If at once I do not ansver try again.

Regards Yrvind.

The storage under the bunk is now done.

It is about 600 liters space. Well packed with food and books there is a lot of weight that I do not want to get adrift when the boat is thrown around in strong winds. Therefore the plywood pieces that subdivide the space is is well anchored with fillets and glass fibre taping in NM-epoxi. About 50 meters.

The locking system consists of 3 cleats and a string. No mowing parts and the string can easily and cheaply be replaced anywhere and under any conditions. A strong and pretty foolproof system.

Below are some pictures to facilate an understanding of this new system.

Click once or twice to enlarge the pictures.

The twelve hatches that makes the bed

The three cleats and the string.

One hatch is opend

Two hatches are opened

The bed with mattrass. The foom has closed cells and can therefore not take up water.

A happy me in the bed

And then as a final treat a gateau bought in Madeira 2011 for my trip to Martinique. I now found it two years old in prime condition. It tasted excellent. I will for sure bring plenty of them for the coming trip

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind.

The last stretch of our sailing was in the open sea a day after a gale. In the evening the wind died and the rocks reflected the waves created by the waves. The boat was rocking a lot. As we wanted to get back to Västervik I used the sculling oar for hours. I had had a simular excperience 2011 when coming in to Porto Santo Madeira. Then I sculled for ten hours rolling badly.

The Idea I got was to use wave power to propel the boat. It is an old Idea. Whalers were mystified to see dead whales floating on the surface making speed through the water. Some of them cut of whalefins and nailed them under their boats and made speed. It were the waves that powered them.

I have written about this before and done some experiments. Below is a picture of a rude contraption made of six swimming fins and some wood.

If it propels me at 1.5 knots the same speed as my oar, I will be happy. I hope weather conditions soon will allow me to make a test. Click once or twice on the picture to enlarge.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind

During our years of sailing in the seventies Janneke always suffered terrible from seasickness. Now there is a cure based on the chinese acupressure method. After our nice holliday sail Janneke wishes to make the following statement.

Before I met Sven I had no sailing experience at all.

So when sailing on Bris for the first time I discovered that I was one of those people suffering seasickness. I did not take it too serious so I came on board to cross the Atlantic Ocean and round Cape Horn. I did suffer severe seasickness for three weeks. I could not eat or drink anything and eventually I fainted.

At last my body got used to the movements of the sea that I could eat enough to survive.

Now many years later with our Västbris, I was quit worried as you may understand. Sven had heard about Seaband and bought a pair for me, it might help, who knows.

Well it sure did !!!

I did not feel seasick at all, not even at sea the day after a storm with high waves and a rolling boat, I was feeling just fine.

So now I know what to wear being at sea.

Janneke Schokker

Regards Yrvind

Janneke from Holland sailed with me in the first Bris 1972 to 1978.

Recently we have renewed our contacts.

A few weeks ago Janneke suggested that as small sailboats are so cheap in Sweden and as it such a paradise to cruise here why do we not purchase a little boat and have a holliday.

After searching the web we chose a Västbris 20. A high quality boat with lead keel and teak interior.

Below a picture of a sister boat on land

We bought an boat without an engine so i made a sculling oar. Here is the start.

My trusted sailmaker Hans Hamel made a new mainsail

I took delivery of the boat in Stockholm and sailed her to Kopparmora båtklubb where Beppe my webmaster looked after her her while I drove to Holland to pick up Janneke. Below a selfportrait

My first meal abord consisted of Räkost and raybread and milk. The raybread was leftover from my 2011 Atlantic crossing in the 4,8 meter chinerunner. It tasted as good as new and is probably good for a few more years.

Webmaster testing the boat with the old mainsail.

Janneke at the tiller.

Tied up to an island near Oxelösund.

Below, a few islands near Fyrudden Gryt. There are tens of thousands of unhibited island in that region and no tide, a paradise.

Now we are back in Västervik working.

Janneke has promised to write something about how Seaband and akupressure prevents the terrible seasickness.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind

I am now sandpapering the  stow hatches below the bed. In a few places there is a inside radius. For that I have winded sandpaper around a stick. I use tejp with adhesive on both sides. Winding it 45degrees to the axis. To calculate the with of the sandpaper strip I came upp with the following formula

pi times diameter divided by the square root of two

The diameter of my stick is 15 mm hence the with of the strip 33 mm

The lenght of the strip is lenght of strip times the square root of two

A composite boatbulder often do windings to create or reinforce spars or cover with leather for example so it has general

Below a pictureof me using sthe sandpaper stick

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind

Below are some pictures of the work on the stowage hatches below the bed.

Work has not been fast. A film team from Hollywood has been here and entertained me with doing a video with me running in Reebok shoes. It was fun and hopefully it will get a nice price. They have now left and I am therefore still working on the hatches below the bed.

I have also been in Holland to fetch Janneke to help with the work. She is now  back in Holland.

Below Janneke laminating a L-profile to rest one end of the hatches on.

Click once or twice on the pictures to enlarge.

Two aluminium L-profiles are being used as moulds. Lead weights gives a bit of pressure.

The twelve compartments

The first hatches in place

The cleat locking system works well, but maybe the holes for the rope is a bit big.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind.

Today I have, with the help of Janneke, fastened the cleats for the storage hatches under the bed with pipe rivets.

I have converted a c-clamp into a rivet tool. After that I used the traditional hammer and a counterweight.

Below are some pictures. Click once or twice to enlarge.

The tool and the rivets made from cupper piping by Janneke.

I am mixing NM-epoxy on my precision scale to 1/10 of a grams accuracy.

Applying the filler.

The tool in action

Riveting

Done

One of the cleats in place

Janneke contemplating