Simple habits, simple boat

For some time now I have been experimenting with hatches and their locking devices. I have made some progress.
The reason I am so thorough is that I plan to use the same system of hatches and the samen layout of the interior but modified on the next boat. Yrvind Ten has turned out to be a very sympathetic boat so far and I have kind of fallen in love with her. Her only fault is that she is slow. That can problem easily be resolved by keeping the displacement but making her longer. But of course then she would be able to set a world record for shortness.

Being faster she would not need to have so much loading capacity for a given distance. The length displacement increases with the cube so a longer waterline quickly pays dividend. For example increasing her from ten feet to 18 will decrease the displacement length ratio from 868 to 162 (I include a displacing bolted on bathing platform) the lower number the faster boat.

Below are pictures of my experiments. They are to be continued until I am satisfied. Click once or twice to enlarge.

Stainless steel against stainless steel can seeze up so in the pictures below i have pressed aluminum bronze threads into the fitting to reduce friction.

Tuesday 15 of October I will be interviewed on the Swedish national radio P1 at 16:30, world events permitting.

Wednesday 16 of October I will give an public illustrated talk in Trosa at Folkets Hus 19:00
http://trosa.com/event/foredrag-med-sven-yrvind/

Friday 18 October 13:00 I will give a talk at Bergslagens Industridag Göransson Arena in Sandviken

Then it is back to more experiments.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind.

I am now working on the foreward part of the boat. Here is a mock up of the hatch and locking system that divides the boat into a wet and a dry compartment. The sleeping room is in the dry part. I belive that if you can keep yourself warm and dry you be fine in any weather.

The reason the wingscrews only have one wing is to put their center of gravity excentric. This will prevent vibrations to unscrew them when they not under pressure.

The hatch slides up and down. That mowement is guided by a labyrinth. The hatch can also mowe unrestrained towards and away from a deep gasket of 2×3 centimeter section. Turning four M10 screws will compresse it agoainst the gasket and the passage will be waterproof. This is handy in a storm when the boat is likely to capsize. That kind of conditions do not occur all the time. Therefore it is enough to close the hatch with wood pieces once it is in position. Then it gets into the labyrinth and can not fall down. This is quickly done and make it spray proof. Good enough for beating against a freash breeze with the main deck hatch open.

The above may not be totally clear due to my incomplete command of the english language. The belove pictures may help to elucidate. Click once or twice to enlarge.

Abouve the hatch

Above the two stage locking system. Fisrst I turn the wood piece then if needed for mor pressure I turn the screw.

Abowe a sketch.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind

Michael from Austria is here as a volunteer helping me with my project. He phoned one evening and now he sits here smiling.
The centerboard case are in place and we are doing the mock up of the forward part of the boat. We both agree that the seats are comfortable and that I will get a lot of stowage.

Something else. A light bulb

I am still grappling with the question of how to get electricity during the winter in the southern ocean. I did not really understand the mechanical energy equivalent so I was planning to use a cranking device. Maybe my ignorance was due to the fact that I never had actually seen electricity. True I many times have seen high voltage discharge but that is not electricity.
750 watts of electricity is equivalent to one horsepower one horsepower. One horsepower is to lift 75 kilos every second one meter against gravity. A 75 watts light bulb is consuming one tenth of a horsepower. I being soon 75 years old and have lost half of my muscle mass will be happy if I can produce one twenty of a horsepower for a little time.
Outside my kitchen window across the street there is a 75 watt bulb wastfully burning day and night. I only eat two times a day but I take my time so I have had plenty of time to reflect on that bulb. During summer I do not notice the light because the friendly sun is shining most of the day. I have been living here in Västervik since 2005. That is about 8 years every year has 31536000 seconds. This means that the mechanical equivalent of keeping that bulb burning that time is equal to hauling 28 cars from sea level to the top of Mount Everest. When I was a child I was told to switch of the light when leaving the room.
Thinking of the light bulb across the street have made me considering towing a turbine to charge my batteries. Using a wind turbine is not practical due to the many times I will be capsized and the danger of being hit by the fast rotating propeller.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind.

The sound is a bit weak, please increase the volume on your computer.

The idea of using ridges to guide the centerboards up and downhaul did not work to my satisfaction.

The new aproach is to use fairleads. I made up a few of carbon fibre. Click once or twice to enlarge.

Before I glued them on to the centerboard case I dusted the surface with cupper powder using a salt shaker. The purpose is to reduce marine growth and to make the surface a bit more wear resistance.

Below is the fairleads in place.

I will make new rollers with a hollow in them so that the line are keept in the middle and be less likely to jam. A jammed line is no good.

The rudder arrangement is now working to my outmost satisfaction. Only thing is the stainless steel structure is far to heavy. Therefore I will make a new one of composite surfaces, keeping the same geometry.

Once I had that thought I realised that the new structure can have the shape of a tank. A closed surface is strong.

The use of a tank way back is to fill it with saltwater running before gales. The yellow 15 feet boat I 2011 sailed with to Martinique had mowing ballast in form of lead. I could move them from side to side but also to the very back of the boat. It was a good idea.

It also struck me that in heavy rain I could collect extra water to do some washing when the sun later comes out.

Also it could cive some extra flotation.  The platform is bolted on and therefore its lenght is not measured according to the harmonized standard of the EU:s Recreational Craft Directive, besides few things are more stupid than measuring a boat by lenght, or in fact any volyme by lenght except if they are of the same shape.

I take care to make the details good on this boat in order to have experience of them and use them on the next proper small boat.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind.

The ropes in the centerboard did not run smothly so I am working on an other much better system. More about that later.

The rudder system is also being uppgraded. When I designed it I had in mind the boat sailing to windward healing 20 degrees so the rudder axis is 20 degrees out to compensate for that and also 20 degrees slope that they will not catch seeweed and other things . But – my rudders will also serve as brakes instead of a drouge. I just angle them outwards. Now I realised that that will give lift to the aft helping to pitch pole the boat.

The outward angle is now reduced to about ten degrees becouse that is better downwind and the aft to about 5 degrees. Tan for 5 and 0 degrees are nearly the same in this context. Of course it would be even better to angle them forward becouse that will suck the aft end of the boat down but that has to be balanced against catching things. It is a compromise.

Also I widened the platform 18 cm and lengtened her by 5 cm to enable me to have a longer tiller and so that the bathining ladder will not interfere with the line system.

The pictures below show before and after the change. The new line arrangement is not shown.

after change

To be continued…

Regards 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.