Author: Yrvind

I start to see the end.

What is missing is painting and electricity, two ssubjects I know very little about.

The rudders and the Yuloh.

Me and the leeboard.

Here is a link to a 2 and a half minute video about my coming voyage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6LVzOpMzqA

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind

Hello

Belov is one of the four square meter sails reduced to 0,85 square meter thanks to 2 reefs.

The reefing hardware is strings, not much to fail.

The sails are made by Hans Hamel

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind.

There are two reasons for why i have not been active on the blog lately.

One reason is that I am writing a booklet about building the boat Exlex and the preparation for my planned sail to the non-stop sail to the antipode.

Work on the booklet might take two more months. Its in swedish so start practising.

The other reason is that work now is much about details, not very exciting.

Below are two some pictures.

The lead is now trimmed to fit very nicely into its box. I have painted in NM-epoxy to as lead is poisoness. That way its also cleaner.

Here its  in the boat. The handles are temporary to help lift them out. I had to lift them in and out quite a few times to get a good fit.

A stainless steel lid is fabricated to keed the lead in place when the boat capsizes. Many screws are holding it in place. This is a test run.

The date was Friday 13. After work on the bike home I congratulated myself to having escaped all bad luck.

Next day I awoke with a broken back. Its now healed.

The small bollard in front of the cam-cleat I made for the yellow boat was a good idea. One turn of the sheet around the bollard reduces the force by 90 %. A secound advantage is that it act as a lead if the sheet comes in from a different angle.

In the case of the cam cleat being broken I can cleat the sheat to the bollards.

On the yellow boat.

The new one during construction.

From a different angle.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind.

In principle, I am against ballast, but the boat has become to heavy, especially high up. At the start of the voyage from Ireland Exlex will be overloaded, halfway to New Zeeland, after five months of sailing, when south of South Africa, half the food will be gone. At the same time I will at 45 degrees south, meet heavy weather then with ballast and me having after 5 months adapted to the boat and life at sea and with the southern summer in November coming up I think same ballast, after all, is a good idea.

Below are some pictures showing Peter helping me to cast the lead pigs.

The melting pot.

Some of the lead being melted.

Peter putting the model in the sandbox.

Adding sand

Compacting the sand with a piece of wood.

The sandbox is turned upside down.

The model is remowed. Next step the top sandbox can be put on.

Peter is pouring the molten lead.

Peter is remowing the lead pig.

The lead pig is cooling in the cool snow.

I am cutting of the raisers with a wooden saw.

After grinding of the ruff surface i encapsulate the 6 lead pigs weighing 150 kilos in NM-epoxy. They are ready to be inserted in the boat.

The will not be glued in place becouse I like to have the option to remowe them for exemple beaching the boat or having her on a trailer behind a car,

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind.

Happy New Year from Yrvind.

At present I am doing fairleads for the winch for the stearing lines.

There are two rudders. Each rudder have two stearing lines therefore four winches. Each winch needs two fairleads so eight fairleads.

I am making them out of Tufnol rods. Tufnol is wery wear resistant, so are some other materials. The advantage of Tufnol is that it unlike many fat plastics glues very well with epoxy.

Below the fairleads coming from the lathe.

I attatch them to a piece of 5 mm Tufnol board with polyester string and NM-epoxi. The polyester string also takes epoxy well.

I soak them in epoxy.

After trimming and drilling screw holes products are ready. Next they will be scruved and glued in place.

Becouse its a hobby I do better work than I have to. Of course in stormy weather you feel snug and fine and proud to.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind.

Not many people today sail without autopilot or windvane.

I do becouse its simple, cheap, takes up no space and is fun, also few things can go wrong.

A few things have to be kept in mind, no play in the system and a possibility to adjust the rudder angle rather precicesly.

On Bris I had a wheel and it was geared 10:1 to the rudder, that is ten turns of the wheel turned the rudder once. Adjustments of the spokes had to be done not more than a few millimeters at the time as the wind did change.

On Exlex there is no rudder. The stearing lines goes directly to the tillers. I realise i need a product to reduce line movement. The boat will move about in big waves. I have come up with the following device I call it a “Vector Winch”.

It works on the swig principle. The way you haul a line, especially a halyard, taut manually.

Theoretically it has a power range from infinity to minus 2.

For 30 cm between the fairleeds if you mowe the line 30 mm at right angle to the tension the line will be 0.6 millimeter shorter a reduction of 50 to 1.

50 mm shorten 1.6 millimeter reduction 32 to 1.

100 mm shortens line by 6 mm.

This way I can fine adjust my rudders.

Photos below show a mock up. It works wery well.

There is 30 cm between the fairleeds and two line jammers.

Me happy with my device.

Tension the winch:

Below Photo from the side:

To use the device, release the jammer close to the tiller, tension rope the desired amount, close the jammer, release the secound jammer, take up the slack, close the secound jammer. Done.

These products will be mounted abouve my bunk where i spend most of my time reading sleaping drawing on the next boat “Boat Ideal”. When I am in other parts of the boat the jammers are released that way I can steer from every other part of the boat also.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind.

Hello Friends. Here are some pictures from my work on the system to control stearing from the bunk.

I have no self stearing on my boats. I control the boat by adjusting tiller and sails. More often than not there is a windchange when I am in bunk.

Its therefore desireble to be able to control the rudder from there. At the same time I do not want water to enter the boat so there are leather seals on pistons in carbon pipes.

Below making the seals: The leather in the tool after being soakt in water for a day and dried to take the new shape.

Cutting her clean.

The tool dismantled

The product

The seals on the piston. By dividing the rope there will be no wicking effect.

The ropes the piston ready to enter the pipe. The fairleads is also there.

The Fairleeds.

Lines coming into the boat

The lines in the bunk. Next step is to find the adjusting system.

Besides stearing the boat the two rudders will be used as a drouge and stabilising system when running downwind. By edging the two rudders a few degrees toe outhopefully I can make the boat go stright downwind in heavy weather.

To make it easier to work on the inside I will wait a bit by adding the full deck.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind.

The main deckhouse and ventilation is done.

Below an illustration by Pierre Hervé.

In bad weather a mixture of air and water enters the ventilation cowl, like in a Dorade box the water is separated. In Exlex there is a water seal, like in the drain pipe under a sink. Thus all the air is ducted to the inside of the boat.  The Dorade box has a large volyme compared to the diameter of the cowl – if one can compare a surface to a volyme – should plenty of water come. As a back up there is a secound large volyme box.

The clean air now descends through a channel to the bottom of the boat, then crosses to the opposite side.

When the boat capsizes there is always some part of the ventilation system above the sea surface and as water cannot rise above its surface no water will enter the boat -same principle as in a centerboard case.

Some water that has entered the ventilation system may drain in the navigation cabin/ lunch room where it is harmless and will be taken care of by kajak pump.

There is a mirror image of the system on the other side. One side for incoming air the other for used outgoing. due to space restrictions I do like to have the crossings in the same plane therefore one system is crossing at the deck level the other at the bottom level. Therefore the two vertical channels are on the port side.

Below are some pictures.

One channel under construction

Vieuw from hatch. The two inlets one on each side.

Viuw from aft window looking into sleeping room through waterproof hatch.

The main deck house. The solar panels are temporarily there.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind

Here are the latest pictures.

Below is the lunchbox or foodbox with food for about a week. The picture shows the six one-liter bottles. Seven would have been better, but such was unfortunatly not the geometry. Later musli and sardines will be added.

Close upp of the bottles that got there own compartment as not to rattle around. Its a good fit. The peelply has now been peeled and the stick that holds the wall in place taken away.

In the front of the boat the small deckhouse is now laminated into place and a towing bollard and four strong points are installed.

Close up.

The strongpoints are boulted by 4 M6 boults good enough to lift the weight of several Ex Lex boats.

Inside are 3X4 cm backing washers.

The towing bollard is fastened by 5 M6 boults and 4 4.8 mm seelf tapping screws

There are also several extra laminations inside and outside to reinforce.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind.

The windows in the forward deckshous are now in place thanks to Petter and G A Lindberg ChemTech AB.

I chose silicon becouse it is resistent to UV-light and weather. Butul and other componds may be stronger, but silicon holds 20 kilo in tension at each square centimeter giving a total strenght per window of about 4 tons wich is ample for a boat of about one ton. Also unless I go crazy the the force is unlikely to come from inside the boat.

Below are some pictures click once or twice to enlarge.

Rubber distances are placed to get the silicon acces to everywhere. This is important so that no hard spots get in contact with the tempered glass.

And last picture. Petter can relax after my harsch supervision.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind