Author: Yrvind

Hi Manie and other small boat sailors.

I reside in Västervik a small town by the sea, a three houer drive south of Stockholm.

My phone number is +46 70 620 05 50. 20:00 to 22:00 is a good time to phone as I then usually stopt working with the wonderfull epoxy.

Regards Yrvind

A grab rail has been fitted to the stovage area on the port side of the cabin. It is a 30 mm diameter 1.9 meter long stainless steel pipe. It is fastened with two layers uni directional carbon fibre in NM-epoxy. It gives a good grip and is solid.

Except instrument panel and electronics and places for books the work in the cabin is now done.

I will now start on the aft deck house.

I have made several full scale mock ups of it. On each one I have changed many details. Below is a picture of how one of the windows have been moved around. I am now completely satisfied with its position.

Sitting close to a small window in comfort, looking out over endless horizons, days after days is a blessing.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind.

There are ten hatches covering eleven compartments below my bed. The hatches are screwed down with 35 M6 screws. I chose long nuts and welded a washer to them. Then I set them in NM-epoxy. Jonny tested the nuts at the NM-laboratory. Each one held 780 kilos. The heaviest items are the four 19 kilos batteries, so no problem.

I zigzagged the edges of the hatches, thus I could put the nuts in one line, saving space.

.

To find out where to drill the holes I marked them with pointed screws before cutting into pieces.

The pointed screws were winded with Teflon thread tape, that the NM-epoxy would not glue them permanently.

The markt plywood before cutting.

A reenforced corner.

I also been to Stockholm giving a talk to Nordea Finans. A tall man helped me back to my car.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind.

For some time I had planned to go visit my friend Yrvind and look at his new creation. Even though we talk on the phone regularly and I look at pictures of the boat it´s something else meeting in real life. And at this occasion I could help out with bringing the new batteries from Gothenburg. When I arrived last Friday Sven and my two other friends Mia and Petter had prepared a welcome dinner with great food. During the evening we talked about everything from boats, traveling to the ongoing tragedy in Syria.

The next day we went to the work shop to look at the boat in the making. I got to play ”devils advocate” being skeptic about the parameters and features of the new boat. I tried hard to find shortcomings and with trouble I found a couple. For every shortcoming I found Yrvind had a more or less excellent respond to why his solution was the better way of solving it. After leaving the role as devils advocate I could start giving compliments to the new boat. For example the sail handling will most likely be as light and easy as taking care of windsurfing sail, which will be valuable in hard conditions. The two hatches will pretty much give access to the whole boat and walking on deck can be avoided in most occasions. The endless sheeting system will enable Yrvind to maneuvering the sheet from either one of the hatches independently, for example he won’t have to go to the aft hatch to adjust the sheet when fixing something in the front or vice versa. After that we helped Petter and Mia with their boat preparing it for the winter.

Last time I visited Yrvind I found a safety harness for climbing, still in its box, and asked what it was for. The respond was that he would use it and a rope to repel him self down if the apartment building would catch fire. This time it was still in the box and we decided to do a fire drill to really be prepared for the possible fire. With excellent control Yrvind climbed over the fence of the balcony and repelled him self down all the way to the ground, now he has a fully tested escape route.

It´s always a pleasure to go visit one of my best friends, thank you Yrvind!

Regards,

Thomas Grahn (or by Yrvind refereed to as Captain)

Captain Thomas Grahn came 2007, then 19 years old, to Västervik, with a friend. Their intention was to cruise the world with an 30+ old 27 foot Vega. They wanted some advice.

I told them that it was better to spend their few Kronor on food than on an expensive delicate selfsteringcontraption and use sheet to tiller steering instead.

Thomas friend decided not to come so I decided to come in his place as a mentor. We sailed to Florida together and visited small boat sailor Matt Layden in Jensen Beach.

Captain spent the winter cruising the Bahamas, then sailed singlehanded back to Sweden.

Next year he delivered a yacht from Florida to Eurupe.

An other year he cruised French Polynesia as Captain of a charter boat.

He has also skippered charter boats in Croatia.

He is now one of our more experienced yachtsmen.

We still spend time together and enjoy it.

Below are  some pictures.

Captain kiting

Captain and Petter, a common friend,

regarding a different kind of craft.

Regards Yrvind.

It’s safer at sea. On land there are many dangers lurking.  To save my soul we’re training escaping from a fire that migth erupt at any time.

A big moment. The 4 batteries are now here. They each weigh 19 kilos but are placed low down to add to stability.

Its four Sonnenschein GF 12 50 VG. 55 Ah at 20 degree temperature. They are gel batteries and can be dischareged to 80% 500 times. The idea is to have enough battery capacity to use a word processor and AIS for long times.

They are well secured. How wants batteries flying around.

Pictures below.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind.

Ex Lex is an experimental boat. On her I will test ideas for my next boat. Therefore I pay more attention to details than I would otherwise do. Here is an example.

There is 11 compartments below my bed for stovage.

I will screw down the hatches covering them to be shure that things do not start flying around in strong winds. The hatches will be made of 12 mm birch plywood. On top will be an 3 cm thick mattras for me to rest on. I need an washer to distribute the force of the screw so that it does not eat into the plywood after repeated use. Also I do not want to many loose parts.

After trying a cupper pipe rivet I decided that it was not satisfying.

Tjust Mekaniska turned out the ones I wanted in bronze on their lathe.

The drawing

The products on the drawing

Testing on washer on a scrap piece of plywood. There are small ridges on the washers, also they be set in epoxy after first washing them in aceton. That way they stay in place.

This gives a satisfying feeling.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind.

It started when I realized that I was doing wishful thinking. I was doing the calculation for how many calories I needed, based on a 78 year old man weighing 70 kilos, with sedentary activity, and little or no exercise. Then I converted the calories to kilos assuming 350 calories per 100 gram on the average for my type of food. I was quite pleased to find that I needed about 0.5 kilos a day or 135 kilos for 270 days. Reality is of course that on my small boat volume is the limiting factor because the food has a density of about 0.4 so 135 kilos becomes nearly 350 liters far more than my available storage space.

Of course I could divide the passage into shorter parts, but once I had the longer passage in mind, a shorter one did not appeal.

After considering several options I decided to raise the freeboards by 5 cm and build a storage space under the bed 20 cm high. That would decrease the standing headroom by 15 cm. A mock up showed that I could live with that. The space under the bed became 250 liters. That together with already existing stowage gave me plenty of room for everything.

To use the space efficiently I did remove the attachment pipe for the safety belt. That took some doing.

For the third time I moved the big anchor, padding the space with Kevlar for wear. I also moved the four 19 kilos gel batteries. There are now 11 compartments under the bed.

An other big change is to add a mast, making it 3 in total. The third mast, a short one, will be placed at the transom when in use or flat on deck when not needed. Its to give the boat weather helm and as a spare.

This allows me to move the leeboards further back where they are more parallel with the hull. Also I now can move the forward mast positions nearer the bow. That way they are easier to reach from the hatch.

Below are some pictures for illustrations, click on them once or twice for enlargement.

The bed before the change. The attatchment pipe in place.

The removed pipes. I had to use ealbow grease and force.

The storage space. The anchor and the batteries are well sexcured. There are two batteries in the picture. They are dummies, no weight at all. There be a total of four Exide, Sonnenschein 55 Ah

The modell with the big mast in the aft position. Giving the boat good weather helm in light wind. Having reread Knox-Johnston, Moistessier, Alec Rose, Duma, Alain Kalitka, Yves Gelinas and others confirming my own experince that there is plenty of east winds in the west wind belt 40 degrees souht. The three mast can be mowed around at will. The long one is 2.7 meter, the short one 1.8 meter.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind

http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/all-things-boats-and-boating/yrvind-39341-35.html

Angélique is right. 1947 they opend my stomach and removed an appendix becouse I told the grown ups that I got stomach pain when I had to go to school. It is unlikely that there is an other one left, so the chanches that I turn up at Houtbay to say hello to Manie in his ten feet boat becouse an appendix are small. Besides I do not think, appendix or not, that I will make it in time.

It worries me that Manie will make his trials in a bay, even though it might be a windy one. To test a boat for an ocean passage one should, in my mind be far out to sea so that one can spend days riding out a gales far from shore.

If I may suggest something it would be to sail the south east trade wind up towards St Helena. Often nice weather and one gets to know the boat, then south towards Tristan da Cuhna group and back to South Africa where stronger winds may be encountered.

Repeat that a few times. Of course first make sure in Houtbay, that all system work.

Of course it is easy for me sitting here safely in my armchair to give advise, but it is what I would consider if I was testing an offshore boat in those waters.

Regards Yrvind.

Some folks worry that I may infect the water in my containers by blowing into them.

My father and grandfather sailed the square riggers. I remember my grand father telling me that they got fresh water by taking one of their boats up a stream and filling it with water. That water contained quite a bit of organic matter. Nowadays civilized countries like Ireland from where I intend to start have water treatment plants that remove organic matter from the water and may even add chlorine. Germs need organic matter to grow. Pure water is only H₂O.

After a month or so at sea I will start to collect rainwater. I do not think that rainwater will contain enough organic matter to give my germs anything to grow on.

Also my grandfather said that if the water was contaminated you should wait until it had rotten three times, then it would be fit to drink again. I do not know if modern science agrees.

If however, against all odds, my water should get infected, it can only be infected by my own germs and they will obviously not do me any harm.

I am now back from the Göteborg Book Fair. Hopefully I have sold my manuscript. It will take a few months before the publisher have decided.

I have also bought charts over the approaches to Cape Verde Islands, Uruguay, Good Hope, Tasmania and Southern New Zealand in case I get appendicitis or similar. I hope to stay at sea.

I have been to dentist to check my teeth.

I have been to the MN factory in Ytterby getting more epoxy glassfibre and fillers.

I have been to the Exide battery company in Kungälv to talk about battery’s and everything has gone well so I mow ready to do more pleasant work.

Regards Yrvind.