Author: Yrvind

Yesterday was my 74th birtday. A package waited for me at the post office. On open it I found the an award with the following inscription:

THE SMALL CRAFT ADVISOR MAGAZINE HELMSMAN AWARD 2013

PRESENTED TO

SVEN YRVIND

IN RECOGNITION OF HIS EXCEPTIONAL CONTRIBUTION TO THE SMALL BOAT COMMUNITY.

The camera never lies. As proof of the above I proudly enclose two pictures. Click once or twice to enlarge.

Regards Yrvind.

The stowage hatch cleats are now ready as seen in the picture below.

The bottom right one is the first full scale mock-up. It has two different horns for testing. A piece of cupper pipe is used as a rivet. The final product have two rivets. Rivets are used becouse the can be ground down flat and smoth on each side of the hatch and of course no amount of vibration will unscrew them.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind

The full scale functional mock up of the aft structure have arrived.

It serveces several purposes such as holding the two rudders being a bath platform and bording ladder. It also holds the pipes spanning up the watercatching arrangements. to port there is the yuloh hardware and to starbord anchor handling gear.

The final product will be made of stainless steel the mock-up is ordinary construction steel. Mock-ups gives good guidence. Already I have listed seven changes to make.

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

Standing on the ladder.

A convinient seat.

Relaxing with the feet in the water.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind.

Production boats are built with the fiction that they will never capsize and few boats do, but that’s because they restrict themselves to conventional cruising as advocated by Jimmy Cornell and others; hence their stowage hatches do not have hardware that enables them to be locked.

Me, I like to be able to keep things in place even during capsizes. In previous boats I have been experimenting with different ways of locking the hatches. Here are a few considerations. Ideally the locking system shall not interfere with the inside space nor intrude on the outside it should be strong and simple and easy to open and close even in the dark on a rolling boat. It should be reparable at sea.

Here is the first mock up for YRVIND TEN. It consists of three cleats and a piece of Dynema string. It is incredible strong and nothing can go wrong with it. On my first small mock up it works well. Full-scale tests with the proper hardware will tell if it pass muster.

Below are two pictures, locked and two open hatches click once or twice to enlarge the pictures

Below the two hatches are opend

to be continued…

Regards Yrvind

It is a long time since I did work on YRVIND TEN. I have had her exhibited in Göteborg and Stockholms boatshows. Also I have been making a trip to Holland to visit my old crew member Janneke. We talked about the days sailing Bris and being capsized and pitchpooled in the roaring forties near Cape Horn.

Very few small boats have been sailing in those waters. We boath agreed that a capsize and pitchpoole was completely harmless regarding personal injuries. As Janneke expressed it it all went in a flow.

Below a picture of Janneke in Bris

I have now starting with the stowage below the bed. The picture below shows me taking off the shape of the main dividing piece of plywood.

Next picture is me coating it with NM-650 epoxi it has very low viscosity high wetting and long open time, that is excellent for coating.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind

Now there is only one more day at the show then after a long break I can start building again – relief.

Here are some pictures.

At the boat.

tuesday and thursday I also gave talks

Speaking to some people from the audience after the lecture.

To be continued…

Everyday I will show the boat and sell books. Twice, tuesday 5 of March and thursday 7 of March at 18:00 I will give free illustrated talks speaking about small boats, big oceans and distant islands, what I have been through and how I have survived.

Also there will be something about my planned 600 days non-stop circumnavigation. Qustions positive and critical will be answered. Everyone is wellcome.

Hera are some pictures of YRVIND TEN  arriving  boat show. The where taken by Beppe the webb master who helped me with the unloading.

First Yrvind getting permission to enter the show area.

Secound picture. YRVIND TEN on the TK-trailer

Third picture fork lift doing its work. Peaple are friendly to the little boat

Everything goes according to the plan

Yrvind thanking everyone

Finally the boat is on its place A07:14 and the illustrations are up on the wall.  The boxes filled with books fore sale.

Regards Yrvind

MAKING YRVIND TEN STEER HERSELF

Modern ocean going yachts have electric autopilots. There are still a lot of wind vanes around. A simpler way to steer a yacht is by the “sheet to tiller method”. Slocum balanced his Spray. I have made many ocean passages in different boats by balancing them. It is not the easiest way but it is the simplest. With a locked rudder and preventers to the sails nothing moves and everything is quit except the gurgling of the waves along the hull. It is not the fastest way but it is serene.

Any a sailboat with her centers in their right place will steer herself upwind. If she falls off her set course more wind will hit her sails and she will heal over and the center off effort will move to lee and give her more windward turning leverage. As she comes back towards her set course she will heal less and the rudder will make her fall off. This pendulum oscillating movement will to the naked eye keep her on a straight course much in the same way as a pendulum clock gives us time at steady rate.

It is negative feedback.

Downwind is a different matter. There the sails gives positive feedback, the more the boat wanders off course the worse it gets.

A few things make live easier downwind, a short rig, little healing, center of lateral area far back and very important the ability to adjust the rudder precisely. It is often a question of fraction of degrees and it has to be re-adjusted for changes in wind strength.

To make things easy for myself on this long stormy voyage I am planning rudder control from inside and outside. An axis is passing through the side of the deckhouse. Its inside end is connected to a self-locking worm drive. The outside part of the axis has a reel to take a rope; the rope passes through a block on to a cleat. Holding the block is another rope that connects to the tiller.

Working from the outside adjusting the tiller is done from the cleat side, from the inside by the worm drive.

As there is two rudders and each rudder needs two lines to control it I end up with four worm drives. First try was with trailer winches, kindly supplied by Watski, but they were to heavy 4.5 kilos each. Next try was with awning worm drives. They only weighted 0.55 kilos each. Like products designed by Steve Jobs one was not supposed to take them apart, but with some force I succeeded. I like to know what I ship.

With this set up I can independently from inside or outside precisely control the rudders. As I have written before by wedging the rudders I can slow the boat running before gales.

Below are some pictures to illustrate. First the winch worm drive.

secound picture awning worm gear opened with force. It passed inspection.

Third picture is an sketch diagram whose purpose is to try to clarify the above. If you do not understand more will follow.

The boat is now in a garden in the island of Wärmdö near Stockholm. Wendsday I hope to take her to the boat show.

The Göteborg boat show was an succes but the exhibitor caught a cold. I have convalesed. Henceforth to preserve my health at boat shows I will decline offered handshakes.

I am eager to be back to working on the boat.

Regards Yrvind.

Everything has gone well. YRVIND TEN is now at the boat show  at stand C06:04

The following books are for sale:

Bris 100kr

Konstruktören 350 kr

Den unge den gamle och havet. 300 kr

The can be signed.

Below is apicture of the stand.

Regards Yrvind

The wall has been torned down the boat is out on a trailer. Tomorrow morning I am driving to the Göteborg boat show at Svenska Mässan to put up the stand. The weight of the boat is now 272 kilos. The designed displacement is 1500 kilo evidently at the moment there is no weight problem. I lifted the boat by attaching a rope to the seat belts strong point. It is therefore tested with a good margin of safety.

The boat will after Göteborg go to the Stockholm boat show at Älvsjö. For six weeks she will be gone. We will be back in the middle of March. Besides spreading small boat lore I hope to sell enough books to get me enough money to continue my building. Thomas Grahn my adept from Vega Maja will be there to help me.

Below YRVIND TEN on her TK-trailer.

Regards Yrvind.

To be continued…