Category: Miscellaneous

I have now reached Fishgard in Wales and I am waiting for the ferry to Rosslare Ireland to depart. It will do so  2 45 in the morning. Missed the previus one by five minutes, so a tvelve houer wait. The positive is that I have been able to drive relaxed not worrying abut time.

Last night in Calais I met a catamaran sailor he told me he was going to Cornwall wich was about the same way. By luck I saw him at unloading and followed hin thruogh the London night. He was a good guide. and six a clock in the morning I could lay my head to sleep after driving from just west of Bremen for close to 23 houers. I have now past all the big citys in the night with little trafic. The specially made TK-trailer has behaved excellent.

I hope to bee soon in Kinsale there I will launch the boat. Jonas Akerblom a freind who has with his wife crossed the Atlantic in a boat of my design will drive car an TK-trailer back home.

I plan to leave Västervik tomorrow monday 25 of July after breakfast.

I hope to leave my home port trailing the boat behind my car, beginning of next week. The planned route is thrugh Denmark Germany Belgium France England Wales Ireland. The destination is Kinsale Ireland.

There the boat will be launched. A freind will come by airplane and drive the car and trailer back to Sweden.

A TRIAL RUN.

(THERE IS A VIDEO FROM THE TRAIL RUN UNDER VIDEOS AND PHOTOS)

The boat has now been sailed inshore and evaluated.

Everything did not come up to my expectations, but I feel that I am on the right track.

There are problems with qualities and quantities.

The qualities first.

I will give up the idea of tilting the masts. Instead I will use two unstayd masts.

I will give up the central hatch.

Instead I will use two hatches one at each mast.

Now to quantities.

I will give the boat 10 cm ( 4 inches ) more beam

I will increase her lenght by one meter ( 3 feet )

The difficult thing is to keep the good qualities when changing the design. The present boat is very easy to handle and propel with the yoluh. If I give her to much beam and make her to big I will loose those qualitys.

To give a boat without a ballastkeel positive rightning arm at all angels of heel, height to beam should be in the region of 1 to 1,25. My and Matts boat have those proportions. Therefore by squaring beam times lenght I can get a certain measure of size for comparison.

Here are some examples.

Bris, 6.1×1.72×1.72=18.05

Amfibie-Bris 4.8×1.6×1.6=12.29

Paradox 4.2×1.23×1.23=6.35

Yrvind.com 4.8×1.3×1.3=8.11

Next boat 5.8×1.4×1.4=11.37

The next boat will therefore bee smaller than Bris and Amfibie-Bris but bigger than Paradox and Yrvind.com. My sailing experience with the above boats makes me think that the new boat also will be easy to handle and propel with the yoluh.

As I have only tryed the present boat inshore a few houers and offshore not at all. I am likely to get new ideas with more experience.

About the present boat.

The chinerunners work well.

I like the 25 centimeter draft.

I like that I can dip my hand in the water without bending over to much.

The sprit is supported by the gooseneck toggle. It is a succes.

The wingmast works very well in conjunction with the sprit.

And finally she is a very symphatic boat, very strongly built with good materials.

But, Cape Horn have to wait for the next boat. Now I will sail to Florida and consult Matt about my new project.

22:nd of april is Yrvinds birthday. That fact gave me a reason to visit him in Västervik and to see how his project advanced. This winter I have talked to him a lot on Skype and he had given me vivid reports about the project. So, I thought I was prepared of what was waiting. But in place in his workshop I became surprised. What I saw gave me a Wow feeling – this yellow creation is something special. I had plenty of time to study the boat since the workshop would be the place where I should sleep over the night. In my bed on the floor I was studying hers shapes and many thoughts passes through my head. That she i extremely strong is for sure, no doubt about it. But how would she perform under sails. The boat weight fully loaded, is about 1.2 ton and she is only 4. 8 meters long and 1,3 meters wide. She have no keel, just chinerunners attached alongside the hull. Will this concept work on a small boat with a heavy displacement and relatively small sails? Will his ideas about self steering be functional on a boat with this kind of “tiller” construction? Anyway, it will be very exiting to follow Yrvind when he launch the boat and start testing her. Hopefully this will happen very soon.

Many pics below

Webmaster – Beppe Backlund

A new video is published under video/photo. In this film Yrvind introduces one of his most famous boats, Bris I.

This is Christer Bohlin. Expert on lightning explaining the theory and giving me advice. Thank You Christer.

Below his picture follows a text, than more pictures.

The high voltage of lightning is something that I definitely do not want inside my boat but sometimes one have to do the best of the situation.

If lightning strikes it passes through my boat wether  I like it or not. As most superior forces the more resistance it meats the more damage it will do. Therefore I decided to make its passages through my saloon easy and convenient by building a lightning conductor.

It has taken time to get used to the idea that one day millions of volts from the lightning may pass trough the cable within a few inches of my head without morphing me into some kind of Frankenstein.

To get things properly done i have been consulting Christer Bohlin who for many years been conducting research at Uppsala University´s high tension laboratory. He told me that quite to the contrary I could even hold my hand on the cable when the lightning is passing trough it, that it is as safe as sitting on a high tension power cable. Although I trust science I will keep my fingers away when I hear thunder.

I have two separate systems. One is permanent. It connects the stainless steel grab-rail on the deckhouse to the bronze shoe at the bottom of the boat.

There is also a secondary system which can be set up when lightning approaches. It consists of two six meter long cables connected to a bronze rod. The bronze rod can be inserted into the mast head fitting where the top mast otherwise goes. One cable then runs down two meter into the water on each side of the boat. This is important because otherwise there will be a potential difference. That is different voltage on each side of the boat.

Matt Layden was once struck by lightning being at anchor at Block Island R.I. I have not been struck, but I have experienced St. Elmos fire a bright blue or violet glow, appearing like fire it was accompanied by a buzzing sound. Although not dangerous in itself it means that the whole atmosphere is charged with electricity and that there are a high risk that lightning will strike. It is worrisome.

I like to thank Retronic of Västervik for the supply of the tinned cables.

The bronze shoe is used to ground the cables. It is connected to the cables by 3 ten millimeter silicon bronze bolts.

Below the cables connected to the three bronze bolts.

Below I made cable holders of glass fibre composite.

Below the tinned copper cable wrapped around the grab rail.

Below the cable was encapsulated in Tesa Professional vulcanization tape to keep out the epoxy as not to get bad conduction before being encapsulated in NM-epoxy composite for strength.

One of the most frequently heard comments’ concerning my boat is that it is not comfortable. It is a very true statement. But I design and build boats and go to sea in them not for comfort but because I am curios and the activity gives me pleasure and excitement.

Comfort diminishes activity; lack of activity leads to lack of stimulation, without stimulation you become bored, fat and tired. You get energetic only by using energy, not by resting.

Eating and entertainment work like drugs or borrowed money, they lessens the boredom ordeal momentarily. In the long run they make the situation worse.

Strive on the other hand is painful at first, but as time passes will bring curiosity pleasure and excitement. The problem with that healthy solution is that it is to abstract for most people. Historically man has never had to worry about to much comfort and is therefore not designed to deal with it. On the contrary lack of food and rest has been the problem.

Modern society has changed that. Industrial and farm factories are now producing more than we need. Few free spirits has survived a new species of man has been breed, the obedient man. He eats not real food but ersatz food. His experiences are ersatz screen experiences.

It is so much easier to watch sport than to compete yourself. It is so much easier to do ersatz sailing and to start the engine when the wind fails than to use an oar or wait for wind. But like all ersatz things there is no thing like the real thing.

A captured animal in a zoo is not a happy animal. He tells us that without talking, still he gets plenty of food and good shelter and his life is without danger. Still he would rather bee free.

Modern man in the big cities are like captured animals. We have all the comfort and food we need, still we are bored. But because we live among millions of equally bored people we do not notice the gloom. Only occasionally do we meet a surviving free spirit and wonder why he is so happy. It is not comfort which makes me happy.