Today I have collected three experimental masts from Marström Composite.
Below is a picture of them in the company car.
On Ex Lex
and front vieuw
Two of them have a total length of 2.5 meter. The weight of each is 3 kilos. They stand 2.05 meter above the deck and are selfsupporting. Its Europe dinghy carbon fibre masts ballasted with glassfibre.
Their maximun diameter is 64 millimeter. I hav cut them down to size and grinded away the track. A lug sail do not need a track.
The long, light wind mast, is 3 meter and weighs 3.5 kilos.
More excact weights are below.
There are three masts and four standing mast position and places for them on deck in stronger winds. That gives many combinations. I am sure that Ex Lex will tell me how she likes to be rigged in different weather conditions.
Even an old man should have no trubbel to handel a 3 kilo, 2.5 meter long spar.
Hiking boards are an old idea. I used one succesfully on Anna 1967 and 1968 when I sailed her from Sweden to England.
There is also an video on you-tube showing me hiking on Anna. (yrvind+anna)
Abowe a screenshot.
Some parts of the voyage was quite ruff. Often I was sitting out on the hiking board seeing Anna disapear below the waves only to come up, a little later, with a smile on her face.
Michalak and other small boat designers bolt the leeboard to the side so that it only can swing back and forth. The Dutch leeboard swings also outwards, “the broken wing” on the windward side. Benno from Germany sugested that with the Dutch type of leeboard the windward one could be used as a hiking board.
Obviusly there is a lot of problems involved if they are going to be used ballasted, offshore, in strong winds. That is when more stability is mostly needed. There is the ever present risk of capsizing. The hiking/leeboard has to be fixed as good as an keel.
I belive that I have solved most of the problems involved and I have begunn to schetch a bit on my model to develop the idea into a usefull and functional device.
The model with hiking/leeboard
From the front
To be continued…
Regards Yrvind.