TESTING THE PUMP

At sea things better work! Better to find out before leaving port. I am testing the pump.

Test everything you can. There might be surprises. For example spare parts. The most prudent thing is to undo the original part and install the spare part. Then you learn whats involved how to properly the work, you also will have to find the right tools for the job and you know that the piece fits. Manufacturer keep without notice change things.

Like my pump. I ordered two extra pumps from Plastimo same as I had. I got the same pump, but it was an improved version. Improved from the factorys standpoint. It is lighter and uses less material. Sure that good for the world and our enviroment, but it was not easy to install. In my workshop with all the tools it went fine but it took several houers longer than the first version would have needed. The problem was the holes for the screws were situated under the pumphouse inaccesable. I had to take the pump apart. There were no instructions but I am a problemsolever so that was OK. Also the hoseclamp had to be put inside the handle holder. If fitted on a big boat with ample space there is no problem to twist the pumphouse into position. Exlex is not a big boat.

That being said. The new version is more efficient as can be seen from the video below. It realy emptied water at a fast rate. But if I had to do the fitting at sea without my workshop it would have been different.

The new improved version to the right. On the left pump you can see that the holes for the fasteng the pump is easily accesible.

The good thing is the membram is now outside the pumphouse giving it a much longer stroke and thats a really good idea. The pump has gotten more efficient.

The screw is under the pumphouse, below the arrow. Cannot be reached with a screwdriwer without taking the pump apart.
The solution was to mount the pump an piece of plywood and attached the plywood piece with 4 extra screews. I chose to use NM-epoxy on the plywood to preserv the wood better as I was not in a hurry and could wait a day with the installation.
The screw to tightning the hoseclamp is unconvieniently placed below the pumphandle. That prevented me from using a screwdriver to tighten it with. A hexagoanal key 7 mm did the job.

A video with the pump in action.

Hope you will have happy free time over Christmas and New Year.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind

MATTRESS

Today I have with the help of a friend who has a car collected the orded mattress. The work on it seems to be very good. The mattress is symmetrical in many axes. Thuse I can flip it lenhtwise and sidevise as its gets dirty after many days sailing. Compared to my previus mattresses that had closed cells this one is very soft due to open cells. It can thuse soak up water. That is not good but, its a trade of. During last voyage I worried becuase the boat rolled a lot and I was sliding around on the mattress a lot. I thought that my muscles might not stand up to the wear. I hope this boat will roll less.  Now that I have rotating doors that can be vedged close I think that there will be no water entering the bedroom

Below pictures.

Me with mattress. Its big, long and wide.
It is a good fit. Exlex looks very comfortable.

More and more time are running out. Luckily more and more things are finding their place. The list of things to be done is getting shorter. The plan is to leave in May 2020 from Dingle Irelind like two years ago and sail to Porto Santo Madeira and fill upp with water and fruits. The original plan was sail south of Africa then east to land in south western Australia. Due to visa problems, for me, not coming by plane, I am changing my plan. I with the healp of a friend versed in burocrasy wrote the Australian Embassy here in Sweden. They said they did not deal with visas, therefore I had to phone Australia. They said that I had to phone because they had no email. I do not like to waste the little money I have on long distance calls. Surely there must be email in a country like Australia.

I got angry!

I decided not to stop in Australia but to continue south of Australia and south of New Zealand to Dunedin on the east coast. I realise that that is streatching it, that it is far to long for my small boat because I will have problems to bring that much food.

An other thing thinking about food. I do not have much money left for food. I hope that you kind visitors to my site will donate to healp me out – its also soon Christmas.

I am eager to get going. Also it is getting more and more dangerous to be in Sweden compared to sailing the big stormy Southern Ocean. This night criminals burnt two cars outside my workshop.

Me and one of the burnt out cars. My bicycle bottom left in the picture.
One rumor has that this is a vengeance from persons that do not like the police. Is that true? I do not know. What is true is that several more cars besides these have been burnt here in Västervik in the last few days.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind.

TESTING WET SUIT

Yesterday I tried out the Waterproof wet suit. It was a cold and dark night. Up here in Sweden it is kind of dark and cold 24/7 this time of the year. The idea of the wet suit is to be able to clean the hull when sailing the cold waters in the Southern Ocean.  Also I am working on an drag device, a kind of pour mans Jordan Serius Drouge, a home made thing from plywood discs, but mostly I am just doing small odd jobs trying to get Exlex in peak performance to the spring of 2020. Its no major work and the list is rather long and as usual every job takes 3 times as long as estimated and for every job done 3 more seams to be added, but in the end like always finally everything will be done and the voyage starts. Patience is the ansver.

Below are some pictures and a video.

The Fiorentino Para-Anchor
The elements for my home made drag device.
The seven disks for my drag device. A chain is added to sink it and add more resistance. The idea is to slow the boat down when running before a gale. Its a low cost experiment and it does not take up a lot of space or weight even on a small boat. It might come in handy.

 

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind.

FIORENTINO PARA-ANCHOR

Today, thanks to Lynette, all the way from sunny California arrived the Fiorentino Para-Anchor. A new tool. I will use it in contrary winds not to be blown back or in the unlikely event if I am near a lee-shore with a strong storm.

Below is a picture of it hanging and Exlex in the background.

To be continued…

Best regards Yrvind

UPPDATE

Hi I have had a bug and have been taking it easy for the last two weaks. Now the bug is beaten and I am in better shape.

I am doing odd jobs on Exlex lately mostly for storing water and food for the long passages. The longest one between Argentina to Australia is estimated to take 150 days in stormy seas. The first idea was to use water bags but in the end I did not trust myself to be able to secure them good enough. Nils Malmgren have been good enough to supply me with jerrycans of good quality.

Below is some photos.

The 36 5 litre jerry cans from NM
I have modified a screw cap to transfer the water to the daily 1 litre bottles. I have made a spanner usisng NM-epoxy and carbonfibre to tighten the caps good enough and not least to be able to open them when thirsty.

A close up of the cap spanners. I have used a cap as a mould. It is a good fit.

Unfortunately all the water and food takes up a lot of space. But I still have more space left than many small boat sailors like Robert Manrey Tinkerbelle and Gerry Spiess Yanke Girl

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind…

THE THIRD MAST IS IN PLACE

For same time I have been working with handholds and steps on the outside to easier get back on board after a swim. That job is now done so today after the run and exercise I started on something new, to modify the rigging.

Unfortunately there is interference between the centerboard and the new sail. This I knew. The centerboard I was not able to mowe and there was no other place for the mast. So I did not have a choice. In Next Design the problem is solved. It is not so difficult to make a centerboard or a mast or the other hundreds of pieces needed for a cruising boat. The biggest problem is to make a design where they do not interfere with each other. After I have made a landfall in Australia hopefully there will be new interest in my talks and my books and my economy will hopefully get back on an even keel and also hopefully I can get other persons to get interested in this wonderfull kind of low energy boats that I am designing, because they are so much safer and simpler and more economical than what is used nowadays. Today I use the same size of boats that I used 50 years ago. At that time, in the sixties that size of boats where common, now they are a curiosity and yet they work as fine today as in those days.  More and more people today do consider mans effect on the enviroment and they realise that in that respect an oar is better than an engine, also it is quiter, cheaper and takes up less space. Also it keeps its owner in good health. Cruising boats do not have to be 10 or 20 tons heavy 40 – 50 feet long. Cruising should be a hobby not a way to show conspicius consumption. Its OK if some boats are 40-50 feet long, but smaller boats should also have a place on the wide oceans. That is my idea.

If I can get 10 person interested in Next Design the tooling will be spread out on ten person and that will reduce cost.

Provisional the centerboard can not be fully raised. 15 cm or 6 inches will be below Exlex bottom when the new sail is used in full. If I take a reef in the sail then I can rise the centerboard fully.

In Next Design the interference  problem is solwed.

Below are 3 pictures.

The problem with interference is solwed by lower the centerboard 15 cm or 6 inches
The centerboard has to be 15 cm or 6 inches below the hull as not to interfear with the sail. There is no problem when the sail is reefed. I can live with that.
The yellow schooner all 3 masts in one picture.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind

EXLEX WILL SOON BE A YELLOW THREE MASTED SCHOONER

During test sailing the AIS-reception and transmission was not good. Reason antenna was low down I guess.

Also Exlex proved to be very stiff. I decided to add a mast. One more mast will increase sail area by 50 %, from 4 square meters to 6.

The new mast will be a glass one. Glass masts are heavier than carbon ones but the AIS-antenna can be placed high up inside her. A third advantage is that by placing the third mast well forward it will aid Exlex running downwind. Exlex masts are self-standing having no shrouds. I can thus let out the sails more than 90 degrees with no chafe. Should Exlex head up into the wind the windward sail get more pressure and the lee one less thus making the system stable and self correcting. Exlex is a simple boat with no selfstearing gear. To make her keep her coarse I find a equilibrium between forces acting on her.

Usually a glass mast is more than twice as heavy as a carbon one. The glass one that I made came out at 2.8 kilos. The Europe Dingy masts are 2.5 kilos each for the same lenght. The reason that the different masts are nearly equally heavy is that, Europe Dinghy’s mast are restricted by racing boat rules. Their mast are forbidden to be as light as they can be built. The boats started out with wooden masts, then, came aluminum, then carbon. To be fair to the wooden mast owner’s carbon masts are ballasted with glass. Very democratic, but its one more example on how racing rules makes bad boats. Racing boats are not fast but fair. Cruising sailors that not compete should avoid boats influenced by racing boats. Unfortunately that is not possible unless you build your own.

Exlex mast holder will be attached to the strong center board case. To be able to fit the mast holder vertical I have placed a square piece of wood in her to have some thing to measure against. I did not have a pipe that fitted.

Doing a calculation using Pythagoras theorem. I found a neat formula that helped me to find the side of the wood, just divide the pipes inside diameter by the square root of 2.

Below are some photos.

Doing the pregging at Marström Composite. The two halves can be seen. Later they are put together a vacuumbag is placed inside and outside.
The Exlex mast the small one to the right is ready to go into the autoklav together with her big brother.
Transporting the 2.3 meter long mast on my bike to my workshop
Wheighing the third mast. She came out at 2.8 kilos
The square stick in the foremost mastholder. The new mastholder will be next to the yellow centerboard just behind the hatch.
The formula I derived to calculate the side of the square stick. Just divide the diameter by the square root of 2 or 1.414
The modell the two forward masts. Here the sails are let out more than 90° making, hopefully Exlex sail stable downwind.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind.

EXLEX BACK IN THE WORKSHOP

Monday 2 of September 2019 Captain Thomas Grahn towed Exlex from Hunnebostrand on the west coast of Sweden to Västervik on the Swedish east coast behind his wife’s father’s car. Everything went fine. It took us five or six hours. It was a shortcut. Sailing from Hunnebostrand to Västervik is about 500 nautical miles; it would have taken many weeks.

To be able to trail Exlex is a one of her many desirable qualities. Last year we trailed the first Exlex 5.76 meters to Dingle in Ireland and then I sailed her to Madeira, 2011 I trailed the yellow boat 4.8 meters long to Ireland and then sailed her to Martinique, 1988 I trailed Amfibie-Bris 4.8 meters long to France and then sailed her to Newfoundland. I have trailed many of my small ocean going boats to various places. I suggest the idea. It adds a dimension of freedom, so why not?

Exlex, although small attracted much attention in Hunnebostrand. I had to answer many a question like if she was able to sail to windward, if I was steering with the sculling oar, what would happen is she capsized and more. I assured every one that she was a very able boat. I sold many brochure’s and some kind persons donated and some invited me to eat ice-creams.

I made a long list of possible improvement’s to carry out before the month of May 2020 when I plan to depart.

I am very pleased with the performance of Exlex. She pointed high and sailed fast. If I watch my steps the upcoming voyage will go fine

Docking Exlex
Each evening the speeker on the sightseeing boat was telling everyone everything about Exlex
Onlookers were querius about my boat. Why people have so huge boats nowadays no one reflected over

 

Kind persons gave me icecream

Something gone wrong with my computer I am unable to show more pictures. Hopefully friends will fix it.

After speaking to several friends I can now continue . Here are two more photos of Exlex being rolled over.  This time it was not for stability but to test for leaks.  There were still a leak on rolling to starboard in the ventilation system, a small one screew hole. I had plugged 2 screew holes before. Rolling to port she was tight, no leaks. The hatches were also waterproof. The one leak I think is easy to fix, but Murphy is sitting on my sholder trying to to keep me alert.

Rolling to port. No leaks. People on the bridge are curous wondering at the strange Exlex
Now the hatches are under water. No leaks. The bronze plate can be seen in the middle in the front of it is the centerboard slot.
Exlex on the trailer ready to come into the work shop. My yellow bicycle not to forget in front

Work is now being done on Exlex.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind

BETTER WINDWARD PERFORMANCE

Good news to all lug nuts. Again I have I been out again testing Exlex, now in stronger winds guessing upper force 4 or lower force 5

She now pointed about 53 degrees from the the wind compered to 65 degrees in less strong winds. Well a friend told me that his double ender pointed 45 degrees from the wind so I made an extra effort to steer well.

Below a photo of my Ipad showing the track.

Regards Yrvind

WINDWARD PERFORMANCE

Production boats try to copy racing boats windward performance. Racing boats are optimized for going to windward. Cruising boats sail passages downwind. A boat optimized for windward performance is not at its best downwind. For example deep ballast keels and weather helm is not a good thing downwind.

Exlex is optimized for downwind sailing. She has lee helm with her daggerboard up no ballast keel and balanced lug sails. I am often asked if she can go to windward. She do so very well although she will not win any races but she I hope does better than a production boat downwind with her lenght/displacement ratio of 150 and small wetted surface and square sails that outperform triangular Bermudan downwind.

Below is her track of todays sailing outside Hunnebostrand. It is 50 degrees between them and if my calculations are OK she sailed 65° close to the wind.

Regards Yrvind