Simple habits, simple boat

Yesterday I gave a talk at Gunnebo IOGT. The International Organisation of Good Templars.

It  tryes to prevent and reduce harm caused by alcohol and other drugs. Its mission is to enlighten people around the world on a lifestyle free from alcohol and other drugs. IOGT works to harness the potential of human beings, to support families, to strengthen communities and to develop society. The is the liberation of peoples of the world leading to a richer, freer and more rewarding life. As a means of attaining this aim, IOGT promotes a lifestyle free of alcohol and other drugs.

I do agree. Below is a photo from an artickle in Västervikstidningen. Click once or twice to enlarge.

Regards Yrvind.

Ex Lex windows are very special. Unlike a lot of yachting windows they are made of glass. There are several reasons for that. Glass windows makes for a dry boat because water vapor condenses on cold surfaces and glass conduct heat much better than plastics therefore the glass windows acts as condensation plates and dries the interior in cold wet conditions.

Obvious of course is that glass gives the best vision, as it is very scratch proof.

Tempered glass is much stronger than ordinary glass almost indestructible. Unfortunately once in a million due to NiS nickel sulfide crystals it can self-destruct. Luckily the heat soak process where the glass is heated to 290 degrees is a destructive test that eliminates 99,99% or so of the glasses that has a tendency to self-destruct.

The nickel comes from stainless steel, the sulfor from acidity in the athmosphere.

Chanches that something may happen after the windows has past this test I consider remote.

Thanks to Johny and Emmaboda Ex Lex glasses are heat soaked.

Below are some pictures.

The windows in the soak having succesfully survived the test.

Johny and the soak.

Johny and a window. Thanks a lot Johny.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind.

There is not much headroom under deck in Ex Lex, therefore to get from one end of the boat to the outher  have to move like a monkey using my arms.

When laying on my back pulling my feet towards me so that my knees raise there is when the feet are as near  my buttocks as I can stretch my body, a maximum  clearence, abouve my knees to the deck, of 1 cm, a space reserved for the blanket. Handholds are important.

Below photos of handmade hand holds. Light and strong.

Below photo from the side. I found a inside space of 25 mm (one inch) hight fits my hands very comfortable. These handholds are constructed with Divinycell as a core, I have been used on a number of boats.

Below are a photo from the part of the deck house that is forward of the waterproof bulkhead.

The openings for the four windows can also be seen.

Below the part of the deck house aft the bulkhead. The opening for the hatch can be seen. The channels for the wentilation system can also be seen. To get the channels in the same plane on the bulkhead, the starboard channel crosses to port above the hatch, the two descend on the port side. On the flour the port one crosses to the starboard. When the deck house gets laminated to the boat I continue the channels.

The grab rails and handholds are attached with NM-epoxy reinforced with many short pieces of carbon rowing. To cut the pieces would be booring and time consuming. I therfore used the following a method to speed up the process.

I winded up the rowing on a piece of wood in the lathe.

A closer look. To get different lenghts I taped on spacers.

In the wood I had made a slot to insert the scissors.

It worked well.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind.

As a leeboard the board can swing aft and forward on a traverse axis a M16 bolt. Converting the board to a hiking board I swing it as far forward as possible out of the water. Now I can reach the tip from the fore deckhouse.

I fasten three control lines to the tip. Their function will be to slide out three lead weights of 6 kilos each.

After that I swing the board down to its deepest position. In that position I connect a hinge with a rolling longitudinal axis. The hinge is a figure 8-rope hinge. Rope hinges are very strong, resilient and flexible and there is no pin or axis that you have to fit, just get the rope around and haul in, a good thing on a boat moving in waves.

That done I can remove the bolt.

Now the board is free to swing outward, but not forward and aft.

A downhaul fixes its position.

With the help of a halyard connected to mast standing off center I raise so that it becomes horizontal like an airplane wing (The angel of attack can be made so that the wind creates a downward force. The board is like an airplanes wing, asymmetrical.)

That done I can now with the help of the control lines slide out the weights. How many and how far out will depend on the strength of the wind and how hard I like to drive Ex Lex.

This is nothing for a skerry cruising boat, they change tack all the time. On my planned trip, the time scale will be very different. For example at latitude of the Cape Verde island I will have the trade wind in on my port side about five degrees north of the equator I will meat the south east trade wind head on the boat will be hard on the wind trying to clear the north east corner of Brazil. At the latitude of Bahia my sheets will be eased the wind still on the port side. Hopefully I do not have to change tack before the latitude of Rio, a distance run of maybe 40 degrees of latitude and thousands of miles probably nearly two moths of time. Weeds will be growing on the starboard freeboard if not scraped away.

Below is a nice weather link illustrating the globes weather pattern.

https://www.windyty.com/?8.494,-11.250,3

Getting the board back to prevent leeway I reverse the operation. Surrounding the nut that holds the bolt that functions as the traverse axis is a short length of pipe that slides into the boards bearing, fixing its radial position. The pipe is shorter than the board is thick. Into it you can also if there is a need insert a bar and use it as lever to aligne the hole in the board to the pipe.

Once there it should be easy to insert the M16 Bumax stainless bolt that fixes the boards axial position, thus it becomes a two step operation. Thanks to this arrangement I do only have to keep one thing in place at the time. I do not have to line up nut, bolt and leeboard simultainiusly.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind.

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.

Here are some pictures of the aft deckhouse during construction.

A waterproof bulkhead is put in place.

I am not made of suger, but I like to keep the water on the outside. The below pictures show the part of the ventilation system separating water and air, the boat on even keel.

The draining holes. I use two water traps. Should the first one not suffice there is a secound.

This is how I did it on YRVIND.COM the yellow boat 2010.

A U-tube lets out water but not air. Below the box and U-tube painted.

Below a schetch of the principle.

On Ex Lex 2015 the building is simplified somewhat. I use triangular channels. Its simpler to make and no sharp edges, it also is stronger structurally even though I do not think the deckhouse can be damaged without that triangulation.

The “U” in place.

Looking from below the drain hole can be seen.

The channels sides in place, seen from above.

From below.

A shaky schetch of the idea. Hope it helps.

One more picture, the deck is coming on.

To be continued…

Regards 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.