THE CHANNELS

Channels are in a nautical sense the ledges projecting from a sailing ships side to spread the shrouds and to keep them clear of the gunwales. Its an alteration of obsolete chain wale. It seems that channels in the nautical sense are now also obsolete. Time is passing. I use them however, because I hope to be able to lean my mast 30 degrees side vise. That will achieve a few things like giving the boat more stability when the mast is to windward.

Theoretically, placing a lead weight on the mast top would increase stability even more.

In light wind the mast can be made to lean to lee stopping stopping the sails from flapping as gravity will keep them down.

Also more sail area can be projected to the wind and the sails will be lifting instead of pressing the boat down. Also bringing the sails to windward will give her lee helm. Keeping them to lee will give weather helm.

A tilting mast gives a sailor many possibilities to experiment with his rig.

However it has been a time consuming job with many different operations. I started by gluing a piece of Divinycell to the hull. I fixed it with wooden jigs.

(click on the pictures to make them bigger)

Then I put some glass fiber below were the metal fitting was going to be.

Then I put a shelf to fix the metalfitting

Here is the metal fitting and I measure how much unidirectional glass I will need. Al the glass work is done with NM-epoxy. The pipe (wrapped in Marström tape for release) is to hold down the UD-fibre.

Here is the result.

Now I am building up the shape with more Divinycell. Vertical athwartships pieces of glass is inserted between to make the structure rigid to avoid pealing.

Lead weights are employed to compact it and squeeze out any voids.

The final product have a lot of gluing surface and in theory should be good for twenty tons pull. A fair margin of safety even for Cape Horn.

Here are all six channels looking aft. I only really need the two forward ones but the other strong pints are good to have when experimenting with different sail sets and for lifting the boat. The aft one is for yuloh work. They give a place to put a foot athwartships and a place for the rope.

Here is a view from aft.

YRVINDS LATCH MECHANISM

Below part of the aft cabin with the latch system in the aft starboard corner of the hatch. (I only do one corner on the mock up)

Below close up of the latch system.

Below Hatch open, close up of coaming and the green spectra line and its holder. The good thing with this system is that it gives a lot of closing power, its fast and its out of the way with the hatch open. Nothing to snag and chafe. Coastwise cruising one may have to stand a long time in the hatch in heavy weather. Then when tired and weary, one thing one I can do without is a latch digging in to my flesh.

THE HATCH & MORE FITTINGS

Today Börje has been here with a load of good things. Here we are trying the toggle of the gooseneck on the mast.

Below the toggle and its pin.

Below the ball and the mastfoot. There is two sets as the forespare also has its ball and mastfoot.

Below is the dead eyes. The mast can be made to tilt to windward. The mechanism for that are dead eyes. Usually dead eyes has three holes. I use two holes and a spectra line. Just before coming about I release the windward shroud and the rig falls over to leeward in a controlled manner. With three holes in the dead eyes I feel there would be unnecessarily much line and friction.

While Börje have been working on the fittings I have been making a mock up of the hatch. Below is the inner coaming.

Below can be seen the gasket around the inner coaming, the flat pieces of the outer coaming, the rope guiding of the hatch with the hatch in its foreward position.

Below the hatch in closed position looking aft. There are two bends in the roof of the deck house. I will only keep the aft as the foreward bend makes the attachment point of the rope to high.

MOCK UP OF DECKHOUSE

There are many things to consider when designing a boat bound for Cape Horn with an old skipper who does not like to get wet and cold, but now finally I think I got most things right.

Through the windows in the aft cabin I will have a good view of the surrounding seascape from my comfortable chair.

From the bunk in my bedroom will have a good look at the sail.

There is ample place for ventilators and ducts of my waterproof system so that no water will enter even when the boat is upside down.

I have designed a hatch closing system on the principle of the Highfield lever. There is one latch out of the way below each of four corners of the hatch. From the latches a Spectra rope goes to a hook in the hatch which then can be made to press against a deep EPDM cell rubber gasket to the desired pressure and tightness. The good things with this system is that when the hatch is open there is nothing in the rim which chafes or snags.

Another advantages is that I can, in heavy weather have a modified kayak spray shirt permanently mounted on the hatch rim because the Spectra ropes can come through small waterproof holes is the spray shirt and I can from inside the spray shirt put the loops of the ropes on the hooks. I can therefore get inside the, to the boat attached spray shirt before before I open the hatch. In principle not one drop of water can enter the boat.

The mast is only 75 centimeter 2´6´´ in front of the hatch and therefore easily be reached without going on deck. The spar in the picture is a mock up of the mast.

The hatch is 40 x 45 centimeter a size I used on my first Bris in which I cruised many years. It is a size which suits me well.

I will be able to open the aft window in good weather to get better ventilation. It is closed tightened from the outside by bolts. Also the outside of the aft window is very easily reached from the hatch.
From the hatch I can also reach the water by leaning overboard. This is convenient when washing up and brushing my teeth.

I realize that my description may not be very clear but more pictures will follow as work progress.

THE DECK

Below is pictures of how I am putting in temporary frames to bend the deck to the right shape.

Now when the deck is done and I have to figure out the shape of the deckhouse

To be continued…

GOOSENECKS & OTHER FITTINGS

I decided to make the piece of the goose necks which is attached to the mast of carbon. I took a pieces from an broken mast and made molds of them. That they would not collapse under the tremendous pressure in the autoklav I filled them with wood. To get release I have covered them with Teflon.

A 10 mm rod is winded with carbon 45 degrees in both directions to make a hole for the axis.

Then carbon is laid on the mold, then on rod and mold.

Here the pieces are after having been cured in the autoklave.

Francois our Frenchman is helping me to glue them to the mast. He is so fast that it is difficult to get a picture of him. Finally I got my chance when he built a tent with three 2-kilo-watts space heaters to cure the glue.

Below is the mast with the three goose necks on it.

Below is the centerboard being laminated.

The next day I peel of the peel- ply. I do not have the strength of my youth.

I have to use all my force.

Here I have been shaping the attach point for the steering line on the rudder head.

Here it has been laminated

Below. In the meantime, Börje who makes Marströms stainless steel fitting have been kind enough to make some also for me.

Here is the axis which shall connect the rudder head and the rudder blade.

Below is the end fittings for the booms. In this case the heavy weather boom which also serves as a club at the end of a sprit boom to hold out a down wind sail opposite to the sprit sail.

Below close up

Below is the mast head fitting. It has several functions. The pin on the right side is to take a small rope lope. I do not have halyards but intend to push the sail up in its track so that the loop falls over the pin and then pull the sail down. To lower the sail I push it up again, then twist the mast. The intention is that now the loop on its way down misses the pin.

To the left is is a pipe which is going to take a pin from the top mast. It also serves as a point of attachment for the genua.

The bar between them is for me to hold on to when I climb the mast. It also serves as attachment point for back stays, running downwind. Running down wind I do not worry about wind resistance.

THE SPARS ARE DONE

Among a few thousand other things, Sam is a drummer in his spare time. Naturally he has built his own electronic drums of carbon fiber. Here he is jumping on the very light drum support pipe to show me how flexible carbon is. My mast of glass is twice as flexible as my other spars which are of carbon. Sailing south of Cape Horn among the icebergs there should not even be a doubt in my mind about the strength of my spars, not even during hurricane force winds. Everything is very strong and not very light. A carbon mast I am sure would have been strong enough at less than half the weight.

Here I am unpacking a spar just out of the autoklave, cutting up the vacumbag and removing the felt and peelply and release film.

Göran and Per, the owners of Marströms inspecting the spars which all fits inside my Volkswagen.
Per said: Thats a lot of spars.
Göran said: I would not call them spars.
Building a small cruising boat among the high performance multihulls I have to stand a lot of teasing.

Here I am home in my workshop regarding my treasure.

As can be seen I use quite rugged lay up.

During the workdays I have been to the Marström factory. During the week ends I work on the rudder and centerboard. Here is the rudder head. I am moulding the cone for the port stearing line. there will be another on the rudderblade for the starboard stearing line.

I have also been to Göteborg making money doing a lecture. At the same time I got a spare par of eye glasses. Also I was visiting the Garmin office discussing GPS and charts.
The work continues, there is a lot of goosenecks toggles, and other things to fit to the spars.

THE MAST CURED

Yrvinds 2.7 meter or 9 feet long mast came out of the autoclave well cured and in a perfect shape. Thank you everyone at Marström forall the help. Here it is the mastshop, being tested for strength by our strong man Mario. If it can survive his 150 kilo ( 330 pounds ) of muscles I dont think I have to worry in the Southern Ocean. Presently Im working on the masts three goosenecks. Besides the usual one for the boom my rotating mast has two on the leading edge as well. One for the supporting spar and one for the whisker pole. The goosenecks also serves as mast steps. I have no halyards as its easy to reach the mast top.

Its lot of fun to at Marström and there is always exciting projects going on. Due to rapid expension and many new orders we need plenty of more engeniers at least two right now. If any of my readers are familiar with the computers and the program “solid works” please apply for a job. For more details visit our webb page MARSTROM.COM mention my webb page.

IN THE MARSTRÖM AUTOKLAV

After nearly a week of putting the prepreg material in the mold; all the unidirectional, the 90 degrees and 45 degrees and the reinforcements is finally in place, as is the peelply and and vacumbag. Sam my master is checking for leeks.

Sam is satisfied. He assures me everything is going to be fine.

She is ready for the 35 meter long autoklav. With a 2.7 meter long mast I don’t feel I use its full potential.

Here we are getting up speed.

She is nearly in.

Thomas is closing the heavy lid.

and locking it.

Fredrik the Boss is chacking gouges and the tempratures of the inside surfaces of the mast the outside surface and the temperature of the compressed air inside the autoklav.

Finally I watch all the gauges while reading a yachting magazine. Everything worked perfectly, during the night she will cool under pressure in the autoklav and vacum in the bag and I will dream nice dreams. a big step forward has been taken.

WORKING ON THE SPARS

The picture above shows a model of the rig. Its a kind of biped. Two legs is stronger than one, they have wing sections to reduce wind resistance and make the sails more efficient. In heavy weather the sails will flap about less.
Also as the forward spar, the one supporting the jib in contrast to a wire can take compression the shrouds as seen on the model can therefore be placed forward of the mast allowing me to let out the boom about 135 degrees instead of the normal about 80 when sailing downwind. This helps to prevent jibes. With the boom forward if the mast the boat will travel downwind steady even in bad weather.

Below is a picture of me and my Master Sam teaching me how to cut prepreg.

Here we are with the mast mold. It is five meters long, long enough for the 2.7 meter mast and the 2.2 meter long forespar. This is my usual luck. Should I by chance run out of luck my philosophy is: it is better to have bad luck than no luck. Finally for those wishing to hear me speak in my native Swedish there are now, on this website under the heading “various” an audio file in two parts. Enjoy.