Well guys,
We made another attempt to take the boat out this afternoon. Before I did I took a delrin pulley I machined on my lathe awhile back for another project and fabbed up some steel brackets and tig welded them to the trailer vertical support for the mast when you are trailering the boat. I welded it as high as I could get it without interfering with the mast. When we got to the boat launch today we parked the van on a very slight hill, then I unclamped the mast and positioned it over the little ball on the forward crossbar. Next we tidied up the wiring for the stanchions and the trapeze and whatnot and got ready to raise the mast. Then I took the same hook and line that I use to pull the boat onto the trailer coming from the winch and passed it over that top pulley I made and then put it thru the forestay eyelet. Then I had my wife crank the winch while I steadied the mast as it riased it. It was so freakin' easy to do it is not funny... I am amazed at how well this worked to both raise and lower the mast. Once it was near taught on the stanchions I held it in place while she removed the winch hook from the forestay eyelet and installed it onto the bridle. Raising the sail also went well with my repaired halyard cable for the mainsail and I think that waxing the groove also aided it.

We got out on the lake at around 6pm and there was not much wind at all but we were still able to get around easily and the kids had a blast jumping off the boat and swimming in the middle of the lake. We made it back just before it got dark and as I said lowering the mast was made super easy due to the new pulley and winch setup. We were also able to figure out how to rig the mast straightener setup and it worked great.

We had so much fun out on the boat that I cannot wait for the next day with some nice sunshine and SOME WIND!!

Anyone have thoughts about the wing seats for the Nacra 5.2? I am seriously interested in making some of these things and I am anxious to get the hulls repainted. I have a good friend who does sign work and I think I can get him to make me some cool Nacra decals for the hulls and I am gonna try to get the sails to look a little whiter and then maybe attempt some sort of graphics on it. Any suggestions on how to do that guys... Peace


Pete

5 pages of ideas in the "sail graphics" thread

http://www.catsailor.com/forums/ubb...aint+graphics&Search=true#Post233831

Wow eric,
your nacra is gorgeous!! I love the tiger design, so you painted that on with enamel paints? Did you have someone print it on a plotter and then paint over it or did you do it freehand? That is some beautiful looking cat. What did you paint your hulls with, mine has some repaired damage spots that need a touch more wetsanding and then I can paint it. I was thinking of using some of that topcoat enamel that is like rustoleum but not sure. IS your boat originally in that condition or did you refinish it? Again nice looking cat. I love the cool cat theme. Maybe I will do a cool cat too but use a cartoon cat like sylvester with shades on or something...haha peace

Pete

printed the original pic as a4 on my printer

penciled over a 1cm grid

worked out 13x by height and 15x by width would be the best fit to the sail, penciled light grid ends onto sail

used battens and 1 square at a time transferred the pattern from a4 to sail with b2 pencil

much the same with the hulls, all paint, no stickers

hulls were badly oxidized and sanded down to satin finish with wet'n'dry. that was a few years ago, they are starting to look chalky again, will need to use 1000 or 2000 to buff them back up



marked the corners used battens to make a sliding grid on the

Eric,
That is pretty clever way to do it. I might try something like that on my sail. I think I am gonna repaint my hulls that gleaming white and then apply some custom decals to the hulls to spice things up. Then I will see about the mainsail. I love that tiger theme man... really cool and from the looks of that video it seems you know how to sail that thing. I especially liked when you came about and you can see the Tori gate on the shoreline. Beautiful place you have to sail in and the wind looked pretty stiff too... SWEET VIdeo man...peace

Pete

Oh yeah,
I thought you guys might like to see that I actually have this boat I am talking about. I posted some cell phone pics of it to my photobucket account. Forgive the quality and the chalky look of the hulls. I intend to remedy that really soon. Anyways, here is the link...peace

http://s150.photobucket.com/albums/s83/matospeter/Nacra%20catamaran%20album/

looks very nice Pete, most of us got them cheap as they looked crap. watch that mast rotator post. i'm pretty sure they moved it from below the boom to above as it was spearing people

Yeah man it does kinda look like a hot poker sticking out there... haha

Mine is in I guess decent shape for the year. I hope to be able to really spiff it up with some new paint and nice graphics like yours soon. Still waiting for a nice windy day to take her out on. I watched a cool video on youtube I thought I would share... check it out!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vh93JMcHPmM

I love that " Giddayup!! " haha that is classic... nice boat too..

Pete

this a good 1 too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dY8l-Gf_Ns

Yeah that is a good one. Almost looks like off the coast of south florida in some of the video. It is truly amazing how fast, cool, simple, and just plain fun as hell these boats really are. When the wind is blowing you are gonna get wet and have a blast. I just wish I had more wind here. The place where we put in is actually known for having some decent consistent winds but nothing very strong unless there is a storm coming. After that last little storm experience we had I think I will stay away from any sort of foul weather.

I think that boat had a cool name too, geromino!! peace

Pete