1182 ......'Twice Shy'

here we go again....

So how did I end up with this old girl .....

Well like most of you, I had it on my eBay watch list, and I had no intentions of actually bidding to buy, A closer look of the pics and a message to the owner said it was mostly good but in need of some TLC, a few missing parts which turned out to be the screws for the tramp and the rudder pins.....
Everything else is there

So its a late lunch and my phone does the buzz for an ebay item that's about to finish, have a look and its not moved in price since earlier in the morning...... oh what the hell, I'll chuck a couple of hundred at it and that should stir things up for the real bidders.....

submit bid..... congratulations your the highest bidder
yeah whatever..... back to lunch....
A few seconds later the phone does the buzz thing again, congratulations you've won the item..... huh

So in all honesty I never had any real intentions of becoming a duel mosquito owner but as fate would have it, I now am


but is that a good thing or not ????

pics from the add









doesn't look too good does it

Oh well .......... SPARES FOR KARP

or is it ???

Now its home and I've walked around it 20 odd times, its time to see just how bad things really are.....

20mins later and one hull has come up like new !!!



this was just a simple case of a light cut & polish, all up the hulls took about an hour an a bit to have gleaming in the late afternoon sun



things are looking up

with the hulls basically gleaming in green
it was time to have a look at the mast, first job was to hose off all the bird shyte, then a gentle wipe-down with a scouring pad, then came the 800grit wet&dry paper followed by the alloy polish, all up ~2.5hours spent on cleaning up the mast

the boom is still work in progress

but its calf-shyte yellowish paint is only the top layer, a cool white lays under that followed by the dark green which matches the strip down the sides of the hull, then comes the alloy...
I hit the boom with 80grit paper on the belt sander and an hour later we had bare alloy again, I then hand blocked it back with 120grit then 180grit and finally with some 320 wet&dry paper, polishing is yet to come but so far its lookin good
(finished pic to come)


Only other work required on the boom is to replace the shocky cord which has perished in a couple of spots but otherwise its done

so while I'm sanding/polishing bits I notice a tad bit of movement in the hulls, a quick investigation soon finds the culprit, well actually lack there of

spot what's missing ????

So 2 hours later and several scratches from jagged fibreglass shards, I'd replaced all the alloy blocks with 40mm wide X10mm thick and 60mmlong blocks of high-tensile alloy

these are what's left
NB: pic is as they were removed from the hulls as if you were at the stern .... so the top left is the front left and the bottom right is the rear right block.....
The 'larger' block 3rd in the top row is the one for the missing altogether mounting point in the pic in the above post

couple of close-ups....





well that sucked.... but as per usual there's always an explanation ------> SILICONE
Some of you are probably well aware of the properties of silicone, it has ACID in it and the acid attacks alloy like crazy, someone in their infinite wisdom has used a non-neutral cure silicone and hence we have the ugly corrosion.
Don't belive me ????? duck down to the local panel-beaters and ask for a quote for a leaking windscreen, after you have that rough estimate tell them you siliconed it up a year ago, the quote WILL double instantly, silicone is BAD news if you don't use the right one for the specific application.....

I hear crickets......
everyone must have gone to the shed to see what type of silicone they used to seal that stainless fitting to the alloy mast...
I hope your not too late, relax, the stainless fitting will be fine, the rest tho.....

one more...

you can actually see the silicone in this pic and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to see where the corrosion has come from...

What about KARP you ask......
Well I'm still working away on the hull finish, but being so damn fussy meant I wasn't about to get on the water before January or Febuary at best, so as its turned out I should have 1182 ready in a week or so all going to plan on what I've found thus far, and yes there's still one or two more uglies to fix but more on those as I get to them.

1182 also offers me a cheap platform to try things out, the TredGrip I spoke about in the "non-skid: gunwale" thread
http://www.catsailor.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=265005#Post265005
will be one of the first things I trial, if it works to the level I want then it will make KARP's gunwales, I have a few other things to tryout so with this boat I get the chance to play without burning the "good boat" so to speak

As to 1182's future ???
A new name was the first thing, Mistral is GONE so please welcome "TWICE SHY" to the fold
mozzie related and combined with the old saying....
Once bitten TWICE SHY and then theres the 2nd mozzie thing.

The name just fitted so well

Its future.....
[yoda voice on]
darkness I see but with a light afar
[yoda voice off]

For now Twice Shy will be patched up and put on the water ASAP, once I have KARP finished then I'll most likely re-deck Twice Shy and take it from there.
There's always someone that wants a mozzie and whether its my sons or she finds a new home or becomes the first mozzie to foil.... couldn't resist that one
At this stage she's moved away from the rubbish heap and I'm sure both I and my kids will enjoy her to the max, and undoutably someone one day will want her for their own aswell

watch this space..... more to come


Kingy

edit:
23 views already......
get to bed ya silly buggers

Just a hint, when getting paint off alloy, use a "strip and clean" mop that goes on a makita polisher and takes it back to bare alloy with about 80 grit keyed on the alloy

now you tell me

oh well, it gleams good enough for now....






just the shock-cord to fit now.....

Thinking caps on gents.....

why ????

&

How do I get around this ???





and yes that's the shed floor you can see through the near 2inch gap

even the "fit" at the bottom is as bad as the deck fit with an almost 2inch gap, and yeah that's the shed roof

Jurassic Karp's boards (colored grey) against Twice Shy's boards (timber) which are 200mm (~8inches) longer .....
and yet the widths are within a millimetre of each other in the board-case area




I'm thinking of cutting off ~150mm (6inches) off of Twice Shy's boards....

thoughts ???

cut them down, a lot of the old boards are very long.
front of plate case glue in a bit of timber and shape to fit leading edge of board. you want the boards back as far as you can get them.

Agreed on the fix you've described, already have the cedar cut and ready to shape...... but why so much excess in the case slots ?????

I found a soft spot in the bottom of one hull when I was cleaning / polishing, the paint , it was soft enough to crack the actual paint with very light pressure....

so after I attacked the trailer and started a few changes & repairs, we slipped Twice Shy over and had a serious dig in the region, one soft spot.... turns out I have a few more




better check the other hull..... and much the same story there too



mutter mutter mutter

The soft spots in each hull line up with each other rather well don't they, obviously water and sitting on the trailer for a few months will do this




so tomorrow's job after I do a tad more with the trailer is to repair these little buggars, I'll square up the holes a bit better and scarf the ends/sides, cut a piece of fresh ply and cut/scarf it to fit and resin it in, I'll add some filler as required and hopefully a lick of primer during the week.

the ugly trailer.....
yeah it needs a tidy up and a couple of minor repairs and mods
the thing I cant get over is just how well this thing tows, bloody great trailer to tow that's for sure !!!

me thinks these have had their day...... well and truly !!!



and with the carpet off..... someone has done some very TLC work here....



high time they were replaced....

the new ones.....

In the above pic (first in the last post) you can see I'd already done the front ones.

finished the 2 rear ones last night (sorry about the pic's darkness but it was a late night




sewer pipe cut/heated and moulded to the hull shape....
Riveted onto a steel rhs base and with 3mm plate added as support wings.
The front ones are solidly mounted whilst the rears 'hinge' down ~25degrees.

just got to glue on the carpet now.....

I'll add a front rack to pickup the front beam and a hinging rear rack to hold the rear beam.....
these slippers will only be used for loading and unloading the boat.

while resin is going off, I decided the orange/red/blue thingy at the bow had to go..... probably very cool back in the day but now ???
definately not my cuppa rum

80grit took care of it and I was able to stay out of the base primer underneath it all largely

NB:
the blue was the hardest to remove, tough stuff that readily clogged the lower grit papers so that's why I started with the 80grit, the orange was also tough but once I touched the primer it cut away very easily, the red was childs play to sand off.... half a dozen swipes and it fell away easily.
The dark green stripe is coming off quite easily aswell, as did the old name






luckily the green carried through under the 'splash of colors' so once I had them off I went straight down to 180grit paper and took off the primer

once the primer was gone and the green fully revealed I changed down to 320grit paper.
although it isn't perfect color-wise the finish is ultra smooth and ready for my touch of bling



The main reason I did this was ....
1/
had a couple of large chips in the leading edges that needed filling

2/
the glass was actually worn right through at the front where its been dragged up on the sand over the years, again in need of filling

3/
it will tie in with what I'm doing for the short-term "repairs" to the main and foredeck (the rear decks will be replaced as they are completely shagged)

now I know I said earlier that I was going to cut / scarf in some new bits ply...... but I decided against that for a couple of reasons.
1/
time restraints: after I'd cut the first bit I figured this was going to take ages and I wanted a simple solid quick fix, simply because I won't know what's going in there until I tear the decks off in the off season.... the rot may be far worse than I know about at the moment

2/
strength issue: scarfing in is the traditional method BUT it lacks some strength, there was also the problem of curving the ply to better suit the hull shape, that meant time being spent of pre-curving the replacement ply aswell as the scarfing.

So I decided to do something an old sailor from way back when taught me at a regatta when my old mozzie was damaged....
a hole from a another mozzie just after the morning race was fixed during lunch and I was back on the water for the afternoon races, although the fresh resin was covered by that trusty old best friend..... gaffa tape


cut a ply plate that's just a bit bigger than the hole

bang a staple right in the middle of the plate then remove the staple

thread a fine wire through the 2 holes left by the staple

coat the ply plate in resin and slip into the hole

slip in a short dowel and twitch the wire around it then twitch the dowel so it pulls the plate up against the hull

with the remaining resin add sawdust till its like play-dough in its consistency

trowel the mix into the 'cavity'

let it set..... sand back .... paint as required or if needed


now I've used this old trick many times over, even Jurassic Karp has a few dabs of this in in, specifically where the old stringer slots were.
Its as light as you want it to be, use balsa-wood / cedar / pine etc.
Want it a bit heavier then use harder woods or as I've found plywood itself saved from the band saw works a treat

the big advantage is the strength, all the fine chips of sawdust are not all spread out but mixed up and tightly compacted. It sets super fast and can be sanded easily, I laid it down on Sunday with 7day resin, it was sanded back Monday night, micro filled on Tuesday night and finished tonight.
The process could have been done far quicker had I used a rapid set resin, the whole job would have been done in less than ~4hours

As it stands now, I have structural strength WITH a ply backing plate, the repair can easily be finished off once the decks are removed ..... flap disk on the 4" grinder, "grind" off the ply backing plate, add resin and cloth.... all done


the dark patches are the sawdust/resin mix





happy with the end result, it smoothed out really well and the microballon filler made it a perfect flush finish

centreboard case's are next on the agenda.....

Hi Kingy,

I'm thinking that the centreboards that came with Twice Shy were not the original ones. Back in them days the old mozzies had wide boards.

Check where the cases are positioned relative to the rules. I'm guessing that they are well forward and probably vertical relative to the deck.

If thats the case then you could angle the boards back by putting fibreglassed wedged foam blocks into the case and angle them according to the rule limits. It's a quick fix and may improve the old girls handling.

The difference in measurements between 1740 and 1182 are huge, and even with the cedar added to 1182's case its still 60mm further forward than 1740's..... measured from the front beam to the front of the board case.

At D.Y.C. today and I had a look at Al's boat 'Scorpion' and he has a block aswell only his has been placed at the back of the slot pushing the boards as far forwards as possible, his slots are even longer than 1182's.... I ended up with just under ~40mm long cedar packer and Al's would have to be nearer to 55mm of packer.

I'd have to agree that the boards themselves are not designed to run with the setup on the boat although the style and length is from that era as I remember it (recall seeing the dual timber boards and thinking how good they looked when I was moving from jnr-snr sailor), as to what happened with 1182's is anyone's guess....
My first mozzie STINGA #245 had a wide long board and the rudders were narrow and long comparison, much like 1182's are. I remember making a new set of blades that were shorter and wider and could be pushed far further forward under the boat than the old ones to get a better turning boat on the tacks, I also remember cutting off a couple of inches from the width and the length was also cut down on those boards once the rudder mods had been proven to work.

the rudders that came with 1182 are the same in their shape and style in that they are also long and not that wide. but as to what / where / & when the changes were made..... ??????????????????????????????

40mmx24mm cedar packer in place....
Jurassic Karp hangin around in the background....



once the boat is flipped back over I'll trim and fill the stub so its flush with the old deck, it will get more work when the decks are replaced in winter.

trimmed.... and filled



the grey tape held the resin filler from running down the case slot and was easy to remove once the resin filler had gone off

had a bit of resin filler left over......

the mounts had compressed the timber somewhat so it needed to be brought back up flush.
mmmmm getting fussy again.... mental note to self .... STOP IT ! and get the boat on the water !!

After some thought and considerations, I decided that even tho Jurassic Karp's boards are ~200mm shorter, I'd only take off 150mm from Twice Shy's boards.
Main reason for this was Jurassics aren't tapered where-as Twice Shy's are, so I calculated out the actual surface area and ended up with a trim of 150mm being required.



these will be an easy re-shaping of the cut
the tough bit will be the slight slimming of the boards, just a tad tight to slide up n down in the cases....


27/525

i wouldnt be measuring from the front beam to the cases unless you have measured that the beams are in the same place as all the measurments for the beams and board cases are taken from the bow of the boat.

I've re-checked the measurements against the plans I have that came with Jurassic Karp, the measurements for everything else are within a couple of millimetres of the specs and compare well with Karp, its only the cases that aren't at the specs.

~100mm further forward than they should be even tho they are the wide case slots.
With the ~40mm packer I'm still forward of where it should be by about 60mm.

filler blocked back

When I first noticed the case lengths compared to the board widths I tried to fit the actual boards and ran smack into trouble.....
The boards wouldn't even start to go in to the case, the thickness of the board was way past the width of the case and now that I'd cut the boards length back and the packer fitted to the case it was time to find where the interference was coming from..... hope it's just a wayward dribble of resin or something simple...

I wasn't that lucky

The cuts were first up and the bottom of the boards are now re-shaped ....... took me all of half an hour to get them into the desired shape.
Now the case slot, a visual inspection showed virtually no resin dribbles but I gave it a light sand regardless, which made no difference at all


My attention turned to the boards themselves, and it wasn't until I noticed some flaking varnish at the top that I realised what had been done to stop the fit......
A layer of varnish has been sprayed onto the boards and that layer was THICK..... ~1.5mm thick in some spots

I wasn't game to apply paint stripper incase the varnish had made it onto bare timber via a chip or cut, and I wasn't sure about the glassed surfaces reaction to the stripper either.
Next idea was to use the belt sander to rip it off, but I only had 80grit paper and I wasn't keen on the idea of cutting through the glass....

option c =

3 hours of hand sanding just to do 1 board



The board on the right has been heavily sanded and yet the varnish is still visible as cloudy white spots on the trailing edge, these will get another sand to remove them entirely.
The up side is the finish on the sections I've done is brilliant, and the board slides sweet as into the case now....
1 down..... 1 to go

The 2nd board shouldn't be as bad, I'll start with the belt sander

and while the sander was out......

I had a couple of 'sections' that were very orange peel in the finish and looked like a massive overspray mess, I was hesitant to go hard on them initially but after a few swipes with the hand block I figured I'd go a tad harder.

the white primer can easily be seen now I've given it a rub, this 'patch' extended back to the front beam (can still see a small patch where I started).... As I went I kept thinking I'd find an ugly repair under all this paint, its got to be here somewhere




and then a brain-storm said .... start up the front and have a light sand there, and that's when the "tree rings" of repaints appeared


green on green on white on green on white on original green


and I kept going.....

and going.....

until it was all gone

and no ugly repair under it all which has stumped me a bit as to why this was done in the first place, a color option that went wrong, was there a white blaze or something in there that was coated over....

what's really odd is this was only on the inner face of one hull, the other is clear of this paint mystery entirely.



yup definitely weird

remember that ugly repair I was looking for ?????

I found it ..... it's on the other hull




been a fairly serious impact here at some stage of her life

the other side of this repair is far smaller (about a 1/4) but similar in the style of repair, you can also see a small repair in the other hull right up at the front edge.


So why did I sand it all back ?????
I had a large area of bad orange peel paint, I have also sanded out the dark green stripes & original name which needed a light sand back from the 120grit I'd used.
I'm not running the block over the old girl like I am with karp, Twice Shy is just getting the orbital sander touch with a final swipe of 320grit, the finish will be smooth and blemish free and I'll have a better idea of what lies beneath it all and that's peace of mind as to what's under me
and
its a major work time saver when I do the real teardown in the off season


today's tasks, 320 sand all the green, prime the repairs and sand back, flip it back over and get some trailer mods on the move
well that's the plan anyway

I saw the pics of Karp in the back ground, whats wrong with it? Why is it quicker to start from scratch on a unknown Mozzy then finish the boat you have been working on for months? Just curious, the season is slipping away...
Darryn
Bullet
1782

Karp is the "good boat", it has far superior equipment and the quality is 2nd to none, I want it to be right and that means time and $$$$ to finish it off to the level I'm after, sure I could rush it through, take a few shortcuts, but even so its still 2~3 months from hitting the water.
There are still a few headache's with Karp that need to be sorted, some of these are fiddly and require expertise I don't have so I'm relying on others and their 'free time' to assist with their services, as a result I have to "fit in" with them, others require time and money at the sail-makers, and I haven't even looked at the trailer or the replacement beams yet !!

Everything I've done with Karp so far has been calculated right out, even the weight of every thing I've added and taken out has been part of the process..... at the end of the day Karp is the pure race boat.

Twice Shy is much closer to making the water, sure I still have some ugliness to get past but its nothing in comparision to Karp's build, with Karp I've used fine hand tools for much of the process, Twice Shy has had a chainsaw thrown at it and it's likely to see it again !!!

If push came to shove I could probably be sailing Twice Shy within a week or two, it wouldn't look sexy n all that but it would be on the water.... Twice Shy is the hack, the one that's not seen a tape-measure of a set of scales and wont until I'm ready to rebuild it properly (once Karp is done most likely)


and

I need to be on the water, I need the practise and to get my head back in the game before I take on Karp and its abilities..... at the moment Karp is far better than I am and I need to get up to speed firstly.

Don't worry, there is still things happening with Karp, the new graffix were sorted recently and the way in which they'll appear on the boat is just about organised.....

Hows it coming? Ready for Sunday?
4 sleeps till race day.
Get it on the water!! lol worry about
Getting it right later.
Al scorpion 1101

Its close.......

I had a little opps with the rear deck on Sunday, gunna cost me a couple of nights to rectify it

w/end after Portland looks like launch day

late Saturday arvo.....





had a spare hour so I had a little tinker.....



don't know about this yet......

its certainly different ....... but then so is the rest of the boat

Sunday I decided to make some much needed repairs and changes to the trailer

cradle for the front beam was first off the drawing board



then came the rear beam's fold down cradle and mast support


The rear carpeted 'loading pads' were also changed slightly.

Mostly finished now except for a coat of don't rust up on me just yet..


And it was about knock-off time when I was cleaning up from the days construction the poop did happen

I had a ~2metre length of the 40x40 tube I'd used left over and as I went to put it away I wasn't watching what I was doing I did the stupid thing
1 stabbed rear deck tearing out a great chunk of the ply instantly, as I jerked it away I plunged it into the other rear deck which split right down the guts.


after several minutes of expletives......

came several more minutes of colorfull mutterings

Tired / not focused / looking forward to the roast dinner I could smell all contributed but I have no-one to blame for this error except myself.

So with a full belly of yummy roasted beef I headed back to the shed to butts the damage, 10 mins later the rear decks were no more and I'd cut in some stringer slots in much the same manor I did Jurassic Karps rear decks



the 2 small stringers will give better support to the rear decks and offer the same to the inspection ports.
I've left ~3mm of clearance between the inspection port and the stringers, I had zero clearance on Jurassic Karp so lining up where the hole was to be cut had to be super accurate, didn't make that mistake again



As of last night the stringers have been glassed in and sanded back ready for some new ply decking.

I wasn't going to touch any of the decks until the off season and at this stage that's still the plan.
The front and main's will get a quick coat of paint just to seal them up, with new rear decks I wont be painting these bits as I want to have the entire deck area in varnish, so for the short term I'll have colored fore and main decks and varnished rear decks....

on the plus side......
Atleast I wont have to replace the rears come winter

Slap it together and come racing!! Haha
Like you said its the hack job.
Not like the other three mozzis
Are works of art haha

yeah, but they FLOAT

yeah I know.... been a tad slack of late, family / work and car club have all interfered with the time availability, how dare they !!!


rear decks are done and ready for varnish.....







Stringer just visible inside the inspection port hole....

timber packer in the case slots has also been finished off, the decks are all sanded back and ready for a coat of white paint...



yep that's right, WHITE for the main and fore decks, They'll go in the off season and new decks will be varnished to match the rears

I also finished off some more of the trailer mods I'd started, hold-down bolts are now all machined up and installed .... 1 main one holds the front beam at the mast step and 2 hold the rear beam down.
The 2 rears have been machined so that they have a small locating pin and these line up with the spare holes in the rear track..... this holds the boat dead rigid.

front mount:


rear mount in fabrication:

**** welds



Further mods to the trailer will follow

The lights and numberplate will be fitted up later, and this was the easiest and quickest solution I could do....
As for legal.... meh


48/1353

One week to go, looking forward to seeing it
On the water!
Al

With the car club stuff now out of the way until Febuary hopefully I wont loose another w/end....

oh yeah like that's going to happen

first up I get the flu, so last Saturday and Sunday are gone as the couch and bed are as far as I can be bothered to move between

So Monday seems like a good day to take off work and recover from the nasty virus that's tried to kill me during the previous 2 days.....

Monday is paint day.... time to refresh the green, its a nice warm 30degrees, the heater is on aswell kicking the shed's temp up to just under the 40C. perfect for a glass finish....




and glass we get ....



looking good.....

Or so I thought .......

Tuesday morning pics...





overnight the paint has reacted severly to something, patches like these are intermittently spread over each hull, some smaller than a thumb-nail while others are quite large.
Totally random as to the placement of each patch..


only one thing to do......

Wednesday night.....
Thursday night.....
Friday night..... are spent stripping off ALL the primer and top-coats

Saturday morning is spent sanding

Saturday arvo and the primer is applied



This morning saw the primer sanded back and this afternoon saw the new coat of green applied.
Busy w/end

Pic's when I know its all good.

The culprit at this stage appears to be a contaminated cloth that I used to wipe down the hulls prior to the original green being applied.
I wont know for sure until tomorrow, I used new cloths from an un-opened packet this time and I did a test with a cloth from the pack I think is contaminated, hopefully the old car door will be as wrinkled as nanna and the boat will be smooth as silk....
waiting waiting waiting



and inbetween all of that, I managed to make more alterations to the trailer and its now also ready for a fresh coat of paint.
Mods included shifting the mudguards so that they sat parralle to the chassis instead of the 2" angle they sat at.
Several lugs and other old welds cut off and cleaned up flush.
The main supports from the main chassis to the carpeted supports were shifted further inboard to assist the new beam supports.

all up its looking much more like a trailer should and is far more user friendly.......

Trailer color..... green or white ?????

decision made...... found some white I didn't know I had so figured I'd use it up and save the green for another job....


trailer mods all done, sanded back and sprayed.... lights fitted so now its ready to go





sail-box is on the drawing board.... being in the steel fabrication industry I think I'll do a nice color-bond job

meanwhile........

Twice Shy has been sitting on Jurassic Karp's trailer

I could get the boat onto the trailer by myself without any real dramas, problem became I couldn't turn it over without the soft paint being marked.......
So I took it to work and used the overhead crane to spin it over and then re-fit it to Jurassic's trailer...

Its now 6 days since the respray and today is the first day I've been happy enough to put it outside for the day.
We live in a forest so the bird life is heavy .... as is the poop they splatter everywhere, soft curing paint and birdy poop is not a good combination so its stayed in the shed until now.

out sunning for the day, this was taken just on sunset



nice finish...



and no contamination

Looking good!
I'd be interested to know if you nailed the reason for the orange peel in random places. A while back we had the same issue when painting an Opti for my son. It only puckered up in a few places and was quite random. We figured the only thing was that there was a 'softer' or damper section of paint. It was only on the interior, and relatively easily fixed. Hopefully you'll be able to get it wet soon!

No I haven't really nailed it down to a single thing.... possibly a combination of a few factors

1/
First up were the cloth wipes I use to clean off the dust etc when I prep-wash the primer. Prep-wash is used as a cleaner and removes any gums/glues/silicates etc that can contaminate paint, the cloth pack was left out of its cupboard for a few days so contamination may have occurred there.

2/
Heat may also of had an effect, after reading the directions I found it wasn't best to use in hot temps, specifically above 30dergee, it was 29 on the day and I did have the heater on as well so at a guess it would have been nearing 40degrees in the shed.
Also with this, I did shut down the heater in the cool of the evening, it was around 20degrees outside so perhaps the rapid temp drop had an effect....


3/
off chance this one but..... maybe I'd laid down the 2nd coat a tad heavy ??????
Usually I'll hang a light coat first and allow it time to tack off, just dry enough to touch really gently but not completely dry, pending on the day that tack off can be 15mins through to 2~3hours.
The 2nd coat I applied was hanging on well so I slowed the gun down a tad and laid it on a bit thicker.....




Before I resprayed the boat I did a test on an old car door I have here as a test bench, half was wiped down with the cloths and the other half done with new cloths, I also cooked it at 40degrees and laid down the same style of coats......
I still got the peel effect, mostly on the bad cloth side but had some on the good cloth side as well.....

So.....

combination I guess, contaminated cleaning cloths, way too hot for the paint.


I've eliminated the spray style as I used the same style on the respray that's come out perfectly on the boat.


The respray was also done on a much cooler day ~20degrees and without the heater being used at all.




On another note:
we had some steel work do the exact same thing, strangely enough it was sprayed by a co-worker on the same Monday I did the boat. The 310-UB beams had very similar patches of peel effect and again only in some areas, the boss put it down to the heat of the day and an extra thick coat of industrial paint & ...... someone that doesn't normally paint doing the job.

So I wont rule out Monday as one of the possible causes either

Today I decided I didn't like the white decks, just wasn't going to work with the final "look" I'm after....
I have already fitted new rear decks so I wanted to paint them in the style I want as a finished product when all the decks are replaced .....

so.....

The green decks are now finished

the rear deck...... just needs a coat of clear now and its done

I'll follow the same style on the main and forward decks when they are replaced......

The orange peel affect, is caused by applying too thick off the gun, to get auto finish thinner coats and more of it, what I saw in the pics is called fish eyed, means contamination on the cloths or on the work, usally siliconis the main cause and oil. other reasons undercoat not cured properly. Orange peel affect is on almost everything that is industral, as its a good strong coat and will last for years, auto finish is good bht need to be upkept

Tramp on. Fittings on and youre on the water! Get excited mate!
Now the real fun starts!
Al

The paint rep dropped by today, showed him the pics of the boat and he also had a look at the effected steel work....

verdict => too heavy with the 2nd coat and way too hot when applied, the really bad areas are a contamination .

this is part of the effected steel work that was sprayed on the same day, oddly enough only half the beam was effected, the rest as we've since noted was in the shade and completely unaffected.

yep its all starting to come together nicely...... soon..... very soon I hope
cant wait.....

lets hope it floats

I'm actually missing working on Jurassic karp and I'm keen to get back onto it again, the huge gain has been the bits I now know I'll do differently => very differently in fact

I have a few other ideas to try out over the next week or two that will also have an impact on Karp in the long run. hopefully over the x-mas break I'll get Karp into full primer and have the graffic's all finalised and cut out ready for the base color coat

as of tonight (actually 1/2 an hour ago )...... two of the main bits are married again





my eBay bargin is lookin sweet as now

getting there

the name makes an appearance
&
the treadgrip is applied.... this is just the first coat so the masking tape will stay until the 2nd coat is on.

couple more shots of the treadgrip




close-up of the treadgrip remembering this is just the first coat so it will have a bit more body to it later....

for perspective the strip is ~40mm wide

2nd coat applied and dry, masking tape removed

although it looks quite coarse its actually rather smooth to the touch, it does actually 'feel' quite grippy




The tredgrip was tinted to match as close as possible to the actual color of the boat, and esentually it is as close to identicle as the paint shop could get it, the main reason its so different is its a low sheen paint and the boat has a high gloss over it so a dead match was never going to happen....

but damn its close


lesson learned for Jurassic Karp, make sure that the tredgrip can be matched to the color

today was a tidy up day....
chase a few loose ends and do a few of the fiddly little bits

simple stuff like this



the eye-bolt was a part of original hold-down setup on the trailer, 4 of them strapped the boat down via turn-buckles.
One broke on the way home and I did stop 3 or 4 times to re-tension the boat back down.....
No wonder it moved around a bit on the trailer

Of the 4, one remove itself somewhere between here and its old home, 2 snapped off clean as soon as I showed them the spanner and this one was the cream of the crop ......

this eyebolts location is where the threaded end is pointing, now sporting a nice n new stainless bolt

rear decks glossed up n lookin sexy


this is straight gloss, I didn't stain the ply and yet it came up really well, definitely highlights the grain in the ply

I also spent a few hours on the lathe machining up some steel discs....

the discs prior to being machined up....



now it may seem a bit of an odd thing to be doing but there is as usual a reason behind them..... and that is the one thing we've not repaired/cleaned/altered/replaced/painted/resined or polished......

I sure as hell aint using these.....



the steel discs will when finished allow me to roll 20mm alloy square tube into a nice tight circle..... and then with a wave of the magic wand I'll hopefully have a nice pair of rudder boxes.....

thats if it works



stay tuned......

assembled and ready to go with the first one about to be released....



& hey presto ....

half an hour later

(NB: the unit behind my rolling die is off a Taipan and is what I'm duplicating, only slightly smaller )



all the bits are now rolled and ready for assembly which I'll do if I find a spare minute or 10 over the next few days.
Haven't decided on whether I'll tig weld them together or just use pop-rivets and small bolts as yet, but the plan does call for some stainless steel plates to be pop-riveted on, these plates will strengthen up the areas around the hinge pins etc and reduce wear down to a minimal amount...


merry xmas to all

xmas dinners aside, and the customary mid-day nap to sleep off the meal....
and having assembled a dozen odd toys for the boys along with a few others bits for the less mechanicly minded adults that insisted in dropping by..... bloody relitives
Xmas is half done, only have the other side of the family to do tomorrow


Today I managed to sneak out to the shed armed only with the last 2 toys to assemble, with them done and quietly returned to the lounge room without being spotted I figured I'd earnt a reward ...... boat time


2 hours later and both 'boxes' are assembled with one slightly further progressed than the other, I'll just sneak in another half n hour and do the pins.... so a duplicate set to Jurassic Karps is pumped out .....


Oh what the hell.....
may as well slip all the bits together for a mock-up....

so.....

after 3 hours we have ....

the duplicate top pin setup



bottom pin setup



The bolts through the transom haven't got nuts on them, the entire mock-up is literaly just hanging there

this bit wasn't fun.....



every bolt I had was way too short or way too long, so this was the simplest solution, rather pleased with the end result

bottom plate ......

I'll just sneak in another 1/2 n hour

which resulted in



all up, it's been a good xmas so far, and I'm pleased with the results on the boat as well over the last couple of days.




76/2965

Hours n hours of measuring /checking, double checking my measurements after re-measuring yet again, I decided to do some more trimming to the rudders to get them where I wanted......






A phonecall was made and the positions and angles were discussed at length .... 2 mozzie owners measuring the boats as we walk around our own sheds comparing the pro's n con's of what and where and how much.
Thanks Philip, your knowledge backed my thought up almost exactly...... + or - a few mm

the next thing I know is I'm at the local army disposals store and much to my supprise (& $8:00 later) I get back home with this....



yup....
dome tent fibreglass pole thingies....


and this has what to do with 1182 ???? .....

Oh....
and I also added 2 extra screws between the existing screws in the tramp track, 20 extra screws means a lot more strength for the tramp/hull connection and although I'm a trim 75kgs when she goes 2 up then it may well get some added stress that may be too much for the old girl

then I hit the lathe and a lump of stainless shaft began a transformation.....












now that these are done, I started wondering about using alloy.... mmmmmmmm

[img]http://i961.photobucket.com/albums/ae97/BADZX/1182/116_zpsde099215.jpg[/img]

next set maybe
the stainless ones will do for now .....
more lathe work to come on these but for now that will have to do on these bits

I'd had enough of the lathe and needed a break, figured the next job would be the tiller, and what better than the trusty old electrical conduit !!!
problem with it is that the conduit whilst nice n light is also very bendy so to stiffen it up I figured a lump of timber (wooden curtain rod) shoved up the inside would do wonders....

so why in this day n age when we've been a metric nation for god only knows how long ... why cant we get METRIC materials that work..... 20mm conduit needs 20mm curtain rod....
we have a choice of the trusty old 3/4 rod which flops around inside or 7/8 rod....22mm don't fit into 20mm

so back to the metal lathe for some wood turning

mutter mutter mutter just what I needed



15mins later.....





the old tiller gets the dismantling treatment...



that's got to be a better length




and then I notice something that's not quite right....

after 5 mins of digging around and removing some old n crusty silicone/pvc/ & wood and what might have once rubber I finally managed to pry out an alloy tube from within the old tiller arm

huh



another 5mins and hey presto...



and after yet another 5mins....



as of this post the 2 alloy tubes have been thoroughly cleaned of all the debris that was fouling it up, the 2 bits now slide easily in an out and the concentric lock is also working a treat, half a twist and its locked in place turn it back and its unlocked and the length can easily be adjusted...

how good is that
and now I even have a spare conduit tiller extension as well


what else can I attack that means I don't go near the lathe...

This is my old sail-box from way back when, I think I made it around my 2nd last year at school, so that would be ~1976 at a guess and it held my first mosquito's (245 Stinga) gear way back then too, in really good nick for its age hey (unlike the owner )

yep its old but as you can see it holds a large amount of kit, in this case its Jurassic Karps gear in it

going to need another one for 1182....



Number 1 son is a carpenter.....

so now we have.....





the hinge.....

I hate ...... WITH A PASHION ..... piano hinges

great for piano's...... that's all
back in ~1976 ish, I hated em too, and thats when I came up with this hinge system, not sure where I got it from or why it came about but its the best damn hinge system I've ever had on equipment like this. I've converted heaps of other containers over the years to much the same setup...

The alloy strips are the stuff you find joining carpet to timber floors it has several other uses in the caravan world as well.
Under the 2 alloy strips in this case is a piece of fire hose, its been opened and closed thousands of times and its the original piece thats still fitted, these days I prefer to use old seatbelts, the webbing is nice and strong and flexiable....

and it's lots cheaper than fire hose





tomorrow its back to the lathe, more bits of stainless to be machined down for those tent poles....


till then

Happy new year to all
may you all have fair weather and smooth sailing in 2014

Kingy

Lathe work completed

all the stainless bits are now lathed / shaped / drilled / tig-welded / and test fitted into position.
&
the timber rudders have also had the circular saw / drill / router thrown at them and we have done a full mock-up assembly

resin gets added tomorrow to complete it all....



tops of the blades were cut square and then a 30mm slot cut along the top and front edge, the front edge slot is around 100mm long only.

Main plate.
the hinge bolt will pass through this plate adding extra strength.

several other holes have also been drilled in the plate and this will allow resin to form a "pin" through the plate. Once the resin has cured enough to be worked on (I'm using 7day cure resin), I'll bore 3 more larger holes (12mm) through the rudder and main plate and add timber pins which will also be resined in. These pins will be hard wood.

all the bits in place and ready for resin

this is how its sitting in the shed as of Lights Out tonight

the front lockdown and lockup setup I've come up with will be posted when I take some pics of it




number 2 son Andrew (also crew for 1182), has been busy on the lathe giving me a break
He's cut and trimmed and made various bits for the tiller which is now fully re-assembled and ready for refitting.

Might have to do some work on my old girl and get
The same sort of system together on the rudders
Looking forward to seeing her hit the water,
The best thing about the water levels been down??
If it sinks there isn't far to go ;p haha

yeah Phil said he was half tempted to get a couple of sets done when I posted the rolled alloy tube, as for the rest of the lockdown contraption..... we both know who to blame for that








hopefully next Saturday we'll be up your way or you'll be down this way, which ever drop of water suits will do, will ring Phil during the week and we'll go from there

This is the main plate that has now been resined into place....

The large holes allowed resin to flow through the plate and form a solid plug as such, additional 'grip' on the plate has been done by roughing up the area to be resined with a severe grind.
The pilot holes on the actual board aren't real deep, they are there just to mark where to drill once the resin has cured enough to be worked on.
These pilot holes will be drilled right through and to a 10mm diameter then a hardwood dowel will be resined in.... that should hold it all together nicely

and this afternoon the wind was blowing quite strongly, so what a brilliant idea it was to do this....




and now you see why I had to retain the green..... just wouldn't have worked any other way



Figured if I stepped the mast I'd get a better idea for some of the bits I might need, as such none are required, although there is an excessive rake on the mast at the moment so I'll need to address that...

Then the wind eased

so with a spirited dash we threw the jib on..... Oh what the hell and up goes the main

At the moment, the boom-vang rope needs replacing and the cleat that locks the foot adjustment needs a service to free it up a bit.

other than that.......

looking good

the missus snapped this one, as you can see the mast rake is well up there

rudders were an absolute mess, god only knows how many coats of varnish had been applied over the years and even after 3 coats of industrial paint stripper there was still varnish to be found....

This is AFTER the paint stripper !!!




deep sanding trenches were also uncovered, gotta hate orbital sanders

after some serious sanding, a bit of wet n dry sanding we had....

Rudder in place with the 4 hard-wood dowels glued in



closer view of the dowel



Since this pic was taken the dowels have been countersunk and the resulting cavity has been resined up, sealing them in entirely !!


I seriously hope I never have to remove the plates from the boards, it will be easier to burn them and collect what's left

lock-down plates ready for a test fit....



they a re a bit like chainsaw teeth in their shape and there's a reason for that shape, one side holds the locking shaft and the other side holds it centrally so it cant slip out sideways from the lock.





in this pic you can see the interference of the lock pin to the tooth, with the flexible glass rod between the rudder and the lock it snaps in and out with a similar noise like a mousetrap going off
Its also very easy to lock and un-lock one-handed, and yet cant unlock itself

the final stage of the dummy fit and test runs.....



this has now all be securely fixed to the arm and the entire rudder system is now fully functioning including the lock-up teeth.
pics to come later

all in place and working ....




and the best bit......

the flex in the glass rod is really good, I can get the blade out to ~45degrees and it may well go a lot further before it snaps.
Yeah the photo isn't anywhere near 45degrees but I was balancing on one foot and using the other foot to push the blade out and the resistance was beating me, this was the best focused pic I got after half a dozen attempts.... & my leg got tired


I think seaweed and other hidden underwater objects wont be an issue like they would have been with the old system, even other systems like the rope and cleat would be damaged or cause damage if such things are struck....

Very happy with it....



Now its all assembled and working I already have design changes in mind where I can make it work for me much better..... that system will go onto Jurassic Karp
I can easily modify this one to the new line thinking so again 1182 will be the test-bench for Jurassic Karp.
The simple bit is I only have to change 1 part and slightly modify another to achieve what I have in mind.

sail-box is finished
it will get a sand and re-coat when the decks are replaced.







Only one thing left to do

get it wet

handing your smart phone over to elderly people doesn't always work that well, I got lots of picks of fingers / sand / the dogs butt / more fingers / & ...... half a dozen 3sec videos of the same




Ideal day..... very light winds to start off with, and they freshened up after a couple of hours, we flew hulls later in the afternoon and got that distinctive mosquito hum through the wires.
As evening approached the winds stepped it up another notch and we got wet from the spray and found some very interesting angles.
For Andrew (#2 son and crew), it was his first time out on a boat and he enjoyed every minute of it, even the trap work and getting drenched from the spray as the cooler winds swept through...

yeah.... Ideal day

Good to see it all worked out, even better your crew enjoyed it.

Ross
No Turbulence
1774

We put just over 6 hours on the water and it was only a guilt thing that made us come in eventually and we were both suprised at the lateness of the day, time flew allright ....



The boat performed perfectly, the rudder system worked a treat and the handling was absolutely spot on, we did however have a failure with the jib track which is an easy fix and some stitching at the front of the tramp has begun the slow self-distruct thing

After 6 hours we had less then half a cup of water in each hull
I was shocked at this, the old girl is actually very water proof despite her crusty old decks and not so well fitting hatch covers.

immediate changes -> rake mast further forward another hole on the adjuster. replace boom-vang rope, check threads on hatch covers.



The trailer also needs one small change, the one bit I totally forgot to do.



other than that..... I'm going sailing

Congratulations Kingy, beautiful job! have been watching this thread every day and admiring your handy work. I love the way you have documented the rebuild and hopefully it will help others who travel the same path.

I have also enjoyed following your progress. These days not many people have the skills, knowledge and equipment that you have to take on refurbishment of a couple of old clapped out mosquitos and bring them back to life. Well done....

Congratulations on your first day of Pennant racing
on twice shy, the green looked good sailing around our little
lake in derrinallum and will be even better if we can get all 5 mozzies on the water!!!The wind was a bit all over the shop but hey, that's lake sailing. youve got a good old mozzie for next to nothing I reckon!
See ya next Sunday
Al scorpion 1101

I've never encountered the situation where 2 boats can be on the same leg and less than 20metres apart, and yet one is pointing hard and the other is at broard reach and yet both are traveling at the same speed


Never run up underneath a tiapan and undertaken them and beat them to the mark only to round the mark and watch helplessly as they sail straight past you less than 10metres away and I'm the windward boat


That extra lap I did after the last siren was 1/3rd of the time of any of the other laps for the whole day. The lake's wind god obviously wasn't anywhere near me until it didn't matter




I'm going to make a blood sacrifice to the lake wind god next sunday to appease him

I think you will find Phil, has it written in the constitution that the wind will not treat you well at Deep Lake until you have sailed there for at least a season!


No Turbulence
1774

Spot on Ross! Haha
We sailed in the same breeze too but
Have prayed to the deep lake gods for many years
Al scorpion 1101

She's still floating..... and we're still on the water as much as often as we can. But its not been without issues, we've broken several things and most have been largely due to the weathering of various components, some I did think were a little average but "serviceable" ..... and I was caught out



The list:

1/ Endless jib sheet block
plastic covered block snapped clean in half, what got me was the other one had the visible crack and that was the one I though would go....



2/ Mast top pulley
bit of a no-no when the main sail suddenly falls to the deck



3/ Mainsail
nearly tore the out-haul shackle point out of the clew due to the corroded brass eyelet failing


4/ Mainsail
head, again another about to tear out shackle point and again that corroded brass eyelet is the culprit


5/ Boom-vang
Snapped rope, it was suspect anyway and I knew it was well past its use-by date


6/ Port foot strap
stitching let go, this I didn't expect nor was the almost swimming result, thankfully the tiller arm is strong




7/ Trampoline
torn leading edge and several small areas of stitching along the sides started to fail, and then rapidly those areas grew !
$40 to re-stitch the entire tramp and fit a new leading edge = BARGIN



The weathered stitching has been the one that caught me out the most, the other minor problems like the mast filling with water by a combination of corrosion around the rivets and open rivets, most of these have been fixed asap once I'm aware of them......

The shackle points on the main sail were really a failure of the pressed in brass eyelets, these have corroded significantly and put all the load onto the plastic load plate.... we simply cut some thin stainless to the same shape as the original plastic load plate and glued/riveted it back in place, works a treat.


Jurassic Karp's beach rollers have been repaired and are now rolling us around with ease, I even found an easy way to hang them on the trailer

I machined up new plastic bushes that eliminated the need for a sand seal and they also tightened up the play that existed in the old bushes.
The arms that the boat actually sits on were also modified with some alloy sheet and flat refrigeration foam.



The only thing I think I need asap is that sailbox.... I've ordered the material and am still waiting.... xmas break is over guys, come on and get my order happening !!!!

interestingly enough......

Race 1
I (sailing solo) got bytch-slapped big time..... out on the trap haulin butt, big gust coming, ease the main, and point her up a tad as the gust hits.......
the main inverts and I actually pull the boat over onto myself thus assisting the willy-willy gust



I have no idea as to how long Alan and I spent trying to right her but it physically sapped me..... MODIFICATIONS TO COME


Race 2
Phil and crew gets bytch-slapped by the same willy-willy



seems the lake god is female and doesn't care who she takes her curse out on

As has been the standard with this old girl since her re-floating....


more failures from old weathered bits



this was the one that had the slow leak, down to 10psi every w/end after sitting for the weak. I did tank the tyre but couldn't find a leak....
This blowout happened about 20miles from home on a stinking hot day (last Sunday), started of as a bit of a bulge that caused a slight vibration through the trailer, we slowed down as it got worse.......
Wasn't worth stopping as I didn't have a spare for the trailer, its an old stud pattern and so 'limp home' mode was selected.

We kept a very close eye on it as the tyre fell apart and the speed was dropped several times as it worsened, we eventually made the my street at a rapid rate of ~20kph



With so much carnage of the tyre...... & yet not a single mark on the hull, the trailer escaped with only a minor scratch

Read em and weep ......


https://www.facebook.com/WarrnamboolYachtClub/posts/598573470223759


Warrnambool regatta:

we had a great start on day 1 with a solid win in race 1 and were looking to back it up in race 2 when poo's did smack us down....
busted mast and torn main

what really pi$$ed me off was I'd stuck Jurassic Karp's mast, main sail & jib onto Twice Shy just for the regatta


so now I have to find a new mast and main for Karp....

mutter mutter mutter




Saturday nights social activities were cut sort so we could re-assemble the old gear back onto Twice Shy to compete on Sunday.

Luckily no major damage was done when the mast snapped to anything else except the mast and main.....

Sunday saw us back up n racing in what I can only say were great conditions for the old tart.... had a ball and came home with trophies.....



not bad for an eBay hack ....
even better for a beginner crew and an old fart

the not so good bit......

The last time I broke a mast like that it was due to insufficient diamond tension. Did something break first (like a diamond wire) or did the mast just let go?

Unusal spot,

I thought that was the normal spot, even broke my f18 mast there!

Diamond tension on that mast is (or should I say "was") adjustable, we were running it around the 3/4 mark on the day .....

Nothing else broke with the rig ...... & I'll be using all the setup off this mast on the replacement mast, nothing is damaged except the alloy section itself

Several other sailors (including ex mozzie sailors) said the same thing

Bit of a mystery up until an old sailor and frequent bay user said one thing that ties it all together ......

Mozzies apparently break in 3 common spots.....

Area around the goose-neck
Dimond spreader bar
&
At the hounds

Uncommon to break else where apparently.....

I'm no expert as I've only ever broken one other mast and that was a cedar mast on my impara cadet back in 1973 !!!!!



A bit more detail :

As we went over another gust hit us a 2nd time and that pushed the mast to ~45degrees down into the water..... We were on our way to a full capsize ... But there was a few moments of hesitation were it seemed to just hang there

then there was a shudder through the boat and she dropped down to fully upside down instantly...

Bugger, it was past the stage I could use my home-made righting setup so I went to the righting rope thats lashed up on the front of the tramp....
It was then I saw the base of the mast about a foot infront of the front beam and about two feet under the water.....
Crew calls out.... Dad, why is the mast up there ?.....
Turn around to see the top of the mast about 4feet above the water bobbing about happily at the back of the boat

Ummmmm errrrrr ...... thats not good !!!!


After we were draged back to shore and the rig was cleared away and the boat righted was when we were told why it had failed in that spot.....

Unknowingly we'd capsized on a sandbar and it was probably the wind gust and sea swell that pile-drove the mast until it failed

It did hang at that angle for quite some time befote flopping fully now we think about it ....

Makes sense but I'll never realy know....


so .................


Any spare masts around ????




edited to fix spelling ... original post done from smart phone..... logical hey

The beach rollers I got with Jurassic Karp have seen better days, one or two small splits soon multiplied into several small splits as soon as I started using the rollers under Twice Shy



these small splits only got worse with use.... up until the side wall of the roller stated to fail they were semi tolerable so now I have to get a fix for these....

With a broken mast and a front and rear beam that needs replacing on Karp along with a couple of resulting sail repairs, I don't have the coin to splash out on a nice set of beach wheels so the mother of invention ( = cheap) has to step up n bail me out


A walk around the shed and a pair of Yamaha 225 4wheeler front wheels are gathered up .....they aint flash but they hold air and they are not bad diameter wise to the rollers diameter ~2inches bigger maybe




mmmm

need hubs for the wheels


more laps of the shed.......

some 12mm alloy plate and a couple of chunks of 3" alloy shaft should do the job just nice, cold welding and peening is used to join the two together then its off to the lathe....

facing off and roughing out the 'shape'



need a hole for the axle so out comes the boring bar

cut a rebate in the hubs to act as a "stop" so the hubs stay on the nylon bearings....



pilot the holes for the studs....



add some 3/8 bolts and hey presto.... we have wheel studs or for those on the other side of the ocean.... lugs for the lug-nuts

I used the new nylon bushes I recently made for the rollers and simply re-machined them to suit the new alloy hubs....
(the drilled hole through the side of the bush is where they will be pop-riveted back onto the axle)

I haven't taken any pictures of the finished setup just incase it was a miserable failure..... as it turned out its works a treat

I had to re-machine the bushes down to get more clearance, as it turns out the more water that gets in the easier they roll, the water acts as a lubricant so now we have 1.5mm of clearance all round on the bushes....

20psi in the tyres makes it child's play to move the boat around on hard surfaces such as the carpark.
I found 5psi was really good in the sand but just a tad heavy in the carpark so I've settled on ~10psi for now....


advantages:
a breeze over a distance
doesn't bounce about over rough ground
easy on gentle uphill rises

disadvantages:
the rims are pressed 3mm thick steel plate so obviously rust in the future will be an issue, galvanised dipped may be the answer here
&
they are heavy when it comes to the placing or removing from the trailer


other than that....
all up I spent around 12 hours on the mig welder and lathe to make the hubs from scratch & modify the bushes to suit, otherwise it was just stuff that I had laying around....

cheap fix ...... not pretty but..... it works.....

This was from last w/end, not a big swell but a late afternoon wind storm swept through, most capsized and few escaped without some sort of karma payback....

one little slip as I came in off the trap and that cracking sound was all it took to know disaster had bitten, oh well I'll just finish off the race and then look at the damage....



the inside view....



how lucky was it to of happened where the hatch allowed direct access

repairs

the section trimmed and pushed back into place....
resined in....
thin coat of micro balloons over that and left to harden




the following night I laid some glass mat to the inside of the hull and blocked back the external damage, and out came the primer...



fixed

and now the damage from the Stawell weekend.....

The old foredecks are really starting to give me a bit of a headache, they are so soft it was always going to be a question of when I had an issue not if.....

one momentarily misplaced elbow created ...



in this shot the other stress fracture can be seen easily running along the edge, the other hull has this same fracture in the same spot....
we also have the black silicon bead that's filling the separated deck., this is now in several spots as the racing weekends have gone by



the problem I now face is what to do about it....
sacrifice a weekend of racing and rip off the old fore decks and replace them properly
or
keep patching her up and just get her through the season....

With the end of the season just around the corner it seems pointless to do a major remove and replace now, on the other hand, just how much longer can I push my luck, I don't think I'd enjoy the easter regatta on the beach with badly damaged foredecks......

The way you fix things a new deck will be done in one night!
and no you won't like sitting on the beach at Bolac.

No Turbulence

1774

Your probably right in the time frame question, its not a huge job in reality and its not like I haven't done one before

what worries me tho is what I might find under the rotten old foredecks !! I know there's a couple of uglies hidden under the mains and for now they aren't an issue.
The mains are 6ply and I've ripped away one complete layer in an attempt to 'smooth' it out somewhat, supprisingly enough they are still solid enough to cope with the riggers of racing (weight and ugliness aside)

I had intended to rip the decks during the off season, and whilst they were off have a good cleanup in the hull area and lay a thin coat of glass mat (~40gsm) for added strength without a big weight increase.
I also plan a change to the front bridal attaching point to bring it into a more modern setup just so I can add a spi if it ever goes down that path.

sadly all that wont be done in a night.....

its a week or 2 worth of nights and that means one w/end off the water....

duct tape time ????

Duct tape will work,It fixes everything! I think I may have seen a sail mostly made up of duct tape doing ok on the weekend!


No Turblence
1774

At Deep-Lake on Sunday I had a bad run, a capsize on the gybe-mark and strong winds that refused to let me get the nose into the wind for righting and that reasonably paced wind forced drifting across the lake saw me physically stuffed after a long unsucessfull fight
Crash-boat assisted recovery was needed and he eventually got there after a long period of assistance with another cat. With the boat up n going again it felt sluggish and non responsive for the next couple of legs which I put down to a wet main....

What I did notice whilst hanging out on the trap was the foredecks paint work..... it seemed to be "wrinkling" and then flattening out as the various wind gusts struck !!!
The worst area was almost in the middle between the forestays and the front beam.

After the end of the race I stayed on the water for a play session and made several tuning changes for my own interest and for the learning curve, some of which helped


Back on the beach and a quick prod at the decks showed an increase of "flex" over what it had been, soft was a word I'd have used before but now they were really soft. The deck / hull joint had let go in several spots and I'd managed to push some green paint into the splits during the respray, I'd also sealed up some others with the "tredgrip" paint and a couple that had re-opened several times had received the additional nails treatment combined with a squirt of silicon to keep them sealed.


I was praying that the boat would see the season out and that I could replace the foredecks and main decks over the off season......




Plan B time.......




this took all of ten minutes





The deck literally peeled off like peeling a banana peel
The glue had let go along most of the length and it was really only the nails that were holding it together and keeping the water out !

the actual hulls are in good condition thankfully so its a straight forward deck replacement....

yeah right, the plot is about to thicken

Closer view of the "elbow through deck" repair I did a couple of weeks back.... nails still attached !!!
this was the strongest part of the entire deck





what I 'think' has been happening is the slow rot of the decks over time caused by a couple of things apart from old age.....

1/
the decks were sanded back and left exposed to the weather for about 18months, at the same time the hatch covers weren't fitted allowing some winter rain to enter the actual hulls
She wasn't pretty by any means was she !!!!


While the hulls themselves have had a coat of varnish applied during the original build the decks have had no protective cover applied to the under side, as the rain water was heated by the sun it obviously condensated on the upper most part of the structure ......

this has been an ongoing thing since I've put her back on the water, she always gets about a cup of water in each hull after each days sailing, I sponge out as much as posiable but you never get every drop....

2/
The ply isn't a good grade ply, the glue between the veneers shows signs of failing, specifically along the hull/deck joint.
the glue that was used to hold the deck to the hull has also failed for most of that connection, hence the ease of which I was able to peel the decks off leaving a lot of tarnished nails, the only part the nails came away with the deck was the "elbow hole" area


fortunately the timber work below the deck ply is all in great condition and hasn't suffered from the moisture issue that the decks have had

The other problem I had was the front shroud mounts, they always came loose after a few days of sailing and the plates moved away from the hull about a millimetre each time. The screws never seemed to tighten up full and I was hesitant on over doing them incase I stripped them thus causing more headaches !!!!
I did get some relief when I put resin into the screw holes and then add the screws, it did firm up considerably but there was always that gap that kept coming back.....

me thinks this may be the cause......
obviously there's been a past issue too !!!

Both the very front foams have let go and are just laying in the hulls, almost as if they were just tossed in and forgotten, I cant find any glue on the hulls that would suggest they were stuck "here" !!!

all the others are in excellent condition and showing no signs of failure / cracks / or salt water damage

Nice



Really happy with the overall condition of the hulls under the foredeck area. the job is so much easier and will require only a small amount of work... "maintaining" is probably a better word !!!

I'll add 2 stringers to each hull and only up to the front shroud plate I don't belive it needs to go any further as the foams are more than capable of doing the job from there to the front.
2 stringers per hull is also sufficient as the foams are ~50mm thick and placed closer together than Karps, that should make for a very strong foredeck that will last the boats remaining life.
I'll also coat the foams in a thin coat of resin just to keep them healthy ....


I intend to alter the front shroud mounts too, new custom made ones are in order

So far its going great guns......
The above pics were from work I did on Sunday night after the days sailing....
Had I have known what was about to happen and that shyte was about to strike as it usually does and always when you don't need it to rear its ugly head .... I may have left the decks alone.....


Yesterday at work I managed to nick my elbow on a sharp edge, what was only a few droplets of blood soon turned into a heavy loss and a trip to hospital saw some stiches and bandages being applied....

good things :
a few days off work

bad things:
restricted arm, so working on the boat is mostly OUT
Stitches to stay for 10 days, sailing is out for next weekend

so now I'm behind the 8-ball, no foredecks and physically not able to diddly squat for the next few days.....


where's the crew when ya need em ???? Oh yeah ..... at the girlfriends


mutter mutter mutter

135/10033

Stitches are still in but the old arm is freeing up a bit so I've managed to get a few things done all be it slow going at the moment....

Added my usual foam stiffeners for the stringer support, only this time I made them narrower and set them in lower down the foam.
Reason being, the foam is still at full height and will contact the new deck so it will provide support, the stringers will give support between the foams which the old decks didn't have.





stringers laid in place, although not seated down fully in this pic....




Interesting exercise was to measure the deflection between the hulls pre deck removal and post deck removal....

I had 36mm of flex with the old decks on, 18mm per hull. Since I've pulled the decks that figure went up to 39mm of flex

so basically the old decks were only holding the hulls apart by 3mm

I was never happy with the bridal mounts.....

I am with these tho



the final hole will be drilled after I'm happy with the location in the hull....

test fit

the old bridal mount is just plain fugly and never really worked that well.

View from the inside the hull

I was thinking that bolting the bridal mounts was a smart thing, then Karp reminded me on how they can come loose so I decided to screw them in and add resin to the equasion aswell...



Used the 4" angle grinder with a thin blade to make the exit-hole for the plate..... it worked !!!!

dummy fitting the new ply decks....
trying my best to get an interesting and eye appealing grain to show off once the decks are clear-coated

Yesterday (Saturday) became resin-day, set in the new bridal plates, re glue the 2 forward most foams that were floating around in the hulls, brush a thin coat of resin over the other foams & add a 40mm wide strip of 50gsm cloth over the ply stringer supports, set the new stringers in place, cut more 40gsm cloth that is then glued to the underside of the decks....
&
fit decks....

Flicked the jug on at midnight, make a coffee, & promptly fall asleep in the chair..... long day



5 days to Lake Bolac Easter Regatta..... pressure is on !!!

Monday night and the staples and strapping comes off .... then it was shaped down to the hull edges

nice wood grain



try as I might I couldn't get them perfectly centred, that's just the way the veneers were .... I did push them across as far as I could to get the best fit...

primer on

more green goes on....

This was taken at 2:00am on Wednesday morning, long night in the shed !!!

yesterday morning..... outside "drying"....
Clear went on 'late last night'...

I couldn't mask the green off and spray the clear on, the green hasn't dried enough to take the masking tape so I had to brush the clear on.
It's not pretty but its sealed and will do for Lake Bolac's easter regatta

@ lake Bolac......

I think these were taken just prior to race 5's start ....

Race 1 at Lake Bolac was ugly, Strong winds saw most not even bothering to make the starting line even after the start most of those that did start soon retired..... only 5 of us finished race 1


A few hundred meters from the finish line I had an opps....a broken ruddercase resulted in an unexpected capsize,I wasn't that far behind Harry at the time but the high winds and busted rudder case saw me limp home with only one rudder in the water whilst the other dangled at an odd horizontal angle out the back.

Back on land some quick repairs were done, this was taken after those repairs but you can still see some of the resulting damage.....
Flaring of the alloy at the hinge bolt
The additional plate that's pop-riveted at the rear of the centre arm and obviously the damage to the top of the timber rudder blade itself
The hinge bolt was belted back straight enough to actually work again

Another shot of the damage.....

you can see a gap between the bottom alloy tube and the centre arm, the force has sprung the alloy well away from the centre arm to a point where the philips-head bolt on that side broke and fell off, Bolac owes me a bolt

underside view....

I also added another plate to assist in holding it together seeing I didn't have another bolt to replace the missing one

missing rivets that were replaced after race 3 are again missing, you can also see the damage to the glass covering on the timber rudder from race 1

This has been an ongoing issue since day one....

Initally I was sheering the bolts that held the bottom pintels in place, so I simply added a backing plate to the inside of the transoms and this did for a while work.....

then it started to happen again, the bolts were often loose after a single race and a simple half a turn sorted it, but eventually I started to sheer bolts again.
Next step was to upsize the bolts and this stopped the pintel issue instantly but that's about the time I saw the rivets being stretched and becoming loose.

In high winds the problem was worse, a single race would mean atleast 2 rivets being lost per rudder case, ultimately at Lake Bolac in the very strong winds we had the 3rd rivet failure which resulted in the previous pics.

time for an upgrade of this

spread the load further down the tubes and increase the distance between the rivets...

this should do it

installation complete

now I just need to go sailing to test it...... damn you WINTER




The question now is obvious, will the stronger bottom plates give me more issues again at the pintles ? I could be chasing my tail here as each improvement seems to add problems in a related area, at worst I'll make some new pintles with a wider foot on the transom, that will probably put the issue back onto the rudder case

Are they ally rivets if so swap them stainless, Alloy will sheer or corrode the heads off the rivets . My opinion use alloy block and shape them and weld it into the arm.

Matt

bit concerned about using stainless rivets, whilst they wont corrode or sheer off under the load they will place that load into the case arms..... that may damage the cases where the rivets are.

I did initially toy with the idea of an alloy plate or an alloy block at that point but I've sen a few damaged cases with that system and that's why I went with the stainless plate.

Hopefully the longer plate will help in spreading the load further along the case's length and if needed I can "upgrade" to the stainless rivets.

The top section will be tig-welded along the joins of the 2 outer curved parts to the centre arm..... when I get a new bottle of argon


Whilst the cases have done well so far I think for peace of mind it will be better welded.

I think Matts right about the alloy rivets, however I would go for Monel rivets. I've always used Monel, easier to work with than Stainless, in terms of, having to replace (easier to drill out)

I've had my boxes and blades since 1993, no problems with loads or the alloy block causing any damage. However, your rudder appears to be getting damaged by the stainless plate when locked down.

I'll give the Monel rivets a try ......

And I'm aware of the 'cut' in the rudders from the s/steel plate, I did originally intend to drill a 1/2inch hole and insert an alloy rod into the hole and the tap a thread in the rod .....
The idea was to then add a small bolt to set the blade against.....

I haven't got to that yet, sailing it sort of took over

It's a modification I'll do over the winter break, along with replacing the main decks, there's a few other changes I'm going to try as well.

excitement......


the sheet-metal supplier has finally delivered my folded-up white colorbond "sailbox"

All have to do now is make the ends and put it together !!!



typical that it rocks up AFTER the sailing season has finished


Oh well....
atleast it will be right for next year....

The main body of the sailbox has been folded up by a plumbing supplier company ( because I can only cut & fold a max of 2440mm or 8foot in old measurements) and the box is 3100 long or ~10foot....

The ends for the box and lid are up to me and my little folder and gillo...


one end fitted and the other about to be...

With the box done I took on the ends of the lid.... these were far more complicated as I wanted an overhang for some weather protection and a means of stiffening up the shallow lid somewhat.

test fitting the box & lid onto the trailer

4 over-centre catches will hold the lid down tight and its come up that well I'd say it would be very simple to completely seal it up with a thin weather strip






The lid can be easily removed when the boat is on the trailer either from the back or from the front.
The box size is 400mm wide, 170mm high and 3100 long, the lid is 450mm wide and has a 50mm lip that hangs down past the top of the box, the height of the lid is only 75mm and its length is 3180mm
All up cost was around the $200 mark, that includes rivets, silicone, catches etc etc ..... and an enjoyable Saturday afternoon folding up the ends and fitting it all together.

The reason I went this way over a fibreglass coffin is simple.... the "head room" between the trailer chassis and the dolphin striker is only ~200mm, there was simply no way I could squeeze in an off the shelf glass coffin in the room I had.....

The other reason for its size was also simple.....
the boom, centre-boards, rudders and cases, along with the mainsail and jib all fit easily, there's enough room left for 4 life-jackets, a couple of trap-jackets and 4 wetsuits, (obviously once all dried), so it also acts as a storage cabinet for the times the boat is not in use.

yesterday was our clubs Presentations Day..... a nice relaxing day with the family and club members sharing a few drinks and stories over pizza's from a wood fired oven.

just couldn't get much better than that


and then it took it to a whole new level.....




now remembering I only sailed for the 2nd half of the season, and that's about ~4months worth & that includes 3 regatta's and non sailing days + the day away on car club stuff.....

So I didn't think I'd do any good as such, maybe a first or 2nd a couple of times at the best....

You could have knocked me over with a feather after the supprising little haul the old girl made.....
Four 1st's
Two 2nds's
one 3rd

&

a 2nd in points for the post xmas series







One 'cheap' eBay boat, one old-fart, and a few weekends and nights in the shed can do all right.... but more importantly...

having a ball throughout the entire time "she" came into my possession

worth it ?????

HELL YEAH





this isn't the end......

main decks are getting ripped soon, & then we drag Karp back down

added some stiffeners to the sail-box lid.....

these bits are folded and have a "safety fold" on the edge so cold hands don't get cut & they wont cut into the stored gear whilst traveling, they are glued and riveted into place and are a nice solid addition.




there was just a bit too much flex in the lid and I was concerned it may get kinked so I added 4 pressed up colorbond bits to cope with the additional stresses the lid may come under... & with 2 young kids the likelihood that one of them will climb between the boat and box is .... well .... going to happen.
The lid will support their weight now without suffering too much

the box is now fitted to the trailer and the over-centre catches are fitted up too..... works a treat. With the boat on and secured I can unclip all the catches easily and the lid easily slips out the back or front, its a tad more difficult to slip it off sideways but nothing major to do....

all the gear fits neatly inside the box.....
2 centreboards
2 rudders and cases
tiller cross-arm and tiller extension
boom with all its blocks and sheets
2 mainsails
2 jibs
and
1 spinnaker.....

ok, so one of the mains, jibs and spinnaker are from Karp but it gives you an idea of the capacity of the box even tho its only 170mm high



full

the simple over-centre catch...
$7 each from the local disposal store



the 25x50 tube that the catch is fixed to also doubles as a stiffener for the boxes wall, the only tricky bit was the 'hook' that I put on the lid.... I riveted them from the inside and then belted the rivets down flat so they were a flush finish inside and outside the lid, that's why the 'hook' rivets look a tad odd, the bit we normally see is on the inside of the lid



EDIT:
Oh yeah ..........

AND ITS LOCKABLE
that will keep them sticky beaked ankle biters out

view from the rear..... can just see the back catches

and from the front....



no more gear in the car......
that means the kids can now come along

hang on....... NOoooooooooooooo !!!

Time to rip the main decks


Foams are in excellent condition although the 2 front ones have broken away from the hull sides to a certain extent, the old decks themselves came off largely in a single piece, it was only around the case slot and hatch area that they put up any sort of a fight.
The old decks are not in good nick underneath, obviously condensation has done some damage and the plys have separated slightly in a few spots..... probably explains where the water got in.

I never had a large amount of water in either hull after a day on the water, usually a 1/3rd of a coffee cup was the norm.

weight loss.....

the massive 10mm (3/8inch) deck ply.

I'm replacing this with 4mm ply

case slots are in excellent nick too and are solidly fixed to the bottom of the hull, even with the decks removed they aren't easy to move sideways.
The chopped matt extends up the case ~200mm (~8inches)

lots of this stuff......




its resin dribbles from the original deck fitting and there's mountains of it !!!
Luckily the inside of the hulls has had a coat of varnish to seal it and the resin runs are easy to knock off. I removed a good double-handful of these turd-like deposits.
the one in the pic is ~8mm in diameter and ~45mm long and its about the average in size.

these were disappointing, it almost looks like an after thought

but they have worked all these years so I'll leave them as they are, a layer of mat over them tho will help.

The top hole has damaged the inwhale slightly and the stainless washer has had the vice n hammer treatment to bend it to fit in the tight corner.
With a far thinner deck I can move the plates down a good 10mm so a new set of holes will be in order anyway and I'll likely fit a doubler plate to the inside aswell..... maybe even glass it in !!


174/14952

I removed 2 of the foam's so I could gain access to those patches I did way back when.....
Idea back then was to do a proper repair when the main decks came off, well we're there now so into it !!!





with foams out it was a quick and simple (although dusty) task to smooth out the repairs back to the hull line again.
Yeah probably a waste of time in the view of most but atleast I know it's back to 100% strength now that it has been done properly.


Since this photo was taken I've added a fine layer of 40gsm mat over the area, I extended it well past the damaged area just be on the safe side

The boat has never had foams around the centreboard case and the foam closest to the front beam had been cut in half, I gather this was so you had easy access to the beam bolts from the hatch hole.
The problem was there's zip in the way of deck support although with a 10mm deck it probably wasn't an issue..... but I'm fitting a 4mm deck so its going to need the extra support, the other thing is the foam that had been halved had copped a fair flogging from arms being slid past it, the top face was battered n bruised and had lost much of its structural integrity ....... not that foam has much !!
I wasn't a fan of those two ideas so I added foams to the front and rear of the case and I also made a full height foam to replace the one closest to the front beam.






The two front foams in that pic also had a different hole cut into them for a bit more "elbow room", they now allow easy access to the beam bolts and the chain plates.
You had to have a multi-directional bendable arm to get to either prior to this mod....
pic to come on that one => damn phone was flat at the time !!

As of this post, both hulls are now up to the same stage....
New foams fitted where required
Old foams re-glued where required
Plywood stringer supports cut and glued into place
Stringers cut and ready for fitting
&
phone on the charger....

As promised....

the hole I cut in the foams, well its actually a hole and a half to allow me to reach the beam bolts and put the nuts onto the chain-plate bolts.
dry runs have said I should now be able to reach without having to break my arm is a dozen spots !!!

stringers all fitted up and ready for glue




Port hull from behind...




Starboard hull from the front



the centre stringer between the 2 front foams has been cut to allow for the fitting of the hatch once the decks are on.

Question:
How on earth do you get the time to do all this? retired maybe?

Matt

I hate football.... (American football however is quite good)

cant stand singing shows.....

Fred & Ginger could dance, everyone else just prances around and calls it art-full movement....

I like to eat but cooking is the missus job so therefore I don't watch cooking shows....

Home reno shows are dangerous, they encourage absolute morons to alter their homes without proper knowledge or overseeing by experts => this in turn will in the future cost lives.... and if not then a bank full of money to make the house right to live in again !!
so I don't watch that shyte either.....

Vampire / supernatural type of shows are an insult to anyone's intelligence

that leaves days of our lives.... thank God I'm at work when that dribble is on !!!

and motor racing, yep I love my nascar racing but the supercars bore me to tears in comparision.

So removing TV time from your life leaves lots of free hours.




Also...
when I was racing cars I always had prep work to do before I could go racing, often that meant nights after work were spent in the shed.
Even when it gets to the toasty 6degrees we're at right now the shed isn't that bad, its also much quieter than the house where 3 of my 4 boys are tormenting their mother





retired .....
not by a long shot

did a lot of fiddling today,

cleaned all of the excess resin from initial build and subsequent repairs over the years away,

lay a thin coat of resin over all the foams, this helps in 2 ways EG:
one-> it stops the foam degradation from salt water,
two-> it stiffens the outer 'shell' of the foam making it stronger

altered the chain-plate's internal mounts as per the pic...
laid a 120gsm mat over the ply doubler and glassed it in place then added the stainless elongated washer while the resin was still free, this will force the resin into the compressed area around the original hole where the washers used to be.
The plate is also glassed is so I don't have to fumble around when its time to re-install the chain-plates.



I also added a strip of mat across the ply stringer supports, I believe this will do a couple of things.....

one-> substantially increase the loading strength of the plate and give a larger area of 'grip' between the ply and foam.

two-> because I've also turned the end of the tape onto the hull by ~50mm this should tie the 2 sides of the hull together and again spreads the load on the stringer support plates out into the actual hulls thus taking some of the load away from the foams.
In hind sight I think maybe the tape could have been better placed if it had of been sandwiched between the plate and the foam..... just thinking out-loud there...


next job....
glue in the stringers


The resin I'm using is a slow set resin, the skin gels in around 3 hours, it takes 4~5 days to fully cure.... so the stringers need to go in by Tuesday night if I'm to fit the new decks on the coming weekend

Love your work Kingy! Keep it coming.
Why didn't you just glass/glue the chain plates in?

We are going to have mosquito projects coming out our ears kingy!
Hooley dooley all worth it tho, love sailing these beauty's.
Even if mine has a platform weight of around 1000kg haha
Al

Have every intention of keeping it comming

&

I did Karps chain plate that way and it was lots of stuffing around, the plate on Shy is old school so the 'ring' at the top was going to leave a big gap in the deck to have to fill later.

so the choice was straight forward really and largely based on time and available bits on hand.

the scary thing...... I've been offered another one, for now I'll let it sit

With Matts purchase that should make 5~6 mozzies at the club

and your little fatty is about to get put on a diet
I have all the gear here now for yours, new supply of resin arrived last week, ply for the fore & rear decks is here, ply for the mains is here.... even the cloth from the states arrived far sooner than I expected.

Has Phill started on it yet ??

&

do you want a thread on it like this one ???

Haha you're the wizz with this stuff!
Don't see why we couldn't do the same thing.
Interested to see how much weight actually comes off it.
And negative on making a start haha. But hey. Season starts in 4 ish months.
Al

The plan is to rip all your decks off and replace them the same as I've done to Shy's.
The mains will be last to be done because we have a nasty gash to attend to before they can be put back on.

If the weight is anything like Shy's massive decks then I'd expect that the new decks will be less than half the weight of the originals but have the same strength.

So far with Shy ....
the rears I fitted came out at same weight as the originals but their now much stronger, I could almost stand on the rears now but you couldn't lean on them beforehand


the fore decks came out 1/4 lighter than original and probably twice as strong, remember I had to replace them before the Easter regatta after a wayward elbow ripped it open, now I'd be happy to stand on them !!

The mains......
If I've weighed it all correctly then its so close to exactly HALF the weight of the originals it isn't funny.
Karp's mains are the same as I'm doing to Shy's and although I did have a minimal weight improvement with Karp it was minor because she already had the thin deck material, it was all the underneath stuff that had failed and caused the mains to go soft.

This was solely due to the stringers being set directly into the foam and the foam NOT having a layer of resin over it, the salt water broke-down the foam and ultimately once the foam failed the stringers had no support at all..... hence the plywood plates I glue to the tops of the foams.

I looked very seriously at 'I' beams and strength wise they are superior, BUT they are extreamly time consuming to make let alone fit, that's why I came up with the ply plate to foam solution, its quick, simple, easy to make and fit and uses the foam as support as much as it supports the foam.

win win ....... & win situation as far as I'm concerned.

The weight of the plates and stringers and thin deck ply is unbelievably light compared to the original stuff

Ah the smell of curing resin.....



all the under-deck work is done, as soon as the resin cures fully I'll give it a light sand and check the curve is all good... A quick check of the curve say's we're spot on but I' wont be happy until I've run a sanding block over it. The sanding will also cut the resin that's managed to find its way on top of the stringers, I need clean timber or "roughed-up" resin so the resin that's applied to the underside of the deck will stick.

with the resin just about set I decided to attack the ply board and cut the strips down that I'll be using for the decks....

reasonably happy with the grain in the timber and the way it sits, the peak of the visible 'tree-rings' is right at the back of the case slots, it then seems to be a more walnut grain from there through to the front beam, this then ties in nicely with the front decks grain


Port hull




Starboard hull



Saturday looks like gluing day

opps.........

forgot to add one tiny little insignificant detail.....

I've changed 'brands' of my resin, the supply had been great but the price fluctuations were just plumb crazy


So I've made the switch to Trojan resins from WEST systems... have to admit I was a little hesitant at first having to go from a 5:1 mix to a 3:1 ratio mix, but I have to admit I'm actually happier with the Trojan product, so far its certainly far more consistent in its gell & cure times.....
So much so I would be confident enough to say I can almost set my watch by it

Its now at the stage I'm using less product as I'm able to calculate the amount I need versus the time I actually have to layup, the WEST systems always gelled up to early or didn't go off when expected, I actually had a worrying time with some of the work I did on Karp, the resin was still a soft gel after 3 days, it did eventually set but it was the slowest mix ever to cure and it wasn't the mix's fault either..... I mixed up 3 pots for the task at hand and none of wanted to cure at all, as to why I'll never know.

I'll also be using a different cloth aswell on the weekend, so this could all be very interesting

I use international exoxy resign with international light weigh filler and glue powder,or international exoxy glue (strong stuff)

Right.... lets get into it !

Someone sent me a PM asking for a few more details on the process.... I hope this helps

I usually do a good test fit prior to fitting the ply, once this is done I then work on the under side of the deck and this will be all I see for the next 15mins or so. Writing the end that the ply goes to will save an embarrassing back-to-front fit, so always make the note as to which way it goes.
A light sand with some ~180grit paper will cut away any strands of timber on the ply, it also 'roughs-up' the surface.... I've also sanded the stringers / case slots / and anywhere else the new deck will contact

resin mixed, cloth cut to size.... ready to go !!

I then pour a little resin from the pot directly onto the ply an "screed" it out as I go..... this (although shakey photo) is my squeegee, its been cut from the side of an old wheelie bin, the hand plane makes a nice crisp edge and its an easy tool to make an use.

the entire board coated in a thin layer of resin... this takes around ~5mins to do, the resin is 'worked' into the ply as I go.

Lay the cloth onto the resin loosely....



out with my squeegee again the work the cloth into the resin



done
this is the slow fiddley bit, its very easy to wrinkle the cloth or have it drifting off the board or even worse lather the cloth.
slow and steady is the key here



the cloth I'm using here is 40gsm cloth

So you saw a little bit of resin left in the pot, this gest syringed directly onto the stringers in a small bead, a sort of caulking-gun in miniature if you like.....
sorry for the shakey pic I had to keep moving aswell as snap the pic with the wrong hand...

now the tricky bit......

lay the board down on the boat but only allow one end to contact the boat, as soon as you have it centralised the staple-gun and a cord is placed in the middle and a staple is fired into the deck.... then lay the other end down and again cord and staple it once its central.



next step is to 'tie' the board down, I start in the middle of the deck and work my out



Once its tied down I then start the stapling, the cord as I've shown in the past is to rip the staples out when the resin cures.
In this pic I'm half way through the stapling.

Once both sides are stapled down, add a little bit of thin ply under the tie-down boards if they are loose....



I added a few down the side of the boat to increase the pressure aswell



So that was the starboard deck......

and here's the port deck I prepared earlier



The process today took just under 6hours and after the cleanup of the shed the resin had already started to gel nicely.....
now we wait for a couple of days while it fully cures

the old 10mm deck against an offcut of the new 4mm deck material.





As you can clearly see the 2 added foams, the ply plates I glued to the foams, the 3 runs of stringers I added and the new ply deck .... weighs far less than that lump of 10mm ply that was there !

be interesting to get her back on the scales once this is finished

200/16196

It will be a couple of days before I even look at her again, the resin is a slow cure resin and the weather here is pharkencold to say the least so it will probably be a bit longer to fully cure even tho the heaters are on.
Once its cured fully we have the wonderfull job of ripping the staples out ..... mutter mutter mutter ... and then we can cut the hatch hole and the case slot.
I took exact measurements for the case slot and the centre of the hatch so it in theory be fairly simple to make the holes in the right spots...... yeah !!!

Resin has cured fully

staples are ripped and then pulled out

edges are cut off and then planed back

sanding block finishes off the edges

hatch hole and case slots cut and sanded into shape

not bad for a Saturday arvo job

in the next few shots you can see the old deck line on the beams against the new fitted deck.....







yup, we have thinned down the old girl
the scales are coming out soon

work sucks some times.....
especially when it cuts into my time in the shed or being away


but..... back into it ASAP

The mains have had all the staple holes filled, sanded back all the 'putty' and the actual decks too and now they are ready for primer

the new main decks , like the way it lines up

masking done, and primer on

the mains will have the green border like the rear and fore decks have and the centre will be varnished.
should look neat and tidy when its finished.

NB:
see the sanding block on the fore deck ......
After the rush job to replace the fore-decks and have her ready for the Easter Regatta at Lake Bolac, I never did a great job on the varnishing, it was just enough to seal it up and I knew I had to "fix" it later....
now is as good a time as any

I'm cutting it down with 180grit paper until I get it reasonable, then I'll drop down to 320grit paper, at this stage I wont have to re-do the green border but more than likely I'll get a rub through so its one the cards to get a new green border while I'm doing the mains....







off to the shed.... SFA on the idiot box yet again.....

crew snapped a pic as I was laying down the green....

Green all done

Masking tape and paper removed from the decks
the paper and tape stays on the hull sides untill the clear is applied, then we are done



nice clean edge, sadly the fore-decks as clean an edge but they wont take long to get right.....
clear coat in a couple of days when the green settles enough to give it a lite sand...

clear on

the mains are a strange color in comparision to the front and rear decks, yet as you move around the boat the light has an amazing effect on the finish, it jumps from a dark brown to a very lite-honey color and then back dark again as you pass by...



in this photo you can see just how dark the timber appears compared to the other decks

that weird color change from another angle & using the light
(notice how dark the other hull's deck is in the background)



really hard to describe how the shift in your position and the light reflecting changes the decks appearance so much....

At first I was really pi$$ed at the darkness of the wood and was almost at the point where I had the primer out and was ready to color the mains green as they were..... but having walked past it 20 odd times a day I've found I actually love the effect, it constantly catches your eye. Others that have seen it have all asked how I got it to do that.....

Tramp is back....

I had the stitching re-done, a small tear repaired, and the old under-tramp lacing eyelets replaced...... I also had the number of those eyelets doubled, this should let me get the tramp really tight now

At the Easter regatta @ Lake Bolac the rear traveller track came slightly loose in the +25knot "breeze", I never bothered to worry about it too much at the time figuring I'd deal with it later when I had the time.

So having a bit up my sleeve I removed the track and found one stress fracture right at the point where the moving track met the immovable track.....
took it to my straight table and just as I started clamping it down I noticed I now had 2 traveller tracks

out with the tig and bingo its a go-er again
(beautiful alloy in this bar, some of the nicest alloy to tig-weld ever )
( NB: note the color change in the main deck again..... )


The big surprise was the level of corrosion between the track and the rear beam, both have been anodised and there's remnants of a an unknown compound that looks like it was added as a sealer
The corrosion has eaten its way under the anodising on the beam but hasn't touched the track at all, the other odd thing is the fixing screws (stainless) haven't been effected and neither has the area around the screw-hole, it seems largely between the fixing screw points where the corrosion has occurred.
pics to come on that

Some silicans have acid in them and eat away the alloy, so that's why its a must to use marine sealants, not the normal all clear or bathroom stuff, not good for marine

Duralac! All metal bits that join on my boat have Duralac between them. IMO you can never have too much... wonderful stuff.

this is the corrosion, its mainly in the center area of the track (~400mm either side), cant find any residue from silicone or other products although there is a rubber type 'plug' where the screws were fitted, its not silicone and feels much more like sikaflex/urthane compound.
just seems odd its only around the center area of the track and not a sign of it anywhere else

weird huh !!!



Tramp is back on now and is very tight all ready and I haven't even tensioned it up as yet.
I had to soak the tramp in a 60lit drum of hot water to get it to soften up enough to fit it to the boat, even then it took me just under 2hours to get it all into place, I'll leave the cord tensioning until mid summer, it will be one of those 40degree hot days to string it in any tighter

the learning curve continued......

I had the "TreadGrip" on the boat before the main deck replacement and re-painting of the fore decks, but I actually had it on the deck and the hull as well.....40mm on each so to speak.
The stuff was good on the hull but not such a brilliant idea on the decks, I also didn't take it past the rear beam and only a couple of foot past the front beam.

This time I have only applied it to the hulls side and I've gone from the transom to around the mid point of the fore deck.

I didn't run the "TreadGrip" right to the top edge either but instead dropped it down ~5mm, this way the exposed edge will hopefully be less likely to be scuffed off by the trap harness's harsh fabric..... well that's the plan anyway

I also narrowed down the strip of "TreadGrip"from 40mm down to 35mm.... huge weight savings right there




I'll be replacing the beam bolts next (when the order arrives or if I have to steal them from Karp) & hopefully there will be some 1 1/4" monel rivets in the bag too for the traveller bar to rear beam fixing.

Not in the above pic.... the front hatches are now in and the "TreadGrip" is dry and masking tape removed.....

Re-paint the front beam is coming up soon enough

about the only crappy looking part of the boat is the front beam, years of stone chips, general wear n tear, and undoutably some abuse thrown in....
its time for a clean up

and, from this thread Beams discussion , I decided to radius the front beam, & I now know this is something that will be the first job thats happening to Karps new beams


Certainly a much user friendly finish and looks much better too, although the weight savings isn't anything to brag about



60grit flap-disc on a 4" grinder, took all of 15mins to do the beam whilst on the boat AND with newly painted decks laying too close for comfort, once the basic shape was done I hit it with 120grit paper on the block and then 180 grit paper. the hand sanding took about the same time as the basic shaping with the grinder.
I'll block back the primer tomorrow morning and with any luck the arctic blast we're currently experiencing will have largely passed enough for the color to be applied......

color is >>>>>>>>> got any blacker, I want it to match my skull and cross-bones

add some Jet Black acrylic paint .....




remove the masking tape and paper.....




and your have pure sex.....




all that's left to do is re-string the tramp and kicker straps, refit the trap shock cord, and then its onto that pesky traveller beam (still waiting on bolts and rivets )

right..... where was I .....

oh yeah.... the rear beam


As you can see in the pic the traveller track is raised at the ends to clear the bolts that hold the beam to the actual hull, simple enough I guess but other than the looks it does have one major drawback
The main sheet constantly gets hooked in the gap between the traveller rail and the beam

What I want is this.....



the rail flush on the beam

just gotta trim a few things up, change the beam bolts around and then put it all together

the new rear beam bolt and 'washer' on the left with the old long bolt and alloy bar on the right

the nuts tig welded to a plate and slipped up the tube, bolt then screwed into place

the plie of removed stainless & alloy bits from the rear bean setup and traveller so far....



none of this stuff is going back in
(obviously the pop-rivet and drill bit on the left are not included)


the rear beam is now bolted back up and I've started working out the mods for the traveller beam....

Why the nuts inside beam, why not in hull, and bolt head in beam, the flusher you are in beam you can use the space to a spare tiller. How are you mounting on the traveler track? Hope not rivets, they don't last.

The beam is well and truly siliconed in place from way back when it was probably first assembled, so splitting the beam away from the hull really was going to be a major PITA..... and I couldn't see why I needed to disturb it.

That meant I couldn't feed the bolt through the beam and then down the hole that easily.... went with the easy option of bolt up through the timber and thread and nut in the beam.
If in the future I have to drop the beams of then yes I'd put the bolt head inside the alloy beam as you've suggested



As for the traveller track.....
I have a couple of attachment ideas

option 1
The old self tappers stainless screws held quite well over the years but they created a corrosion issue, sure that took ~30years to corrode the anodising away and a slight pitting around the screw hole so it would be safe to say that the screws would last another 10years of trouble free work.... maybe

option 2
rivets....


option 3
tig weld it



then the grey matter started grumbling around and I ended up with a combination that will do for the time being (read I'm low on argon gas and don't have enough left for that amount or tig work )

So I dragged out the trusty old riveter, looked long n hard at the 30mm grip rivets I have, had a gander at the countersunk hole in the track and decided I know exactly why the rivets come loose....

lathe time

Obviously, one needs countersunk pop-rivets if one is going to put them in a countersunk hole because if you use pan head rivets in a countersunk hole then its only the very outer part of the rivet head that is gripping, the actual throat of the rivet is doing diddly-squat and its the throat that does the work and its there where the max strength of a rivet exists !

meanwhile back at the lathe.....
an anvil and a drift has been machined up to suit the pop-rivet, the anvil will form the underside of the pan head into a countersunk shape while the drift will be the forcing point and will also flatten the pan head out flat .....

and hey presto (actually 40mins later), countersunk 30mm pop-rivets are being fitted

I've also put a stainless countersunk nut n bolt assembly at each end for the shock loading factor on that wild gybe

The track has also been rounded off on each end so its now not only sheet snaring free but far more wetsuit friendly aswell

If or when the rivets begin to loosen up then I'll just save time.... clamp it down and tig it in place

why not the option of drill and tap 5mm metal threads? I have used pop rivets in the past and have torn the whole track off and that was MK1,. I hate to see 2 up cos that's a lot of force.
Self tapers should not be used in metal or in the marine trade. They are not reliable. the heads break off and when you want to take them out the will break and you have to drill the out making a bigger hole. I deal with this crap everyday day.

It would be way better, cheaper and quicker to just bolt them down with a nut and washer on the inside of the beam. I did two Mozzy traveller tracks a couple of years ago and they took about 30 minutes once I had the spanner taped at the right angle on the stick.

It is an over kill for nuts in beam but for extra safety

couple of reasons....

1/ don't have the countersunk 'bolts' on hand

2/ don't have a 'tap' that small, the smallest taps I have is 8mm or 5/16th Whitworth.... = overkill


agree on the self tappers, the odd one is after all the years the track has been screwed to beam only 3 have broken.... the 3 that actually bent and subsequently cracked the track.
All the other self tappers were in good condition and came out without any major dramas or effort although there is some corrosion of the alloy adjacent to the holes in the beam.


At the moment as far as the rivets go, I'm happy to do the try it and see how she goes. And as I've said I think most of the issues with the rivets is a pan head in a countersunk hole..... time will tell

Jurassic Karp has that exact system...... and when I looked at it I thought .....
wow !!! someone had a heap of time and perseverance to play with, ... that's gunna be bytch to replace

and with a new front and rear beam sitting there all wrapped in plastic awaiting to be setup, I guess I'll find out just how ugly a job it might be


first job => uninstall the track from the old beam
2nd job => fit track to new beam

I hope your right..... 30 mins each way sounds good

end result....

Seems everything is shipshape and ready to go tomorrow

better do a final check.....


Ever have one of those days when no matter what or how you do something it gets fugly in around 2.3 billiseconds, yep I was having one



First up
the boat is NOT a work bench, but apparently son number 2 thinks otherwise, and there is junk everywhere from his last ellevenity billion projects.....
mutter mutter mutter
2 hours wasted cleaning up after him

Next was to check the gear in the sail box, all that stuff I'd put in there shortly after the sail box was constructed, and promptly forgotten all about


1st up was the traveller rope, don't remember why or how it ended up in there .....ahhhh yeah... its shot and needs replacing, kewl, I can do that !!!
IF I COULD FIND THE SPARE ROPE I HAD..... ...
20mins later and son number 4 comes in the shed with the now not so new rope "eies did neebs it poor da ubby-ouse wadder"
What else did you need for the cubby-house ladder ??
errrr, bats orl

so the now mud covered rope gets washed and the myriad of 4yearolds knots are un-done and its finally fitted



Next was the rudder's and cases....
oh yeah, that crack that I'd completely forgotten all about, and the fibreglass hold down rods that are shattered.
mmmm my usual trick of slipping some heat shrink tube over it goes straight out the door.... Son 1 has helped himself to my supply for his amp install in his car...
better glass in some new rods then, thankfully I'd hidden them well so it was going to be an easy fix

Right about then I started thinking (dangerous thing to do at the last minute I've since been reminded), if I cut that off, change that, tig that to that & that bit to those bits, pop em in the lathe, and rivet the left one on the right side and the right side onto the left.... 5hours later and I have an entirely new rudder lock down system

and the new rods have also been resined in, tomorrow we test it
mental note to self -> take the tools you might need to fine tune it -> if it works IE: zip-ties and grey tape if it doesn't


ok, better have a look at the cracked rudder....
and an hour later its been fixed and the resin has started to cure nicely (yep one HOT mix = running out of time here fast)

sweet
jut one more quick check

ummm where's the ockey-cord for the trap ????
& more importantly, why isn't it where I put it

more time spent (wasted) on searching for nothing, its not here !
anger management time => one STRONG coffee (and watch a bit of Bathurst car racing.... except the TV decides that for reasons known only to it that the channel the racing is on has a bad signal and the picture that is there is pixilated and constantly freezing.... commentary is good tho, if only I could see what they are talking about


As it turns out the break was just what I needed and on my stroll back to the shed I spot the ockey-cord... not where I would have put it and certainly NOT there when I went for a coffee
&
its now in 2 pieces
Son 3 wanders in and asks if I'd found the cordy stuff , yep he's guilty as


Hunt through Karp's spares box and sadly I'm cutting up Karps new ocky-cord, atleast son 3 didn't loose the plastic snap hooks, and so now we have a trap again.


Right... the final final over it final check

in 12 hours time we'll be on the water


hopefully





& I'll do some pics later

Hey presto

As you can see I've made a LOT of changes over the old system I had


rudder locked down....


and with the rudder up




The best part is they now self release when they are put under a reasonable load, a screaming broard reach wasn't enough to 'pop' the release yesterday but each time I came into the beach and as soon as the bottom lurked near the bottom they popped out instantly
I had every intention of this mod way back when I'd finished the first trial set that did a heavy half season workout, they did lock down well and wold come up to just past 45degrees which was usually enough to send the seaweed off down and away .... Problem was, as I found the hard way, the seaweed clumps that built up on the centre board and then get released by the crew would smash into the rudder with such force it often just shattered the fibreglass rods, then as you grabbed the lockdown to release it so the weed cold be freed yo got stabbed y the shards of splintered glass

so a better system HAD to happen






and for the really observant, something major is missing in one of the pics

During the 3rd race I may have hit the Loch Ness Monster....
Around the mark, out on the trap, reef the main in a bit ....
and suddenly the boat stops dead (I kept goin tho = OUCH !!)
collected the shroud and god only knows what else as I flew around the deck, various bruises and bits of blood from unknown boat parts
then just as sudden as it happened we were going again...

then the stb rudder ) 'pops'



lay off the main and the wind, let the traveller right off....

pull the stb centreboard ..... nothing wrong there... arm into the water and 'feel' the case slot... all good

better just check the port side....

port centreboard





afternoon tea time and I now have time (and land) to do a full check.....
other than the centreboard..... everything is sweet

Well it is fixed.... or should I say.... was !!!




Final sprint race for the day..... one leg to do....& I'm catchin Al
and for no reason at all the stb rudder lets go



I think whats happened is I've struck some submerged object and the port centreboard has copped it big time, as I've done the 2.5 barrel twists in the pike position on the trap the boat has moved to the lee and that hidden object has pinged the stb rudder, the full failure was going to happen and as it was I atleast got another 1 and a half races out of it

So....


who's got a spare pair they are willing to donate

I guess a bit of a quick update is in order (and seeing I have 5mins to myself)


A fireball rudder gets the chop and a quick buildup with some chopped mat......
unfortunately the rudder was 20mm at the top where I cut it down to length but the section in the bottom part of the case was only 16mm.... hence the glass buildup ...

it works and will do for now... plan to make a mould and 'cast' my own blades to suit the alloy cases I made for Shy, this will give me setup for Karp aswell.



end result......



ok so its a bit of an odd pair, but under the circumstances it was a quick and easy fix...... and damn cheap too
quick/easy/cheap..... what more could you want

240/29900

Over the xmas break I have a plan....

modify the original rudder, specifically around the stainless part

take a mould of the rudder head from Shy and use the lower part of the blade from Karp

cast my own set of blades, this will be initially done in chopped mat for testing & seeing I've never done this sort of thing before I cant afford to waste it in carbon or Kevlar. I happen to have ~30metres of heavy gsm chopped mat on hand so its "expendable" in comparision to the cost of having to get the carbon or Kevlar cloth

stay tuned

I've got the sail back from Goodalls that got wrecked @ the Warnambool regatta last year, and although I did sort of say I wasn't recking any more of Karps stuff on Shy, well I sorta decided I'd give it one more try


But first I have to make an old mast suitable for the newer style sail...

First Up I made a flared opening for the sail to feed up through and then it was time to Tig up the old cut away sections



tig work done and a quick grind off and we have



244 33594

Down-haul fitted
This is borrowed from Karp's broken mast as is the mast rotator

And a couple of weekends ago I returned to the scene of the crime (Broken mast).....
On the beach having just finished the first race.... and yep thats 2nd place just crossing the line in the background

The old girl went the fastest she's ever gone and I have proof on the time sheet.....
I've got to get a new main for Shy if I'm going to keep on racing her




this is also one of the best pics I've taken of the old girl
OMG..... THAT green STANDS OUT..... Karps new color is really going to have to work hard to beat that !!!

back to the rudder moulding....

remember 1 thing please.....
I've NEVER done this sort of thing before .... so be kind

I used air-drying clay as the lower part of the mould and once I had the desired height set I simply applied the PVA release agent to the rudder and clay base...... and a good smear on the workbench too just incase



Once I had the mould set it was time to duplicate the other side....


Released off of the table and now the fight to release the rudder from the mould begins...



fight over

After a bit of a fight I got the castings off of the rudder with zero damage to the rudder or the 2 moulds.
All up very happy with the end result at this stage, yeah there's a couple of minor holes that I've already filled and blocked back on one of the moulds and its now ready to actually lay a new fibreglass half rudder in..... one minor issue stops me dead in my tracks tho, my glass supplier omitted to put the gel-coat fixer in the package, I guess he was under the pump a tad being xmas and all.
It will be here in a few days time so I can then make my first half cast
nervous times ahead.....
I was going to do it in carbon fibre but seeing this is my first attempt at this sort of thing I'm going to the first set in ordinary chopped mat , then do some sailing with them and see how they go before commiting to a full carbon pair



The 'dark line' you can see through the mould is actually glassed in bits of rope, this has stiffened up the mould significantly to the point where its quite difficult to get any real flex in the moulds.
The heavier sections around the rudder top are glassed in 8mmX10mm cedar offcuts from the stringers when I re-decked Shy

All up happy as.... at the halfway point anyway

The rope in the fibreglass is interesting. Why does it work any better than just adding more fibreglass? Or fibreglass 'channels'?

Basically it is a cheap easy core for a stiffener. The idea is to make a 2D structure, more 3D thus increasing the stiffness of the moulds.

Did you ever weigh Twice Shy Kingy? I may have missed that post ... I can't find it now.

Scarecrow nailed it, the rope addition in the glass stiffens the mould up considerably, sure a stick of wood most likely would be slightly better but wood doesn't bend that well around tight corners....
Its an old speedway trick we used way back when, the glass body panels often developed stress fractures from the riggors of racing, the addition of the rope near edges stiffened up the panel and stopped the vibrations from initialising the fractures.


Yes I weighed Shy, and she WAS fat
No I never "advertised" the weight and don't intend to even now, let just say she's closer to the weight limit than she'd ever have been but could loose a couple more kilo's safely.

The biggest and probably the most surprising weight loss was the 'rubbish' that was removed. A total of ~12 kilos of "bits" of rubbish were removed, this was mainly excess resin dribbles from repairs or original building and the massive build up of what I can only call "road grime" => years of open hatches had let in all sorts of weird stuff....
Included were:
empty beer and coke cans, several butts and dead matches, bits of paper, set of car keys, small shifter, 3 shackle keys, dead birds and a nest, and about a dozen 'matchbox' toy cars!!! ..... the major debris aside from the resin was sawdust and general dust, all up each hull gave up ~3kgs of just dust with the vacuum cleaner

When we did Scorpian the weight loss was even more dramatic than Shy's and yes its above the limit aswell, Phill was amazed at the constant amount of dust we kept sucking out, when its final weight was done he had one huge smile on his face, I still don't think he belived the loss Scorp went through until it hit the scales
The most noticeable thing..... both boats sit on the water in a totally different manor, its that big a difference visibly, they are also diferent ladies on the water too


Could I get even more off ????

Oh yeah.... I have no doubt now that I could get an older heavier boat to go UNDER the weight limit, I keep looking at a certain pair of red hulls and keep thinking.... winter project

Did you end up making the rudders? How did they turn out?

Haven't done them as yet, the moulds are ready to go and the gelcoat/cloth/resin is all sitting there.......

I just need time to actually get some work done on them, and TwiceShy, and the Impara, and JurassicKarp, and the RL, and....

its been a very busy last 6months, how dare work interfere with my hobbies

Kingy there is a guy called Tim at Rye Yacht club that recently broke a rudder blade. If you give Gordon a shout he can put you in contact with him, but I'm thinking if you make a few it might offset the cost of your own.

Luke