Glue...glue...glue

Ok so the dog seems to be alright and me wife has got used to the really long black thing in the house. Here's the second stage of the process...

Prep materials.
Peel Ply and 0/90˚ 3x200gm Carbon twill patches. Sand mast.







 

Stick parcel tape around the area.
Epoxy doesn't stick to it.









Wet out the mast and SK78 fibers
with epoxy.

Mix up filler into epoxy. A little cordial silica, micro balloons and micro fibers. Wish you had some of that black die the pros use to make there work look great.

Lay up and wet out the 3 layers of carbon.

Wrap tight with peel ply to consolidate.

Wait 5 hours

All done.
Still wishing I had some of that black die!
And I could of done with putting peel ply under the SK78 and chaff protection tubes to help the removal of the filler excess.


Its to risky to sand away so will have to be left as it is.

Brace...brace...brace!

OK no wind today. For either landyachting or Farr 3.7 sailing. So it's time to sort the intermediate shrouds. These have been taking a pounding recently and needed replacing. The 2.5mm wire on the starboard side was almost severed in two. I think as a result of the rotating mast set up I have.

When sailing upwind the intermediates are slack allowing depowering with the kicker, as you bare-away the mast rotates and rolls the wire around the mast to take up the slack in the inters. Keeping the power on off wind. This system is great, but I think isn't suited to wire so well. As the wire ends up compressing on it's inside and expanding on it's outside. Hence eventually braking.

So I have decided to go with 3mm SK78 Dyneema rope. This will be bonded to that mast as the old wire set up was. Here's how I am doing it...

The Problem

Get a good workbench!

Mark out for accuracy

Measure the old set up

Grind off old Intermediate shrouds...

Make up new SK78 rope Intermediate shrouds...











I put a Brummel Splice in the end of each length of SK78 and then after measuring the distances I added a 'stopper' whip on the tag end of each. As I am opening up the plated strands for maximum contact area on the mast. I then added some shrink tube to help stop chaff at the exit point of the rope, against the carbon cloth that will finish the attachment on the mast.

Line up on mast











At this point annoy the hell out of your wife by bringing the mast indoors as its way to cold to glue anything outside. Then leave in the living room until the next day when you will epoxy glue it all together in the house. Whilst attempting NOT to glue the dog to the carpet!

Spin Doctor

Thank you Spinlock. You made me feel good.

The Farr 3.7 will be at the RYA Dinghy Show thanks to Spinlock. It will be the feature boat on Spinlock's stand (No: B52). We'll be playing some great video footage on the stands big screen, and you never know I might have some giveaway posters or two! So make a date, and come along and talk to me to find out all about the Farr 3.7.

Intermediate issues

All the 30knt sailing has taken it's toll on my intermediate shrouds. I am in the process of replacing them with SK78max and will post pic's and how to information when I'm all done.

Nice...

Going global...

North American Sailor has picked up Piers Hugh Smith's Wipeout video, see it here:
North American Sailor

 

Blood letting...

Ummm... Not the best result for the Farr 3.7 at the Bloody Mary. But it never really was going to be a 'Red Letter Day' when faced with a 33 point drop on PY. Both Grafham S.C and Q.M.S.C seem to have gone ultra conservative with regard to the handicap they gave the boat. Grafham were offering 1015 and Queen Mary a crazy 1006, a drop of 33 points from the suggested 1039.

I find this difficult to reconcile when you consider that the boat is a 40 year old 'One Design' with recorded data for all that time ( all be it recorded in NZ in windier weather ) against other know UK classes. And with very little change in the boat over that time period. Especially when it was obvious that the Moths allocated number seemed far from correct also. It's just that there's was preferable, and they cleaned up the trophies.

It's a difficult job running a mass handicap event, undoubtedly. But event organisers owe it to all the competitors to run a fair event, otherwise the event becomes meaningless. And this should involve making sure the system of handicapping is accurate for all!

THEY must spend the time in research to make sure of this. Or deny entry to the class concerned. And I apply this logic to the Farr as much as the Moth. If they felt they couldn't realistically provide a fair number, because of lack of research time or available date they should have denied the Farr entry. It's not good enough to just be over zealous with a number, take the entry fee and feel it's OK because you have given yourself enough 'margin for error'. You have just called in to question the whole event. Especially in these days of 'spot betting scandal'.

Rant over. 'Piers Hugh Smith' sailed a reasonable race. Hanging on to the back of the Merlin's, just, for 2 laps, when the wind was at it's highest. But as the wind died off on the final lap and swung around, the now long deep off wind legs really hurt and he eventually was place 205th out of the 302 competitors of which 248 started the race.

Well done Piers for really giving it ago even though things were set against you from the start. All I can hope is that the UK data ( elapsed time etc... ) gained from this event can go to inform others in the UK that my suggested 1039 handicap is not a made up bandit number to achieve a vast haul of silverware!

video to follow...

More BSC action...