Rope Rigging?

My forestay has started to give up the ghost. One of the wires has broken from the ferrule. This says to me it's on its last legs. So I'm going for it, and am going to go with full - Marlow Excel D12 Max 78 2.5mm - for my standing rigging. The blurb says it has virtually no creep and no stretch. And a breaking load of roughly twice 3mm wire - @ 1005kg. This should be lighter, less windage and cheaper than replacing with wire. I'm also thinking of going with T terminals with backing plates rather than the hooks i currently have to avoid the issues Luke Heslewood has had with his C-Tech mast set up.

 

His shroud hooks have started to saw down the carbon mast. Not good! The other alternative is a bolt across the mast between the shroud holes. With a washer, P Clip Eye mount and a Nylock on each end. And just to a T Terminal on the forestay.

I don't really want to buy stay adjusters so I may just have fixed length shrouds. Currently the shrouds have swagged turnbuckles on the end. And I haven't felt the need to adjust them and I don't intend changing the rig settings, so the only reason I'd need stay adjusters would be to compensate for the creep in the rope. I'm thinking that I will make them to the same length as my current shrouds including the addition of a long shackle. This way If they do lengthen I can use a shorter shackle to compensate.

Little sail

I took the 3.7 for a little sail today. A sort of typical Burghfield Sailing Club day. Gusty and shifty. The gusts were enough to trapeze on the lulls were most defiantly not! This is at least teaching me rapid coordination skills! I had a couple of swims. One because I let go of the main sheet when playing the sheet from the wire. Doho! And then when heading back in on a gust, I came in from the wire and the wind backed probably combined with poor tiller movements on my behalf and I failed to come off the hook quickly enough. And the boat came over on top of me. :( Still a nice little sail. I then lent the boat to Jeremy, our PRO. For a quick sail. Wind looked like it filled in a little for him. And he had some fun reaches from the wire, not fully trapezing but fun.

JC speaks

These are the words of JC. An 18 year old sailor who test sailed the Farr 3.7 at Blackwater Sailing Club last bank holiday Monday. He wrote this for inclusion on the BSC website. He weighs 60kg.

My Farr 3.7 Test Sail

Having sailed more regular boats in my life such as toppers, lasers, 420s and fireballs, I didn’t really know what to expect from the Farr 3.7, being a single handed trapeze boat that is unlike anything else I have ever had the opportunity to sail before. The concept of trapezing and helming at the same time was new to me and was more difficult to get to grips with than I had first anticipated, not helped by the tiller being as long as I am tall! This resulted in me going for more than a few swims throughout the afternoon but I began to get more used to it towards the end and with a few more sails I’d be confident of being able to sail it competitively.

I think it has a lot of potential to be the perfect transitional boat between more conventional boats and skiffs, which would avoid the difficulty of trying to go straight into a skiff and spending most of your time upside down. Not only that, but it would be a good competitive racing fleet if it would be possible to get a few of them going at the club. Obviously this would be difficult because of currently having to ship them over from New Zealand but I think it would be more than worthwhile if there were enough people up for it. (The Farr 3.7 is currently being put into production by Butler Boats and is also available to build from plan with pre laser cut parts available as a delivered pack from Robbins Timber Bristol with the cost of a self build hull being around £650).

Despite capsizing I didn’t have any trouble keeping the boat flat and if I got more used to the controls of the boat I’d be confident going out in stronger winds. (Test sail wind 10-15knts, gusts shown around 18knts)

Overall, I think the Farr 3.7 is a great boat and it was a thoroughly enjoyable sail. I would definitely want to sail one again and would probably already own one by now if they were easier to get a hold of! If they become more easily available or if I can persuade my parents to splash out on shipping costs then I will definitely be one of the first to consider getting one at the club! If you’re looking to move into a skiff or just looking for something new and different then I would definitely recommend looking into investing in a Farr 3.7.

Bow Wow...

Back in Black_water SC

Great day test sailing the 3.7 today at Blackwater Sailing Club. 3 test sailors today. One who had never trapeze helmed before, weighing about 9.5 stone (60kg) the others were (69, 76 and me 78kg). All happily out on the wire. Wind averaging 10-15knts. The wind data shown here shows speed touching 20knts but we were sailing a good distance down the Blackwater from the club and there were gusts but nothing that look that big? Whilst I get around to editing the video footage here are a few pics to look at.

Boat back

Ive got my boat back from Butler Boats. They have successfully taken a mould from him ( kiwi boats are male for some reason ). they will be building a wooden boat in this mould that boat will be measured and then have a glass production mould taken from her. This wood boat will also be a demo boat. So for those of you up north give Dave at Butler Boats a ring. In the mean time I am busy sorting the boat to take her for a test sail over in Essex. I just have to polish the boat to remove the release wax that is still left on her and tidy up a number of other things and then we are good to go. BLACKWATER Sailing Club here we come!