Is that a mast?

OK, just so you understand why people are intimidated when they ask if the bamboo is a mast and we answer that we use it for battens. Ida got this offcut for making mugs of. But it says something about the size.

Batten waste

Some picture progress

Today I snapped some pictures of the progress.

The Deck with sail and dinghy.

Steering station portlights

Bow roller and sail.

We haven’t adjusted the lazy jacks yet, so the yard and sail bundle has a little drooping angle. Notice the new thick bamboo. We put it only on one side of the sail, used no keep battens. Let’s see how that works out.

Tomorrow we are aiming for a trial sail. A bit nervous about that.

Fun with the new battens

My hands are oh so sore. Tying battens to a junksail (actually with these battens it’s the other way around, you tie the sail to the battens) is bloody business. If you can stand the swollen fingers it is great fun to walk around with the bamboo, thicker than my over arm, until someone asks “what is that? a mast?” Then you say, “no, it’s a batten”, and they think you are making fun of them and walk away quietly.

Hoisting the red sail is a lot better.  People were actually shouting over the bay how beutiful she was.

I took the camera, but had no time to take pictures.

Tomorrow we will rig the lazy jacks, sheet, etc. Will we sail on friday? It would be fun.

Moldy battens?

Some of the bamboo battens grow mildew last year. Will try some treatment this year.

But what is best?

Paint? Varnish? Cuprinol? Nothing?

Suggestions, please!

Bamboo batten blues – again

Today the bamboo for the battens finally arrived. But they are too thin. Obviously there was some misunderstanding in how to measure the diameter.

So we got 26 canes. 5,4 meters long. (That means about a third of the batten will be overlapped and seized in the middle.) At the thick end they were 40-45 mm while we were aiming for 80 mm at the top and 60 mm at the bottom of the sail. The thin end was 20-25 mm.

The good thing is that we have more than twice as many canes as we need. So we should be able to use battens on both sides of the sail. This will give a slightly heavier sail than to use a thicker batten on the mast side and just something thin to lash on on the other side. Two 40 mm battens are also not as strong as one 80 mm. So I am pretty sure they will bend too much and possibly break in any heavy wind. But we will know more about that when we have tried it. The battens were also different. Some where thicker at both ends, so we will put them at the top.

This is what the battens looked like:

We also brought the sail aboard so we can lash it all together tomorrow and cut the rest of the running rigging, like lazy jacks, sheets, sheetlets and downhaul. I added a mast lift even though it isn’t in Tom’s plans, to help the lazy jacks hold the sail up at the forward end. It also gives an extra line up the mast, that might be handy to have.

Let’s see what happens tomorrow!