Look! No twist!

Ok, so Cia and the kids had to stay home since Cia was to leave for Rotterdam. But Ricard and I anchoring out for the night and everything went great. We even managed to borrow some charts for the area about half way there from Ricards mother and Göran who surprised us with their motor boat.

We were quite proud tacking up into the small cove, where we decided to anchor for the night. The junk rig is sweet that way, you just reef down a couple of panels and everything just goes slower. Too bad we had to start the engine to reset the anchor.

Cooked some lamb for a great dinner. Next morning we wished for bow rollers, while hauling the 45 lb CQR and 11 mm chain up by hand.

We managed to take away most of the twist in the sail by re-reaving the sheet:

Especially it is better when reefed than before. I have some more ideas about how to improve the sheet. Pic by Göran.

Next day I was a bit tired, since I just had to go look every hour if the anchor was holding. We sailed up to Göran and Eva’s place and were treated with fresh crayfish for lunch:

This is how we moor in Sweden in calm weather. No tide here in the Baltic.

One more photo of the boat by Göran:

Day sailing

Now we are trying to enjoy sailing Linnea as much as possible before taking her up for some more interior construction during winter. It is important to get some energy from having fun with the boat and to learn how she behaves.

Yesterday we went out five adults, Ida, 6 and Joel, 2. Everything went smooth, even though the wind is a bit gusty here in the inner skerries of Stockholm.

The boat worked great with this many people aboard thanks to the large deck space. We anchored out in Napoleonviken for lunch and a swim – the high bow was made to dive from, but Per had to do it from the yard… Ricards mother, Eva and Göran came to take some pictures and video while we headed back.

Lessons learned: None. We were just sailing.

Reaching.

Running.

Anchored.

Ida learns how to climb up the yard.

Ida and Cia. Here is a perfect place for children to sit and have a look out.

Today my parents took the boat by themselves and made about the same trip. I was a bit nervous until they were back at the jetty. Stupid me, they taught me how to do this.

Most wrinkles gone

So today we moved the sheet, stretched the sail more along the battens, added some bamboo to the boom (lowest batten) and went sailing (third time out now).

It was much better. We tried with downhauls with no reef and with one reef. And it was better. I am not sure about the best place to put it though.

I also think we need a better way to reeve the sheet. We have too much twist while reefed down. We need to have more pull higher up and less lower down.

Here is a picture of the halyard at the yard. You can also see the yard hauling parrell, or Råsling, as we call it in Swedish:

Sailing!

This is the first trial sail of Linnea.

Ready to sail

Lashing tha last lashes

Ida took this from ashore. She can come next time, I promise.

My parents.

Running.

Sailing

Mast top

Lazy Jacks etc.

As seen from ashore. 

Conclusions:

- We haven’t got the Lazy Jacks sorted out yet.

- We need to stretch the sail more along the battens.

- It is a bit heavy to hoist. But we have some optimizations left to do.

- We might add a downhaul (as in the plans).

- The sheet isn’t reaved the correct way.

- The lowermost batten is too thin.

- We should cut the battens so they don’t extend past the leach, the sheet can get caught.

- And we have some other bugs to sort out…

We tacked through about 110 deg true, not pointing. and made about 5 knots in light wind. Running at 6,5 knots. Quite good if you consider we didn’t actually try to trim the sail. She tacked without any problems and hold a straight course by herself while we let go of the tiller.

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!

Dirt, teak and windlass

Some work on a wood/epoxy-boat is quite dirty and unpleasant. I am sure a steel boat is worse. Anyway, sanding the teak deck was such an unpleasant job. The teak itself was OK, but the graphite filled epoxy in between created a lot of black ugly dust. Fortunately the day was still and damp, so we didn’t contaminate our boat neighbors.

Here am I with the belt sander:

After maybe half an hour of hard work and two hours of cleaning it looked like this:

We also fastened the windlass. It looks good, even though we haven’t made the bow rollers yet.

I am thinking about buying a handheld wind meeter to use to get some data during sail trials. I used to have one but it is broke. Can anyone recommend a cheap model? Are they acurate?

2 m/h roping

My mother can rope a sail at 2 meters/hour. Look!

This corner is nine layers of 11 American oz Top Gun polyester cloth. Roping really adds a nice look to a junk sail. Some people like to save time by sewing on webbing or just reinforce with a rolled tabling.

Waiting for the bamboo

The bamboo won’t arrive until next week. So now we work on other stuff. After a couple of rides with our about 20 years old bosuns chair we had to get something new. So I bought a climbing harness a bit extra padded from a rock climbing shop. I also found an emergency break that can ride a second line. Everything works great, I could hoist myself up quite easy. And the lower attachment point of the climbing harness is great for working at the mast top. (Where else would you want to work on a junk mast?) Here is Ricard getting ready to be hoisted. We had to fix the lead for the halyard so it won’t chafe at the mast and create friction.

Meanwhile my mother is sewing on the boltrope and my father drives to the chandlers to find some line and fasteners.

Here is a picture of the mast at the galley. Looks quite good if you ask me. I had to discourage some people who wanted to hug it, because we had just had some extra oil on it. Maybe next time Mårten!

Big Mastday!

So at last we could raise the mast. Thank you Ricard for all the seizings etc.

First we moved the heavy thing to the mast crane.

Then we moved the boat.
We just had to take a trip under engine. Here is Ricard at the tiller. I must say that this boat is much easier to maneuver than our last boat, even though the propeller is offset. When in reverse I didn’t find any prop walk whatsoever and it started turning quite fast for a boat with this kind of keel.

A bit nervous at the mast crane.

I climbed up to untie the sling.

And we are up!

And back to the jetty.

Largest fid in the world

Grommet day.

Today we made some grommets for the mast head to attach all those lines in, like halyard, and lazy jacks. To do this we made grommets with thimbles to attach the blocks in.

First, a grommet.

Then it is served.

To form it we used the largest fid in the world! The mast:

Almost finished:

Just need some more stretching before the final seizing goes in place. Then some tar on the grommet to protect the wood and guck together the serving.

Want to know a secret? Tomorrow Ricard will come help us raise the mast. Let’s see what happens.