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.

Progress

Great progress today. Most of the grommets in the sail are done (only one batten left) and we shaped a tree into a yard.

A picture of my try at double spar taper by eye ball:

It is supposed to be thinner at the ends and fat at the middle. And it is also supposed to have all the taper at the top. (Otherwise the straight edge of the sail will be baggy, and we can’t let that happen to a junk sail can we?) But I agree the spars aren’t perfectly straight. I suppose we are one of those boats giving junk rigs a bad reputation. Like my grandfather said when I told him we were going to rig our boat with a junk rig: “Poor bastards.” But he meant the Chinese junks he met when he was a sailor.

And some pics of the sail with grommets:

Tomorrow we will try some handsewn rings at the nock and peak.

Bamboo batten blues

We have this German bamboo place. They can supply any bamboo we want at a much lower price than any other battens. The problem is that the 60-80 mm battens we want to use for the uppermost battens are only available by September. So maybe we will double up 45-50 mm battens until then. One at each side of the sail, for example. And then add thicker ones later, if needed. I don’t really trust the bamboo battens calculations anyway so experementing with different thicknesses might be the best way to deal with it.

Finished planing the ugly mast

Ok, our mast is quite ugly, actually. Lets say temporary. It has checks, knots and it is crooked. I suppose the biggest problem with that is going to marinas being bullied by the neighbour on the jetty. Anyway, today I finished planing it. Next step will be to sand it and oil it well with Owatrol. I suppose it will work out quite ok, at least for trials.