Great big holes

 I wanted a hatch, so that I could access the space under the fore deck. I figured out the size I needed and then spent about a week trying to work up the courage to cut the hole.

I drilled 2 holes through from underneath, right beside the each of the two beams so that I knew exactly where to cut.

I marked out the 300mm square, twice. And then set to work with my jigsaw.

I reinforced the sides of the hole that were not over beams with offcuts of sapele, epoxied underneath, and then bolted the hatch in place with a bit of silicon sealant.

Island hopping

It's been a while since TLC has been out sailing. But on a trip down to Kerry we were staying on Valentia island. It has a beautiful sheltered harbour at Knightstown. There is a little island about 1 mile away. That short journey isn't quite as sheltered. Luckily my daughter was on the Sea camp and she made a new friend whose father was a keen sailor. He was delighted to come and join me on TLC to sail out to the island and back. After tacking about a little under the shelter of the harbour, we headed across to Beaginis. We landed in a small Sandy cove and wandered up to the top of a small hill. This is the first time that I've sailed to somewhere. Up till now it's always been starting somewhere sailing around and returning. Here's a picture of Knightstown from Beaginis.

An interesting weekend of sailing and repair

I've added a topping lift to TLC. That helps a lot for motoring.

It was quiet gusty (for my skill level) when I took TLC out on Friday, so when the little ones arrived later for a spin, I dropped sail, and tied it up with some bungy cord & toggle button sail ties, also newly made, and popped the boom up out of the way with the topping lift. Then we motored out around the lake for a bit.

We made it up to the narrow part of the lake that I'd been sailing towards. The wind fairly funnels down through that gap, on the way back under jib alone I was doing a little over 4 knots through their. We circled a small island, now named "Lonely Island" by the children.

TLC has a road trailer, with a launching trolley on top. There is a roll bar at the back of the road trailer make it easy to pull up the launching trolley. While heading down to the lake, the bracket that held on the roll bar broke off, dropping the boat down about 1", and leaving the roll bar dragging on the road. I managed a jury rig repair to get the boat to the lake and then took the roll bar off completely. Luckily I'd added a winch to the road trolley, or it would have been a lot of fun dragging the trolley up onto the trailer.

When I got home I had to grind off the galvanising and then weld on a new bracket and paint it. All is well but the only metal paint I had is bring red, so it looks like my trailer is splashed in fresh blood!
From looking at the metal where the bracket had been, it looked like there was a bad weld which had been ground off (a very clear grinder gouge) and the new weld on top of that was cold (the weld just broke off, leaving only a couple of marks where it had actually been attached to the main trolley. I'm not impressed with their welding skills. TLC has probably done less than 600 miles on that trolley.

Lowering the Mast

It's a whole lot easier now. If you look under the stern, you can see a small wooden stand that keeps the boat from tipping back as I walk aft of the trailer wheels.



I just run a line from the fore-stay through the bow plate to the mast. Then I can release the fore stay from the bottle screw, and it's held at the mast. Once I am ready to drop the mast I release the line holding the forestay and just ease it back.



No more A Frame and pulleys.



I'm not at all sure I will be able to do this in 20 years time, but it's good for now.

I got to go sailing...

This weekend, I got to go out sailing twice (Thanks C), once in Ramor and once in Gowna. Two long narrow lakes, where the wind tends to blow along the length of the lake. Mostly I got to sail on my own, but I also took the little ones for a quick spin.

The winds were mostly light on both days, but I started with the main reefed, since I wanted to try shaking out a reef on the water to see how it went. I motored out from the dock, cut power and raised the main. Easy enough in light winds, but mostly I'm trying to build up experience of these things. I did end up drifting quite a lot further than I expected before I was up and sailing. Managing to tangle the jib sheet under the cross line for the Helm Impeder didn't help.

I also forget to remove the sail tie on my jib, so that meant a quick trip onto the fore-deck to untie it. Not something that I would have tried without my Huntingford Helm Impeder.

It's nice being able to furl and unfurl the jib at will from the cockpit, but after losing the furling line, and having to make another trip to the fore-deck to retrieve it, I made it fast to the cleat. I really didn't want to loose that when I needed to get the jib down.

Now with my Huntingford Helm Impeder, I tried things like heaving too. Wonderful. I backed the jib, let out the boom, and pushed the tiller to the lee and TLC just nods slowly along making about 1 knot across the wind. I'm going to have to see how she behaves with a little more wind, but it's a step forward.

Shaking out the reef went perfectly, I just pointed her up into wind and let the main sheet loose. I had plenty of time to shake out the reef before she started to drift sideways. That might be more fun in a seaway.

I had my GPS on for some of the trip, but I'd turned tracking off (!?) so I don't have a track. Mostly I was making between 2 and 4.5 knots depending on the wind.

It's a long narrow lake, with the wind blowing down along the long side. There was a lot more wind in the centre of the lake, so as I tacked upwind, I'd slow down at each side, and pick up speed in the middle. Towards the end of my sailing, I spotted a bank of rain coming in and I guessed the winds would pick up. I dropped sail. I do need a topping lift to keep the boom out of the way when I drop the main, and some ties to keep it neat (I used a short spare line to tidy it up a bit). Then I motored back. I could have sailed, but today was about trying things out. I wanted to see how fast I'd go under power. With the Suzi 2.5 four stroke, I was making 3.5 knots with 1/4 throttle, and 4.5 knots at 1/2 throttle, and 5 knots flat out.

One thing that was bothering me was that I was not really doing very well upwind. I was close reaching at best. I think that I was tacking through 120 degrees, if not more. I had the main and jib halyards pulled pretty tight, apparently that moves the camber of the sail forward, which is bad for reaching. I have much reading to do.

I met John up at the sailing club at the sailing club at the Lakeside Manor Hotel, and he kindly let me used the Clubs pontoons. So first time to tie up at a pontoon, and my new fenders got their first outing. They worked perfectly.

Also, one thing about being around the water is that people are so helpful, even before I started struggling to bring TLC back up the ramp I have a helper, who joined in again when I was having a hard time getting the dolly back up on the road trailer.

The next day I arrived at Gowna, and was half thinking of just going home. There was no wind to speak of. But I reckoned that it would get better, so I set up. 45 minutes later as I was ready to launch there was at least what could be called a light wind.

It seems that it's not a sailing day without a goof. It turns out that if you push off from the shore without putting the rudder down into it's gudgeons, that you can't really sail so very well. Luckily there was just shallows to drift back into while I sorted it all out.

Again I tacked back and forth across a narrow lake trying to make some distance up wind, and not getting so very far. I'm quite sure that my lack of sailing ability has a lot to do with it, and the Glen L 14 is quite a simple boat without go-faster goodies. I suspect that she won't point like a race boat, but I think she can be coaxed to do a lot better.

With jib and main flying in, I was mostly making 3-4 knots until I came to a place where the lake narrows. At that point as I came out to the middle, the wind picked up and TLC took off. I had to head up into the wind at first, and then ease the main as TLC healed over. I'm sure that it was not even close to a capsize, but I wanted to gain experience slowly, and while I want to see just what it takes to capsize her, and how easy she is to right, I was thinking wet suit and rescue boat for that.
After I looked at the max speed on the GPS and it was showing 7.5 knots. I'm not sure if that was genuine, but she really did move.

Also in the gust as I headed up, she did not luff, she just powered along. Would it make sense that it's harder to go upwind in lighter winds?

Anyhow, at that point I headed back to meet my family who had just arrived and took the noisy ones along for a quick trip. Give kids jobs, and keep the sailing short. Better that they complain you are going in too soon, than that they want to go back. Even being the one who reads the speed on the GPS is an important job when you are 6.

I have a bit of reading to do about sail trim. I also want to make a new mast. Perhaps a straight mast will help her upwind performance, and I need to see if I can find a more experienced sailor who will risk life and limb aboard a home built boat :-) to teach me how to make it go.

And since it didn't happen without pictures...

Ok, so that one was when I was doing about 2 knots, but I was hardly about to pull out my phone when I was trying not to capsize.

The bilge pump is installed...

It does not move as much water as a bucket, but I can pump and sail at the same time.

The handle is clipped into a bicycle pump holder.

I had to route the outflow behind the seat otherwise it blocked me from lifting the floorboards. I was just plain lucky that the outflow itself did not block lifting the floorboard, I had not thought of it, nor measured it. There is about 3mm (1/8 inches) to spare.

I may later drill a hole through the seat support on the left there, to tidy things up, but right now the hose is down where you can't really stand anyway.

Start of bilge pump I installation.

This is the pump, with the newly cast pivot and the removable handle. It's on the base I made for it. It's out of the way, under the seat. And there's plenty of room to pump the handle with the floorboards in place.
More pics will follow when I have installed the hose. The inlet will be across the boat on the Lee side so that I can pump from the windward side. There's only one pump so if I'm on the other tack I will need to heave to.

First sail of summer, new toys tried out

Cavan is supposed to have one lake for each day of the year, if you look at a map, it could well be true. There is a nice spot near Gowna where you can launch into either of two lakes. I've been there a couple of times and it's easy to launch and retrieve.

I nearly called it quits, there was no wind as I set up, but I don't often get the boat out, so I'd motor if I had to.

This was the first time setting up the mast without pulleys and A frames.  The mast is not all that heavy, however if you walk back to the back of the boat, the trailer will tip, and you can't lift a 22 foot mast 4 feet from the pivot.

I built a simple wooden support for under the back of the boat, so now I can walk to the stern, lift the mast and walk forward hand over hand and it's a done deal.
It worked so well that I raised the mast twice. (This had nothing at all to do with me forgetting to reeve the halyards before I raised the mast the first time. Sigh!)

The wind did pick up and by the time the family came down to join me I was sailing along nicely. A quick trip back to shore and I had three little passengers. The jib came down as there's too much to do to tend the jib and keep an eye on the passengers. At least too much until I get to sail more than twice a year.

(I have now sailed the boat at least once for each year spent building her!)

This was my first trip with my newly added Huntingford Helm Impeder. Every small boat should have one. It's not an autopilot, but it does allow you to take your hands off the tiller for a few moments.You can let go of the tiller for a few moments and it stays put. Very handy. Not quite an autopilot, but very handy.

The wind picked up a little and the occasional gusts unnerved my middle daughter, and reminded me to not cleat the main sheet, a small ratchet block is a nice luxury on a 14" sail boat.

At one point we seemed to stop making much progress, then I noticed the out haul had come uncleated, and the sail was getting pretty baggy. My out haul comes back in along the boom, via a line doubled through an eye, and passed through a captive clam cleat. This gives a 2:1 advantage, and the ability to sort it out from the mast end of the boom. One sharp tug and we were sorted.