A Ditty Bag

After a fair bit of a search, I managed to get Heavy Canvas (ebay) and natural look polyester rope, sail makers needles, and waxed twine (Jimmy Green Chandlery).

So I se about making the ditty bag from "Sail Makers Apprentice". I had a few goofs, and I could not easily source brass thimbles, so I just whipped the cringles instead.

This is what I ended up with.

Given the length of time it took to make a simple canvas bag, I am quite glad that I simply bought my sails rather than tried to sew them up by hand.

It was very hard to make up a grommet in polyester the size of the bag. Retwisting the strands as you go is a must.

You also need to use some sort of bobbin to wrap the whipping thread around or it will take all day to do cringles and loops.

I am considering waxing the canvas so that I can actually use it rather than just have sit on a shelf. It's full of sail sewing kit right now. Hopefully I won't ever find myself needing to make repairs to get me home. I also think that I will get a big roll of self adhesive sail repair tape too.

Rope Grommets

S'funny I work with pretty high tech stuff. so I play with old tech. Everything from Furnaces to wooden sail boats.

I was reading The Riggers Apprentice and I came across Grommets. Nylon Rope is a poor starting point, but it was the only three strand I had. It simply does not hold it's lay, and it unravels faster than a middle east peace accord.  I did soak it in a mix of water and hair gel -  not sure that helped much, but  it smells odd now. I also tied off each of the three strands with constrictor knots to stop each strand unravelling. The small one was my first try. I should have tapered the strands as I tucked them.

I did taper the strands on the second one, it came out a bit better.

A copy of The Sail Makers Apprentice just arrived, so I have reading material for a few weeks.

Casting a new handle for a bilge pump.

The cockpit sole is removable, but not easily, so the pump can't go on the sole, nor under it.

I need it somewhere I can get at it while sailing, so I can pump and sail. Ideally on either tack, but that's asking a lot.

And sadly I bought a whale urchin, without a removable handle.

The pump will sort of fit in under the benches, but the handle sticks out. The original handle comes across the body of the pump... Not the direction that I needed.

 Annoyingly the 2 pivots are different sizes, you can't reverse the handle.

But since I have a furnace for casting aluminium or bronze, I measured up and made a new pump handle. Obligatory warning here, liquid aluminium is going to mess you up something special if things go wrong. If you want to play with molten metal, you need to do a lot of learning. if at first you don't succeed, perhaps foundry work is not for you...

I used a hot wire cutter to make up the shape in expanded polystyrene (sorry no photo). This has a sprue of polystyrene attached, and it gets coated in plaster except for the very top. It's placed in sand with the sprue sticking out the top. You pour in the molten aluminium and it vaporises and replaces the polystyrene. Let it cool and you have an aluminium widget the exact shape of the polystyrene. I drilled holes for the pivots, and drilled and tapped a hole for the handle.

The handle is made of wood, with a 10 mm stainless bolt screwed up inside it with the had cut off afterwards. Drilling a 75 mm long hole up inside it is a bit fiddly.  I don't have a drill press so this was all done by eye.

The whipping helps reduce the chance of the handle splitting in use. The thread is 10 x 1.5mm so quite course, and it goes through 25 mm of aluminium, so it should be plenty strong. 

This is how it looks now.  I need to build a small platform under the seat to hold it just in the right place for the handle not to hit anything at either end of it's range.

If I polish it up, a lot of work, it will come out shiny and silky to the touch. I will probably get things working and then decide not to bother polishing it. A little metal paint may well suffice.

I could have bought a handle, and the pivot, but that would have cost silly money for something that I made up in an evening. Since it's solid aluminium, even with my less than perfect casting skills, it's vastly stronger than it needs to be.

It's not perfect, but it pumps just fine.

Bits and pieces

I'm toying with the idea of remaking my mast. It's heavy and not quite straight. A birds mouth oval might be just the trick. Lighter, better looking, a diverting project.
On the other hand that does mean managing 20' long staves dripping in epoxy. And I have only got a small garden to work in.

In the mean time, I added a "Huntingford Helm Impeder" to The Lady Caroline. I have a simple loop in the cross string which I can pop over an aft cleat, and I can make the other end fast to the other aft cleat.  I now have 3 monkey fists hanging off or around my tiller.

• The yellow will pull the rudder up. The basic design is here, page down a little.
• The red will pull it down and lock it with a pop-cleat, so it will release if I ground it. 
• The blue will tension the helm impeder so the tiller can stay put.

I also put together a couple of simple stands to go under the stern of the boat while she's on the trailer. These are simple A frames, with a hinged leg attached in the middle on one side. An eye bolt, some cord and a cleat prevents them from popping open on me. Some plywood pads spread the load. The pads are held in place with a simple rail screwed all around the underside. The rail allows them to be easily positions, but not to slide out.

With these under the stern, I can walk to right aft while TLC is on the trailer. That far back, gives me enough leverage to raise the mast by hand, instead of using an A-Frame and a block and tackle. This should take 10 to 15 minutes off rigging TLC. The simplicity of it also reduces the risk of the A frame slipping and the mast coming down with a bang.

I've looked really hard and I cannot see an easy way to add a way to row. The rowing seat would have to be on top of the Centreboard Case. I'm not sure that I want that amount of constantly changing stress there. Also, that would leave the block for the main sheet between my legs as I rowed.

I am thinking of trying a sculling oar instead. I am not quite the purist, and I'll use the outboard if need be, but if that were dead, having some sort of something would be nice. And it might be nice to have something less noisy for when there's not wind, and I'm not in much of a hurry.

And finally, I'm about 3/4 through the Lugworm Chronicles. This is about a couple who took their Drascombe lugger by trailer to Greece around 1970, spent the summer living on the boat as they sailed around Greece, then wintered there, to sail back to the UK. It really is quite incredible, especially given that they did this before you could simply pop into a ATM anywhere in the world, before you could ask google to translate everything, and before you could pop up a website to get a decent weather forecast in the language of your choice.
It's well written, albeit sometimes it does feel like you need an open map beside you as you read. I'd recommend it.

First Carburettor Strip down and Rebuild...

I really should have photos on this, but I was up to my bits in... well little bits.

My Suzi DF 2.5 was quite unwell. She has only run for a bit, but she's spent 2 winters sitting in the shed. At first I could not even turn her over, but (with the kill cord removed) I spun the prop and then pulled the starter, rinse repeat until things freed up. I guess it just took a while to get oil all around it.

Then whoopee, she started.

But only with full choke, any attempt to touch the throttle, or take off the choke killed her dead.

Googling arrived at the realisation that the carb was probably gunk city. So a quick look at youtube and this video amongst many gave me a place to start.

One €10 can of carb cleaner, and a couple of aluminium foil trays to put the bits in, a set of socket spanners, and a few screwdrivers (including some quiet small ones for the jets) and it was time to open things up. (Nitrile gloves are good too, carb cleaner fluid is pretty harsh.)

There was less gunk than I expected, and I was starting to loose faith that this simple cleaning would make any difference, until I started on the jets. Remove and clean them one at a time, then you don't have to figure out which one goes back where!

The two main jets were fine, but the pilot jet was clearly not. It's hidden away under a screw - how does anything get in or out? Clearly something does. The pilot jet was completely blocked. No light at all. I left it sitting in carb cleaner while I had lunch, then gently poked it with a very fine needle. Eureka. I saw the light.

Then the "put it back together game". As I disassembled it, I'd "looked back" to see how it would go back together. Pictures might have helped, but for the DF2.5 it's not that complicated.

Moment of truth, Choke, Pull, she lives.
Kill the choke, she dies. Oops, not enough throttle. Try again.
Choke, Pull, alive.
Some throttle, kill the choke, she's still running,

I wound the throttle in and out, and she revved up and down, Just Peachy.

I'm not sure what that would have cost me at the local Suzi Marine supplier, but it would have been a trip out, and another trip to collect, and I can't imagine getting away with less than €75?

But now I know a little more about engines. I suspect that this will be an annual event given how tiny the pilot jet is. Pictures next time....

How a Carb works...

Sailing in Clare

After spending so much time building a boat, I have learned that it's much easier to steal an hour or three to work on the boat, than to steel an entire day to go sailing. But on this trip to Clare with the family, a day presented for me to go sailing, by myself.

The sea is a very different place, with tides and proper waves. At first I found a lovely place to launch from, Bell Harbour, only to find it dries for a good portion of the tide. Also, as you come out to the sea proper, the entire body of water funnels through a small channel. Not a place to be in a small open boat unless you are within an hour of high tide.

Ballyvaughan however has a slip, which is good at all time of the tide except the lower end of the springs. It's quite steep, but there were a few local lads, who were kind enough to help me getting The Lady Caroline down, and back up again later.

Now I have built a boat, and sailed it once or twice, but sailing is still a learning thing for me. I really must remember to close the self-bailers before launching the boat.

For single handing, I need to add some sort of rudder lock. I also need to learn to heave too, but given that there was a short steep swell, and at times I was close to picking up a bath full of sea water over the side, it seemed the wrong time to try that out.

My little Garmin showed my speed, which I tried to use to see how setting my sails affected things, but with the swells and the gusts, it was quiet hopeless.

TLC did just fine. I did not fly the Jib, since I am still learning, and she does not point so very well without it, be we managed.

On the way out, when I hit the worst of the swell, my course was taking me directly parallel to the waves. This was a quite a lot less than fun, so I fell away a little, and then headed back up into the wind so that I was crossing the waves enough to keep things stable.

On the way back I came in along the coast a little more to avoid the worst of the swell, that put the shallow sand banks between me and the rest of the Atlantic.

My plans for the next trip are to try heaving too, try anchoring, and if I can sort out oars before then to see how I manage at rowing a little. TLC has a 6' beam, so she's won't be an easy row, but we should be able to manage.

Sailing In Clare

"The cold rain makes it hard to see where the barren rock that passes for soil meets the bleak grey cloud. If this is summer what fell shadow must be cast on the soul of any man exiled to spend a winter in Clare?"
- Me, after a week in Clare in August

---

More Bike than Boat

The front gears are not yet set up, the rear are, the brakes work. As does the steering Some things I have noted...

• The bent plywood seat is SO much better  than the original.
• Foam sleeping mats for camping are perfect for lining the bent plywood seat.
• The (very) tiny play in the linkage is not a problem at all.
• I had to "fix" the USS as the original steering tabs were effectively longer at the forks, resulting in a gearing effect. The wheel turned less than the bars. (not good)

Some thoughts on riding the bike.

• You can't easily move your body to balance. Counter Steering Helps a LOT. I learned this driving motorbikes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countersteering
• It's way easier to start off down a slight hill.
• There's no suspension. I do appreciate that's obvious. But you can't lift up out of the saddle. I may "spring" the seat. I've seen suspension seats for normal bikes. We shall see.
• The USS bars have a lot of leverage back and forth. Even tightening the bars a lot at the bracket does not stop me from moving them about if I push or pull to hard. I am thinking of welding them at a suitable angle.
• A VERY light hand on the USS bars makes the bike travel in a straight line. Less is MORE. Hauling out of the bars as you start off makes for a very short journey.

I like it. I like it a lot. It will need a little more work. Some tweaking. Lights, mudguards, pannier brackets, paint, etc. Once it's presentable I'll post some pics.

My welding needs a LOT of work. Right now I can make stuff stick, and it will hold against a car jack. But I'm scoring about 0.2 our of 10 for artistic merit, and that's only cause they hate to give you 0.It will take a bit of practice before I'm prepared to go out in traffic, and I need a decent helmet mirror. 

plans, forum, tutorials etc. are here http://www.atomiczombie.com/

A little about welding..

Some good books

• Farm and Workshop Welding
• How to Weld: Techniques and Tips for Beginners and Pros (Motorbooks Workshop)

Phases of not being able to weld (just stick welding mild steel - lets not get silly just yet)

• Can't strike an ark
• Can't run a bead
• Can't run a neat bead
• Bead is (too high,  too flat, undercuts the metal, laced with inclusions)
• Can't join metal at all
• Can break metal about with bare hands
• Can break metal with hammer
• Can sometimes break metal with hammer
• *Can't make neat weld to join metal
• Can't always make neat weld
• Take a lot of attempts to dial in the right settings on a different type of joint.

If I get past this list, I'll consider my self to be about "beginner" status.

I guess it's true of so many things. They seem simple until you start to learn about them, and then you find out how much is involved.

Some Simple Ideas 

(Bear in mind I'm an utter novice, so this has very little authority behind it) 

Too cold, you only join the surface. Too hot you burn through.

Too Hot, Speed Up to compensate, and you don't deposit enough metal, you get undercutting.

Too Cold, Slow down to compensate, you end up with too much metal, and inclusions from the slag getting around you.

As you run a weld, the metal heats up, at the start it's stone code. Circle at start for a second before you start moving.

On thin stuff you need to do short welds, then let it cool. Repeat.

More weld material does not make a weld stronger, a nice convex fillet is stronger than a blob as the blob introduces a sudden change in thickness of metal, which is a stress point. The weld is stronger, the joint is weaker. It will break at the edge of the blob.

Buy an automatic helmet. As a beginner this makes a lot of difference.

* I'm about here, on a good day. With varying degrees of the preceding problems.

And now I'm learning to weld...

It's a long way from boats, but I'm planning on building a recumbent bike. See http://www.atomiczombie.com/

I've started learning to weld, there's tonnes of stuff out there, the good the bad and the ugly. Some of it is just plain wrong. The dedicated sites are better than instructables & such.

• www.mig-welding.co.uk
• www.millerwelds.com
• Welding with Stretch 

 Ymmv, given that I don't know a whole pile about welding, do take my recommendations with a whole pile of salt.

Winter List

No boat is ever finished, and I have my list for the winter....

• Brass rubbing strips on the rudder, centreboard and the front of the hull
• Cargo Netting for bits and pieces
• Fix the bow eye, it was too small and it bent
• Add a nose wheel to the launching trolley
• Add a winch to the trailer or trolley. This needs some thought, I want to make it easier to get the boat onto the trolley and the trolley onto the road trailer.
• Wooden Trim where the hull joins the deck. More sanding.
• Reapply oil to the seats, coamings etc.
• Put the wooden bungs in the screw holes in the coamings.
• Lazy jacks / topping lift
• See if I can improve set up time for the mast / sails. I think if I have something to support the stern while on the trolley, I can raise the mast by hand. We shall see.
• A mount for the GPS
• Bilge pump (or pumps) that I can use on either tack.
• A better way of stowing the outboard while towing.

There. Now I have a list.

It's longer than I thought it would be, but it'll get longer yet, lists always do.

Sailing in November

My wife's family is from Cavan, and my parents have retired there too. So, on Friday we drove to Cavan, with the boat in tow. While my wife and the children visited her parents, I met my parents at the lake with the boat. (Thank you my love for the time you give me to sail.)

The lake was up about 4 - 6 feet over it's banks, which meant the car park was flooded to 18 inches. So I had to push the boat and trailer right through the (bitterly cold) water in the car park to get deep enough to launch it.

I'm now in my 40s, so Mom's claim to being 21 is not looking good, but she rolled up her trousers and waded knee deep into the lake to climb on board.

Her father was a Ship Builder in Arklow, and this was her first time going out sailing in a boat built by her son. The world turns.

It was also only my third time out in the boat. So her faith in me may be misplaced.

Using an A Frame, an open hinge, and temporary, sprung stays, I've hugely simplified hoisting the mast and setting up the boat, but it still takes about an hour. This time, I rigged the Jib for the first time. Up to now I'd only be flying the mainsail.

The lake was divided into regions of small waves, ripples, and of glass, depending on the lay of the land, and the shelter of the trees.

As you can see the lake is somewhat convoluted.


View Larger Map
Our journey went from the Bridge marked A above to the turn in the lake and back. Hardly an epic voyage, but an adventure nonetheless.
For the first time I popped up the Jib. It's on a rolling furler, and it was far easier to fly it and later stow it again than I'd expected.

Mom took the helm for a while, and we generally took it easy. In spite of it being the start of November, it was surprisingly warm, and the sky was blue, barely dotted with clouds.

At one point we tacked back and forth a few times to clear a copse of sunken trees whose crowns were barely half clear of the water. With a pivoting centreboard, and pop up rudder, I fear no shallows, but tangling with those trees could have left us stuck, but in deep enough water that getting out to push off was not an option.

I had not turned on the GPS so I've no idea how fast we were going. It was light enough air that we could sit one each side and sail without any concern of capsizing. There was a noticeable increase in speed when we flew the Jib. At times we "flew along", but when we passed through the shadows of the trees, we had to look at our wake to be sure we were moving at all.

The return to our launch site was narrow, close to the wind, and in shelter. After slowing to a halt and drifting back and sideways twice, I relented and used the outboard engine to take us in to where I could jump out

I'd like to say a big thanks to my father, who in spite of not having any wish to board any boat which is not large enough to have a choice of restaurants, did help me set up and tear down the boat, and sat reading in the car awaiting our safe return.

These lakes will be my sailing grounds for a while, and there's more than enough to explore. As the kids get older, there's plenty of "pirate coves" and "magic islands". I think I'll need to order "The Swallows and The Amazons".

A new toy

I picked up a Ceramic Folding Knife on the internet. $49 + $5 postage - from Canada to Ireland. Nice, usually postage makes things like that prohibitively expensive.

You can see them at http://www.ceramicknife.org/

It's about as sharp as you will make a steel knife without taking a strop to it. That is it slices paper like all the demos you see on youtube, it won't shave the hair off the back of your arm, but, it will slice through 8mm poly double braid without any fuss at all. (Which is more important than shaving your arm bald!)

The handle is stainless, the blade is ceramic. It's held together with tiny recessed bolts, so you can take the whole thing apart if you even need to. (Not that there's anything to go wrong).

It clicks closed, so it won't pop open accidentally. And it locks open.

It feels light, but not in any way flimsy. It takes a little practice to pop it open without your thumb getting too close to the blade, it sort of pops, and your thumb can slip of the stud. The blade is only an inch wide, if the back of the blade was a bit wider, there'd be more room for the thumb stud.

On the whole a very nice toy. I can't help thinking my modified Myrchin will still be my go too knife on the boat, 'cause I know it's bullet proof. But I suspect that this one will have it's place too. I just want to see how resilient it is.



But on the whole nice toy.

Cutting Rope

I have a Myrchin P300 knife. It's really quite nice. But the serrations are very aggressive.
This means that

1. It catches in the rope if you try to cut rope.
2. I can't sharpen it very well (ymmv)
3. At the end of it all, I take 3 serious attempts to cut 8mm double braid.

I have a small Leatherman and it has a plain blade and a serrated blade.  The plain blade will take an edge which cuts through 8mm double braid like it was wet tissue. The serrated blade, having shallow scallops, does the same, and is easy to sharpen. But it's fiddly to open, needing two warm dry hands.

So I got out my coarse diamond stones, and ground down the serrations on the Myrchin until they were less like a comb! Then I sharpened it (with a spyderco sharpmaker), and just because I could, I honed the blade on a cheapo cloth wheel powered by a drill with some polishing compound.

My Myrchin now cuts through the 8mm poly with callous disregarding ease. It sits nicely in my pocket, it has a pliers, and a locking marlin spike. And now it has the blade that I'd have put on it. It does not look nearly as scary as the original blade. But when your hands are cold, you are tired, and something is tangled, if you want to "untangle" it, you don't care much for how scary the blade looks.

Well that didn't suck !

The wooden pump sucks water just fine, provided that it's either in water, or primed. It won't self prime more than about 3" or so. I could see the water climb about 3" through the clear plastic hose. No More.

I guess that while the clearance of the piston, and the valves was just fine for water, air just flows past them. I could do a better job, and add seals, and improve the valves, but now the engineering is starting to get to the stage where it's very time consuming, and fragile.

So, I'm just glad that I only made a mock-up, and did not spend a lot of time making it pretty.

Oh well.

Some you win.

A wooden Pump

I can't claim credit for this, I found it here at duckworks (thanks By Tim Ingersoll - Superior, Wisconsin - USA) but I thought it would look a lot better on my boat than a grey / black plastic thingy.

I cobbled one together out of scrap plywood to see if it simply functioned. I didn't want to spend a lot of time and effort and expensive wood to find out that it trickled water out, or had to be made to perfect tolerances.

It was easy to make, it moves LOTS of water with very little effort. It does splash water out the top where the handle comes out, so I need to try to make a "seal" there with rubber.

I need to try it with a pipe out the bottom to see how well it primes, but I think I will be putting my whale gusher urchin up on ebay shortly.

If it will self prime well enough, I see one each side of the boat, with a pipe to the other side, so that I can pump out the boat while I'm on the windward side.

Photos and test results for self priming to follow. But I've a Math project to hand up, so it may be a little while.

Some things that I wish I had known before I started.

Don't underestimate the importance of setup time on a small boat. Sloops have tall masts, which are more effort to build, set up, and store. Gaff / Lug rigged boats have multiple, but smaller spars. Often fitting right inside the boat itself for storage / trailering.

Every Cotter Pin you need to put in place, with a tiny, fiddly split ring takes more time, especially with cold tired hands. (And bring lots of spare cotter pins, in every size, and lots of split rings)

The more open space in a boat, the more water it can take on. Boats with seats which are storage / buoyancy compartments take on a lot less water than simple park bench seats. I may, over the winter refit my seats, it will be a lot of work, but it would give me tremendous extra buoyancy and storage, and massively reduce the amount of water I'd have to bail out in a swamping.

I should have turned the front frame into a bulkhead. The space forward,  is more or less useless to me. It's too far forward to store anything. It's now filled with a GYM ball as buoyancy. With a bulkhead, and an pair of waterproof, lockable access hatches from the deck, it could be used for storage of light, infrequently needed items. And it would still represent a lot of buoyancy.

I should have bought a trailer with room for a winch. Pulling the dolly up onto the trailer is awkward, and when you haul at it, it can come flying forward. A winch would be far more controllable

I should have turned the frame just under the fore deck into a bulkhead, and put in large hatches. Lockable storage !! Dry storage !! More stuff that I could leave on the boat, ready to go, rather than have to keep it in the house/shed. Again, a shorter "time to water"..

Quick Sailing Clip

Ok, so I need a whole lot of practice.

• To get off a shallow lee shore, stick one foot on board, hold the tiller centred, and shove a few times with your other foot like you were on a child's scooter.
• Don't lower the mast in a cross wind. Really, Don't 

 

A little better....

It's amazing how much better she sails with a functional centreboard. Gravel is a bad thing for pivoting centreboards.

On our second trip, a quick spin around some lakes in Cavan, was a whole lot better. The engine remained unused. I sailed a short loop on my own to ensure all was well, then took Sarah and Abigail each for a spin, under sail.

I remembered reading an article where a sailing Uncle strongly advised short trips, far better to have the kids complaining about going home too soon, than sitting there frowning, saying are we going home yet.

My sailing skills are currently the limiting factor, but with just the main, in a light breeze, she scooted along at just shy of 4 knots. Almost exactly 4 miles an hour, so about walking speed.

I am reasonably sure that any competent dinghy sailor would cringe at the rudimentary mistakes I was making, but hey I have a boat now, I can learn.

Oh yes, the kickup rudder, worth it's weight in gold. I cannot imagine the damage I would have done by now, beaching TLC several times, only to hear the sharp Snap of the auto- release-cleat opening. I certainly would not have been able to lift the rudder, while trying to steer the boat, and manage the sails. Perhaps with a few years practice, but for now, thanks Duckworks!!

http://www.duckworksbbs.com/hardware/cleats/sd002570/index.htm

The Launch Video

Ok, so not quite a master class in sailing, but she floats, she sails, and she motors.

Ready to rock

A quick snap of the boat on her trailer