catzooks.com

Watched the Olympics

And a fine Olympics they were. Biggest Canadian medal haul ever: 7/10/7, one behind the US, plus a whole number of people in 4th and 5th! Whoohoo! (These are my second Olympics - here's hoping this project doesn't last to three.)

And, just to keep you all boaty, here's a few links.

• (link) How to build the centreboard cassette block
• (link) Centerboard Construction 101
• (volume 1, volume 2) Rigging manual (June 2004 edition)
• (link) How to install the spinnaker sock
• (link) Plans for the mast step compass adaptor bracket, for a TackTick Micro Compass
• (link) How the new bridle works (this replaces the eye on the gunwale).
• (link) Christian's parts list.
• (link) Rudder blade measurements, from Greg's new and improved blade.
• (link) How to best wetsand epoxy.
• (link) How to whip a rope.
• (link) An article on how to build a centreboard or rudder (should you want to follow the traditional, non-Swift way).

And a couple non-boaty:

• (link) Plans for a router table
• (link) Plans for nice sawhorses

Playing Whack-A-Mole

Getting the deck to fit nicely to the hull is like playing whack-a-mole - you whack down one spot, and another becomes the problem. Whack it down and it's something else. Repeat.

I started with the bow - I carved off the sides of the backing block, right in front. I even cut off part of the tee-nut for the bolt. I figure there isn't much more I can remove here, I'll have to carve out the hull from now on. But that said, the gunwales now hang over the edges of the hull. I have to say, if the bow piece was installed a mere 1/2" further aft, it would be much, much easier to install this entire thing.

With the bow touching, the backing blocks for the jib track became the problem.

Once I carved those down, I realized the backing blocks for the centre bevel blocks were the next high point. These were a bit trickier - I didn't really want to pull the entire deck off and flip it over. So I climbed in the hull and worked on them there. I assumed the blocks were centred, and removed the same amount from either side (the outer edge of the trunk is 2 3/4” wide). I then used a router bit in my Dremel to draw a line through the block; the Dremel wasn't quite fast enough, and this burned the wood (lots of smoke). I chiseled off the unneeded piece, and cleaned up what was left with the rasp. Overall, I removed about 1” of material from either side.

My first attempt at this worked pretty well, and after rasping out the hole for underneath the block, I only had to remove a bit more from the backing block. When rasping the bulkheads down, the trick is to ensure you don't cause the hybrid to separate from the cedar. This is prone to happen on the far edge, because the rasp's teeth point forward. I ran the rasp at an angle to avoid this, then came back on the other side to flatten it out.

Once that one was done, I took a few pictures - looks like station 10 is the issue. Sure enough, when I put the playdough down on it, it was squished flat, particularly at the top. Fix that up... now what's next?

Oh, and I should have been worried about how much the bow goes up relative to the stern. For now this isn't a problem, but I'll have to fix the block situation eventually. I can't hang the boat with the current setup (sigh). I'm thinking I should look into a deck organizer (like a RF448).

I also went to visit the CYC open house... and, of course, took a few pictures of Bram's latest rig setup.

(23 images)

Re-hanging the suspension system

I started to work on fitting the bow fitting in place. Pretty much everyone on the swiftsolo list recommends playdough. After mucking around with my camera on the inside of the hull (it took forever to get it to focus correctly, and I had to learn how to manually focus the camera) I'm willing to give it a try. I put some down on a few exposed edges and tried it out. Once the hull is placed and lifted back up again, I used a fingernail to push through the playdough and see where the thin spots were.

I also realised that my current suspension system was in danger of breaking (which wouldn't be good). I bought some wire line at the Orange Borg to replace the previous rope, but eventually decided on true line from West Marine. (The previous yellow stuff stretches quite a bit - I was going to have to readjust all the line anyway. The deck lowered by ~12 inches while it was hanging up there.)

I decided to use double blocks and route everything through those. That plan didn't work - the rope chafed on the edges of the blocks. Instead, I installed four cheek blocks, and routed a line for each block.

The original Harken Hoister has both the fore and aft lines going through the same blocks - but this should work just as well. I was concerned about having the blocks slightly separated - it may mean that one end will go up and down faster than the other. But it hasn't been really noticeable. [Update 2006 Mar 25: Actually, it has been. The bow (which has the outer blocks) goes up much faster than the stern does. I had figured I would have to re-do everything with perhaps a deck organizer which seems to be the closest thing I can find to the Harken Hoister part. But Max pointed out I could just move the eye hooks further away from the blocks, and that would work out well. Pity it's so hard to get them out of the 2x4...]

When I first routed the (new) line, I didn't tie off the line at the point where it connects up with the haul. I tried lifting it this way - as it happens, the deck has much more weight on the aft line, enough that the aft part of the deck would remain touching and the entire bow would rise, with the whole thing slipping through this point.

Another interesting note is that when you lift the deck via these suspension points, you can see the entire wing flex as you lift. Probably wouldn't be good to leave the deck suspended overnight.

(7 images)

Beginning the fitting process

I continued working on fitting deck to hull. The backing piece for the bow fitting needs to be tapered quite a bit more than it currently is. This stuff is two layers of the epoxy/hybrid/s-glass plate - very strong and hard to cut. I tried out sandpaper, the rasp, a file... no go. I finally found something which will cut it - a diamond-tipped circular Dremel bit. And it makes short work of it too. Cool. (Just wear a respriator when doing this work. It's messy.)

Next step was to trim off the ends of the bolts in the forward edge of the backing plate. I sacrificed a blade per bolt but otherwise this worked pretty well. Just be sure to not heat the bolt too much - one got pretty hot and melted the plastic covering to my workbench. (And it changed colour - I hope this doesn't mean it's strength or stainless properties changed.) Once cut, I used the edge of the diamond dremel bit to shape the ends so they would easily go into the tee-nuts.

I also carved out notches in the trailing edges of the bow piece, so the backing block of the bow fitting can fit in place.

Oh, and the whale skeleton of the strongback lives on.

(5 images)