Yesterday

Yesterday did not go as planned. Instead of taking the hull out to test the water line, one of the guys remembered talking to someone at one of the messabouts we went to about losing mast from capsizing. So  instead we  put wood inserts into the PVC. Part of the idea is to fill the space between wood and pipe with canned foam so mast would float. I'm rethinking that idea as an experiement on another area showed that foam HAS to have a LOT of air around it to cure. Don't know how it would cure if it was contained. inside a pipe. Have not given up on this idea as  the foam is closed cell / water proof and should block any water from getting inside the pipe to the wood.  I'm thinking it MIGHT work if we put a long aquarium line ( 1.62 at Walmart for 8 ft in pet department) on the can tip and slowly sprayed a thin line into the  pipe while gently pulling the line out so as to not got  to much foam in one place at a time and then do it again  on the other side. It wont fill it all in but it will help some. I'm thinking of getting a scrap pipe and do a test before I waste a whole can of foam . Plan " B" is  close the ends with a PVC cap and glue after I put some varnish or paint on  the wood. Just FYI this is for a temporary or back up mast until I get the wood or maybe an aluminum pole for a permanent one. At this point it is about getting on the water before the bad weather hits.
The good news is the wood inserts in the PVC for  yard arm and boom is working fine so far.  I need to sand the battens and get them attached.  I found a really good instructional site for rigging a junq sail. If you print it out as is it is about 27 pages. I edited it for space down to 20 so it is going in my rigging collection of printouts.  It shows 5 battens so I have to adapt it for 7. That I'll find out the how to from yahoo junq rig site .


Yesterday ended up with not only the inserts for boom and yard arm getting cut but also the battens for the junq sail. Needless  to say I'm not all that upset over not getting to the lake  to test. The sail I have needs 7 battens and we cut 9 out of the "damaged"  cedar strips I got a while back plus a bit from the "fence: board to make up for what we missed, so Im good to go with spares.  The down side was even with a solid wood insert  the 1 1/2 inch PVC was not cutting  it for the mast . It's just to flimsy, so have to re do that idea.
Instead of waiting we are going to cheat and copy something one of the guys at the messabout did, just to get it in the water and test it out.

The junk sail rigging that I have  requires more hardware that I have one hand so improvising is required until next month. This sail has a shape very similar to a crab claw so I am setting it up  in what I can only call a hybrid fashion to be used like a crab claw until I get the hard ware.  I  AM ABSOLUTELY NOT getting on the water in this set up with out some sort of reef points!
The sails is about 16 x 5 ft. That is WAY to much sail for us at this point.
The set up so far is: The bottom of the sail is furled around the boom to the point that what is left is 7 ft on the short side of the sail. (9 foot on long side). That brings us down to a 4 batten sail.  I have  put the straight battens in and borrowing an  idea I saw this month at the messabout,  tie ropes under the battens  to reef at at least the lower three. ( The sail I saw as a regular crab claw and had the reef line running through the reef points and tied in place on both sides. )  That is going to leave one batten "unreefed" If the wind picks up so much that I have to reef past the first two it is time to head for shore.  The third reef point is in case it gets THAT bad that quick and I need to reef it to get to shore.  On second thought I may go ahead and put the reef lines under that final batten as well just to be sure.
That's the plan. Time to undo all this dry fitting and get to sanding.

May your anchors always be solid.
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