Dyneema rigging
Today we fitted our first guardline to our carbon fibre stanchions. It's on the port side from the forward side of the gate to the pulpit. We are using 6mm dyneema and as our stanchions are very high we are fitting 3 lines. We may well have to
Progress
I've started the next carbon fibre joint. This is for the port side aft gate brace. Slightly different this time as I'm building it in place a bit at a time because both the stanchion and the brace are now permanently epoxied into place. I'
Progress
We have been working with the assumption that our stanchions should be removable. Thinking about it that's probably because nearly all the stainless steel ones we see are in two parts. The base with a socket for the stanchion to drop into. As we have been fitting ours
Cooking
Check out our new video We get our first stanchion base ready to fit. Making more progress towards carbon-fibre stanchions with fully sealed decks. Also progress on the galley painting, insulation, worktops, fiddles and more. A complete replacement of the original 47 year old galley. Oh, and we fixed some
Electric
We are really excited with the progress on our stanchions and what we have learnt means we have redesigned our aft solar "arch" yet again (I've lost count, this might be the 10,000th version). Stanchions and Gates This was our first stanchion base. The carbon
Safety
This video from the lovely Sailing UMA is scary. It does end on a cliffhanger. We see that the test model they built failed catastrophically. They built a small section of GRP intended to replicate the original hull. They added a foam core rib, covered it with GRP and then
Dyneema rigging
Today we have added the diagonal supports to our boat cradle to stop any chance of the new legs bending sideways towards the narrower part of the hull. We have used 6mm dyneema with locking brummel eye splices lined with stainless thimbles. Coarse length adjustment is with a 2.5mm
Progress
Today we have removed 8 stanchions and their bases (timing due to someone else wanting the bases for their boat). Clearly been a source of leaks. We have drilled each bolt hole and countersunk from above and below. Now filling hourglass shape with slightly thickened epoxy. The places where the
Dyneema rigging
Today this has arrived A 5000kg crane scale. Now we can test our rigging by measuring both the input (the tension we apply to the end of the lashing) and the output (how much tension is in the actual shroud or chainplate loop). But I hadn't realised that
Dyneema rigging
I haven't been posting much here as I've mostly been working on our YouTube channel, however, I thought I would show some pictures of the new mizzen mast foot support work. I am also adding some fibreglass tape to increase strength where we have cut away
Plans
Been a bit slow updating the blog, we have several new videos and this evening I have bought a new-to-us mainsail (from a Westerly Fulmar). We will probably have to add a very small extra reef point as the default setting point because it is very slightly too large but
Dyneema rigging
Our latest video has been getting some really helpful comments on YouTube as well as directly. It has also helped us to reach a new milestone :-) It definitely seems worth exploring more. Particularly to consider some of practicalities that people have raised including: * Is the sheer strength of the