Week end sea trials

I went to Oslo for some social sea trials last week end.  Four boats sailing south on Saturday, social gathering at Sandspollen over night and back up to Oslo on Sunday.  We had most kinds of weather, from sunny and no wind to heavy rain and quite heavy gusts force 6-7.

I drove all night and arrived in Oslo at 4:06 in the morning, had a few hours of good sleep in Anders' Grinde. Launched later that morning.

Start of our "race" was in very light conditions. Thomas brought Champagne, perfect for the conditions.

The wind built to force 3-4 southerly and we had a few hours of upwind sailing, keeping speeds of 10-11 knots at decent tacking angles.  We had a fight with a beautiful Dutch sloop with sail # NED 27.  We were constantly a bit faster on a slightly poorer angle, which resulted in very similar VMG's.  We put in a reef after a while and was able to maintain our tacking angles better after that. They won.
On the last tack we broadened the angle a tiny bit and Thomas took this video when close reaching single reefed in Droebak Strait.  GPS showed 14,5 knots.

Sandspollen over night.  Excellent company. The fleet in the morning

On Sunday I didn't feel like racing and wanted to relax on the fjord along with the other boats, sailing downwind under main and jib only.  5-7 knots of boat speed.  Pretty moderate conditions.

And some live pictures, captured by Erik in the Grinde

Then the wind grew again and white streaks of foam showing wind direction.  I depowered everything I could (the reefing system, sailmaker's idea, doesn't work when the wind is up, will rebuild to plans) but we were sailing constantly over 13 knots with no options of retreat.  Although the boat felt very comfortable with the conditions I didn't and chose to find shelter under land and remove the main.  We continued under mast and jib doing 7-8 knots.  Problems with the screacher furler was the main reason we didn't use that sail much this day, although double reef and screacher would probably have been a lot of fun.

Almost ready for more sailing

I made the modified brummel splices to the side lines. A little bit shorter tapers than the 36 times rope diameter, but if this weakens the Dynex by 50 % (which I doubt) it will still have a safety margin of 3 to the design specs. These lines will not let the pole move sideways.  I have not yet tried the spin from the pole and are looking forward to this week end's sailing.

The gooseneck getting a deck flange

The allways light summer is over. Nav lights need to be fitted.

This is for the GPS.  The only instruments I have used so far is a piece of wool yarn in each shroud and an iPad.

The safety compartment is now closed. 

More glue

Got the last G10 tube bushing in.  The pole is almost ready for another go, just have to make sure the side lines are attached in a fool proof way.  I ordered some more dyneema, but will likely not have it before the week end so I will have to cut the current line in two and make eye splices on them, hopefully they will not be too short after the splice is in.

Definitely looks more like a proper boat with the pole attached. It is obvious the spin will catch more air and more easily from the end of this pole than how we rigged it on Ytterøya rundt.

Glued and taped the new wing net rail inner supports

Laminated a goose neck on a plug from building foam.  Covered in peel ply and wrapped in tape during cure.  The plan is to melt out the foam with acetone or some other chemical.

more epoxy repairs

I decided to put on some extra UD carbon and then covered it all in several layers woven fabric at the tip.  The hole has now been made and the G10 bushing is in place.

The new pole "ear" being glued in place.  Making a new and attaching it was easy, the hard thing was to remove the old broken one.  It is now also laminated over.

Preparing the new inner supports for the wing net rail.  These will definitely not fail in compression, but I've started to wonder if they are so stiff something else will fail instead.  Hope not.

Test fitting under the rail.

I have the wires for the mast head VHF antenna and the Nexus nWind transducer treaded, and now have to make a gooseneck for trough deck wiring.  The mrc Box will be located inside the mast near the base.

It's getting dark here now, so I have to have working navigation lights before relaunch.

Inside. First haul for repairs.

After a week or so in the water, breaking up a few things and demonstrating the boats ability to outperform about any other boat in these waters (emphasis the boat, not the skipper - not yet anyway) , it was time to haul and get inside for repairs and finishing off a few more things.

My "yachtclub" has a big house at the docks that I can use for the repairs.  No heating though, which is challenging when working with epoxy.

The bow web has been carved empty and cut clean at the bolt level.

It is is currently being vacuum bagged, this time the uni carbon runs around the end of the web, and I only used HD foam out there, other wise it is rebuilt as per plans.

The web it self had nothing to do with the damage but make sure not to follow the plans regarding the side stays as this will not work properly, as stated by the designer "...these (sidestays) should be locked to the pole in some way so that they cannot slip or move."  I think I should have been able to see this coming, and I'm pretty mad at my self I didn't. But, soon things are back to start.

The wing net rails failed at once.

Farrier put out an update on this, but I ignored it as I had already finished fairing the floats and I probably hoped that mine would not fail.  Anyway, I'm rebuilding the rail supports as per Menno's recommendations and they will now be very rugged.

Using cutoffs from bulkhead panels to make 5 supports each side.  Make sure the supports clear the main hull when folded.

Inspecting the mast foot after the compression incident.  I had to see if anything had cracked inside.  To remove the plastic I had to chisel it out in pieces.  Seems everything was OK, the plastic wasn't inserted all the way it seems.  New plastic bearing currently being made.

Inspecting the shroud to mast connections.  After the dismasting in the garden, it was exciting to see how the new stopper knots behaved after being out in a bit of wind.  Seems like we got the size right now, and the knot seems to hold well after my tightening by pulling a 3-series BMW with hand brakes on over dry tarmac by the knot.

Also seen here is a Ronstan Orbit block attached to the mast with Colligo's new loops making a fully articulating sheave.