Monday 25 April 2011

it works!

  just a quick one...  finally went for my first sail last night, in quite a breeze,  some great gusts to fight with.
      the flying teatray is a massive success,  huge fun, big adrenaline rush and wicked exercise.  there were a few issues, mainly caused by the massive stress caused by the mast  gate on the mast..  the pressure caused the aluminium tube mast to start to collapse... also the mast step was driven backwards  by the force of the wind coming from behind.  however thankfully no breakages,  so after a few running repairs i'm ready for another brush with the wild cornish wind.    i have also managed to get hold of another sail, 7.5 metres in size  which should give me a little more pace when i'm ready for it.
   cheers...

Sunday 24 April 2011

the flying teatray!

it floats!  finally i have got the boat on the water,
      the mission was fun, but started to drag towards the end, started to get in the way of slightly more important things like work and personal life, ha...  from knowing nothing about boat building i'm pretty happy with the result,  i now need some wind!  
pics... 

  
    the first time i actually tried to sail the boat there was very little wind but i figured that a gentle start was a good way to go,  as i rolled down the slipway the mast step broke,  this was based on windsurf parts and i figured that it was born to fail. so... i have milled out of aluminum a quick release ball joint as a new mast step, this should be pretty much indestructible so i'm happy there,  also the floor was a little to soft under my knees so i have reinforced the central area with some small ribs and carbon tape,  a huge difference!
    i am now ready to give the thing a proper sail,   whoop!  hopefully in the next few days, so will  keep the updates coming...
          

Wednesday 6 April 2011

one down, one to go!

very happy today, finished the paneling of the first side of the trailer, cut out the window apertures to the correct size, and sanded the whole lot,  i'm really pleased with the way the stripes of the strip line up through the door and the general fit and finish, i think its going to look fantastic with the clearcoat  on..
having got to this point on this beautiful sunny day i felt it was too nice to be in the workshop any more, so my lady and i went for a paddle on the helford river, followed by a pint and baked mackerel and chips at the ferryboat inn,  well deserved i feel.
     whoop! whoop!,  one more to go then its glassing time...
  

Friday 1 April 2011

cedar strip....

this week, through a horrible cold, i have been cladding one of the side panels of the mega trailer,  with 65mm cedar strip,  nailed and glued onto the frame with bronze nails and epoxy.   the strips have gone on nicely, and i'm pretty pleased with the nearly finished result.. 

boats... boats... boats...

i have always loved being on the water, and have been sailing since my early teens,
    i've been wanting a single handed dinghy that i could car top for a while but they all seem far too expensive for my meager pockets... so. i thought, why not build one!   i want something pretty extreme really, fast, scary, super light and unsinkable.  i began with a free design program called hullform and worked with it to produce a hull shape i was happy with, going on the principle of, if it looks fast and silly it probably will be.
    i designed it with hard chines so it would be simple to build from plywood,  3 metres long for ease of roof topping and general maneuverability   with a simple rig directly sourced from a windsurfer.


   since this point, over the last couple of weeks i have built the foils, from glassfiber skinned pine laminated with oak strips for extra stiffness
  then, i started on the hull,  its all made out of plywood,  slotted together like those old cut out dinosaur models, 

    this is then fitted together and glued up...
    after this i've made a mast gate out of plywood, carbon fibre and aluminium  tube and a rudder support also from carbon and aluminium, fixed in the mast bottom mount track and prepared the hull to recieve them,
    i'm now waiting for sheets of plywood to finish the build..

  incedentally,  after beginining the build i found a class the boat will fit, sadly its an italian class, for boats  ten feet long, with a maximum of 8 m2 of sail,
    basically thats it for rules...  and its ended up with some  really interesting craft
    link o the site here... http://www.diecipiedi.it/ns/main/index.html

   updates when i finally get the little beast finished