Mast box, plus some work to get SEI ready to sail.

Oh yes, and the first few days of spring.

I’ve not had much time in the workshop this week, so there has not been a lot of progress in there.  I did though have a nice three day stay with Denny and our family in Hamilton,  got to see the granddaughters, went to Oropi hot pools with the BOP group for a meal and a soak, and arrived back home to a long list of chores.

As well as catching up on customer questions and drawing work I’ve five engineering jobs on in the next four days so its going to be quiet in the shop for a little longer. It does pay well though, and thats really helpful in funding projects like “Long Steps”.

I've been able to get in there for a few hours though, used that time to build up the main mast box. Its all glued and screwed together now, there are some reinforcing pieces still to go on but this afternoon I got it fixed in place on the after face of B#2.

 This is the mainmast box. Its been carefully coated with three coats of epoxy, all the seams pre primed, and the corners filleted with a small glue fillet, the drain hole drilled and sealed, and the drain fitting screwed into the bottom the mast step box ready to put the last side on.  From here its "let the glue go off, sand its outside corners rounded and then put it in place.

The main mast step box in place, held by glue plus screws through the two layers of 9mm plywood on the bulkhead and screws through the 20x30s on each side of the vertical web / spine underneath.

There are reinforcing pieces to go in yet, plus a fore and aft beam each side at the top.  You can see the far side one sitting there ready to fit, thats not only the support for the top of the mast box but is also the deck support for the cabin top.

This is one of the most highly stressed parts of the boat, and I DONT want it to come loose. 

There will be a very similar one back between the transom and the next one forward.

I had a little win today, Dean Pannett of  http://www.nzcomposites.com  lives just over the hill from here, and supplies glass cloths, epoxy, carbon, kevlar and all sorts of stuff useful to a man buiding a boat.  His prices are great, service good, and I picked up some epoxy to keep me going.

Another interesting place, I asked Dean who in town here supplies rolled carbon fibre tubes, and was told about C Tech   http://www.c-tech.co.nz  who among other things have a standard range of carbon tubes, two of which, although they don’t know it yet, will be holding up the sails on Long Steps in a while.

I’d been told about these guys before but Deans reminder spurred me into looking for their website to see what they do.  I hope on my travels to be calling in there to check them out more closely.

On Thursday last it was the first day of spring for us here in the South and as I want to do more sailing than I got in last year its time I got on with rigging SEI. I’ve had a day off, most of the day anyway, and spent a couple of hours of that prepping the spars for SEI s rig.  Today I’ve leathered both the yard and boom, bolted on the fittings and begun lacing on the sail.

The leathering was done with an oar leather kit from Duckworksboatbuilders supplies ,  I did the oars with the original kit and that’s holding up really well, had some nice split calf ( a grade of leather, fairly light) on the shelf so used the needles, punches and thread left over from the oar kit to do the leathering job today.

White split calf leather, herringbone stitched, double cross stitched at the ends, almost decorative. This should go well with the white sail. The leather is there to stop the chafing where the spars cross the mast.

http://www.duckworksbbs.com/hardware/oarlocks/oarleather/index.htm

These are great kits, sometimes its difficult to find the special needles, the heavy waxed linen thread, the tallow and the leather to do these jobs, and in these kits it all comes as one, including a piee of tape measure, good clear instructions and the little punch to make the holes.  I’m a fan.

The sail by the way is an RSS sail, its the OZ Racer sail which can be obtained from Mik Storer

www.reallysimplesails.com

Or Duckworksmagazine.

Nice sail by the way, extremely good value for money.

Mik has some very helpful tutorials up on his site, very useful for setting up and tuning a Balanced Lugsail.