Carbon Boom Reinforcement

Floppy booms are not good.  I've complained before that the boom on the Goat is too flexible.  This prevented me from applying full downhaul for fear of breaking the boom. 

The original banana boom in light air

The bendy boom is a Douglas fir constant width box section, 37mm wide by 52mm deep tapering to 45mm at the front and 43mm at the back.  The Boom started out as a solid two piece laminate but it was very heavy and not stiff enough.  So rather than building a new boom I hacked this one as an experiment.  First I routed out the middle and capped the resulting U shape with a new piece of 7mm thick Douglas fir thereby removing some weight and increasing the depth which should increase the stiffness.  This lighter/stiffer boom is shown in the pic above and was still much too flexible.  

 Cross section of all wood boom:

I did not feel like building another boom and had a lot of carbon tow left over from another project so I decided to add a layer of the tow to the top and bottom of the boom.  Laying up tow can be a real pain unless you have a way to control it's placement.  So I routed 2mm deep channels on the top and bottom of the boom to contain the tow.  Since the highest load on the boom is applied at the downhaul I doubled the depth of the tow channels to 4mm for the front ~1.5m of the boom.

2mm deep tow channel and beginning of 4mm deep tow channel.

The tow was wrapped back and forth around 4 small nails at each end of the 1.5m channel to a depth of 2mm.  I made sure to work epoxy into the tow every few wraps to avoid dry spots.

Nails used to wrap tow around

Beginning to wrap tow back and forth on the boom, I ended up suspending the spool of tow from the ceiling to facilitate the weaving. 

The tow was compacted by clamping with a packing tape covered batten.  Picture taken after epoxy had set and batten was removed.

Closeup of cured first layer. 

Once the epoxy set the process was repeated for the entire length of the boom first top then bottom.  I used clear packing tape to compact the layup.  Then a bit of sanding to smooth it out plus a UV protection clear coat.

 Top layer of carbon tow sanded and clear coated

Holes left over from the 4 nails and carbon end wraps still visible after finish sanding.

So what did all of this farting around do to the stiffness?  First the boom weights:

Hollow wood boom:                  2815g
After routing carbon channels:  2460g
With carbon added:                   3150g

I very carefully measured the deflection of the hollow wood boom before and after the carbon was added using a bucket and water as weight.  The chart below shows deflection vs. weight of the boom before and after carbon. 

For a weight increase of 335g or 12%  the stiffness increased 65% correction 40%!  The boom now feels indestructible and no deflection is noticeable under sailing loads.  The boom is heavier than I'd like but that is mainly because I believe there is too much wood left.  The 690g of carbon and epoxy is doing most of the work and a lot of the wood is just along for the ride.  A thinner wall wood box with the same amount of carbon would most probably work just as well.  How much thinner could it be?  I don't know.

Deflection of wood carbon boom with 14kg load in the middle.

The finished boom.

Cedar Key 2012

This is the biggest event of the year for the West Coast Trailer Sailors.  Don't know how may boats showed up this year but it was a lot.  We spent most of the time sailing, socializing and boat watching and still managed to not see everything.  My sister's family, including 2 very young nieces came with us and the kids loved the water and sailing in the Goat.

Click on the slide show if you want to go to the Picasa album to see pics full size.

Crystal River Boat Bash

The CRBB in April is a fun gathering of folks interested in historic Florida boat building as well as modern wooden boat building.  A nice way to spend a weekend camping and sailing on the Crystal River.  To my surprise, another Goat showed up.  Rob Hazard has built a beautiful GIS and we spent Saturday afternoon sailing on Crystal River.  What fun!

Here are a few pics of the event.  I spent more time sailing than picture taking.  Click on the slide show to go to the Picasa album to see pics full size.

Everglades Challenge 2012

Doing a bit of catching up with the blog.  Here are a few shots from the start of the Everglades Challenge in March.

Click on the slide show if you want to go to the Picasa album to see pics full size.

Buzzing around Sarasota Bay

Hugh Horton and I have been emailing back and forth about all sorts of boaty stuff ever since The Goat's debut at Cedar Key.  We had not met in person and Hugh was interested in seeing The Goat so I was delighted when Hugh invited me to hang out at the Buzzelli Multihull Regatta hosted by the Sarasota Sailing Squadron.  I was prepared to camp but when I got there I found out that Hugh had scored me a bunk on the Ball's brothers spectaculat Gerr designed trawler "Roseate".

Buzzelli Regatta is a diverse gathering of small multis like Windriders, Hobies, Wetas, F16s, F18s, Stillettos, F-boats and others.

The Goat was definitely the odd boat out.

Friday night, Jim Brown, the legendary multihull pioneer and designer gave a fascinating talk about the history of multis and his Outrig project.  This was the first time I had heard Jim's presentation.  He is a great story teller and the twinkle in his eye, when he recounts some of his numerous adventures, really shows that he's lived life to the fullest.  My favorite answer that Jim gave to an audience question about if the ancient South Pacific light multis were so good why did the Europeans go with giant, unwieldy and slow ballasted monohulls.  Jim's anwser: "They needed to carry cannon", Perfect!!

The clubhouse was full of young racer guys who, when Jim began his talk, were not paying much attnetion.  Many of them had no idea who he was.  But as the presentation went on more and more people were paying attention and by the end pretty much everyone in the room was enjoying Jim's show.  The goal of the Outrig project is to chronicle the history of the modern multihull.  This is a great effort as the early pioneers are getting on in years and, unfortunately they will not be around forever.  Outrig will make sure that they are not forgotten.

Saturday we woke up to Hugh's awesome coffee and I was invited to have breakfast at Meade's RV.  Meade makes a serious stick to your ribs and keep you fueled for a long day on the water bowl of cerial, nuts, berries and all sorts of other goodness.  It was delicious and worked as advertised.

We got the Goat rigged and launched by pushing off the trailer onto the grassy shore and then dragging to the water's edge.  This works OK but I noticed that the Weta tris have a super slick dolly and trailer arrangement which allow trundling the boat over roughish terrain with relative ease.  Definitely will have to gin up something similar for the Goat.  There goes project #1276.  While I was rigging the Goat, Pat Ball came by with his grandson Markus. They had his Bufflehead in the back of the pickup truck and launched nearby.

  Hugh and I went sailing on the Goat but never got to sail alongside Pat. 

Eventually we met up on the beach and all of us took off in the Goat. 

This was the first time I had more than two adults in the boat.  The pleasent breeze was enough to give us a few exhillerating reaches and the occasional Yeehaah!  With Hugh and I sitting on the rail and Pat driving we almost stayed with the windriders on the race course.  The boat feels a good bit faster when I sail solo so will have to try and hunt down a Windrider one of these days *he says with an evil but not cocky grin*.

We had no fun at all!

Saturday night Meade Gougeon gave a presentation on how the modern multihulls evolved to be able to tack down wind.  Once again I was fascinated by the history and how far we have come in a relatively short time.

I thouroughly enjoyed meeting a lot of folks and making new friends. Had to pack up and leave late Saturday night as I had to be home on Sunday.  Fortunatley it's barely a one and a half hour drive to our house in St Pete.  What a sailing paradise we live in!

Goat Camping on the Indian River Lagoon

A couple of weeks ago Kristi and I went camping for the first time in The Goat.  We were late getting to Honest John's Fish Camp on Friday but were rewarded with a very pleasant sunset cruise down the Indian River Lagoon.

We arrived at spoil island IR1 as the sun was setting in an absolutely spectacular sunset and were greeted by the usual suspects from WCTSS.

We quickly made camp before total darkness fell. The hot dogs on the fire tasted much better than they should. It was late and we were starving. I did not sleep very well the first night as I kept being woken by strange rustling sounds. I finally got a flashlight out and discovered a rat had chewed a giant hole in our brand new soft cooler. Good news is that he did not get into our food.

Saturday we chilled at the camp, swapped a lot of sailing lies and took the Goat out a few times in the perfect 15knot winds. Sometimes I can't decide what is more fun - sailing or talking about sailing.

We had another campfire that evening and then crashed for the night. Slept great in the steady breeze. Glenda and Mel also took their time packing up and we had a great sail together back to the launch site. The weather was a perfect 15knots with higher gusts and made for a quick and exciting sail back.

We had the first of three reefs in the sail and it was about the right balance of speed vs capsize risk for warm weather. We would have reefed down to the second reef if the water had been cold but it's still warm enough that a capsize would not be too unpleasant.

When we got back to HJFC Jose, Ron and Terry were still there and along with Glenda and Mel we all decided to have a long and relaxing lunch at Sebastian Beach Inn before hitting the road. The food was pretty good and, as usual the stimulating conversation ranged all over the place.

Heres a little video of us sailing down the Indian River Lagoon

Lake Tarpon Daysail

I took The Goat for a daysail at Lake Tarpon, with WCTSS (West Coast Trailer Sailer Squadron).  Ended up having a great time but it took some effort to get out on the water.  Early on in our sailing life we figured out cancelling trips because of iffy forecasts, more often than not, results in missed opportunities so we don’t generally cancel sailing plans unless the forecast is truly apocalyptic or below 60F.  From the start, I think something was trying to tell me not to go on this trip but I don’t listen so well.  Friday night I was rushing to finish some trailer mods which took longer than anticipated and then I had to jury rig the drain plug ‘cause I apparently lost it.  The whole afternoon had felt like a bit of a fight to get ready.  Finally around 10:30 pm all I had left to do was put a few things in the van.  Our old van gets driven maybe once a month and I had seen a few ants in it last time I drove it.  I open the van and immediately notice a pretty substantial ant trail.  I follow it under some stuff and discover a giant ant’s nest.  We are talking a writhing pile of ants a good 10x18 inches.  Yikes, horror movie music playing in my head!  I can’t drive the van like this.  The ants are likely to devour me before even I get to the lake. So Kristi and I waged chemical warfare.  It was midnight by the time we got done cleaning up the mess. 

Wake up this morning and it’s pouring.  Radar looks like a stalled front is going to sit over Lake Tarpon at least through mid day. 

I was not about to give up, having fought so valiantly to get ready the night before.  Driving to the lake, I was wondering how many folks would show up.  As I pulled into the launch ramp it was great to see that a good number of like-minded damn-the-weather sailors were hanging out under the shelter.  We proceeded to have a good time socializing and playing “who can pull up the best radar plot on their phone”.  The weather was not improving fast but it was improving and we started to get hungry so a few folks jumped in Ron’s Sea Pearl "Whisper", Becky and Ed launched their Adventure Islands and they set off for lunch at the Dockside Sports Bar and Grill.  There was not enough wind for the motor and oarless Goat to make it to the restaurant so I hopped a car ride with Jose and Dimitri.  We had better wind along highway 19 and handily beat the sailboats.  Eventually a bunch of folks showed up and we continued socializing and filling our bellies with reasonably decent food, for a sports bar. 

After lunch Jose dropped me off at the ramp and I got ready to attempt sailing The Goat out of the weed infested, directly-up-wind, channel.  As I was launching, Ron and the AIs came in so there must have been some wind on the lake.  With renewed interest I proceeded to launch and attempt sailing up the channel.  There was a faint breeze but no matter what I did I could not get The Goat to dig in and start sailing upwind.  I don’t know what exactly was going on but I suspect that the huge amounts of weeds grabbing at the board and rudder combined with the pathetic, fluky wind conspired to thwart any windward progress.  After making a general spectacle of myself, but not scratching the boat (thanks Ed!) I dropped the sail and resigned myself to paddling out the channel.  The Goat has oarlocks but alas no oars yet, so all I have is an emergency paddle.  Good thing this was not an emergency as the paddle is very ineffective at propelling the boat.  After trying multiple techniques I settled on paddling The Goat as if it was a standup paddle board.  I’ve tried real paddle boards and they are a good way to exert maximum effort for minimum progress.  The Goat is the world’s worst paddle board.  So after paddling what felt like the length of the Everglades Challenge, I finally got out into some clear air.  Oh, I forgot to mention that the paddle has a hand grip hole in the blade and a funky T shaped handle so that you can use it as a boat hook, in a pinch.  Well that hole would grab weeds and sling them into the boat every time I switched paddling sides.  What a mess.  Since I was on a lee shore and would not have time to drift and hoist the sail I dropped anchor and raised the sail.  The wind was still real fluky so, for added sport, the boat sailed a couple complete circles around the anchor while I was hoisting sail – nevertheless, the hoisting went smoothly.  I weighed anchor, which came up as a giant ball of muddy weeds neatly wrapped in some chain.  As the shore was quickly approaching, I had to start sailing immediately – so, the muddy mess went into the already weed-coated boat.  

John Chestnut park is a nice place with good ramps but lots of weeds.

Finally out on the open lake, I was rewarded with a pleasant breeze and spent several hours lazily messing about at 3-5 knot boat speeds.  The weather had cleared up and it was glorious.  Not having a means to effectively propel the boat, if the wind completely died, I stayed reasonably close to the ramp but still had a great time checking out wildlife in the reeds and just generally relaxing.  Finally, I was forced to head in as the sun got low over the horizon.

Took my time packing up, watched the sunset and headed home.  Had to work for this time on the water but, as always, it was well worth it.