Kayak Train

Dave Lucas orgainzed a successful attempt at setting the world record for the "International Briggs and Stratton powered old timey African Queen type boats towing a string of kayaks and canoes".  It was a grueling challenge but we all pulled together and set the record that will be talked about for generations.

A little video of the glorious event:

Here's creativelenna's photo album:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/creativelenna/8083661993/in/set-72157631761037197/lightbox/

 

A bit of sailing at Ft DeSoto

We had a good turnout at the Ft DeSoto daysail.  Here's a little video of us sailing with Dave Lucas Melonseed "Leyla"

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!