maandag 13 juli 2009

First 'sail'

This sunday I finished the rig (only have to alter the cars on the main and work out the tiller to get the boat ready) and could manage a 8 minutes trip with the jib + motor up and down the marina before we ran out of time and had to pull the boat out of the water to get home in time.

Next weekend me and my brother will go for a one-week sail to test the boat, finish all kinds of loose ends, and hopefully learn to sail it. On tuesday of that week Luis Matos, another F22 builder, will join us (all the way from Portugal!) for one day to get a feel for the boat in real life.

Last sunday I had no time for pictures, but for those who are interested anyway here is some text-only about things I noticed:
  • With the aft cockpit-boomless-version of the F22 the tiller has not much travel left-right before it hits the point where the traveler sits on the cockpit seat. It's probably a good idea to put some extra blocks under the traveler to lift it a bit and make some more room for the tiller. It will only help a bit though. I will alter it this this winter.
  • Because the tiller is fixed and can't swiffel up you can't stand up holding the tiller when sailing/motoring, and don't have a clear sight. I'm going to attach a joystick to the tiller: problem solved.
  • It is possible to hang a small-ish outboard (mine is a 4 HP two stroke Mecury long shaft) on a bracket next to the rudder: the prop can't touch the rudder in any position and there is enough clearance to tilt the outboard completely out of the water.
  • On low speeds the rudder doesn't seem to 'bite' very well. I guess this is normal for this type of rudder, I'm just not used to it as I've only had boats with relatively large rudders that worked well at very low speeds.
  • Manoeuvring with a (very) low speed, as will be necessary in the sometimes very crowded and small locks and harbours/marina's in the Netherlands, will probably only be doable by steering with the motor. In this respect I'm glad I built the aft cockpit version.
  • Because the boat is so light and wide, it drifts quite a lot with only mast up when there's some crosswind. Going to have to practice a lot to learn to manoeuvre this boat under power in tight areas.
  • The overall strength of the sandwich hulls is great, they're stiff and light, but I'm not really happy with the impact resistance (concentrated load). Sunday my second bulge (very small one) in the boat was caused by a brief encounter with the corner of a jetty. First small bulge was caused by a corner of the plastic wheel arch of the trailer which pressed against the float when the boat was rocking a tiny bit on the trailer while driving. Since then I've lowered the wheel arches. Guess there will be a lot more scratches and bulges to come.
  • The shrouds stay tight folded, unfolded and while folding. Nice!
  • Raising the mast is easy when you use all the raising wires to support it and also use the 'ears' on the maststep. The pops on the ball (raising) or pivot-pin (lowering) with ease.
  • Centerboard lowering needs a bit of muscle: didn't expect the board to be that bouyant.
  • 2:1 jib sheet seems to work fine.
  • Sailing with jib alone to the wind is possible (a bit), but you have to helm a lot (duh).
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2 opmerkingen:

Andrew zei

Thanks for posting your experiences! Can't wait for the report and pictures from your week long trip. I am interested in seeing a picture of the tiller / traveler interference. I had been under the impression that the boomless traveler would have the least issues since it is farthest aft. (Just went and looked at Stick Shift's solution with boom arrangement.) Also, although I couldn't find the picture, I know the builder of PAX had fitted a small articulating arm between rudder sleeve and motor for maneuvering in harbor at slow speeds (did you have the centerboard up or down when motoring?)

13 juli 2009 om 16:54
Menno zei

Linking the motor and the rudder will be easy, as they are practically next to eachother on more or less the same height. I think the easiest would be a piece of PVC pipe with a cord through it, linked to the tiller and the outboard. Release the cord and the tiller can move freely, tension it and the motor and tiller are linked.
Problem is: you need an external shift/throttle handle else linking the motor to the tiller is of not much use. Maybe I'll install one, but I'm first going to try just steering with the outboard.

I kept the centerboard down all the time. There was quite a lot of wind when we did our test 'sail', so maybe I overestimate the manoeuvring problems. Next week I will have a chance to work out things.

14 juli 2009 om 02:24

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