New tiller

The way the rudder cassette on the F22 is designed is probably optimised for a boom-ed mainsail with the traveler in the middle of the cockpit. 

With a boomless main the traveller is at the end of the cockpit, and a straight tiller is sticking too much 'up' to pass under the traveller. 

I fixed this by shortening the tiller just as much as not to go before the traveller. It works ok, but I'd rather have a bit longer tiller. So....

I made a 'frankenstein-mock up' of a tiller with enough bends to move under the traveller with enough space to make sure the main sheet won't interfere too much with the tiller.

Frankenstein mock up attached to the original short tiller.

Used the mock up to drwaw the outline of the new tiller on a piece of board and glued a foam blank...

I used FEM analysis to calculate the thickness of carbon UD -sure... but only in my dreams. In reality I just put some tapered carbon UD leftovers on top and bottom of tiller and will see if it works. Tiller will subsequently be wrapped in some 200 gr glass tape.

I have never managed to find a good way to laminate/wrap round objects/parts. This time I laminated the tiller and pressed the laminate by wrapping it in pieces of plastic and securing this by wrapping the whole tiller with paint-tape. it worked (no bubbles) but the laminate was quite rough/uneven.

'bagging' with pieces of plastic and paint-tape.

A tip I won't stop to repeat because it was such an eye-opener for me: use tile-cutting blades in a jigsaw or even better on a 'multimaster' type of saw to cut fiberglass. Blades last forever and hardly any mess and itching glassdust.

getting ready...

less than 30 seconds later it's finished

Below the old and the new tiller. The new tiller is quite long, I hope it can withstand up-down forces if someone accidentally falls on it because it is a quite hefty lever.

Using expensive and heavy joysticks on the F22 is a waste of money in my opinion. Cheapo grey pvc elektricity pipe works great: it's light, a bit flexible and most importantly it doesn't damage the paint of the boat when it's laying around in the cockpit.

jostick with two pieces of pvc-pipe and a coupler made of  reinforces hose

End result below. I will first test the tiller and see if it works in real life, if the joysticks are mounted at the right spot etc.
If it works I may put a remote control of the outboard on the tiller, by putting a motorcycle throttle and a shift-stick at the end of the tiller. Not sure yet if I will do it, as it will add complexity BUT on the other hand it will be so much easier to steer in tight situations on motor. Maybe to be continued....

Next post: fitting cheapy death sounder

Bending the jib traveler

After a long pause it is time to update my blog a bit. Unfortunately I lost some photos of last years, but luckily there are enough left to show most of the progress & projects.

I put a self-tacking jib on my boat (very nice for easy cruising, although not so efficient for going downwind as top of the jib twists too much because of the way the jib is sheeted) and originally I made a straight traveler. I thought this would work because with a straight traveler the jibsheet has maximum slack when going from one side to the other. I was wrong: with a bit wind the cars of the traveler would stop about 15 cm before the end of the traveler. So.... I had to put some radius in the traveler.

Bending

On internet there are some very nice examples of people making bending jigs for travelers, this one is my favourite. But sometimes it's better to do it the easy way.... I just guesstimated the required radius (taking into account some springback) and used a band-saw and a piece of timber to make a 'mold'.
Some heavy clamps and......

even more bending

.... it turned out my guess of the springback was too conservative, so I just used some extra pieces of wood at the end of the traveler to increase the radius of the bend some more.

End result:

And on the boat:

Succes! This slight bend of the traveler made a big difference: jibsheet travels without any problems from one end to the other, every time.

Next post will be about a new tiller (+ ideas about remote control outboard)