Rethinking the rig

After a few more launches, I'd had it with the sprit rig. With the sail laced to the mast, the only way to reduce sail is to douse it by brailing, which causes lots of flapping and drag, and the brailing line gets fouled in various ways. Bringing down the sail means striking down the mast. The sprit is hard to tension properly (seems that I hung the snotter too high). But the worst problem is the difficulty of controlling the sail's shape without a boom, which makes tacking difficult, and the traveler I had to rig up for the mainsheet interferes with tiller and outboard. Adding a boom would solve some of these problems but would increase rig complexity.

So I thought about it and decided that a new rig would be a good idea, which suits my tinkerer's heart nicely (this will be the sixth rig for three boats). I had some good experiences with a standing lug rig with a sprit boom, if we discount the disaster involving the flimsy foremast of my cat ketch breaking in a stiff wind. Since the current mast is robust enough at a diameter of 75 mm (3 inches), I can concentrate on the pluses of the rig. Only three control lines (halyard, snotter, sheet), same as the sprit rig. Reefable and easier to deploy, not to mention take down. A sprit boom doesn't hit you on the head, needs no boom vang or gooseneck/jaws. And no fancy sheeting system is needed.

I took to pencil and paper and designed a new sail of roughly the same trapezoidal shape, but will need some cloth removed and some added to the existing one. There will be a small addition of square footage (up to about 112 square feet or 10.4 square meters) and the center of effort (COE) will be almost the same. My inspiration once again is John Welsford's Houdini and David Nichols' book on traditional sails for small boats. Regarding spars, I am simply shortening the existing sprit into the new boom, and making a very plain yard out of stock lumber.

I also decided to follow kind advice from the Wooden Boat Forum about the tiller. Between the sheet and the outboard, the existing tiller gets in the way. So I am replacing it with a Norwegian tiller, which runs at a right angle to the rudder, parallel withe the transom, and is controlled by a long pole with push-pull action. This will allow me to sit wherever I need to in the boat, and to use a simple 2:1 sheet tackle attached to the center of the transom top. The wood was cut to rough size and planed before I left; I will shape it and cut the mortises (one in the top of the rudder, one in the tiller's tenon for a wedge to keep it in place) when I get back to Greece.

I folded the sail into my carry-on bag and brought it back to California. I had plenty of leftover sailcloth but needed more luff tape and grommets. I also bought a sailmaker's palm for hand stitching but have not needed it yet. I was reminded that sewing a sail with a regular sewing machine is doable if a bit of a pain, and it's not worth my while to invest in anything more than heavy duty needles. The reconfigured sail is now (November 11) ready for next spring (the pandemic permitting). I will update readers with photos then.

Teething troubles

 We managed to get back to Greece in early June, on the first available flight from San Francisco to Frankfurt. It was interesting: masks all the way, a coronavirus test in Athens airport, two nights in isolation in a quarantine hotel (at public expense and with meals delivered in paper bags) until the tests came back negative, then off to our island for another five days of self-quarantine. By the end of June I had bought a trailer and a two-stroke air-cooled 2.5 hp outboard (basically a weed whacker with a propeller at the end) and registered trailer and engine. On the 4th of July the good vessel Sophia-Andreas was launched. She is very stable and tracks straight, and I love her lines.

However, the problems started immediately. The gas controller on the outboard broke (it was installed backwards, high was low and vice versa, we were lucky not to get hurt) and I ordered the part and replaced it. Also she was taking on water. I found that one of the trailer rollers exerted too much pressure on the bottom and cracked the second chine plywood. I fixed and strengthened the chine and tested for other leaks. After two rounds of waterproofing, the leak persisted with the second and third launches.

Meanwhile the rig needed adjusting. The breeze can get very stiff quickly in the Mediterranean and I found that a plain piece of line for a sheet was too hard to handle. I rigged a traveler system with blocks and it became manageable, but the boat would not tack. I asked for advice on the Wooden Boat forum, and people blamed the full-length narrow external keel and attached skeg. I ignored the advice to take a chainsaw to it but shortened the traveler and prepared for other small adjustments. Then our daughter and grandson came for three weeks and I put everything on hold to spend time with them. 

The rig is a single sprit sail with a brailing line. I found that brailing depowers the sail almost instantly, but in a stiff wind the clew flaps and creates serious wind resistance. I figured out a way to secure the clew by tying it to the mast with the end of the brailing line. The boat, having a bit less freeboard than Aerie and a generous skeg, is very efficient at rowing. 

Just as I was preparing to do another launch, there was a doozy of a thunderstorm that poured enough water on to tear the cover and fill the bottom to a sizeable depth. It took this rainwater to show me the most serious source of leakage: the pressure of the roller had also cracked the epoxy fillet at the seam between garboard and second chine.

I am having some people come over to take the boat off the trailer and flip it again. I will repair the seam, and equally importantly, will replace the rollers with cradle boards to distribute the weight. I think I know why the damage happened (the winch was attached too high on the stem and exerted too much downward pressure, something I have fixed) but I am not taking any more chances.

End of an era

Aerie, the boat I built in Ohio eight years ago, is no longer mine. A series of unfortunate events forced me to sell her for a fraction of her cost (including the trailer). After dragging her over the Rockies to California I had to put her in storage, not having a garage of my own. It was inconvenient and expensive. Eventually I moved her to the back yard, first under a tarp, then under a tent "portable garage." I built a gate in the back fence, which opens up to the grounds of a school. For a few enjoyable outings I pushed her on her trailer over a short stretch of grass to the school parking lot, hitched the trailer and took her to the water. Then the school district decided to rebuild the school and cut off access through that gate. I got Aerie out with only five days to spare before construction started, blocking the gate. 

So I advertised. Got lots of nice comments and vague interest, and a few people who were convinced they wanted to buy her. Several backed out due to advanced age and/or injuries, leaving me with $300 in forfeited deposits. I finally found a good home for her in Santa Cruz, California, just as the coronavirus lockdown was starting to take effect. The photo is from when I rigged the boat fully and tested everything. Apart from some scratches on the paint she was good as new. It broke my heart but she had to go.

At least I have built the other boat in Greece, which I have named "Sophia-Andreas" after the Greek versions of my grandchildren's names. She has her papers in order and is waiting for me when I get there. With all the travel restrictions nothing is certain, but we hope to get there in early June.

So what next on this U.S. side of the pond? I can't be water craft-less, so I am mulling over building a canoe. I was leaning towards a Hawaiian-style outrigger sailing canoe designed by Gary Dierking. But maybe I am too much of a tinkerer to fully stick to someone else's design. So I might build to a Dierking design but re-purpose one of Aerie's original lugsails (which would become a gaff sail). Or build a 15-foot American-style canoe that I have tentatively designed in two bolt-together sections (like the Dierking Wa'apa) with the option of adding an outrigger and sail(s) later. I don't know, and that keeps life interesting.