Nothing to do with woodwork or hobbies

but I couldn’t resist posting this pic.

It’s not animated, it just your brain saying it is.

I often get asked about my Mizzen Staysail on “Nell”

Here is a message from my blog I received today.

Lewis Garnham says:
September 25, 2011 at 11:27 am

Hi,I own a Nauticat 38 Minerva, built in 1984 so she is not as swish as your beautiful boat.She was imported into Australia and in 2007 i bought her in Queensland and sailed her to Hobart Tasmania.She had been treated for osmosis and currently on the slip having had all the thick cracking ant foul removed to the glass. Will be epoxied.
How did you get 12 knots ? surfing a wave. What speed can she sail at ? I have a Bruntons Auto Prop to lessen drag and improve efficiency motoring.
I am considering a mizzen stay sail, so please tell me the size of yours. I noted its tack was to windward, ? where to? Can you tighten the luff for windward work?Do you find ithe sail useful?
I have a large asymmetric kite and sock. I mounted two extra winches on the back of the cockpit seats with the lead from a snatch block on the aft cleats. Please tell me your emailfor photos and correspondence.
regards
Lew

Here is what I replied

Hi.

That 12 knts was over the ground through an area in the English
channel to the west of an Island called Alderney, at certain times of
a spring tide it races through at 7-8 knts so to hit 12knts over the
ground was quite easy. Using just the engine (Yanmar 110hp) I get
8.9knts at full revs (3000) but for economy run it at 1800-1900 revs
which gives a motoring speed of 6.5 to 7.0 knts. The fastest I’ve ever
sailed my boat was in Plymouth Sound 8.9 knts in 23knts of wind but to
achieve that we had the gunnel touching the water and nearly had the
deck at water level too. not very comfortable for passengers

The mizzen staysail is really only a fun sail, it needs quite a lot of
work to put it up. You can’t go to windward with it up, so it’s only
any good with the wind at 90 deg on your beam to about 30 deg astern
of you. it’s that angle where it comes into it’s own. I haven’t got
any measurements but I’ll attach a pic showing where it’s attached to
the boat and where to measure to size it. Saying all that it’s sail
area is as big if not bigger than the main so it does help quite a
lot, unlike the mizzen which is only any good for balancing the boat.

Hope it all helps you

From my primitive drawing the tack is to windward and goes to a eyelet
in the deck which is about level with the main mast. The head (top)
of the sail goes to a single block fitted to the front of the mizzen
as high as you can fit one. The sheet on the clew at the foot of the
sail goes to a single block fitted to the end of the mizzen boom and
from there it gets tied off on one of the cleats on the deck.

To measure for the sail I marked a rope and hoisted it up the mizzen
so the mark was at the top of the mizzen, then the other end I tied it
off to where it is tied to the deck, this rope is what will be the
luff. I then put a mark on the rope where I wanted the tack to be
(about 6″ above the pilot house roof), the distance between the two
marks will be the luff length. I then measured from the tack mark to
the end of the boom this gave me the foot length. When the sail was
made I assumed the tack to be 90deg from foot to luff.

Hope you understand everything.

This little apple tree never ceases to amaze me.

Apple crop 2011, all these from one little tree.

Beech Headboard Finished

I finished it more than a week ago, forgot to update my blog with a pic

Anyway here is the finished headboard.

Message for Dean!!!

Dean you messaged me regarding the sketchup file for my tool cabinet,

I’ve redrawn it if you want a copy let me know.

Here is a 2D pic from the saved file

And what it looks like with tools in it.

One very big spider

From Above

From Below

Ready to attack

Jointing the Head Board

Cutting the shoulders

All the shoulders cut

First clamp up without any glue, just a dry fit.

The abortion of clamps, things you have to do when they’re not long enough.

Sorry forgot to take any pics cutting the mortices

Bed Head Legs

To produce angled legs I used a simple scarf joint used as in this diagram

My use of a scarf joint, with one of the boards turned over and glued to the back of the other board to produce an angled leg.

One of the legs from the bed head scarf jointed and shown along side a straight plank to get some idea of the angle made.

next job is to cut them to length and cut all the mortices.

Beech Bed Head Board Design & Build

Well this was the original idea

So after several months of sailing the high seas I’ve got a little over a week before we get visitors down here in Cornwall and I get to use the boat again.

Somewhat changed from my original design… This is what I’m now going to make. It’s 70″ wide overall and 39″ tall.

When I made my work bench I had this plank spare, because of it’s size I saved it for other projects. Over eight foot long (2.5 mtr) X 18″ (40cm) wide X 2″ (50mm) thick it was too heavy for me to lift alone. Not any more as you can see it’s now reduced to 5″ (125mm) wide planks for the bed head board I’m going to make.

This is the first pic of the work in progress

So during the next few days I’ll be posting the progress here

To produce an angled leg I used a simple scarf joint used as in this diagram

My use of a scarf joint, with one of the boards turned over and glued to the back of the other board to produce an angled leg.

One of the legs from the bed head scarf jointed and shown along side a straight plank to get some idea of the angle made.

next job is to cut them to length and cut all the mortices.

Cutting the shoulders

All the shoulders cut

First clamp up without any glue, just a dry fit.

The abortion of clamps, things you have to do when they’re not long enough.

Sorry forgot to take any pics cutting the mortices

I finished it more than a week ago, forgot to update my blog with a pic

Anyway here is the finished headboard.

Anco windshield wiper arms fitted on Nauticats

For several years I’ve wanted to renew the wiper arms on my boat because they were rusting badly. As it seems impossible to source any Anco arms in the UK I did manage to find a USA supplier but I had an idea that the arm was ok, the problem was the spring or rather the spring rusted badly stopping it from pressing the blade onto the glass when the wiper was used.

The web site for Anco shows how to remove them but not the type I’ve got

So how do you remove the arm from the drive shaft? Well this is what I’ve done…

As it looks when fitted. It’s impossible to see the clip that retains it on the motor drive shaft.

Cutting the rubber sleeve reveals the clip. inserting something pointed behind the clip made it easy to remove the arm using a couple of screw drivers.

Cleaned up and ready to replace the spring.
I found the spring used for Vespa Exhaust Spring is just the right size and it’s made of stainless steel

A link to where I sourced the spring is here www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vespa-RB-GP-NK-65mm-Lambretta-Taffspee…

New stainless steel spring fitted. Yes that’s old spring below the arm no wonder the wiper couldn’t do it’s job.

The spring can be obtained here
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vespa-RB-GP-NK-65mm-Lambretta-Taffspee…

New arms & motors can be obtained from an American supplier
http://www.aeiokla.com/pc-73-16-radial-arms.aspx