Tying Up Loose Ends

Our family took this week off for some much needed rest. Of course, rest for me means being able to work on Shan Skailyn and playing with the kids and hanging with my woman. I actually didn't accomplish much work on the boat that is readily visible. I spent most of the time I had literally tying up loose ends. After working with the rigging over and over again to gain confidence in the different things I'd need to be able to do, I was able to better determine where to cut some of that all too precious rope with confidence that I wasn't making some stupid mistake that I'd regret. All ropes cut to length, whipped, ends fused, etc. Made up the proper lengths of braided inner tube lashings for the polas, and more of that kind of stuff.

I was sure to practice reefing and un-reefing the sail at least once each day. I'm really happy with how smooth the whole thing works. Now we'll have to see how it works out at sea, likely with at least some wind to fight against. One thing I realized is that it would be really easy to ignore the fact that the boom can give me a pounding not soon to be forgotten while reefing!

Finally I was able to rig up the harness by which the helicopter can safely sling Shan Skailyn down to the coast in not quite eight weeks time now. It's good to work out little details like that ahead of time. I'm regretting not having taken a picture of the thing all harnessed up. What was I thinking?

I've been working with Sesi too, teaching him some of the more important things about the boat and what he'd need to do in an emergency, like if Kyle and I both got knocked off the boat. For example, he needs to know how to depower the sail. Obviously there's so much more, but I don't want to bore you with too much detail, which I may have done already.

I've been very anxiously awaiting a package that I had mailed to me back in early October with all the last little tidbits that are needed to finish the boat as well as some essentials for the trip. This package has taken an unusually long time to arrive and my last chance to get it is coming up in just two days. I'll find out on Monday when the helicopter does our next supply run if the package is here. Gonna have to improvise on some things if it hasn't.

Shan Skailyn has been assembled in our yard all week and it's quite a hit for our friends passing by. During my week off it was fun to hang out around the boat and explain how it works. Most have never seen a sailboat before. "Where's the motor?" they keep asking. They can't believe that the wind alone is supposed to make Shan Skailyn move. It's a crazy thing this whiteskin is doing up here on the mountain!

Dig the Rig

As I've looked around online (when I'm out in town obviously) I've struggled to find good details of different folks' reefing solutions. So here is my potentially lame attempt to put it all together. Not that Shan Skailyn's rig is the best example or anything. But wherever it fits on the scale of good-bad, here are pictures of the details. I would just post all the pix separate, but our limited email system cannot handle that many attachments. So I'm combining in one larger picture. You'll have to forgive my possible skewing of terminology. In many cases I'm just being descriptive without actually knowing what everything is called.

Reefy Reeferson!

I'm feeling pretty stoked after the work I was able to get done yesterday (sat). Finally managed to get the sail to a point where it can be reefed out on the water! The solution was in the use of parrel beads at key points as well as the installation of a sheave for a clew outhaul. Altogether I can now reef with the entire rig remaining upright. Still takes a little finessing, but it does work. I think I'll throw in a couple more parrels add some ease to the procedure and call it good. As it stands right now, I have to release clew outhaul, release the halyard (for the head of the sail... what's that called anyway?), take up the weight of the boom and 'jiggle' the sail down the mast, which takes a few minutes to get all the mast hoops to work down and over the bamboo joints. Once that's done, I can attach the reefing hook at the tack, which is actually just a stainless carabiner, tighten up the reefing line that pulls the new clew down into place, and tighten up the main clew. Then just tie up the cringles or whatever those little rope thingies are supposed to be called, and we're good to go. Probably sounds more complicated than it needs to be, but I figure for a setup using more traditional materials it's probably about as good as it's gonna get. I'm quite pleased with it. Though it has yet to be tested in a real situation.

Just FYI, this system reefs 25" of the foot of the sail, which is very nearly, if not a perfect, 1/3 of the total sail area, or about 27.7 square feet.

One thing I've noticed is that finding good pictures of all the details of a system's rigging have been hard to find (when I actually have access to internet in town, that is). If I can scrounge up the time, I'm hoping to put together some pictures of details of the rigging.

All assembled... again

I've had Shan Skailyn set up out on our little helicopter pad for the last couple weeks. I just needed to have it assembled for a while so I could check some details that I otherwise would have a hard time checking. With the heavy rain we get I just kept it under a tarp until I would work on it on the weekend. I also made the discovery that both my ama sections are leaking somewhere! Ughhhh! I've checked them over for any bad joints... nothing. I'm pretty sure it's just the inspection ports. Gary recommended I grease around the o-ring seal. Will have to do that and set back out in the rain to see what happens.

Saturday morning I disassembled the whole thing again and moved all the parts into our little office building where I store it here in Mibu. Now that I have everything built, I'd really like to weigh everything and get a total rigged weight. Really curious what that is. Will post when I do end up doing that.

Really the only difference in these pictures is that I have Shan Skailyn's hiking seats installed. I took a number of other photos of details that I'll post throughout the week. So stay tuned.

Mast and Boom Assembly

Here are some pictures of Shan Skailyn's stub mast and luff spar all assembled last weekend. As you can see, I still have some loose ends to tie up. Some of it depends on whatever reefing system I settle on. My original plan to reef by lowering the sail has proven to be problematic. Not impossible, just requiring more gear than I have at the moment.

Note the two cleats on either side of the stub mast. The one on the right in the picture is for the halyard, so I can quickly release in case things feel out of control (necessary for this unexperienced wanna-be sailor). The other cleat is for the rope that keeps the luff spar tensioned in it's universal joint.