Reasons to be cheerful, part 2

The sponsor takes the helm

Reasons to be cheerful, part 1

A nice evening for a sail

I thought I'd better get the sponsor out before we lost too much evening light, so, on a fine evening (could have used a bit more breeze but played it safe) we went out with a couple of sailing chums, Ben and Milan.

The weather was a little too light really, but in the few gusts that came along she dug in and stiffened up quite nicely. I have since managed to loosen the leech chords on the sails, and after these pics were taken we noticed the wayward lug on the mainsail which is causing the crease seen in the pics here. When fixed, it set well better!

Milan loved my doghouse doors.

Doghouse Doors

The original doors were a bit rubbish so I have built new ones. The ones that were on were ply covered with that laminex fake wood veneer stuff that you see on cheap furniture and stereos built a generation ago. It was frayed, delaminating and faded in the weather. Still, they were pretty good for 50 years old at that. I've kept them for posterity's sake.

I've built the new ones out of solid 1 inch thick mahogany. The laps and edges are capped, also with mahogany, glued with International Epiglue and nailed in place with small bronze ring nails. Varnish is the Goldspar Original. That should last I reckon!

I think they look quite nice. I tapered the capping on the top edges a little to increase the impression of the slight curve that that edge has. You only see it though if you look so that's why I mention it.

I guess one day I'll get around to polishing the bronze hinges (and other fittings) but at the moment life is too short for that.

Making things

Here are the rests I made for the kite pole. They're made from teak and finished with boiled linseed oil. I drilled little hole to hold bits of twine but then changed my mind and came up with the bright idea of resting them on leather so I got some dog collars and cut them to fit. Unfortunately, the cheap metal corroded almost immediately so, rather than having to check that the person on the foredeck has had their tetanus shot, I've cut the leather back to simply sit in the rest and gone back to the twine.

Almost all teak spinnaker pole rests I have seen end up broken easily as feet and heavy things smack into them, leaving you with a useless small piece of wood screwed to the deck. My design protects against that and looks better anyway. I only had a file and a craft knife to do the shaping so they're a bit rustificated.

Rustification

My neighbour in Clyde Quay used this term when he saw me making teak cheeks for a Ronstan block I plan to use in slab reefing the mainsail.

Here is some REAL rustification! They are the fore and backstays. They were once galvanised. Now replaced with very expensive stainless ones, seen in the final picture in place attached to the forestay.

Varnish

Left: the Boom

The pictures here show the jobs I started in June last year when I was back in Wellington on holiday.I’m not sure how many coats there are on them, as I started getting fuzzy around the time I got to 9 coats: so I added a few more and called it done. They were left for 6 months then I gave each one another coat for good measure on my return to NZ. I now have by far the brightest spars in the marina. When I point out my boat from the shore to people, they invariably say, “Is it that one with the shiny boom?” Perhaps they’re being polite because the rest of her still looks a bit rough.



I started by scraping the drab brown paint they were covered in and sanded. I used International Goldspar (Original). Lots of people suggested additives, etc, to prime the timber but I figured it must already have something as the mast and spars were all clear finished when built. Anyway, I don’t know enough about these things to go my own way so following the manufacturer’s instructions made the most sense and I’m quite happy with the result. The ends are primed and painted with off white International polyurethane.



Left: Spinnaker Pole
There are a few bumps and stains in the timber, which some people like to try to swell and or bleach out of their old boats. I think they look better with their small age-induced imperfections: I don’t want a boat that looks fresh out of an Ikea catalogue – I want a patina!Having said that, I don’t want the shrouds and stays to gouge away at the spars, so I’ve laid some twine around them where they are likely to come into contact from time to time. I’ve yet to paint it in these photos. I just used some white paint I found in the shed.



Left: Spinnaker Pole and Jockey Pole.
I’ve now got to do the mast and that leaves me in a bit of a quandary: The mast doesn’t leak, so I want to leave it alone; but I’m a bit afraid of the condition of the fittings at the top of the mast which may let me down (literally – and very quickly) should I try to go up on a halyard. Anyway, I’ll think of
something later on. It may require a big ladder, low tide and a calm day near a dock on a day when I’m not at work. Might take some time...
Bottom: Tiller scraped down and hung ready to varnish.