We were sailing

On Sunday we were lucky enough to have some great weather and took our boats out. We took out both of the dinghy we have, both my parent's Vagabond and my Fireball. It was a good day, despite both of the boats needing some repairs that we have been putting off since we last used them. The fireball needed a pintle for the rudder put back on after this trip. The vagabond needed the line that hauls up the centerboard to be fixed. That line had been getting sun burned for some time and on the last trip it finally failed, thankfully both were easy fixes.

Before bolting the pintle back on I put some silicone onto the back of it to ensure that water can't get into the buoyancy chamber at the back. I put way too much on but it is a lot easier to clean up a little silicone before it sets then to repair a rotted out hull.

The vagabond all hooked up and ready to go. To put the new line in the centerboard we had to lift the boat up, drop the centerboard out then run the new line through the hole in it and then put it all back in. Not very long to do thankfully.

This is the lake now. I have never seen it this full before. WE have been very lucky and gotten a lot of rain recently. The ground now has so much water in it that almost as soon as we get significant rain now it starts running off and into the rivers and dams.

For a comparison this is what it looked like before. Where the above photo was taken is further up the bank to the right. Quite a long way up.

Unfortunately I didn't get any photos while we were sailing, but it was a very good day for it and we got some good speed up. Nicole did very well as crew, despite me putting the leeward rail into the water quite a long way a few times.

Cheers,
Rex

Well it does everything a boat should

It sure does, it floats, sails and breaks. There wasn't much wind but the hull is driven really easily. Even with the very light wind we were still moving along. Not very fast mind you, but we did get there until better wind came along.

This was the first time out in a new boat and it's been some time since I've been sailing on a dinghy so we took a chase boat along as well. 

Here she is, tarped up and with the mud washed off ready for bed. I do need to get a bigger tarp but I should be able to sort that out in the next few days.

Now being a boat there is always something broken. Today we managed to break off one of the jib sheet redirection blocks. These were mounted to pieces of an old kitchen chopping board which turns out couldn't handle the strain. The turning blocks for the spinnaker sheets are in nearly the same spot so we can use those until I can make up some new mounting blocks.

Also the centerboard is very tight in the casing. It was fine to start with, but after lunch it ended up taking us nearly half an hour to get it down, but thankfully after that we got some good sailing in. So the board will need to be taken out and sanded down so that when the timber swells there will still be space inside the casing.

However this is the biggest problem. One of the pintles that hold the rudder on had come loose and nearly fallen off by the time we came in at the end of the day. Unfortunately when these were installed with plain nuts when these should've been locknuts or had jamb nuts installed. Thankfully we didn't loose the pintle so a simple trip to the hardware store will supply the parts to fix this properly.

Cheers,

Rex

I've gotten the boat wet!!

Look, I got the boat wet.

Ok, Ok it was rain, but still it's got to count for something right?
Also you might notice that the deck hardware is in place again. We were going to try and rig it on the weekend to make sure that we still had everything and it fitted. But unfortunately the weather got a little too rainy so we left it for the time being.

I didn't get many action shots because we were pretty busy getting everything screwed in and trying to remember where everything went. However I did manage to get a quick snap of my brother "looking busy" shortly before we finished for the day.

Hopefully we get this done before it gets too cold, but if we find a nice day we should be alright.

Cheers,
Rex

Amazing what a few coats of paint can do

Finally more progress has been made on the Fireball. We originally saw it here. About a year ago when I went for a drive up to Queensland and came back with the Fireball on the back of a borrowed trailer.

More recently we saw me getting a trailer of my own for it here.

Well, it now has nearly enough paint and varnish on it that we can splash soon again. My brother has put a few coats on the bottom and between us to date we have put 2 coats of paint in the cockpit and 2 coats of varnish on the deck. With the varnish on it started to look quite special, particularly remembering what it did look like before we started to repaint.

Below are some photos of the work in progress.

Just started sanding the deck. Not a very fun job I must say.

This is where I stopped for dinner. We didn't get a chance to start again until the next morning because the pain in the cockpit was still a bit wet in a few spots and we were hoping to keep most of the sanding dust out of the paint. You can see the whole deck except for the bits around the cockpit have been sanded and are pretty well ready for varnish.

This is the beginning of the light board that will sit on the back of the trailer to hold the number plate and lights. Nathan made it from a scrap piece of timber left over from repairing the verandah at their house. We ended up painting it to match the cockpit as we already had the paint out and being an exterior house paint it should handle being out in the weather.

All ready to go, wiped down with a damp rag then time to apply. We put the paint in the cockpit together then while that was starting to dry I put the varnish on. This was easier for 1 person to do because we only had one tin of varnish.

And here is the finished product after 2 coats. It was still a bit damp here so looks shinyer than it will once finished. But it certainly gives a nice look to the timber. It will probably need another coat or 2 as before we put this one on there were still some checks and weathered bits of timber that had soaked up all they could and were dry again.

So far on the 2 coats we have used probably a hair more than half of the tin we bought of varnish.

Hopefully the next update will start with a picture of the boat in the water with all sails drawing well. But we'll see. There are still a few bits a pieces that need to be done on the trailer first.

Cheers,
Rex

Time to go sailing. Soon

I know, I know, I have enough things happening already.

But this is really a continuation of an older project. Some of you may remember me going for a crazy long road trip to Queensland to pick up this sailing dinghy.

Well I haven't actually been able to use it. The trailer I used for that trip was borrowed and the boat that lives on it had to go back on. This meant that the fireball has been stuck on it's beach dolly which probably wouldn't do very well on the road. To solve this issue I have bought a trailer that should be plenty suitable.

Well it will be. The main thing it needs is a quick(ish) clean a coat of paint, and a couple of bolts that aren't the right size and as such need replacing.

Also there is this. It's not very obvious but this is probably the biggest problem with it. The spring holder plate has a slight bend to it because the U-Bolts haven't been installed vertically. One option to stop this happening again would be to run a little bead with the welder on the axle which would give me locating marks on where to put the U-Bolts. Alternatively I can just be careful when re-installing them after flattening the plate.

As you can see from that close up the trailer is a bit grotty, but it's all surface rust and won't cause any structural problems.

Stay tuned for more updates on this and other projects.

Cheers,
Rex

New Project. Fireball Dinghy

At the end of my last post I mentioned that I had some new projects coming up, one of which involved a long roadtrip. The trip has now been completed and I can show what it was for.

I know it's not a very good photo of the dinghy itself but better photos are coming. The jeep made the ~2000km trip well, with the transmission getting a bit too hot up some of the hills but that's partly down to practice on my behalf.

The plan is to get it out and rigged this weekend if the weather holds. So once we do that I'll be putting up some more interesting photos. In the meantime here's a link for me to remember: http://www.fireball-rigging.co.uk/schematic.html This is a link to a page that has some very nice diagrams of the way these get rigged.