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Mizzen supports

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I haven’t been posting much here as I’ve mostly been working on our YouTube channel, however, I thought I would show some pictures of the new mizzen mast foot support work.

Water had damaged the mizzen foot bolt holes so I used a 44mm hole saw to get to dry solid ply. I’ve already removed the wet wood below the 5 leaking deck glands and filled with thickened epoxy.
There was no backing plate, the original bolts just had washers beneath the deck head. The plywood support between the bulkheads fell off, not attached anywhere apart from by the headlining.
This is my new FR4 backing plate (well it isn’t really a backing plate as the load is down from the mast foot). Attached with thickened epoxy so that the load spreads evenly onto it. I’ll be using 10mm bolts with large washers to attach the mizzen mast foot.
I’ve filled the holes from the top with thickened epoxy. Notice the extra holes at the sides to make sure that there are no voids between the deckhead and FR4 sheet. I’m going to put a sheet of fibreglass on top of this to provide abrashion resistance and bind it all together. Then butyl before the mizzen mast foot.
These are the new support beams, I’ve epoxy coated them (apart from the ends in the workmate, I’ll do them tomorrow).
These show where the support beams will go. These will be through bolted to the remaining port and starboard bulkheads and the 3 upright posts that we have added (plus glues with thickened epoxy and I’ll add fibreglass tape to the joins with the deckhead. There will be a plywood “pad” filling the gap between these and the FR4 sheet. The goal is to tie everything together and make sure that the loads from the mizzen mast are carried without distorting the structure.

I am also adding some fibreglass tape to increase strength where we have cut away the starboard bulkhead to provide access to our “pullman” style double bed.

While doing this work in the aft cabin we have also finished (at last) the chainplate backing plates in the aft cabin. They were the first we did and we over complicated things with a full length plywood backing plate, plus a shorter plywood backing plate for the 3 shroud attachment points. Anyway the FR4 plates have been added and so that part of epoxy work in the aft cabin has been completed.

We have also been working in the lazarette on supports for the solar panel frames. As part of that work we found and fixed a void in the stern at the hull/deck joint and the damage caused by the davits that had been fitted without backing plates.

Now back to the video editing that will show all this.

New Video

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Our 3 month refit rush to the water begins with the original design details that make a full refit of 1977 Rival 38 Centre Cockpit Ketch much easier.

We throw in our 3 top tips to make a full refit much faster.

Some of the Sailing channels that we have learned from and seen these features work against them are:

Look at the refits on “Sailing Uma”, “Beau and Brandy Saiiing”, “Bums on a Boat”, “Sailing the good, bad and ugly”, “Free Range Sailing” to see why a separate aft cabin would have helped.

Composting toilet: Look at every boat doing a refit without one, also every boat doing horrible toilet fixes who doesn’t have one.

Headlining. An issue for everyone. Even with good headlinings, we suggest taking them down if you have any issues with leaks and not putting them up until the end or you will spend hours taking them down and putting them up multiple times.

Two and a half years ago, when we bought Vida, she was in a very tired and damp condition with all original equipment and fittings (much of it not working). We have removed all the gas, diesel, and paraffin equipment as well as all the plumbing and electrics. We have composting toilets, are installing an electric motor and all electric cooking. We are fitting a huge solar array and probably a wind generator. We have replaced all the windows, removed all the headlining and more. We are replacing all the standing rigging with Dyneema synthetic rigging. This is the biggest sustainability project of our lives as we prepare for a retirement when we want to cruise the world using zero fossil fuels on a very low budget.

If you would like to support us then please use Ko-Fi to make a donation of any size https://ko-fi.com/sustainablesailing/

Visit our shop at https://sustainablesailing.teemill.com/ for hoodies, t-shirts and bags.

Lots of updates

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Been a bit slow updating the blog, we have several new videos and this evening I have bought a new-to-us mainsail (from a Westerly Fulmar). We will probably have to add a very small extra reef point as the default setting point because it is very slightly too large but for £200 it will be a lot better than what we have. That significantly reduces the amount of work to do on sails (just new soft webbing hanks on the foresails).

We are not at the boat this weekend as we both have Covid and it has laid us up all week.

Anyway on with the videos, quite dramatic changes:

After some discussions on the Rival FaceBook group and further reflection I think some compromises were forced on Peter Brett when drawing the centre cockpit version of the 38. So there wasn’t enough space for a full length v-berth, a watertight bulkhead and a route for the chain that wasn’t through the middle of the berth. They chose a v-berth for kids, a neatly hidden chain but no watertight bulkhead (which the 41 has, not sure about the other models).

Our priorities are different. We want low risk (hence watertight compartments), better anchoring (more and heavier chain below deck, electric windlass, bigger anchor that self stows better – we have a whole load of videos about the new bow roller), maximised sailing performance (hence wanting to store the chain as far aft as possible for better weight distribution). So we are not at all worried that occasional guests will clamber/crawl into either the port side generously sized adult berth or the starboard child sized berth.

We won’t finish this cabin apart from the bulkheads and shoot for the chain until next year but it will be enough for us to fit the windlass and so be able to anchor.

We would really appreciate it if you subscribe to our YouTube channel, it is free. Plus Like and share the videos as it really helps us grow the channel. Especially we welcome your comments on them.

Only 1 month to go and I’ll have 3 months working almost full-time on the boat as I have a work Sabbatical. So there should be lots of progress 🙂

Storm Franklin and cheap drawers.

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When we saw the forecast for Storm Franklin yesterday we decided that gusts over 60mph were going to prevent sleep and be quite scary.

So we left the boat before lunchtime while the wind was “only” gusting to mid forties. On our way back now as the wind will drop massively. We have called into Ikea at Warrington, nearly on the way, to get some plastic boxes to use as storage drawers on the shelves we are going to put into the wardrobe spaces.

Nice that we were able to put some free charge into the car while finding the boxes (the website and zapmap say you have to pay but we were not asked to present a card).

While at home I put some more plywood and timber in to make the shelves from. Didn’t have space for anymore when we came on Friday.

Update, first drawers now fitted and video is done:

External Dyneema Chainplates update

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Our latest video has been getting some really helpful comments on YouTube as well as directly. It has also helped us to reach a new milestone 🙂

It definitely seems worth exploring more. Particularly to consider some of practicalities that people have raised including:

  • Is the sheer strength of the Stainless Steel bolts sufficient? Potentially, the load on the bolt could be reduced by attaching the plates for the dyneema eyes with epoxy. Or they could be replaced by carbon fibre tubes epoxied into place.
  • Is dirt going to get in the dyneema and damage it? Could the solid shield protecting from chafe also stop water washing dirt in? Would a soft sleeve such as we plan for our chainplate loops help?
  • Will the water flow damage the Dyneema? Much the same issue as with dirt above.
  • Might there be resonance issues with the lashing (apparently might be more of a problem with more loops of thinner lashing).
  • Will the wider stance affect sheeting angles? Depends very much on the rig. It might allow a cutter rig to be sheeted inside the shrouds.
  • Should we use a standard thimble or low friction ring, potentially with a solid infill to avoid a point load from the bolt? We were trying to avoid metal in the water and keep the cost down but this might well be a good solution.
  • More thinking about whether to have a separate cover to keep the dyneema on and to provide chafe protection, possibly so that the cover can be removed without affecting the chafe protection for inspection or replacement.

We are planning a similar design for attaching a Jordan Series Drogue (JSD), potentially better than our previous idea.

Anyway, thank for the support on YouTube, it is encouraging and YouTube responds by sharing the videos more.

External Dyneema Chainplates: new design, new video

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We are really excited that we have come up with a new way of building External Dyneema Chainplates. It is so much simpler than our previous ideas and we haven’t seen anything like this anywhere else.

Remember that this fits really well with all the Dyneema rigging expertise at Rigging Doctor who have been one of the most helpful channels we watch.