Thoughts on my first sail

Yee freakin haa, how cool are these boats!

I just got back from my very first sail in an IC. It was my AUS 33 "Magic Carpet Ride" and it was her very first sail too. I was stoked with how it went! Breeze was only 5 knots with puffs to 8 maybe. I was surprised with the stability, I was expecting it to be much tippier. I guess once I get into waves and stronger winds it will be different. I'm not convinced that the vectran rigging will work in the end. Since it's a una rig I don't need heaps of rig tension but after about an hour of sailing the boat felt wobbily while tacking as the rig had streched in a bit.

The boat felt comfortable underfoot but I was cheating a bit. I didn't bother with sliding the seat across all the time, just centered it and sat out. I need some more tell tales as the cambered sail didn't give much feedback on pointing and I think I was pointing too high, but once I came off the wind the boat took off. I know you are always fast when sailing by yourself but I recon I was doing at least better than windspeed while running back to the club.

I know the sailing anarchy rule of "pictures or it didn't happen" but this was a super secret first sail. I didn't tell anyone I was going incase it was a dismal failure and the boat needed to be burnt in a hurry but happily it was a success, for me anyway. I'll be out on the weekend and hopefully get the wife to take some shots from her dinghy (if she can keep up )

All in all a great session of sailing...

Nearly there

I went down to the club today for the first full scale, full tension rig up. All went pretty well and I was about to go for a sail when I noticed that my mast foot (which is a standard windsurfer universal) wasn't up to the job and was compressing too much to risk. Oh well, I'll find something better...

Boom in the bag

Oh, well. I missed out on doing the nationals but as I understand, the new boats suffered from various failures due to being new boats so I don't think I would have faired any better.

I spent half of today laminating up the boom. It's a tapered oval section (I don't believe in going easy on myself). Basically a 60mm OD PVC tube cut down the horizontal centerline to within a meter of the back and a wedge shoved down the front end to create the taper. The whole thinf is then wrapped in plastic which becomes the inside of the bag. 1 layer od 450g 45*45 carbon, 3 layers each side of 300g unis (which over lap top and bottom to create 6 layers) then a finishing layer of 200g plain weave to make it look pretty. Unfortunatly I don't think the 200g will help in the pretty dept as I think it will have some creases in it once it's out of the bag :-(

P.S. By the way, yes it is supposed to be bent...

A god's eye view

I spent today figuring out and screwing on fittings. I was all set to do the carriage tracks until I realised that the carriage has to be totally finish as once it's it won't come off (it hits the rudder post before it leaves the track, Doh). I've only drilled six holes in the wrong spot so considering how many holes I've drilled, it's not too bad...

Starting the foils

OK, I've started bagging the foils. The one in the picture is both sides of the rudder so it looks more high aspect than it is. I still need to do both sides of the centerboard and put all the fittings on the boat and then organise a boom, all before the nationals in two weeks. On top of this it looks like I might have a new job but I'm not sure when I will be starting. It will be nice to have money again but the boat building might suffer. Oh, well...

Carriage attachments

I had decided on and bought a Ronstan slide system for my boat a long while ago, before I'd seen the trendy carbon slides everyone is doing. Aligning the slides and the track has proved to be quite the dilemma. I had trouble getting the track parallel in all planes and once they were screwed down I couldn't bolt on the carriage sldies. I decided it would be easier to align the slides on the carriage first and then use the carriage to place the tracks on the hull (which I should be doing this weekend). If it works well I'll post some photos, if not I'm in the shit...

Bagging the spreaders

Progress has slowed dramatically lately as the boat fund dries up. I'm going for a second interview for a job this week so I'm pretty confident of the boat fund getting some more funding soon but working will reduce the amount of time I'll get to spend on the project. Anyway, here are the photos of the spreaders getting bagged (I'm a big fan of bagging)...