Alternative to marvelous Buccaneer 24

Sailing Sid today; light winds at first, Sid still very fast, then fresh wind arrived and Sid, close reaching and then beating, lifted clear and flew at high speed until we got too close to the reef and had to tack. No time to video.
And Monday, Josh Tucker from North Sails is coming to measure mast/boom for a new main. Looking forward to that.

 

Cool to see you out there Gary. Sid was moving along very nicely in the rather fickle wind. Will the new sail be larger?

 

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Very nice looking boat!

Coxcreek, what is the weight and length of that mast?

 

Sid

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Thanks for the pictures Jamez. Gary, the boat looks real good!

 

Thanks for the shots, Greg; must say your Devereaux tri looked so excellent (I've sailed on it, people, and it really powers to windward in decent wind).
You are too far away in my gopro video (very wide angle lens).
Josh talks about a large squaretop around 1.5m- but I'm thinking more eliptical than that; see what his expert opinion is tomorrow. I mean, have to bow before his superior knowledge, he having just completed gruelling Round North Island race.
Blackburn, wing mast is 11.5m x 0.5 m chord, weighs not much - I pick it up and walk around with it, guessing 20-25 kgs or so.

 

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How'd you make the track for the bolt rope, is it good?

The advantages of a spreaderless mast are reduced when there isn't any headsail. It could instead be a lighter rod-rigged carbon mast?

 

Ha, the 6mm alloy track is altered curtain rail semi-tube (from Alcan, comes in 4 metre lengths here); altered, meaning the flanges cut off almost flush to base, using bench saw, the back roughened then glued, faired and glassed to the trailing edge mast stringer. Not expensive, works perfectly.
About headsails, archaic things, don't allow the boat to point as high as una rig; ask the A and pre-full wing C Class guys, also the new M32.

 

...

I know that una-rig feature - The main incentive for the spreaderless carbon masts was their not interfering with the leech of the headsails. So when you don't have a headsail, and if your wingmast should break one day, god forbid, then it could be replaced by something lighter with spreaders?

I mean, as a temporary solution until you've built a full-fledged wing.

 

Gloomy, misty, very light wind day sailing eased sheets on Sid:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=815927645091074&set=vb.100000215378671&type=2&theater

 

We've just experienced a cyclone here; I was up at dawn (didn't sleep too great) to check boats in Cox's Bay. Luckily the worst of the wind came when the boats were afloat and the onshore Easterly/Northeasterly pushed the tide up for a longer time), so no problems, but yesterday in a Southeasterly blast, Sid, on the hard/mud, reared up on its float and foil (packers underneath which acted like a sled) and skidded sideways. Acted like a toy boat. Maybe that wing mast is too big in chord? But we survived. Some did not. I am not being smug.

 

Cyclone

Glad it turned out ok for you, Gary.

 

Gary, "Whew". Paddy.

 

its been light a lot lately, have you had any of the fleet out recently??
Updates, updates

 

Yes, been sailing both boats, also on (gasp) a Davidson 42 keeler; shot some Gopro video on the Cox's Bay Skimmer on Sunday with Lolo Guervich steering. But still haven't figured how to reduce the megabytes to post here. People like Cav have been savagely sarcastic if they only last 10 seconds or so; the only way I can upload them. Think I'll go back to still images; just bought a 20mm Canon EF lens.

 

Gary - you simply upload the video to your youtube account. Then link the youtube video on here, which imbeds it in the post. Too easy... id love to see more vids of the skimmer and also sid... imbedding the video is easy - you simply type [you*tube] the address of the youtube video goes here[/youtube]

Omit the * from the first set of brackets - i had to do this or it would have tried to imbed something and you wouldnt have seen the text format.

hope that helps?