Buccaneer 24 Builders Forum

Hows the weather down your way Bruce.?
Have you been able to get some sailing in.?

 

Not so sunny south

OS7, Two weekends ago it snowed 4 inches- shut Atlanta down completely, last weekend it blew 30kts and was 32-36 degrees F- I raced on a 34' mono with a dodger and this week was finally sunny, with no wind at all I worked on my trailer and I am pulling the boat for about a month. I want to launch by April 1st. I have quite a list of to-dos, and I will be posting some pics. Wish me some good weather:!: Bruce

 

JEEZ Bruce.
With that wind and near freezing temps, you must have experienced an unpleasant wind chill factor sailing on that mono.
I didn't think you got that sort of weather so far South.

Look forward to seeing your pics eventually.

 

slick sailing

Yes, the spray turning to ice on the foredeck gets your attention, and I think it is supposed to snow again this week. - a cold winter for us. My boat would have been less than comfortable, and I don't have a deep reef either. I will be letting the sail loft take care of that while the boat is out. I will report back soon, I am pulling it in the morning. Bruce

 

Bucc's abuilding ??

Has anyone any idea how many Buccaneer 24's are currently being built ?
There seems to be a big demand for plans.I am awaiting mine and would
be grateful for any moere ' construction' information.

Waterat.

 

dis-mounting a 24

I pulled my Buc out for spring servicing and recorded it. All stages, completely alone ( for practice) took about five hours as I was also taking some measurements and one of the crossbeams stuck and took an extra hour.A second person would speed it up a lot. I didn't lift anything over 20 lbs. The "cars" ( skateboards with some lifting tackle) would not roll all the way in on a boat with a cabin, but would probably get close enough for two people to swing the floats on to trailer racks. I hang my floats from the crossbeam "stubs". I also use the same system to drop the floats to the ground. I didn't design it, the cars came with the boat. When the floats are un-bolted, I can push the floats in or out with one hand

 

Bruce.
What a clever idea.
Thanks for sharing that, I am sure it will be of great help to a lot of B24 owners and builders.

Whats the chance of a close up of one of the "Skateboards", showing the positioning of the cheek blocks etc: ??

 

lift car details

The rear car has less than 50 lbs on it so 1-1 is plenty, the front car needs about a 6-1. These are primitive, but they work well. B

 

waterstay question

OS7, The plans show a stainless "collar" around the outboard end of the water stays and crossbeam, just inboard of the float. My boat does not have them, and I don't know if it ever did. I haven't noticed excessive movement in that area, do you think they are necessary? Bruce

 

Bruce, I took this question on board and opened up page 4 of the plans to have a squiz at the situation.

The strap around the water stay and crossbeam is right at the "Kink" in the stay. This does two things. It makes sure the stay end lies along the plane of the crossbeam and thus applies the force from the stay to the bolt at right angles, putting the load on the bolt in shear---as it should be.

Also if the strap wasn't there the stay would try to straighten out under load, putting downward pressure on the wooden structure underneath, which would eventually fail in compression under the sucessive shock loads from the mast shroud, in rough sea conditions.

Lock designed this boat to be able to withstand the rough sea conditions in the waters around Australia and so made it very sturdy, but light.
Even though you are lake sailing, you say you are intending to increase your sail areas and so would load up the water stays accordingly.

I would inspect the inner vertical bolts very carefully to see if they have been subject to any bending.
Also inspect the wood under the inner crossbeam saddle to see if there has been any bruising of the timber.
If there is no significant damage you may get away without the straps, but the final decision is up to you.

Hope this helps.

 

collar details

I understand the loading on the waterstay straps, I just wondered if the collars had been deleted on any other boats. My 1/2" studs are not bent, but the saddles definitely have some wear and deformation where the strap exits. As you know, my boat was pretty loose, it had spent most of its life on the Chesapeake- not as rough as AUS, but short choppy waves that do work a boat hard. I don't see any wear marks on the straps where the collars should have been, that is why I asked. I don't have any close-up pics of other Buc 24s to compare mine with. I think I may add a set to at least the front cross bars where most of the load seems to be. My saddles have been repaired in the past and need some work now, and I am thinking of replacing the rear stainless water stays with Dyneema. The synthetic will save over 15lbs, be easy to pre-load, and I can eliminate the wear point under the cross arm/saddle. Replacing the wooden cross arm plugs with alloy tube has really taken the slop out of the cross bars and this seems like a good idea also. Any thoughts? Bruce

 

Sounds good to me Bruce.
I don't know much about the way Dyneema is used, and I understand it is not too good at resisting abrasion. But its other qualities seem most favourable.
Don't forget that although the forward waterstay takes all the brunt of it when the lee float is hard pressed, the back windward waterstay is also stressed by the force from the rig, thru the mainstay chainplate, near to to the back beam.
These forces ( waves and rig oscillation) multiply the shock loads in a random way which defies calculation.
Lock told me he that when he was calculating his structural requirements he multiplied the static loads by a factor of six to allow for acceleration loadings.

 

Dyneema is great stuff but useless under static load, way to stretchy, you will find it doesnt work unless you pre stretch it, that is splice it to correct length and load it up to 75% or so of its breaking load overnight, then ropecoat it.

 

dyneema waterstays

Thanks Samnz, I am still learning to use synthetics and what does and doesn't work. I plan on using an over-size line with a lashing termination on one end so I can take out the initial stretch. I will take your advice and pre-load and coat the stays after I splice them. The "weak link" in the original system seems to be the 1/2" bolts so I was planing on using 3/8 or larger amsteel which has about the same load rating. This is just for the rear stays, I am keeping the stock straps on the front. My rear waterstays have been completely unloaded at rest and not very loaded when sailing so I was not too concerned with creep- but I will watch and experiment. I can always go back to my stainless straps if I have to. If anybody else has any advice on this I would love to hear it Bruce

 

"My rear waterstays have been completely unloaded at rest and not very loaded when sailing".

Bruce---if that is so your mast mainstays are not tight enough.

Don't forget the mainstays hold the floats "UP", thus taking the buckling loads off the back waterstays and putting the crossbeams in compression rather than a bending mode.