Small sailboat Design - advice requested

Looks great - and from what I can see right on her lines.

How was the rowing with the flush mount oarlocks? Was there any problem on recovery with the oars banging on the decks?

--
Bill

 

Launch Day

Fantastic! Congratulations! Looks real good,Terry.

 

No problem at all with the oars hitting the decks. The 'locks aren't actually flush, they fit on the small riser blocks that can be seen on the side decks in the first pic.

My sitting position was a little too close to the oarlocks when the pics were taken but on the way back to shore I moved them to the rear (1 up) position and was able to stretch out more comfortably. I think the oars could benefit from being a few inches longer as I tended to have the blades too shallow, but I didn't catch any crabs but I noticed separation behind the blades; they were sucking down air I assume. A fairly rapid stroke rate with a short stroke and very little force seems to work best.

Now I know things work I will restyle those clunky-looking oarlock risers to a nicer shape with some curves. I might rotate the blades so the blades are angled from the vertical by a few degrees, to get more bite, although that will make them handed.

Also I can now get on with making a proper seat, resting on the side decks rather than sitting on the bottom. Hmmm ... I have some nice basket withies, maybe a nice woven seat ...

Also I will need a seat for the commodore when she deigns to join me, but that will be when the boat gets her sails. Her nibs is definitely a fair-weather sailor so it can wait until next season. I haven't totally given up on sailing Dace this year, not much more to be done actually as the mast, daggerboard, rudder and tiller are all ready for finishing.

The missus did the photography, although she didn't like using the digital camera. She admired my rowing so much she gave me a nice cofee mug. It has "Galley Slave" written on it. That has kind of an ominous ring to it, now I see it written down ...

Afterthought: she is easy to launch. When she is at the ramp I can push down on the foredeck to raise the stern and swing it out over the water, then I recover the wheel and hop in over the foredeck. She literally launches herself, as I walk aft the bow lifts off the ramp and my momentum carries her clear of the shore. Nothing crude like shoving off; by the time I was seated and dipped the oars she was several lengths clear of the shore. Small scratches on the bottom are telling me where the hull needs protection; I will add several small oak blocks to take care of that after she gets her final coat of paint. Work in progress ...

 

TADATADATADAAAAAA!
Congratulation!!!!! A lot.
Looks really nice. Haha
As far as i can see this boat will be an awsome sailboat. With the sailor placed at the right position, the boat will be perfekly balanced longitudinal.

I become really really happy when i saw this!
I´m not from Turkey but anyway I can dance.
Kind Regards!
Jan Eliasson

 

nice job Ancient...looking good!

 

Thank you all! The transition from rowboat to sailboat is close; the masts, sprit booms, daggerboard, rudder and tiller are all complete and being varnished. I have a camera person lined up for the photos and I am keeping an eye on the weather for another "sea trial" -lake trial doesn't have the proper sound to it ...

 

Time to post some more pix. I have been discovering just how much I don’t know about sail making. When I understand it all, I will publish the definitive book on why you should go to a sail maker!

Actually, the first tarp sail wasn’t too bad, for a first try. It needs to revisit the tailor and those too-long-in-the-package-waiting -for-me-to-get-aroun-to-cutting-it-out creases really advertise the fact that I am too cheap to buy proper fabric.

The bat-sail * image exposes the fatal flaw of my idea for doubling the sail are for downwind sailing. The sprit booms stop it from opening fully. I could pop the humongeous ½ inch bolt holding the two booms together at the fore end but then the booms sag off to either side. I need to tinker with this but I don’t think it is going to work; it needs the booms to pivot at the mast not at the snotter. If it can’t be made to work with the curved booms I will need to change to straight ones that can be tied instead of bolted together.

I put in a couple of images from the wood wacking phase of this exercise, I forgot to post them earlier. One shows the joint for the 2-piece mast, which is adjustable for length (it can grow another 10%). I did not use an internal 8-sided form at the mast ends; it would have made the fit between the 2 sections a little better but it's not far off. Net time I want to try the birds-mouth method.

The last one is the profiled (NACA0010) daggerboard. The point of being pernickety on the profile was to prove I could do it in case I need to later. It wasn’t perfect but I know how to do it right next time. because it is mainly softwood I put hardwood strips around it, and protected the TE with a thin maple dowel set into a groove. The LE has a brass stem strip. Too finicky: next time I may just do what I'm told. I think it would have been easier to continue the profile further up pst the bottom plank and cut the slot in the hull bottom to fit.

Later correction: not sure what to call the double sail idea, maybe the butterfly sail? I found an expired patent for it here http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/4367688/claims.html

 

Downwind!

Hahaha Yeeesssss!
You will capture a lot of downwind with this one Ancient.

I just love it!
This boat will be great little sailboat.

This type of sail maybe I should try for my next projekt if you allow it.

Else I will try to have sail in the for so I can spread them in downwind.
Also I will have larger sfare even in side wind.

 

Well, at last the whole thing got put together and put into water. There was a nice breeze when I set off with the boat on the van to collect the camera person (my daughter). There was a dead calm by the time we got to the lake; not even enough to take the creases out of the sail!

However, you can at least see the regular sail, the weird curved sprit booms (they're out of here: good theory, bad practice), an attempt to open the double sail for downwind and me, too disgusted to even tidy up the rig, rowing back!

Most of the time the boat was ghosting along on a breeze I couldn't even feel, but for about a 20 second period the breeze could actually be felt. I got the double sail set properly and the boat accelerated to a respectable velocity. Unfortunately she was headed straight for the bank at the time and my daughter was so excited she forgot to take a picture!

You will notice by far the most significant wake is for the rowing picture, but she definitely has potential. There was a nice breeze when I got home, too.

 

Congratulations-shes great!

 

Vey very big congratulation!!!!!
What a weather to test in.
Loooks very great.

Kind regards
Janne

 

That's Ontario sailing. Wind can go from a nice breeze to nothing in minutes. Bizarre moving pockets of strong wind on glassy surfaces.

The curved / split-able boom(s) don't look bad from here - it really is a quite innovative and fresh approach. I have to admit I had some real questions in my mind about how they would be implemented, but from the pictures things worked out better than I imagined.

I've sailed a bunch with a sailboard wishbone style rig and I like it very much. It takes quite a while to get tuning worked out, so I wouldn't give up quickly. Between snotter tension, outhaul, downhaul and how you handle sheeting you can completely change sail shape and effectiveness. Sailboards have the front of the wishbone very securely attached to the mast via a complex locking mechanism, and what this gains is the ability to control sail depth and mast prebend far than a loose attached "snotter" type arrangement like a sprit sail rig. The shape of the sail under tension is the critical factor in making a wishbone boom work well.

I really think a detachable bowsprit that supports an asymmetrical spinnaker would be a very nice way to augment downwind speed. The nice part about this arrangement is that your upwind sail rig doesn't pay any penalty for additional downwind speed. You can't beat simplicity.

Great to see the sailing version of Dace on the water.

--
Bill

 

I like the appearance of the booms but they’re heavier than I intended due to their 50% ply content. At the very least I would like to rebuild them with tapered ends and no ply.

It was unfortunate that the wind was so light; much of the time I could not even feel it and there was no perceptible heel. Even when I had to hold the sail to leeward the boat managed to move at a knot or so. The extra boost from the double area generated noticeable acceleration for the brief time there was enough breeze to fill the sails.

I’m not sure the idea is all that new, it seems an obvious thing to try; perhaps there is some fatal flaw but I have to find out.

The snotter was a nuisance and will make it impossible to deal with bridges in its current form. I had thought about using a pivot to attach the booms to the mast; it’s good to know it works. I assume sailboard do not require a snotter. I could eliminate it by using a pivot on a movable band clamp around the mast; it could be adjusted to the best overall position and then fixed in place. I was going to address the bridge problem by simply lifting the mast out of its step, but brailing the saiil was harder than I expected. I may add a hinge to the mast, just above the boom pivot.

A single boom is an option, made possible with the pivot idea. The second sail would then be loose-footed. It would need some arrangement to recover it and lay it back against the mainsail after use. When deploying it downwind, I would expect the draught forward off the mainsail would fill it. If it needs to be boomed out the simplicity of the concept would be lost. The double sail is easy to handle from this small boat - not sure a spinnaker would be.

 

Someday it will become windy!
Then you will notice that you have built one of the best smaller sailboat you have ever seen.
Very well done!

 

Interestingly, the boat was originally designed as a yacht tender, which explains why she is so stable and rows so well, but the design is known to sail well and is very easy to build.