Waterstay tension on Tremolino trimaran

Nice one Corley

Enjoy.

 

It's been blowing dogs off chains the last few days so it hasn't been practicable to row out to the boat. I popped by to see she was safe on the mooring and was impressed how nicely she was riding out the strong wind. Sitting nice and quietly on the mooring while a couple of other multihulls were hunting around quite noticeably on their lines.

 

I was looking for a simple tender that could be rowed and ended up finding a great deal on a plastic "Blueline" dinghy. It's a bit heavier than a ply dinghy and similar in weight to the chopped strand pram tender that was lent to me. In the workshop knocked up a rough thwart to put me in the right place for rowing, I was pleasantly suprised by how well it goes under oars, sure it's not a rowing skiff but it actually is very stable, comfortable and is capable of carrying quite a load. As a bonus it fits quite well in the tray of my Space Cab ute so no trailer required just pull up at the ramp and manhandle it into the water.

The wind had dropped enough today for a quick visit to the boat on the mooring. I bailed out the rain water that had accumulated and covered the companionway with a tarp to keep the water out. My goal in the longer term is to get an escape hatch with a wide opening to replace it. I discovered the rudder had gone overboard and been lost my guess is that the blade was knocked around enough to float up and release from the gudgeon base. I'm thinking it might actually still be in the vicinity of the mooring it's ridiculously heavy and it's hard to see it floating away but water visibility was too poor to see it today. I'll poke around with the boat hook next time I'm down there and see if It can be found there is only about a metre of water at the mooring at low tide so If all else fails I'll wade around in my wetsuit and see if it's there. It's not a great rudder but it does the job and I'd prefer to go sailing rather than make a replacement. I also discovered the previous owner hadn't put loctite on the nuts that hold the outboard bracket in position and two were very loose and two were lost altogether out of the saddle clamps.

 

Make sure the bottom isn't mud before that stroll. Ah... the simple pleasures of messing about in boats.

 

I've got an old foam core F24 rudder that I bought cheaply a few years ago. It has a small aluminium case and gudgeons mounted on it a simple stainless pin should do for now. I've drilled some holes through it and backfilled with thickened epoxy ready to redrill and through bolt. I'm thinking I'll set it up like a fixed transom rudder for now as it looks like there will be some decent sailing days ahead which I don't want to miss out on.