Why I'm Following Sven Yrvind

Yeah.

And he has changed his rig design from square, balanced lugs to boomless sails that roll up around the mast. The interesting thing about these sails, and I think the dangerous thing about them, is that they will have a club on their leeches. This club, which is vertical and parallel to the mast, will have no other support than the tension of the sheet lines.

What I find scary about this design is that, if the sail ever slats, these aptly named clubs clubs will flail about, and not necessarilly on the horizontal plane. They may smack the deck, or anything, or anyone on it.

this sail design was used on Cheasipeak racing log canoes to increase their sail area without the use of gaffs or yards. But, in that case, the club was held to the end of a boom. Here, apparently, there will be no booms. Because of this, these new sails will have to have double sheets, like a jib, even if they don't extend past the next mast. I'm not even sure these sails will even set properly, because the sheet tension will have a downward component, which will tend to make the lower clew sag toward the deck, and cause the foot of the sail to bag.

When this type of sail had a boom, the boom could act as a stretcher to keep the foot from bagging. But, with a boom, this type of sail was notoriously difficult to set or strike, because at one point or other, the club had to be added to the leech, or the boom had to be attached to the club (and/or the mast). With the latter arrangement, the luff of the sail was laced to the mast with no halyard. The sail was then either rolled up around the mast, or bunched up behind it. In the first case, a snotter could be used to extend the boom and that way put tension on the vertical club. But the boom had to be dettached from the mast, so the mast could be rotated. This is because the boom had to somewhere between the ends of the club, and not above or below it. In the second case, the boom could be fitted to the mast with a gooseneck or jaws, and the boom could have a powerful out-haul. In that case, the sail was often reefed with veritical brailes.

Neither one of these options look attractive for Sven, who probably plans on rolling the sails in or out, to the area he sees fit, without having to go up on deck.

I suggest he use triangular sails, which extend past the next mast (since he's going to need double sheets anyway). Then, he won't need a boom, but the end of the sheet lines will have to be a differnt points along the length of the deck for the optimal set of the sail at differnt points of sail and for differnt sail areas.

It may be easier to give up the rotating mast and turn these sails into roller-furling stay sails. Then, all that would be needed would be a pair of back shrouds for the first two masts. Such an arrangement may have an efficient set of the sails only when they are fully set, and only then on a tack. When reefed, or on a reach, the efficiency will decrease. But this would be a much stronger system.

For my never-to-be built LOLA design (which this new EX LEX is beginning to strongly resemble) (see first attachment) there are to be three hatches on deck. One will be an aft hatch. One will be a main mast hatch. And one will be a fore hatch. The mast hatch will be for setting, furling, and reefing the mainsail. The other two will be used docking or anchoring.

The mainsail will be have at least two booms or maybe three. Each of the extra booms will define a slab reef. (see 2nd attachment). The higher boom will be lowered onto the bottom one and held to it with a reefing line. This way, there will be no need for sheetlets. If there is more than one extra boom, the next one to be lowered and will be held down to the one below it, not the bottom boom. This way, there will be no confusion about which reef line holds which reef. This arrangement could possible be made to work without a mast hatch (which Sven clearly doesn't want). All the lines, the halyard and the one or two reefing lines, could be led to the aft hatch. But the higher reefing line will have to be somewhat longer.

The last reef leave a boomed-Lateen sail, which is sturdy, less likely to flog viciously, and the last step before resorting to a storm trisail.

As for the rest of this new EX LEX, I'm not sure it suited for this new route around Cape Horn. I think it will lack pointing ability to make progress against the vicious headwinds that it's likely to encounter (the same would be true with my LOLA design). Both boats would be more or less reaching fools, really only capable of close reaches. He gave up on the huge center board, set up in the bow, because it took up too much space. If he wants to go around The Horn, I suggest he reenstate it.

Anyway, with these reservations stated, I wish him the best of luck, no matter what he ends up deciding to do.

 

I agree that the boat is not quite suitable for rouding the Cape Horn, and I would take the statement even further, and say it most certainly is not suitable for that at all. Poor pointing ability, low initial stability and size make this a real tumbler.

I'm guessing this new route will, however, spawn yet another iteration of exlex, so we just have to wait. Sven has already been there, and I'm sure he remembers how it was. After rounding the horn, he was quickly forced to tuen around in what I consider a far more seaworthy design than the current one.

As for the sail, my above average understanding of aerodynamics tells me that the efficiency of this arrangement is poor(ish). The pole or club at the end of the sail disturbs the airflow at a place where it matter quite a bit. What this design gains in area, it loses in efficiency and even more so in safety, as Sharpii2 pointed out.

 

I think it is instructive to compare his BRIS II boat with Josua Slocum's SPRAY.

Both had hard bilges, relatively wide beams (7 ft for the 19 ft long BRIS II, IIRC, and 14 ft for the 38 ft SPRAY), and substantial keels under them.

By today's standards, SPRAY would not be considered a very weatherly boat. But for its time, it was no slouch.

In addition to its large full keel, it had a large mainsail which made up close to 60% of its total sail area.

BRIS II was rigged as Bermuda rigged cutter.

Both boats could stand up well to a fierce headwind.

My LOLA and his newest EX LEX do not have this capability.

This is not to say that either boat is unseaworthy. But it is to say that neither one is fit for fighting headwinds around The Horn.

I would be delighted if he proved me wrong, but I'm afraid such is not likely to happen.

 

I'm quite sure Sven realizes that floating around the Sargasso sea is not a proof of concept for rounding the Horn, and changes to the "itinerary" will necessitate changes to the boat itself.

 

I think it's time for an update.

Sven has gone through a number of design changes on his new boat.

Starting at the bottom. He was considering rounding Cape Horn to sail to Chile. So, to make his boat more weatherly, he decided he needed "vertical chine runners," ie shallow twin keels. Once those were considered, he decided he didn't need the bow centerboard any momore. It was getting pretty cramped there anyway. He then decided he wanted the keels to be made out of bronze, so if they got scraped from a grounding, they wouldn't decay. To get the bronze (apparently he couldn't afford to pay for all that he needed), he chiseled the bronze ballast out of what was left of the Yrvind ten. He then made patterns for the new keels and took them and the bronze to a foundry.

He then decided he wanted an inboard rudder, so he wouldn't have to run the control lines in from outside (they either leaked water, or jamned, or both, on his other boats). He designed a reasonably high aspect ratio spade rudder, as most of the weight of the grounded boat would be on the twin keels. When the Russian invasion of The Ukraine started going badly (for the Russians), he changed his mind about the twin keels. Now, he was no longer thinking of sailing to Chile, but New Zeeland. Again. Now, the by now cast and deliverd, twin keels were no longer needed. The bow centerboard made a stunning come back. And he returned the keels to the foundry to be recast as ballast plates to go under the bottom, like they did with the Yrvind 10.

Now, the not yet built spade rudder was looking a bit vulnerable. So he changed its design. He changed it to a very low aspect ratio ballanced rudder, which is massively thick, and has about a 10 cm diameter rudder shaft made of solid fiberglass. To protect its edge and bottom, he added a bronze bar which is maybe 3 cm wide and mabe 1 cm thick.

For the bow centerboard, he made it a bit smaller and made the its case extend all the way up to the fore deck, so it could be open on top.

He wants to do all his outside boat handling from two compartments, one at the bow and one at the stern. This is so he can hope to keep the center living area reasonably dry. To further facilitate this, he wanted it sealed off from the bow and stern compartments with internal hatches. He later discovered that the hatches, which opened outward, would take up too much space, so he settled on fabric gaskets instead. These are to fit around an outward facing flange, to cover the opening, and to be held there with a lasso-like line. As for the two deck hatches, he came up with interesting approach to a sliding hatch. He decided to make these hatch openinings circular. A conventional sliding hatch would not work. These hatches will now ride on a pair of jack-lines, that have enough slack that the flange of the hatch can be lifted clear of the flange on the deck it fits over. Then it can be pushed out of the way, without much chance of it being lost overboard.

The rig design has changed too. Originally, he was going to have a three masted schooner rig, with three 3.0 sm sails. Now, it's a three masted ketch. The third mast is now going to be stepped next to the fore mast. This is so he can set a pair of ballanced lug sails wing and wing. He made the aft sail somewhat smaller. IIRC he reduced it to 2.5 sm. Now, with the bow centerboard retracted, he will have a very stable downwind rig. To keep the spars, from these two sails, from touching, he has the masts so they can be canted outward at their tops. They can be canted inward when in port.

Although I think a sailboat should always carry more sail down wind than on other points of sail, I think he makes too big of an sail area sacrifice by having the two fore masts. He seems to think he will get the effect of all the area of both fore sails, while sailing other than downwind. I think they are too close together and too low in aspect ratio for this to happen. He may have to furl one, or at least reef one, while reaching or sailing higher upwind. I suppose, while reaching or sailing upwind, he can reef the windward sail to about half its size, so it will contribute some lift while not starving the leeward one.

On his first two Ex Lexes, He used conventional slab reefing. This has now changed. Each sail will now have an upper boom and a lower boom. The upper boom appears to be intended to divide the sail in half. He will have a system of lines to pull the upper boom either down to the lower one or up to the yard. righ now it's not clear which. This will make reefing the sails a lot quicker. And he may not have to be on deck to do it. I have a similar system on my 10 ft scow. I haven't had a chance to use it yet (I finished building it too late into the year.)

So, this is where his new boat stands, as of this writing.

 

The thing with Sven.....you have to realise this might end up in a dumpster like his "ten". Im all for development, but doing it on paper first is a lot easier than ripping out a lot of already completed work. He is his own man, has his own way, and does not like constructive critism. Dont want to be too hard on a man his age still doing his thing, as he has said before, he can move into the old peoples home tomorrow and eat ice cream all day. Wether the boat gets finished and launched, let alone starts a voyage to NZ is another thing.

 

That is all intended to make the rudder capable of supporting a good proportion of the boat's weight when aground, and, I guess, absorbing impact loads when there is a bit of wave when the boat refloats. I wonder how the rudder in intended to transfer those loads to the hull. The bronze bearings have no flange to transmit thrust along the rudder axis, and the way their Tufnol counterparts are laminated in looks good for transverse loads, but not thrust. So unless Sven puts some bearing at the top of the rudder shaft, I think the load will be carried by the rudder blade binding against the hull.

The tiller Sven plans to attach to the top of the rudder shaft will prevent the rudder from dropping out, but he has not yet mentioned how to reduce the friction he would get if he let the tiller just rub on the composite box.

 

Im expecting either another bronze collar as a bearing, or tufnol, though G10/11, is getting a look in on this build. Who can tell......

 

I just noticed this on Sven's website;

"Plans have changed one reason is that Australia told me that I could not stop in Albany south west Australia to reprovision unless I phoned Canberra. The reason for the phone call was that they said that there was no email in Canberra. I do not like when people are dishonest with me."

I spent years working in an area related to Australian migration law (ie regulating migration agents and lawyers), and I lived in Canberra. It is completely bizarre for anyone to claim that anyone would have claimed "there is no email in Canberra"; it's a national capital in a system that often uses email as its preferred form of communication and there is no reason for anyone to make such a weird claim.

It's just one more example of Sven making mistakes and insulting others. When someone makes mistakes like that, and insults other people as Sven does so often, it puts a different perspective on his approach to life and also to boat design.

 

Things may have changed, but i was always under the assumption that if one was low on food and water and could not make the destination port, one could stop in a port even without a visa to replenish (no sightseeing).

Sven should try to be a foreigner in Sweden, Migrationsverket are well known for "making mistakes" when applications are made, it would no be beyond reasonable doubt that he made contact with a similar person in the Australian system; and while there maybe internal email between offices, it is not unusual for "clients" to have to use a phone during a short time window. The British Embassy in Stockholm had such a system in place.

 

I spent years investigating migration lawyers and agents, which gave me legal power to demand every piece of information on the immigration department's files and those of the applicant. I would have had 20-40 such files (including email and TRIM references) on my desk and computer at any one time. I also worked for the immigration department for a while, so I know the systems, and I don't like the department so I'm not biased in their favour.

The Australian system does not use phone much at all. Far from being one where there is "maybe internal email between offices", it's one where email and other electronic documents and records systems like TRIM entirely dominated the entire system.

As someone who has actually spent years doing the relevant work in the relevant country, I stand by the statement that Sven's claim is very hard to believe. That's especially the case when he specifically claimed something that no sane person would claim, which is that there is no email in a capital city in an advanced economy, or even just in the particular department's head offices in Canberra. No one in the department would claim that unless they had escaped a strait jacket and gone to the office.

If Sven had such a short time window that he just had to telephone (and yes, one can ring the relevant department although for records purposes they prefer email) then it's his own silly fault for not preparing in time. But that's also not believable since he hasn't even launched the boat yet and is therefore not exactly in a tearing hurry to gain entry to Albany.

His claim just doesn't seem to be reasonable and, like his cherry picking of "evidence" in his pieces about boat design and his widespread insults in his Manifesto and other writing, seems to put him in a pretty bad light IMHO. Considering that in a few decades it appears that his only real achievements are building a couple of small boats and doing some passages (but getting far fewer sea miles than he planned and announced) it seems that he may have a much higher opinion of himself, compared to others, than reality shows.

 

I can only comment on what i have read and from Svens own words. It is possible there has been a misunderstanding, English is not his first language and he is dyslexic. I have no experience with the Australian system, but i did spend a decade fighting a nation state over an immigration rule that was always being "bent" and supported by immigration agents who should have known better, so i have met those who will lie and distort in order to refuse entry papers. New Zealand also had/has a visa "hotline" where one can spend hours on the phone in the hope one might pick up the phone.

Anyhoo, some people never build a single boat or go anywhere, despite talking about it, so i guess he has done better than some. His opinions are just that, and we all have them.

Maybe you could look into the visa application process for a Swedish person and let us know how it actually works.

 

I knew the visa application process intimately as noted earlier, but as far as I can see (without really researching much) he doesn't need one for Australia anyway.

Yes, of course he's entitled to an opinion but if he broadcasts his insulting ones then he can't complain if he receives insulting ones in return. It would seem to be more useful to try to understand other people rather than diss them as Sven does. He brings up incidents like the mass stranding of yachts at Cabo San Lucas as evidence for his ideas, but that occurred about 40 years ago. If he's got to look worldwide over decades for "proof" that his ideas are better, then it shows that such "proof" is incredibly rare.

Some people say that Sven's experience indicates that his ideas are good - but he brings up what happened to people like Moittessier (sp) at Cabo San Lucas as evidence that their ideas are wrong. If having experience like Sven does shows that Sven is right, then having vastly MORE experience like Moitessier does shows that Moitessier is right; or is that "righter". In other words, anyone who plays the "I have experience so I must be right" game must allow for the fact that, if experience is trumps, then they must listen to more experienced people.

If ocean miles are a measure of expertise then Sven should not be criticising Moitessier's boat as he does. If ocean miles are not a measure of expertise, then why can Sven be considered to have expertise at all?

 

If that is the case, then he is just having a rant and maybe making excuses for himself.

I have not read his view on Moitssier and that incident, but guess he said if he had a small boat, he could have winched it ashore? I have not met anyone who wants to go sailing in an Yrvind boat. They may be able to make ocean passages between destinations, but an airplane ticket is less costly and more enviromentally friendly than building even a small boat and putting it on an Islands landfill. They are not a liveaboard cruising boat for the 99.9%.

I do try not to judge others, people with far more experience than I told me i was a fool for taking my old plywood boat offshore, but they were so wrong! Experience can be a guide, but one size does not fit all.

As a foreigner living amongst Swedes for more than a decade, many have the belief they are absolutely right about whatever they say........

 

Svens already distracted drawing his next boat. 2cm narrower and a bit longer, with room for " a small girl"......