Little packages

This box arrived in the post yesterday. It contains a 'foredeck' and enough wood to repair the holes.. Quite impressive for such a little box.  

Work commitments last week meant that my planned leave didn't quite happen as planned so there wasn't much progress made.  Hopefully I'll get a few hours in the garage over the weekend. 

However I did get my first blog comment which was rather nice, so nice I've copied it below. Thanks Mike. 

' Reading your notes on SR with interest. The bulkhead is very thin ply and was warped when I got her. The front compartment was full of water! As the bulkhead is clearly not structural you could consider removing entirely and using a bow bag for buoyancy however this does increase the flooded area in case of capsize and may reduce efficiency of transom flaps. Mike' 

Despite work getting in the way of progress I did get to do some more poking around at the bulkhead.  It would be easy to remove but difficult to replace without joining a couple of pieces at the same time as fitting it.  I'm not sure I want to go down the route of having no bow tank for the reasons Mike's outlined above.  More thinking's required before I commit to that particular job.  

Fingers crossed for some decent progress soon!  

Warmer?

There's been very little progress to report over recent weeks.  My vac pump purchase certainly proved a bit of a mistake so if anyone wants a three phase pump in what appears to be good condition please get in touch!  Time to implement Plan B on the bagging front - any thrifty ideas welcomed.

On the positive side I've ordered some more wood, this time for the decks and for the hole by the mast foot.  It should be arriving next week.  I hope that the horrible weather will finally go away and I can make some decent progress.  I've got a couple of days off work later this week so I'm hoping to be able to make a start on stripping the varnish and non slip paint from starboard side of the insides.  The port side's mostly done but I'll probably need to spend another few hours scraping away at the really stubborn bits. There are a few awkward spaces that I just can't get too with any of my current scrapers so I think a custom one might need fashioning.

Once the inside's have been stripped I'll start on repairing the hole.  Originally I was thinking of a quick and effective solution but one that would certainly need to be covered with paint.  Having stripped back all the deck paint on the port side I've decided to attempt a wood repair with veneers to match in with the original construction and try to keep SR as pretty as is possible.   The front bulkhead hole is my current worry.  Making it water tight is one thing but the bulkhead appears to have been made from very very thin ply which makes it incredibly flexible and I think, will make a repair fairly tricky.  Bearing in mind that I am going to have to repair the mast step / hog area there is a part of me that its tempted to take out the bulkhead to give better access for both repairs.  I could then refit a new bulkhead but I've yet to establish whether its possible to get a new one in without taking something else off which I really want to avoid.

Inside the front bulkhead - musty

Whatever I need to do something about this! Nothing serious but another job for the list.

Thinking time

I've not been in the garage too much over the last couple of weekends either because there's been more pressing things to do or because its been too damn cold.  That doesn't mean that there has been no progress, it's just that none of it's visible.  Actually that's not strictly true, I swept up a few hundred grammes of deck paint, but that really doesn't count as progress.

Too good to be true?
The first bit of non-visible progress was the acquisition of a secondhand vac pump which I managed to find on Ebay for £42.52. Unfortunately I didn't quite read the description carefully enough and spotted afterward bidding that it's designed for a three phase supply. Very luckily I might be able to find a couple of places locally where I can plug it in for my foil work, but one of the main reasons for getting it was to help sort out the delamination on the deck.  Someone at work told me that it will work on single phase but won't suck quite as hard - no idea if this is true yet but I will find out and if it does then I might get away with not having to move the boat about too much.

Dinghy show
I managed to get to the dinghy show which was great and really nice to see a few old faces about the Palace.  I tried taking a couple of pictures of rudder systems but the light was playing havoc with my i-phone camera so they're not too useful.

Foils again
My current thinking on rudder / foil adjustment looks a little like this.  Apologies for the dodgy pictures / diagrams but hopefully it will give an impression of what I'm thinking. In reality the dark blue rectangle with a corner missing would extend outside the transom otherwise the pivot would not work. The idea is to create an inboard 'stock' with the rudder stock then attaching to that (the weaved bit).  Having had a peek at Med's new boat at the show I do wonder if I'm in danger of over complicating things, but I had a similar idea to this many moons ago for the Cherub but didn't get around to building it. In theory it should be light and give more scope for adjustment than other systems I've seen.

Despite all the thinking, I'm still not exactly sure how I'll end up adjusting the angle of dangle but I have got a couple of ideas.  The most likely is attaching a block arrangement on the sloping bit and then leading that forward to the thwart.  A 'mighty screw' is also an option, apart from the dodgy name, I'm not convinced that it would allow the lift to be 'turned off' quickly when the bow's on the way down.  On the plus side, it would perhaps be a little more precise or repeatable than a rope system.  I also like the idea of some retro kicking strap lever adjustment, but thats a very embryonic concept at the mo. 

Flooring 

Apart from measuring up my dining room for some nice wood flooring, I ran a very simple survey of 12 sailors on the main site and asked if should I bother with a double bottom.  The overall result (NB a lower turnout that the Police and Crime Commissioners Election) was a fairly strong No.  I have to be honest I didn't really expect any votes (especially any yes votes).  I am pleased with the result and the fact that a few people bothered to vote and comment - so thanks....  I might use that technique again if I'm feeling indecisive.  Speaking of Indecision I think that is one of the main reasons why I am happy with the result of my poll.  Seeing 3271 being so beautifully restored gives me hope that I can also do a good job as well.  Its helped me focus on a more conservative, and some might say boring, approach but I can have fun playing with foils and stuff without messing too much with Mr Jackson's masterpiece. 

Conclusions of the week 

Don't bid on stuff on Ebay without reading the description (carefully)

Don't ever google a Mighty Screw (especially from work)

Worse than paint drying?

Not a huge amount of progress to report this weekend and certainly nothing exciting.

So far I've managed to strip back 4 of the 8 areas of white non slip.  I'd forgotten how paint stripping, despite being a mind numbingly dull process, its also quite addictive.  The great thing about SR is that there are natural milestones in the little bulkheads so you can break down a long job into smaller sections. In my case with a cup of tea between each one. 

My plan is to take the cockpit area back to bare wood and see how pretty I can make it before deciding whether to go for varnishy goodness, more painted non slip or a totally different approach. 

I've also bought my two items for this project thanks to Ebay and Reeve's my local hardware shop in Maldon.  The Ebay purchase was enough western red cedar to make 2 rudders (one with wings and one without) and a dagger board for my Son's mirror.  Checkout seller:feuillusfencing2010 on ebay who seems to have a huge range of wood at useful lengths and sizes for boat building.  I ended up paying £36 for the wood which I didn't think was too bad.  

The other purchase was three in one paint stripping tool which just about gets into the curvy bits of the boat. Told you it was nothing exciting! 

Wings

Despite being away from Twelves for a while I’ve kept an eye on what’s been going on in the class and found the adoption of foiling rudders a really interesting development.   Historically, resistance to developments has either centred on preserving the Classes appeal as sea boats that can are sailed on restricted water or on maintaining the boats as an attainable challenge.  Daggerboards and fully battened sails are the most obvious examples that spring to mind.  Whilst both would almost certainly result in faster boats it has been argued that both are less suited to puddles and rivers.  The class has always been fairly cautious, at least in the last 30 years, allowing any developments that effectively outclass the existing fleet to quickly or eroded its club racer appeal.  Yet both of those historical defences appear to have been put aside or forgotten in the case of wings.  It strikes me that the very arguments used against daggerboards and battened mains actually have more weight than in the case of wings.  Both boards and battens could be easily retro fitted either by boxing in a centreboard case or through buying a new set of rags.  Whereas wings require an new foil and stock and modifications to transoms etc etc.  I have no idea what a professional retrofit would set you back but I suspect is would be well over a £1000.  Still there’s little point of bemoaning the fact that things have changed and the fact I’d have rather seen developments that make building easier rather than more complex. There’s now a critical mass of DCBs and Paradigms with wings it’s probably a development that will continue regardless of its impact.     

LP at Newquay Wales in 2005

I’ve only had a little bit of experience with wings in the Cherub class and they are a very different boat and have approached wings/foils in a different way.  It was at the 2005 nationals where I first saw real demonstrable evidence wings were faster even in relatively light conditions.  During the early part of the week Loco Perro (a Big Issue to N12 fans) was just faster than the Patterson 7 without a foil.  This was particularly obvious upwind in sub planing conditions where we came back from some terrible starts to be either first or second round the top mark.  Then midweek and overnight Mr Bloodaxe Patterson revealed his foiling secret. The next day, in the same conditions, he pasted us.  More annoyingly, from a personal point of view, he won the cherub champs with us just a couple of points behind in an N12 on steroids.  

I’ve also seen the advantages pulling on the foil on a Slug design and going from about 7kts to about 11knts (according to GPS) and standing well back on the racks - A very odd but very cool feeling.  So despite my reservations, the little I know will be translated into a home built retro-fitted wing arrangement for Silent Running.   I’ve got some ideas about how this little development will work and once I find a way of getting my brain to translate them into pictures I will post them here! 

Introducing

I’ve had a unhealthy interest in the National 12 class ever since I saw the front cover of the December 1990 edition of Yachts and Yachting.  I can still remember the picture of 3162 flat out at the Llandudno nationals. At the time I thought that was one of the coolest things I’d ever seen and in my memory at least it’s one of the best images of sailing I’ve seen. I wish I could find it.

Although I’ve not been an active member of the class for a while, their website has always been one of the first to be scanned for new stuff every lunchtime and their stand one of the first to be visited at the Dinghy show. 23 years on, I’ve just acquired N3252 (Silent Running) for £50 from Owen who sailed her at Twickenham. Unfortunately there is a reason for the low price and these pictures probably sum it up quite well. 

Poor SR had a close encounter of the Hayling Bar kind at the 2012 champs.  The mast jumped off the step and went through the hull leaving rather nasty little hole.  In the process the mast step/hog  has also been damaged and will repairing again. The front bulkhead was also dinged. Oh and the mast is now in three pieces and the main ripped.
Owen's insurers concluded it was a write off and Silent Running became my restoration project and this Blog is my record of the process.

It starts with these simple objectives. 

• Make Silent Running seaworthy again
• Try to reverse the signs of ageing a little and keep her pretty looking
• Spend as little cash as practical
• At the same time as making her as competitive as possible
• Have fun 

Achieving the first objective could be relatively simple but it’s the other three that I think will prove the most challenging but the most fun of the coming months (possibly years).