http://www.google.co.uk/patents/US6763777
Item 28. "Rolled scats" - sloping sides to the cockpit well, as seen on many racing dinghies. Presumably to let water to drain out when heeling.
The first thing having started to separate the three strands is to do a rough whipping on each to stop them unravelling themselves Sellotape will do.
Unravel about 6" for an ordinary sized rope, bend it round in a loop, and then feed each strand under three consecutive strands of the standing...
I think classic has to include two features:
a) the article is typical of its time
and
b) it represents something that was especially outstanding at the time - a particularly well-made specimen, or a significant design, something that would have caused it to stand out amongst its fellows.
I...
"Launch" could mean anything from a lightweight runabout with very thin strip planking, or plywood panels and a light petrol engine, to a a solid hunk with 1" planks and an ancient diesel. Does it have a 4 foot beam or 8 foot?
So somewhere between a few cwt to 2 tons.
Is it designed to swing...
Steam in a bag is the easy way.
You can buy rolls of polythene tube, or just use old lengths cut from sacks and staple them together.
Wrap it round the first 6 foot say of wood, and clamp one end into the final position. Pass in steam from a wallpaper steamer, stuff rags in the ends, and after a...
I'm just repeating what a marine engineer told me some years ago. I said that no matter how hard I tightened the nut, at the end of the season it was loose and needed tightening to the next hole. He told me that was in the nature of a taper - it needed a sharp shock to seat it fully. He always...
You can't rely on the nut alone to exert enough force to seat the taper. Take the shaft out and thump it down on something solid. (Like seating an axe head)
As an alternatively to adding shims, you could grind down the back of the nut a little to the next alignment point.
You could try doing a scale drawing of the underwater hull profile and the sails, and work out the Centre of Lateral Resistance in relation to the Centre of Effort.
CLR you can get by cutting a bit of cardboard to the stem-stern underwater profile and balancing it on a sharp edge. You can test...
My 21 footer was built in 1882. Believed to have been originally a half-decker, the cabin was added in 1913 and the original counter sawn off. I rebuilt this some years ago, just guessing what perhaps it should look like. Some planks have been replaced over the years, most recently the...
Really? I think it's an ugly pastiche, a travesty, using certain features slightly reminiscent of a genuine classic steam yacht.
The topsides are too high, and the funnel too thin, for a start.
Here are some real beauties...
Steaming isn't the chore it used to be with the invention of "steam in a bag".
Just put the wood in a tube of polythene, connect up to a wallpaper stripper, bend it into position as soon as it is soft enough, wedge in situ, and rip the polythene off. Then fasten.
I was going to suggest tar. Another advantage is that apart from softening in heat the lighter elements will soak into the wood. In the end the whole timber will be impregnated. It will last for ever but be sticky in hot weather and make a mess of anything it touches. It sounds perfect for a...
You tie a pan to a long pole, fill it with sawdust, and quickly invert it in the water so that the dust floats, ie it stays inside the pan.
Then push the pan down under the leaking plank and invert it, so releasing the sawdust.
It needs to be really fine dust, as from a dust extractor bag.
So...
It depends what the bottom is painted with. I've always continued the tradition of using hot pitch, or in recent years, B&Q bitumastic gutter paint as it's easier to apply. It doesn't matter about the take-up, as the planks can't leak anyway.
On putting her back in the water after 25 years...
Unless you remove the wood and put your 10 coats of whatever on the bit that's normally hidden, then moisture is going to get into the wood. Then the varnish on the showy bit will trap the moisture and the wood will rot.
Much better to leave the thing untreated and let it breathe.
An invaluable tool is an extra length of vacuum cleaner hose of a smaller diameter, ending in a small nozzle of about 1/2" diameter, used in conjunction with a bit of old hacksaw blade to poke debris out from the gaps.