Recent content by differentroads

Not possible on the Wasp log, as far as I know. I looked into it for mine but it seems that a low speed drill and looooooots of patience would be needed. If you are going to spend time on your Wasp, give it oil through the screw hole. Sewing machine oil is probably best - very light - though...

...and I admit to fairly limited experience and a tendancy to over-engineer such stuff, but I think you'll likely see stress cracks around the boarding ladder in that position, given the leverage created by an adult climbing the ladder and the proximity to the skin fittings, which will have...

It depends on the thickness of the transom, and if it has a core or not. Me, I would put a vertical pad behind each leg because the leverage when climbing the ladder is vertical, not horizontal. For my own boarding ladder, I mounted it higher up my transom where I could create strong backing...

Good point. My reefing drum is similar. Dyneema is a slippery bugger and knots tend to slip. Me, I'd probably splice a small eye in it and slip in a dogbone toggle - looks like the button on an old fashioned duffel coat - or attach it to the foresail shackle. Or I suppose you could slip a...

Interesting. I'm just down the road in Estepona and can identify with how the wind gets accelerated around here. I cross there twice a year on my way from Estepona to summer cruising grounds and back and, yeah, the wind can be fickle. This autumn we rounded Cabo de Gata under heavily reefed...

Can I take you up on the offer of the cad file? I want to get a couple made up in spain in the coming months. I'll pm you my email address if thats ok

Some of the sailmakers, winch manufacturers and ropemakers have sheet load calculators eg Harken at Genoa System Loading Calculator | Harken Marine My 28sqm jib in 30kn wind (when I'm very very late with the reefing!) comes out at 500kg sheet load. Don't forget to put in the reefed sail size to...

The one thing that ply has going for it is it can be shaped to conform to the shape of the foredeck, stem fitting pad , or whatever. I replaced my rotten ply foredeck core with plywood for that reason. Bonds well for reinforcing the deck to hull joint and spreading the stresses. If that shaping...

Many good points above. My rather short 1m long ex scaffold plank gets much more use as a workbench. Holes for my small bench vice and pegs for when I'm sawing, clamp board when I'm drilling, stand for paint tins, that sort of thing. Half a metre longer would make a better fender board but...

I recently had my one and only wire luff sail (a loose luffed Ghoster) repaired and the wire luff replaced with Dyneema. A cheap enough fix and it now stows and hoists much more easily.

My 3 year old dacron staysail flakes itself quite well while lowering. I then lash it with two sailties. I've had a tubular bag made that fits over the flaked sail and the front zips up over the hanks if I'm leaving it on, or I take the hanks off the inner forestay and zip up if stowing it...

My engine/exhaust layout is very similar to yours. I've had seawater in the engine three times in F6/7 conditions and think I have eliminated the wet exhaust side as the cause of my own problems by moving the outlet onto the transom rather than under it, adding a flap valve to the transom...

Thanks for feeding back on your progress with this. I'm facing a similar problem - wanting to add 50m rope to my chain rode but my horizontal windlass always jams at the octoplait rope to chain splice. Was your nylon 3 strand rope spliced to your chain when it went through the windlass ok? If...

Great advice on this thread, as always, Jonathan. Thanks. Just a small point though. This morning I got delivery (in Spain from Amazon) of a couple of 5/16'' yellow pin Titan shackles for my 8mm anchor chain. The breaking load is marked as 9900lb (4.5T) - see photo. 9900lb = 4490kg, so 4.5...