Happiness is a Warm Spool Gun

[CPseudonym]

Job well done Steve! Congratulations and much respect. ~Craig

[crazyoldboatguy]

I saw the previous post with a picture showing you shaping the wheel pilot blister. It looks like you are doing some hammering/shaping. I have limited experience with aluminum - more with steel. I noticed that aluminum work hardens while you hammer it, causing me to lose a few pieces that split because I was too aggressive with the hammer. Did you just go about it less aggressively or do you have a strategy for releasing the hardening?

I had not noticed this thread until today. I am a recent enroller here and have been learning much. Your vessel is quite beautiful.

[Panope]

Originally Posted by crazyoldboatguy

I saw the previous post with a picture showing you shaping the wheel pilot blister. It looks like you are doing some hammering/shaping. I have limited experience with aluminum - more with steel. I noticed that aluminum work hardens while you hammer it, causing me to lose a few pieces that split because I was too aggressive with the hammer. Did you just go about it less aggressively or do you have a strategy for releasing the hardening?

I had not noticed this thread until today. I am a recent enroller here and have been learning much. Your vessel is quite beautiful.

I think the reason I did not have a spitting problem was because I was not using a bowl shaped die to force the metal to conform to.

Instead, I simply started pounding the flat metal (5/32") atop my flat anvil (table saw). This technique works by thinning and therefore expanding the metal at the point of impact. More impacts in center = more expanding = more dome shape.

If more severe deforming is needed, aluminum can be annealed in similar manner as other metals (blacken with carbon rich flame - then burn away soot).

Steve

[Panope]

Finally, a day of sailing. And what a fantastic day it was. It was just me, my dad and 5 year old daughter on board. The wind never got above 10 knots but Panope really came alive - never sailed better.

I'll give some background on Panope's past sailing rig before describing what happened today.

Here is a shot of her original schooner rig with her "light air" fisherman. We were always quite happy with this rig and its performance. The tan bark sails total 600 square feet. The fisherman adds 150 square feet for a total of 750.



Here is a shot from my brief (2 month sea trial) splash in 2012. I designed this rig so that the geometric center of these sails matches (in the fore and aft direction) that of the old rig. This center of effort did move up about 1'6" (taller rig). The main sail is 480 square feet and the working jib is 120 square feet for a total of 600 - just like the old schooner rig.

The performance of this sail combination is not great. The boat just does not "come alive" unless the breeze stiffens. Weather helm increases (enough to hear gurgling around the rudder) and the rail goes in the water. This is pretty much how it was with the schooner rig = fun begins with rail in water.



After the sea trial of 2012, I described the sailing qualities to my sail-maker, Carol Hasse. She felt that a larger, light-air head sail would be nice for light winds and could be used in winds up to about 15 knots (that is about the time the main gets it's first reef and the excessive weather helm disappears).

I had just paid Carol for the working sails and my wallet was still glowing red hot so I was a little reluctant to drop another wad of cash on what I felt (at the time) to be sort of a shot in the dark (I really do not have a clue about designing sailing rigs). Eventually, I took Carol's advice and gave her the go-head.

Here is what she came up with. It is a nylon "drifter" of 180 square feet. it is designed to be hanked on the the fore stay in place of the working jib. In addition to this placement, I added an extended chain plate (see pic) to the bow so that the drifter could also be flown high (to the mast head) and a bit forward of the working jib. I did not rig a second head stay. I just hank the drifter to the "fall" of a 1/4" Amsteel halyard when using it up in the "Yankee?" position.




Yesterday, I finally got to try out the drifter and some other changes that I made (rudder got some balance, got bigger and gap got closed. Jib sheet angle closer) see pic.



So here is what happened. We were sailing on Hood Canal not far from Pleasant Harbor. The channel is only a mile or two wide. The wind varied between zero and ten knots from the North. The tide was flooding so current (maybe a knot) was in the same direction as the wind.

We started off with the two working sails reaching across the channel in 7 or 8 knots of wind. Not much was happening. GPS speed (current not helping) was less than 3 knots and although the rudder seemed better than two years ago, there was not enough speed to give much feed back to the helms-person.

The drifter came out of its bag and before the peak reached the mast head (and still luffing) I noticed that suddenly there was a bow wave splashing along. I looked back to my dad (at the helm) to see what was going on and he said it is like the engine got turned on. It took a bit a fiddling with sheet placement (extreme aft hand rail) and tension to get things trimmed nice. Boat speed increased 2 knots. Amazing considering it is only an additional 180 square feet.

Eventually, we found 10 knots of wind and speed reached 6 knots on a close reach. I know this does not sound like much to you racer types but for this old fashioned girl, it is nothing short of miraculous. Even better, the helm was light, the weather helm was tiny, and heal was minimal. Both my father and I kept shaking our heads and looking up at the drifter in amazement. It even slipped through the gap (about a 1.5 feet ) between the fore stay when tacking - no problem.

When we sailed out of the wind to an area of water with just the slightest ripple, we were still making 2 or 3 knots and had lots of control.

We then dowsed the working jib and re-set the drifter on the fore stay. We assumed that we would lose much of what had gained with all three sails up. We assumed wrong. We only lost a half a knot. In other words, the 180 square foot drifter was 1.5 knots faster (about 8 knots of wind) than the 120 square foot working jib.

My guess is that my round section mast severely mucks up the airflow over the main sail. The large overlap of the drifter must be helping keep the airflow attached to the main.

Or maybe the drifter is just the right baggy shape? The working jib is very heavy by comparison.

Anyway, we are thrilled with Panope's new found light air performance. I suspect the working jib is going to spend a lot of time in its bag.

Steve

[Andrew Troup]

I don't think anyone can accurately guess just how much delight and joy you're going through here, Steve.

It's probably safe to assume it amounts to at least as much as the sum total of our "delight at a distance" on your behalf ...

Speaking for my contribution, delight and joy are in abundant supply from reading your post. Good on you all, maties ! It takes a village to raise a sail !

[Panope]

Delighted indeed.

Now I just gotta figure out how to get a descent picture with all of the canvas up.

Speaking of "all of her canvas", I have been thinking about adding another sail to the inventory - A marconi dinghy sail that can also be flown upside down as a gaff topsail on Panope. Now that would make a nice picture!

Steve

[Andrew Troup]

Originally Posted by Panope

I think the reason I did not have a spitting problem was because I was not using a bowl shaped die to force the metal to conform to.

Instead, I simply started pounding the flat metal (5/32") atop my flat anvil (table saw). This technique works by thinning and therefore expanding the metal at the point of impact. More impacts in center = more expanding = more dome shape.

If more severe deforming is needed, aluminum can be annealed in similar manner as other metals (blacken with carbon rich flame - then burn away soot).

Steve

Great points, Steve.

On the last one, just an added observation:

Heating it hot enough for the soot to just disappear is very convenient, provided a body has oxy-fuel (acetylene or propane) for heating, in order to be able to soot it up in the first place.

It has got so expensive (here in NZ) for home-shops to maintain oxy bottles that it's a rare capability. Even in my exceptionally well equipped shop, I borrow a gas-plant from an industrial shop on the rare occasions I can't make do with Mapp gas.

A genius of my acquaintance showed me a great stand-in method to determine alu alloy's annealing or hot-forming temperature which works for propane and Mapp torches (or even a powerful hot-air gun): rub some bar (hand) soap on the piece. Heat it (not directly on the soap stripes) until the soap stripes (just) turn chocolate brown.

He learned/developed it for straightening bent ski-poles, which are rather high-tensile, and prone to break otherwise.

(Not as high-tensile and brittle as alu alloy competition archery arrow shafts, though - they snap like a carrot!)

- - - -

I wasn't going to mention how sweet Panope would look with a main tops'l, thinking your poor wallet had already suffered enough, but your idea of a repurposed wee dinghy sail (if you can find one low-aspect enough!) would seem to be the perfect answer!

[Andrew Troup]

BTW Steve: I'm puzzled by your comment that you added some rudder balance.

The rudderpost axis looks to be as far forward as can be, no? (Unless that's a 'before' pic ... but it seems to have the dorsal addition already?)

[Panope]

Originally Posted by Andrew Troup

BTW Steve: I'm puzzled by your comment that you added some rudder balance.

The rudderpost axis looks to be as far forward as can be, no? (Unless that's a 'before' pic ... but it seems to have the dorsal addition already?)

I am not sure what exactly you are asking so I will give the whole rundown on the rudder changes.

Tom Colvin (designer of the Saugeen Witch) designed an uninterrupted keel. Tom is a sailing purist and if any engine is installed, he assumes it to be very tiny with a correspondingly tiny propeller. It was up to the builder cut a portion of the keel away (aperture) to accommodate a propeller.

When my father fitted out Panope the first time, he hired a welder to create a small aperture for a 15 h.p. engine and propeller combination. This "cutting away" of the keel worked fine.

When I installed the new 40 h.p. engine with its correspondingly large propeller, I chopped much more of the keel away. In the picture you see that only 1/3 of the rudder has keel directly ahead of it.

The rudder is was not teardrop shaped - it was supposed to have keel just ahead of it.

My sea trial of 2012 revealed that the rudder lacked effectiveness. Also, Panope sailed with too much weather helm that is in part caused be the center of lateral resistance moving forward (my chopping keel away).

So the addition of the triangle that is ahead of the rudder post, does a couple of things:
-it (being tapered in plan view with a smaller diameter leading edge) streamlines the rudder.
-it adds balance (because it is ahead of rudder post)
-it adds to the rudders area.
-it sorta replaces keel that I chopped away.

Also visible in picture is a small piece of metal added to the top of the rudder to add more area and close the gapp below the hull.

Also visible is a strip of metal added to the keel just ahead of the lower rudder. I added this to close the gap.

The rudder does work better now. No way of knowing which of these modifications are responsible for what percentage of change.

[Panope]

Originally Posted by Andrew Troup

I wasn't going to mention how sweet Panope would look with a main tops'l, thinking your poor wallet had already suffered enough, but your idea of a repurposed wee dinghy sail (if you can find one low-aspect enough!) would seem to be the perfect answer!

I am no tall ship sailor but I do see pictures of topsails that overlap the main considerably. I was thinking that a higher aspect ratio dinghy sail would be fine as long as the angle between the luff and the head (no..foot...no..head..aaaahhh) matched the geometry of Panope's masthead to gaff peak angle.

Steve

[Panope]

Something like this flown upside down would make a perfect topsail for Panope.

[Panope]

Here is a shot of the Dinghy in the davit.

Launching procedure: Pull two pins that pass through the gunwale. Cast off the hoisting line. Dinghy falls in water - fast.



Davit in rotated position (keeps the dock fees lower). L.O.A. just under 35 feet.

Sail cover made by a local canvas worker - excellent.



A penalty for being able to rotate the dinghy over the stern railing and clear the pilot house, is that the dinghy rides really high and at an angle that is certainly creating a fair amount of aerodynamic drag (can't win'em all).

I have been playing around with the luff lacing (making it looser so there is now a gap between mast and sail luff), luff tension and foot lace tension. Boat will now hold a point of sail (steady wind, beam reach or higher) with a locked helm.



A benefit of the really high dinghy placement is that when seated in the pilot house, one has good visibility over the stern by looking under the dinghy.

[Andrew Troup]

Originally Posted by Panope

I am not sure what exactly you are asking so I will give the whole rundown on the rudder changes.

.....

So the addition of the triangle that is ahead of the rudder post, does a couple of things:
-it (being tapered in plan view with a smaller diameter leading edge) streamlines the rudder.
-it adds balance (because it is ahead of rudder post)
-it adds to the rudders area.
-it sorta replaces keel that I chopped away.

.

I'm embarassed to admit, but I misinterpreted what the photo was showing (like one of those visual illusion pictures, which flip from depicting one thing to another, but some people can only see one!)

The "triangle" which I now realise is unpainted aluminium attached to the rudder, my brain had formerly allocated to a geometric shape on the background (wall?), along with what looked like several other geometric shapes.

I was only seeing the painted portion, and the top addition. Now that I know what I'm looking at, I can't make my brain see it as part of the background (sigh...)

What a smart mod ! Characteristically tidy, too...

[Panope]

I worry that my vested interest in those rudder modifications may taint my analysis, but I do think the rudder works better.

Prior to the mods (and after I chopped the keel away), The helm had to either be lashed or the steering cables needed to be over tightened to prevent the boat from rounding up in even light winds.

Now I can go wandering around the decks and not worry about the wheel spinning if a gust comes along.

Steve

[Panope]

Got a chance to test the beaching leg today. Worked good.

Scrubbed bottom after 32 days in water with nothing but epoxy primer on the bottom. I will probably wait longer next time as the soft growth was minimal and the barnacles were only 1/8 inch tall.

Drove the boat onto the beach at 10:30 a.m. at about +3 feet with tide falling rapidly. Low tide was at 1:30 p.m. at -0.2 feet.

The weight of the boom and Mainsail was sufficient to get things leaning the right way.





I took an anchor out on the "high side" as a precaution. I was unsure if the beaching leg's foot was large enough to not sink into the sand. The sub-strait was sand and gravel that allowed the foot to settle only 1 inch. Next time I will leave the anchors on-board.




I will never apply anti-fouling paint again.

Steve