Mast Building

1) Here is a pretty clever approach.

"The basic idea is to glue a narrow strip of wood along the edge of a wider strip to produce an "L" shaped section. Then a small triangular strip is glued into the corner of the "L". This basic section is used for each mast half. Two of these sections are glued side by side, with a groove to hold an aluminum luff tube. "

2) And here one has a $605 small mast of Sitka spruce, ouch!


3) A serious mast, not round being built from laminated wood, using the birdsmouth technique.


4) A collection of approaches here.


5) Then there is this and this.

6) For why free standing masts and wing sails.

BobLQ

https://www.facebook.com/TropicalBoats

*****

The best rotator I've seen was very simple. First a trailer ball is thru-bolted to the deck. The bottom of the mast was hollowed out to fit over the ball and banded to prevent splitting. The mast socket sat on the ball and was supported in an upright position by the forestay line and by two sidestays all connected to a point about 2/3 ways up the mast. The sidestays were anchored to the gunnels a little aft of the mast. These stays were synthetic rope; none of these stays need to be tight; just enough to keep the rotating mast vertical and loose enough to allow it to rotate about 60 degrees in either direction.

Roger L.

Windknife

Looking at your website I thought you might be interested in adding the construction of the windknife extrusion to the rudders and centreboards section of your How to index.

www.windknife.com/home/construction

Gareth Roberts

Strapping Down

Production boats/trailers tend to come with a short strap that runs from the trailer's corners up to an eye on the top corners of the transom, making strapping down quick and easy.

Such a system takes only a moment to deploy and aren't as noticeable as tossing a ratchet strap over the boat, hooking up one end, walking around the trailer, hooking up the other end, working the ratchet, etc. Also not as visible riding down the road.

Seth

Make a Paper Model First

One of the boat building projects we are going to do this winter is a B&B Yacht Design Spindrift 11N. I'll post pictures as we go.

I did want to tell you guys just how great Graham's plans are - and how cool the design of the boat is in general. The plans come on tablet-sized paper, so they are easy to carry around and work with. The text and measurements are clear and readable. I think this is going to be a very easy boat to build.

The process is different than anything I have done so far, so this'll be interesting. This is a V-bottom, single chine boat, so each side consists of a strake and a garboard. After you cut out the strakes and garboard (and scarf the pieces to length, of course) you fiberglass the front 7" of the strake to the forward end of the garboard, so it looks a wee bit like a butterfly wing.

Stack the two wings on top of each other (interior to interior) and stitch the bow and bottom seam together - then spread the 'wings' apart, stitching the strake to the garboard as you go.

BAMM, you have a boat shape.

Sound improbable? Yep, that's why I made a paper model today:

https://toledocommunityboathouse.com/2013/130909_bab/index.htm

Andrew Linn