More work completed

More work continued last night at the boat yard.

Battens – Some time ago Al had some epoxy missed up and some leftover pieces of carbon fiber so he made some small sheets of carbon that I cut a few strips to make the battens for the sails. Last night I cut a few of these strips and applied to the leach of the sails using the double sided tape. I capped the ends of the battens off with small pieces of pink sticky back.

I also put on some draft stripes while the sails are not mounted to the rig.

A small, final amount of filling and sanding on the keel/bulb and then we moved it and the rudder outside so I could spray some appliance paint on them. I chose this paint as it is pretty durable and it can be sanded and shined up pretty well. It also should offer some protection from any incidental bumps of these appendages.

Finally last night we temporarily installed Al’s receiver so we could set up the sheeting system and see how the running of these lines would work. Glad we did! The original plan was to run some of the bungee cord through a series of blocks but we found out that due to some of the angles, the bungee cord did not run smooth. We ended up doing some modifications and used a short piece of bungee cord that only runs through one block and we used string for the balance. I get 11 inches of travel from the sheeting system which should be more than sufficient.

We also found out that the sail servos need to be programmed to give me 180 degrees of travel. This was accomplished by using Al’s Hi-Tech Servo Programmer that he recently purchased.
Today I hope to get enough work done that she will be able to launch her on Sunday.

I will bring my radio and receiver down today to set the end points of the sail servo. I also need to make up at least the ‘A’ rig in order to sail Sunday. I will need to connect the sails to the rig, which seems simple, but i still need to cut the lower ends of the shrouds and backstays and put a thimble in and then crimp them. Then a fitting will need to be made that will hold the head of the main to the top of the mast, allowing it to swivel as the sails go in and out.

We did not properly wire the boat for the electronics, as I will need to get another type of battery for this boat and connections. Eventually I will get the new DX radio for this boat.

I am very excited about being this close to launching this boat and sailing her!

Photos will be taken today and posted later.