I'm keeping Stanley

[ross_burkin]

For another year or so. There is a LOT more I can learn in FS and he's just too much fun to sell. After many long conversations with many Cherub sailors this weekend it's better if I stick with the absolute cracker of a boat I have at the moment and then upgrade to a post 97' boat. The capital I have and the money I will be earning will be spent on getting on the road and getting to as many events as possible as well as moving to a much more Cherub friendly bit of water.

[mathew_harris]

sounds cool ross, i'd change your footer though

[phil_kirk]

For now Ross that is the right decision.

We beleive that time on the water is most important. We proved that over the last two days and feel a lot more in control of the boat.

Even a 97ish rules boat can beat a 12 foot skiff so Stanley still has lots of potential in the right hands.

My advice would be to get the boat reliable and fix any leaks and get sailing and racing as much as possible.

For racing, get a watch with a count down on it. The casio sea pathfinder is ideal and only £25.  Do as much club racing as possible to practice starts and mark roundings. come to the cherub events that you can make without breaking the bank.

[Will_Lee]

Hi Ross,

What club are you thinking of?

[ross_burkin]

There are a few options; Draycote, Grafham, BBSC, Blackwater and Wilsonian. All of them have or will have Cherubs sailing there. Grafham and Draycote are a treck but offer good sailing. This comes at a price though. Chatting to Roland and Hailey this weekend, they say that the water level at BBSC gets low during the summer and the winds are pretty flukey so they are almost completely set on Wilsonian. Roland mentioned that you are thinking of moving there to Will. Wilsonian is the cheapest, closest and if Slippy and your new Elway 5 are moving there it looks like Wilsonian is my best bet. Plus it's on bumpy water, and my first real bumpy water experience this weekend was nuts so that’s a bonus  Downwind in chop in a Cherub is fun!

[dean_ralph]

There is also a cherub at Whitstable YC which has no banks and mored boats ot worry about . And at times can get very choppy. Whitstable is a well organised club with lots of competition

[ross_burkin]

It's doable so it's an option.

Now I am keeping FS for a while, I need to make him much prettier and possibly upgrade a few bits and pieces. He will still be 91 rules minus the larger kite that Roland has given to me and I wont be doing and surgery. He is very sailable and functions as a boat just fine, but is very tatty. A dagger style rudder would be very useful. Roland has already offered his assistance.

I did a few things today. I located a leek in the pole launch tube. Not good as this is a deck off job. I need to get hatch seals for the side tanks to stop me sinking (easy peasy one to do) and locate any other leaks. Patch up transom and other holes, dinks etc (easy but time consuming). Strip decks and repaint will be done eventually after everything is back up to scratch and I have a spare weekend.

Another thing I'm thinking of is a carbon mast. These minor things all add weight and a carbon mast and boom will make a difference. I want to build these for a couple of reasons:
1) I will learn some sticky skills,
2) I will learn about masts, how they work, what suits me, what suits the rig and the boat.
3) It will be better than any mast I can buy for the money it will cost to build and even if it isn't I will have learnt some important stuff.

**The following is an after thought**

The carbon mast will allow me to get rid of the prod and related fittings (loose some weight) and install a self tacker. I could then go out in light airs and sail it by my self (Iain in suicide style) when I haven’t got a crew. I wouldn't have to buy another boat then either and the more Cherubing I can do the better! I would get some more boat handling skills, trapezing and helming from the wire experience/practice. It would just be a bloody giggle as well. Of course the self tacker can be disengaged and put back to normal if needs be.

I would really like to do this unless someone can think of a definate reason not to.

[phil_kirk]

sounds like you've had a productive day.

How big is the hole on the pole launch tube? Is it near the ends? Just wondering if it can be fixed without taking the deck off. 

Consider jobs that take the boat off the water for a while for after the main events so you don't miss sailing time.
Carbon boom is a good sticky weekend job. 
building Carbon masts from scratch is tricky but second hand RS 600 masts are a possible sustitute.  Even broken ones can be fixed if you have the assistance of an experienced cheruber.  It can be a bit of work if you need to move spreaders around.  Not a job that i have done yet.

A dagger style rudder stock can be made quite easily.  Again a bit of experience from another cheruber helps overcome all the issues.  I recycled Slippery's old rudder blade from a pivoting stock style to a dagger style. The bottom of the old blade is now the top of the current one. It envolved a lot of sanding and fairing but taught me a lot of building skills.

[Tim Noyce]

The mast on Taking Liberties was a superspars RS700 mast, which is very similar to the mast on the GT60. That is a very simple round tube and can be fixed really easily. When I did mine it cost me a total of £15, stick was free as was kindly given to me by Rhys, a length of tube which fitted inside the tube was a tenner, and then some offcuts of track cost me a fiver. It's a bit less stiff than the 600 mast too so works pretty well.

All you have to do now is find a 700 mast!

I would recommend against building a mast. I've never done it but it's not easy. 12 hours solid laminating with probably the same amount of prep time cutting cloth... not exactly my idea of fun! Plus there is the added factor that if you mess up you have wasted (x) pounds of carbon and resin that is probably then rendered useless unless you want a couple of skinny booms or tapered wing bars!

Start small... work up to the bigger more complicated things.

[ross_burkin]

I'm always looking out for broken carbon rigs but I seem to be very unlucky. An 800 mast broke at King George but I'm fairly sure that it went off for repair. I joined the 600 Yahoo mailing list and got a few replies but everyone wanted to sell me broken masts for quite a lot of money which takes the piss really. It's a BROKEN mast. I'll join the 700 group and see if I have any luck. If the people at skiffier clubs than I could keep an eye out for me it would be appreciated. If I could get it done for Tims jaw dropping £15 I would be over the moon! I was bitterly disappointed when the only mast at Weston that snapped was a tree trunk aluminum cat mast.

I would like to make a mast at some point, but maybe I need (much) more experience.

Phil,

No idea how big the hole is exactly. We took the pole out and had a good look down the tube. It looks cracked but it could just be where bits glass fiber join/meet. It sounds like it’s much nearer the bow end though. We taped up one end and stuck a hose in the tube and we could hear a small waterfall but I couldn't see water coming out of it. There was water in the tank after, and it wasn't exactly a trickle either.

The layout is almost spot on now which make life a lot easier.

I have to sort out my dagger board as well. Half the back edge is just bog and has no structure and it buzzes like a hornet’s nest almost all the time which is not fast!

How much will a rudder cost? Could I use the blade I have now?

Reading all this makes me realise that FS really needs a lot of TLC and I haven’t mentioned everything that needs to be done yet . Thinking about it, I would love to get him looking amazing and maybe try and get the prettiest boat award (obviously not this year). An achievement I (or anyone else) would be really proud of. The main aim is to get a bloody good, fully functioning, fully reliable 91' rules Cherub though which I almost have.

I need to get him into a garage over a long weekend. I will talk to my dad and see if he will wheel out the MGB that’s rusting away in there.

[Stuart Hopson]

**Top tips for sealing hatch covers**

Buy a decent sized tub of Vasaline. Put large amounts of this on the thread of the hatch everytime you put it on... also good for sealing bung holes.

Put loads of silicone underneath and around the hatch fitting (its amazing how much they leak!)

[smight at bbsc]

Sounds like a lot of work best of luck with it mate.

[ross_burkin]

**Top tips for sealing hatch covers**

Buy a decent sized tub of Vasaline. Put large amounts of this on the thread of the hatch everytime you put it on... also good for sealing bung holes.

Put loads of silicone underneath and around the hatch fitting (its amazing how much they leak!)

I've been advised against this. If dirt, sand and other stuff gets stuck in the Vaseline you don’t have a proper water tight seal and water just floods in. I can do this to the bigger inspection hatches as I never take them off. The small black ones at the back of the tank I use for general empting etc will have to be sealed properly and probably replaced.

[ross_burkin]

Someone has replied on the 700 yahoo group saying they have a 700 mast in 2 pieces that I can have! It's at Queen Mary so it not far away. Thats 'step 1' half completed.

[iain_christie]

I located a leek in the pole launch tube. Not good as this is a deck off job.

I disagree with you there.  Slice it up it, fry it in butter with some chopped bacon pieces, cover for 10 mins on a low heat and add a dash of coarsely ground black pepper at the end, and it will be lovely.  Enjoy.