To Infinity and Beyond...

[Neil C.]

As ever, these things take about 4 times as long as you think they will. Also, real life has a habit of getting in the way of the timetable. Nevertheless, I've finalised the design plan. It will be a little different from other boats - I took some inspiration from a First World War front line trench! More to follow   Spent the last couple of weeks sorting out the garage and workbench. 7 P's - proper planning and preparation prevents pi** poor performance. Have received my delivery of foam from Impag/Trident, got resin from SP and a load of glass cloth and other bits and pieces, so now about to get sticky! I'll try to remember to post the odd photo along the way.

[Neil C.]

Project Infinity continues to make slow but steady progress. This is a number of weeks out of date now, but I only just got round to transferring the photos from my camera onto the PC. Before sealing the new deck panels down I thought it would be a good idea to see what the structure under the false floor looked like, such as configuration of bulkheads, daggerboard case construction etc. There was a small gap between the edge of the false floor and the inside of the hull, just big enough to get my hand and a small digital camera into. I was amazed to find this little guy hiding on the central spine, just behind the daggerboard case! I don't know what his name is or what he's doing there, but the poor fella has been stowed away in there for the past 17 years. I've locked him back in again now, poor bloke.

[Neil C.]

The 2658 rebuild is coming along. She's now watertight, so officially a boat again. I still need to do a pair of side-deck / gunwale extensions to get her up to the 1.8m beam. I put her on the scales this afternoon and she's currently weighing in at 42kg with bowsprit installed. The question is how much weight do I need to allow for paint (she's down to bare glass / kevlar at the moment), and fittings? The remaining weight margin will be what I have to play with for rebuilding the gunwales.   

[Will_Lee]

We put in 12 kg of tubes, fittings, progrip and paint onto Atum. We could have saved loads by having no, less or thinner progrip alone.

[phil_kirk]

The top coat originally sprayed onto E-Numbers was about 1kg. if you roller then it will add a thicker coat. Probably at least double.

Primer/sub coats allow about another KG as this will on average be equivalent to a normal coat. 

from a bare painted hull to a measurement weight we put 10 kgs of fittings (including pole), sock, control lines and progrip.

[Neil C.]

Hmm... That all sounds a bit ominous. Think I might have to inject a few kilos of anti-matter into the hull somewhere!

[Hayley_Trim]

We used a similar amount of paint on EJ as Phil and Sarah did on E-numbers - perhaps a little bit less. We used a filler primer - much of which was then sanded off again - and then a couple of coats of colour. When we sprayed Born Slippy the first time we were much more stingy with the amount of paint because we knew we didn't have much margin and wanted to keep her to weight (had to stay true to the "mega mega light thing" philosophy), so the paint was very thin - transparent in places. Post the recent modifications BS got a much better coat as we had lost weight from elsewhere. With EJ we had much more margin and so gave her a good layer of colour, and of course with a racked boat you only have to worry about a much smaller area of hull. Pro-grip is a real killer on weight. You may find grippy paint a lighter alternative, putting pro grip only where it is essential and using the very thinnest stuff. Much may depend on how vociferous your crew is - I insisted on a certain amount of pro-grip to cushion the blows!

[simon_jones]

We decided that we would make things as easy as possible to sail, slipping on the boat and falling over is alot slower than an extra kilo of weight. Not that we have a weight problem, we could use an extra bit when the wind gets up. Does antimatter get hevier when wet?

[JimC]

Does antimatter get hevier when wet?

Antimatter must get lighter when it gets wet, because, as I understand it, it should violently explode, eliminating both the matter (the water) and anti matter in equal proportions. Whilst this will certainly save a great deal of weight, there is a small question mark in my mind about resultant structural integrity.

[Neil C.]

Had a pleasant afternoon drifting about at Derwent in the sunshine this afternoon. Then spent an hour or so getting sticky with 2658 in the garage this evening. Epoxy resin gets very gooey when the ambient temperature drops doesn't it?

[roland_trim]

Antimatter must get lighter when it gets wet, because, as I understand it, it should violently explode...
.... there is a small question mark in my mind about resultant structural integrity.

I think we'd be wondering where the universe had gone rather than the boat?

[Neil C.]

I need to finalise the position of the rack tubes on Lost in the next 24 hours or so. In terms of aesthetics, they look about right with the upper surface of the tube flush with the horizontal extension of the plane of the old side-decks (which are now mostly missing). However, when I look at photos of other older boats which have been racked (Cheese, Suicide Blonde) mostly the racks are positioned a bit higher than that, with the lower surface of the rack tube flush with the side-deck line extension or even a bit higher.

A higher rack position will mean a bigger step up/back to get onto it when trapezing. But on the other hand I guess it will keep the rack out of the water for a bit longer as the boat heels over. Is there anything else I'm missing here?

[phil_kirk]

consideration 1. If there is a reasonable gap between the rack and the gunnel you may want to use the gunnel as a step or possibly trappeeze of the gunnel. If the rack is too high you may not be able to get much of your foot onto the gunnel without wiring very high.  The modern boats have quite a gap between the rack and the gunnel so the racks can afford to be a little higher without stooping you from getting your feet comfortably on the gunnel.

If the racks are quite close to the gunnel as in Suicide it may not be possible to trapeeze off the gunnel anyway.  No problem.

Consideration 2. With the racks higher can you still get control lines into cleats and cleat the jib (if using a self tacker?
The rack needs to be a few cm's lower than the line through the cleat to the last turning block.