Bethnal Green Marine - first rig gets wet (very wet)

[roland_trim]

So we finished.

Completing a small cruise on the Medway in light winds has never been so fun. As said in another post.

~100 hours intesive work £0
8m2 carbon,  18m2 sail cloth and resin £500
Finishing a race with a mast, boom and complete set of sails made by you and the misus PRICELESS

Some major re-adjustements in rig tension and a new track glue is needed, but first indications are that the rig is strong enough and exhibits the right bendy characteristics.

During the race the track came off in stages and was finally peeled off on return to shore - one up from no halliards just glue the sail to the mast! Obviously the lesson learnt is to use a 2 pac not SkikaFlex. The shrouds also decided to not stay with the spreaders, but we will fix that by using a rig setup similar to Beans (she is Born Slippy's sister boat after all).

Hayley deserves a sainthood for not getting angry at the first bear away, as the kite hoisted through the  spreaders on both sides of the mast in a figure of 8. The photos are of the first hoist before the start, so recognising the phsical impossibility she demured as I issued the "bin bin bin" command and pulled the boat into a very cold medway. 5 minutes, a new shroud layout and some rig tesnion later we returned the boat upright. The "no holes" mast floats and makes this operation almost easy (not). After completing a "hoist kite from water with with boat in irons, tack and bear away" manouver Hayley landed on the wire and we played catchup with the rest of the fleet. Downwind we were visibly catching, the lack of any rig settings upwind (no rig tension, no kicker) made the race more of a cruise.

 

[Tim Noyce]

Amazing story! What track are you using? Did you key it in with 60 grit and then acetone it all back before applying the sikaflex? If you can get hold of some, the stuff to use is a 2 part adhesive called Plexus. It's incredibly smelly but ridiculously sticky. It's what Selden use for their tracks, we've had some at work and it is very good.

[ross_burkin]

SWEET!  I'll be popping over to yours in due course and have a good look at these sails (assuming they're not at Wilsonion). Are the Trims the first Cherubers to have an entirely home made rig, including kite?

[JimC]

Are the Trims the first Cherubers to have an entirely home made rig, including kite?

Not by about thirty or forty years I would have thought...

[ross_burkin]

Well do they join a very small club?

[Phil Alderson]

Good work, I hope that there are some pictures and a write up coming to the website soon.

[JimC]

Well do they join a very small club?

Certainly few members in recent years... probably best not to worry about firsts too much for that sort of thing - all sorts of things we'd never consider making now used to have to be fabricated in the days before Holt and Ronstan... My first Cherub, which was early 60s vintage, had all sorts of home made blocks on!

Lets just say well done, hope you enjoyed making the rig and hope you enjoy using it even more:-)

[dave_ching]

very nice Roland and Hayley.