- Construction as simple as possible
- Easy to setup
- Trimmable
- Able to lower the mast easy and quickly without detaching downhaul, sail and halyard
- Able to easily remove sail, yard and boom in one package for dry storing
Alu pocket ship
A blog about building the CLC Boats Pocketship in Aluminum.
Sunday 30 July 2023
New Rig
Sunday 14 May 2023
Minor and major changes (less is more)
In a previous post I already told that “tinkering” is at least as important as sailing. Probably the sailing is instrumental to the tinkering. How else would I know what to tinker 😇.
First of all I would like to get rid of the boom gallows. It is a lot of structure used in a small spot of the boat. In the Netherlands a kind of removable support (called mik or schaar) is more common and in a aluminum boat that is easy to make. In addition I had to install an extra line to keep the boom up during rigging (couldn’t find the right English word).
So, nice light weather, time for a test and I wished that I didn’t invite Elsa because it didn’t go very well. The main sheet got tangled in the aft clamps and the jib sheet ditto around the air scoops. Now the the tangling jib sheets bothered me every trip so that had to be “cured”. The main sheet problem was solved quite easy. And again aluminum is a bless: an angle grinder and a welding machine dit the job in no time.
Oh I forgot to mention that up until now I was able to re-use parts and use scrap aluminum to make these changes.
Friday 3 February 2023
More of a builder than a sailor
Maybe I promised to have some more footage of being on the water with the Narhwal. I have to read the earlier posts to confirm that 😉.
In the mean time I can bring up lots of excuses why I havent been on the water more often. I guess cold feet is one of them, however I also discovered that I am more of a builder than a sailor.
Findings that need modification 😇
Although I wasn't as much as possible on the water I sailed enough to get to know my ship better.
I discovered (as most Pocketship owners did) that the boat can be a bit leeward. The common applied solution is to trim the mast a bit back wich in my opinion doesn't effect much.
Secondly, and that is a common Pocketship characteristic as well, is that the Pocketship has a relative slow turn rate for such a small vessel. In close hauled courses after tacking it is recomended not to tension the jib to fast as the boat slows down considerable and the rudder effectivity is decreasing. Adding up to the leeward tendency it is a bit tricky to keep the boat close hauled after tacking. I found out that in Strong winds (6 Bft) the effect is even worse loosing control completely bearing away up until a broad reach.
Now for the slow turn rate I guess the model of the rudder is one of the culprits. Of course it fits esthetically the nice classic lines and it ommits the necessity of a complex tilting mechanism.
Another reasson for the slow turning probably is the long keel streching over almost the entire lenght of the hull. Now the keel was an eyesore allready for a longer time and for several reassons: First off all it causes some trailer issues. As most standard trailers can accept V-shaped hulls, when it comes to even a shallow keel, the trailers have to be modified. I did a lot of tinkering to my trailer and even modified the front of the keel to be able to get the boat on the trailer smooth and easy.
First major modification (plan)
Thursday 27 January 2022
Some late summer short trips
Fortunately we still had some opportunities to sail a few short local trips before winter storage. The boat is now on the trailer on the driveway under a cover. I removed the wooden parts which are in the garage now.
Below some impressions. I also (trial)camped in our local “marina” (large word for what is is here 😉).
Wednesday 26 January 2022
Finally: Sails
One of the few things that I didn’t make myself were the sails. This is a complete different profession and needs different tools as well.
Fortunately we have a very good sail maker - specialised in small home built sailboats - in the neighbourhood (Groningen).
Rigging was easy and I was very pleased with the result.
Mast boomgallows bowsprit boom and gaff
What is there to say about making the wooden spars of the boat. Probably a lot with the risk of getting too much into technical details.
Apart from the mast it was quite straight forward woodworking. Shaping it needs appropriate tools and one power tool I lacked for a while was router.
The mast was a bit more complex. Not only because of the accurate routing but also the gluing with epoxy needs a fair bit of attention. My main concern was to get the mast as straight as possible. Surprisingly the mast came out straight right away despite of the separate parts being crooked. I guess 2 (or 4) times crooked = straight…
Galley box
And of course I needed a Galley Box...
Inspired by Roger Barnes and many others on youtube I started to work out some ideas and tips: Compact fitting in the far end of the bunks, a wind breaker for the stove, constructed so that pans and kettle fits exactly without the risk of falling of the stove.
And naturally it had to be made of aluminum 😏. As with the boat all similarities in construction with wood cease and so I had to make my own “inventions”.
I Started with the size of my kitchen gear and the stove. I absolutely wanted an alcohol stove as this is save, not pressurised, no gaslines, (almost) no moving parts in the stove and easily obtainable. Only disadvantage is that it has a bit lower burning temperature.
I also wanted my stove stable and easy to control and those types are a bit more rare. Most alcohol stoves are very small and only can be extinguished by putting a lid on. The bigger stoves are usually quite expensive. I found a very interesting stove in China.