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 😉).
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.
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…
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.
As I mentioned in a earlier post I had to consider additional measures to prevent water draining into the cabin. I had a piece of pvc (?) from an anti wearing mat for furniture. That neither welds nor glues very easy so after some fitting and testing I riveted to the hatch. The hatch now is complete rain resistant.
It now works very fine and charges a AGM battery of around 50AH. I mainly use this for the cabin lights, to charge my cell phone and tablet and for navigation lights.
As you can see in the pictures below the LED navigation lights creates i nice "christmas treee" 😀
The top light was a bit more work and creativity. I decided not to insert a cable into the mast during the build of the mast. I thought that would be possible afterwards as well. (which proved correct)
In the picture above you also see that I made some changes in the rigging as well. I plan to paint the top of the mast white in the winter.
