4 – Accident With Local Consequences / steve mothing

there was an unnatural amount of dust gathering on boat, and we finally had wind for the first time in months so we tried to take the boat out today. water was the coldest i have ever felt the gold coast.


session finished 20mins later after I chernobylled another gantry and push rod.



nick took a short vid of steve sailing:


Click me for more photos of Steve.

spreader construction booring.

while the world is ablaze with wing rigs, I just did a booring sketch woot to answer the question below.

Hi Mark,

...The cut file you provided included spreaders, but judging from your email you haven’t converted these into a finished product previously? My plan is to tip the spreaders with glass to stop the wear from the stays, and to add uni down the sides to cover the core and to give it some more strength. The Bladerider spreaders have a protrusion on the spreaders that fits into the fitting on the mast that you sent a photo of. I’ll search in the Ronstan catalogue for something similar to the fitting that John Illet uses on his spreaders, but in the absence of a ready made solution, I’ll just cast something in glass....

Yeah, I had every intention of making myself carbon spreaders, but I had an alloy set lying about and I have been using them ever since.
The cabon cut file for the spreaders is still sitting in the garage and may get finished some day.

Attached is a drawing about how I was going to do it.
The key is:

• Remove the core from the tips of the spreaders.
• Lay up some solid fiberglass (not carbon - glass is harder wearing, alternating passes of double bias or woven roving is ideal) plate to 5mm thick
• Cut the fiberglass plate to shapes that will fit inside the decored area.
• Glue the fibreglass plate in and then lay some 200 uni carbon (UD-C) over the top of the cut part over the length of the spreader arms.
• The spreader base can be made the same way, cut an E glass part that is approx 60x20, with a radius and a pin hole where it will attach to the mast.
• The UD-C should lap over the top of the protruding part of the E Glass plate.
• Ronstan part is RF917 with the pulley drilled out

I haven't tested this laminate yet, but seeing how light on the prowler spreaders are I think it should work. As soon as the UD-C has cured you should have a good idea if it is strong enough.

Cheers

Mark.