A cunning plan for Mr Cheapseats...

My rumination on the tools on my boat got me thinking a bit about MY want list...

A small real drill press would be seriously some kind of handy just in the day to day cruising gig, but for someone who is about to build a mast and do all the rigging, it becomes some kind of a no-brainer!

For instance... The new rig will be supported with synthetic rigging and the stay adjustment will be with deadeyes (talk about salty!). The required deadeyes and thimbles available for sale these days are at a price point to make me (Mr Cheapseats) one seriously unhappy camper. Even so, buying the line and deadeyes still comes out a bit less than a standard wire/Sta-lok/turnbuckle rig... 


On the other hand, if I could fabricate my own deadeyes, it would bring down the cost by a huge factor. Since a small drill press like the Grizzly "Baby" would make this a fairly easy operation and buying it would save me at a minimum five hundred dollars or so it starts looking like a cunning plan of note!

What's in the tool locker... or we used to have a quarter berth

I've had several readers asking about what tools I have on board that allows me the freedom to take on various projects like building the odd spar, dinghy, or self steering gear when needful or the urge takes hold...

Those with a low boredom threshold may want to be elsewhere but here is the current tool locker contents.

A couple of claw hammers, a mallet, a set of wood chisels (but I really do need a two-inch slick), several planes, a few Surforms, two Japanese saws (I really don't know how I survived before I got these!), a set of metric and Imperial wrenches & sockets, a half dozen crescent wrenches, various pliers, three vise grips (almost always the wrong tool for any job), a couple of sets of hex keys, a couple of dozen screw drivers (I'm pretty sure they breed!), files, rasps, a couple of Leatherman clones (always the wrong tool for any job), a hand drill (and I really do need a brace), two crow bars, a small hydraulic jack, prop puller, tubing cutter, big hack saw, small hack saw, a tap kit, Nicro press tool, a biggish vise mounted on a board, and a big bag of clamps which is not nearly big enough as you never ever have enough clamps! Plus, lots of seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time bought on sale tools that do come in handy from time to time.

On the power tool front...

A sabre saw (but I lust after this one),  circular saw, Dewalt cordless circular saw (which gets used 90% of the time and is simply wonderful), router (I'd really like a second smaller one as well), Fein tool (gets used every job!), Fein tool clone, two Dewalt cordless drills, a cordless Dremel, a RotoZip tool (the jury is still out on whether this is worth the space), four sanders (1/4 sheet, Six inch, 1/2 sheet, and Seven inch and, of course, the Fein), power plane, angle grinder, small DeWalt shop vac (really needful), ... Any of which run quite happily with our Honda 2000i.

Which is all really pretty basic stuff and looking over the list, the only things missing that would make a real difference is some sort of mini table saw and drill press arrangement and an electric file... Well, as long as we are wishing, a bench top plane would bring a smile, as would a small milling machine... With a small milling machine I could (dare I say it?) rule the world!

I also have a pretty deep electrical tool box but I think those contents are for another day...

A neat wheelie-dealie... Swirl

Just my opinion, but a lot of folks take the wrong tack on choosing ever more complicated and expensive systems for their boats when they should be looking at how they can simplify.

These days there is a lot of great design effort devoted to making life in the third world better and just maybe if we were to look at what is available on that front we'd be a whole lot better off.

For instance... Take a look at the Swirl which is a means of moving water easily between places with the added bonus of also being a way of washing clothes. Not such a bad idea! There are a lot of spots that would be great places to cruise but being able to move the boat (or dinghy) up to a dock and get water is just not doable. I remember being someplace where the nearest water was up the beach and just a mile down the road and after ferrying a dozen jerry cans I realized there was a whole new meaning to the word... PAIN! Something like the Swirl on the other hand, would have made it pretty close to just a reasonable stroll!

On the other hand you can take the western approach and buy a washing machine (Splendide 2000S for $1500 for instance) and a watermaker (between $3000-$10,000) with a means of powering it, and so on... Most of the folks we have come across on our travels that have built in washers seem to have a lot of expensive problems with them and still wind up doing their laundry in a bucket or taking it to someone on shore to do for them. All of a sudden a bucket or wheelie-dealie starts to make a little bit of sense?

Guns on boats...

I'm not a huge fan of the whole ideas of guns on boats for the most part (zombie apocalypse situations excepted of course) but this steampunkish bit of art that Boing Boing hipped me to by a Colorado based artist Jonathon Albertico might make me waver in my thinking...



Seriously way cool!

The mast and guitar conundrum...

The real hassle of building a boat or any big project of a nautical variety is simply to get started. There are always a million reasons not to get started, but once you do, it all gets pretty simple...

Getting started is the HARD PART!

Case in point... The new mast! For years I have had a certain idea about a way of building a mast that would be light, strong and the sort of price that would make my oh so frugal Mom give me a big thumbs up. Of course, like a lot of good ideas that no one has actually done, there are a whole lot of reasons that many will give on why it should not be done that way... We, being something of a herd animal when all is said and done. So what it comes down to is a whole lot of pressure to go with the same old same and tried and true. What makes it worse is half the pressure to do the same old same is generated by "yours truly" as I find myself on one hand knowing the idea will work but then having attacks of doubt and the whole if-is-was-such-a-good-idea-why-isn't-everyone-doing-it sort.

So I have been doing the running in circles route the last few weeks, jumping from a semi-traditional mast construction to semi-traditional strip planked mast construction to a what the hell maybe I should just buy some aluminum pipe to the mast I really want to make and back again, and again and again! Exactly the reason boats don't get built sort of stasis!

The traditional mast in wood has a lot to say for itself as it is strong, easy to build, and fairly cheap, but it is also heavy in the grand scheme of things and while a monohull is not as sensitive to weight as a multihull, it is a real factor when all is said and done. The semi-traditional strip plank or birds mouth is more work and while lighter than your basic box mast is still heavier than it could be and they both have issues that make me a little uncomfortable. Which leaves my untried adaptation of the old Gougeon/Gold Coast wing mast construction as possibly lighter, stronger, cheaper and with a very real possibility of being a complete failure (spelled mast fall down go boom)... Yeah, choices are hard.

So what to do? Well, one way I use to decide stuff is by simply working it out using the guitar algorithm. Traditional wood mast means I have to give up a guitar or two... Strip planked or aluminum mast means I can keep my guitars while my adapted Gougeon mast design means (if it does not fall down and go boom) I can get a couple of guitars to add to the quiver. Now put that way, what do you think I'm going to do?

Which brings us to the red/black conundrum... Should I get this in red?

Or Black?

Jamais deux sans trois...

I'm not exactly sure where the line gets drawn between superstition and common sense on boats... I do know that, when push comes to shove, that leaving on a Friday is not something I am all too comfortable with.

Superstition aside, I do know that Murphy and his law are a very real part of sailing and have a sure knowledge that trouble tends to travel in threes...

Good reading for the zombie apocalypse...

 

Yeah I know I should be working on the new rig and telling you all about it, but it's important to keep up with other priorities as well!

For instance, I've been waiting for the next installment of "The Walking Dead" series which has all sorts of helpful hints for those in the know, as well as being a good read for those  who like that sort of thing.

Another source of great info is over at "The Oatmeal" which has an excellent (if simplified) breakdown on how your basic zombie apocalypse can get out of hand in a big way... Good stuff!

Of course, for those readers who are still of the whole zombie apocalyse is just silly horror movie fodder camp, and just don't BELIEVE... Here is rock solid proof that there really are living dead and zombies!

Latitude 38 and the bulkhead test...

 

Latitude 38 is easily the best sailing magazine around. Which is not to say it does not get thrown against the bulkhead from time to time (their pissing puppy fawning over the Tom Perkins ego exercise MF comes to mind) but a whole lot less than CW and Sail... What more to say, other than it's FREE and you should be reading it!

So what kind of rig is it...

I recently spent far too much time listening to several folks go on and on (and on) over what a cat schooner was as opposed to a cat ketch and so on... Boring!

The new rig for "So It Goes" is a cutter, which is pretty obvious, it having a couple of foresails and all. Where it gets tricky is where the main comes in. Some might call it a Batwing, while others looking at how it all goes together would classify it as a gaff variant with an extra sail panel above the gaff. My take is that as the top horizontal batten has gaff jaws and the boat is more or less rigged as a gaff, except without the peaking stuff, you might as well call it a gaff or some such. Or not.

Well as far as I'm concerned... I'm simply going to call it... Simon!

The new rig... Ongoing

For those readers who forget what a Lapworth designed CAL 34 looks like with it's normal rig...

 

The new Simplicity rig, however, looks like this...

Now for a comparison here is what the two rigs look like on top of each other...

As you can see the mast is quite a bit shorter (seven feet shorter to be precise) and is now a cutter rig. Even with the shorter mast the working sail area is more than the standard CAL 34 with main and jib... Neat!

Monday we will answer the question... "What kind of rig is this anyway?"