The Arctic Tern Project

Volume 6                           Issue No. 9                       September 2009

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Short and Sweet

Ok, another month spent resting.  Well not really; lots of stuff got done just not much of it on the actual AT project.  The beginning of the month revolved around the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival; preparation, travel, attendance, recuperation.  Great show; lots of beautiful boats; fine company.  The highlight for me was meeting up with some folks who’ve been following this project on-line; Bob Wheeler and Dennis & Bonnie Lancaster.  Bob, I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to visit your boat.  Dennis, your boat looked great!  Next year, I’ll be there for sure (fingers crossed).  I also had the honour of co-presenting a talk at the festival with friend and colleague Larry Cheek (http://lawrencewcheek.com/).  Larry wrote a book called “The Year of the Boat” that features yours truly and this project in Chapter 13.  Our talk was on…wait for it…Perfectionism.  The usual response from friends and family when I disclosed this topic was three seconds of stunned silence followed by peals of laughter with me standing there going “What?  What?”  Anyway, on to this month’s stuff.

Chock Patterns

Although I didn’t pick up any nice bronze bits at the PT festival I was sorely tempted by a set of “in-the-rail” chocks made by the Port Townsend Foundry.  Nice pieces, I just wasn’t convinced they were the right size and there was only two available (and I needed four).  So, upon my return, I dug out some bronze casting patterns I’d started a while back and brought then to completion.  I hope to cast these soon.

Anchor Stowage and Deployment

Ok.  The next step that really should be done is the attachment of the rubrails and toerails.  Before I do this however, I wanted to get a handle on what’s happening at the pointy end of the boat.  I need to figure out what I’m doing for anchor stowage and deployment (because it may affect the forward ends of the toerails).  Long, long, ago I’d bought an 11 lbs. Delta anchor as my anchor of choice for this boat.  I like the delta because it works well in most bottom conditions and has no moving parts.  It’s simple and strong.  The only problem is that it’s a pain to stow.  I came up with a through-the-deck stowage plan I thought would work and came up with a pattern for a bronze casting but there were still some issues around line-snagging and toe-mangling that I hadn’t totally ironed out.  In addition, I still had to come up with some sort of roller arrangement off the bow for the rode.  I thought about a bow roller that could stow the anchor as well but didn’t like the idea of eleven pounds of galvanized steel hanging 10 inches off the bow on some butt-ugly stainless anchor roller.  I revisited the through-the-deck stowage plan using a broad plank of pine for a mock-up.

 

 

Too big for a solid casting in bronze but maybe I could make something up out of a combination of wood and bronze.

Bowsprit

I’d long coveted bowsprits for their beauty and as a convenient and sturdy device for stowing and deploying an anchor.  The only problem is that the Arctic Tern doesn’t have one (at the least the Marconi rigged version that I was building).  I also don’t like the idea of the entire rig depending on a bowsprit for its integrity.  Lots of forces there if the forestay is run to the sprit and if the sprit breaks down comes the rig (at least sometimes).  The other thing that I’ve been turning over in my mind for some time is the possibility of using an asymmetrical spinnaker as a secret weapon on those broad reaches in light winds.  I want something to jazz-up the downwind sailing.  Asymmetrical spinnakers work best (I hear) when the tack is attached to a sprit that reaches out a couple of feet in front of the forestay.  Production ‘glass boats are being fitted (and retro-fitted) with unstayed, removable sprits (usually aluminum or carbon fibre) expressly for flying an asymmetrical spinnaker.  What about a permanent, unstayed, wooden sprit for this same purpose as well as for anchor stowage/deployment?  I’d had this idea before and had mocked up a sprit to get an idea of how it would shake down.  It looked great but I had this nagging feeling that I was flying in the face of tradition.  An unstayed sprit purely for the purpose of anchor handling and the occasionally spinnaker set was getting perilously close to ornamentation, especially if the sprit looked exactly like a traditional one albeit minus the whisker and bob stays.  Despite this I took another run at it; this time scaling down the sprit somewhat.

 

 

Hmmm…ok but can I hang an anchor off this?  I manhandled the Delta out onto the sprit and determined “nope” that anchor is just too big and clunky.  Back to the drawing board.  I revisited the whole anchor question and decided I’d change anchors.  I ordered a small Fortress Aluminum/Magnesium model of the Danforth style that I’m going to try to mount flat on deck using chocks.  We’ll see.  But I still wanted a sprit for the asymmetrical spinnaker.  What about a removable aluminum/carbon fibre unit just like the modern boys are using?  I mocked this up with a cardboard tube.

 

 

Hmmm…that might work if I can move it far enough off-center to clear the headstay fitting and the foredeck cleat but it means fabricating some complicated mounting gear.  I dunno.  I think removable/retractable is the way to go I just don’t know how I’m going to accomplish it and I still need to work out a bow roller for the anchor rode.

Next Month

More chin scratching on the bowsprit topic I think.