Monday, September 7, 2009
The Mystery boat — Launched!!!
A few months ago I bought a little sailing boat for a bargain. It was in need of some tender loving care, which in my case always takes longer than it should. Anyway, I put in inspection ports, did some fibreglassing and little repairs and made a mast (from bamboo). Then I went sailing!
There really wasn’t any wind, unfortunately. I did do some racing and came fully last, which was as expected. An interesting feature of this boat is that it’s only 0.9m wide. That’s pretty skinny. Add to that the deeply V’d bottom and you get a very weight sensitive boat (the pc version of tippy). A lot of fun though and I realy like the lateen sail. Not very common here in NZ. Now for some pictures:
Sorry about the dirty sail. I’m lazy, what can I say. (There are some detail shots here.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Windsurfer pics
Here are a few of the pictures I made of my windsurfing rig. It was getting a bit dark so expect some better ones soon. I’m also working on a page for the main website, so stay tuned.
A front view of the rig lying flat on the grass.
Samuel holding the sail up (the camera thinks it’s too dark though!).
A closeup of the front of the wishbone/boom.
Anyone can do it :-)
Friday, August 28, 2009
Woohoo, test sail!
Well I finished the windsurfer rig, and took it out for a spin today. We never realised how windy it was until we got to the lake! Good thing it’s a pretty small sail.
Everything held and the sail performed great. Me, not so much :-) Windsurfing is hard. I got a couple of good runs, one time a seriously fast reach. Very exciting, and then you fall off. I found out I can’t sail downwind at all in this kind of wind. So I just go on a reach/upwind sort of thing, fall off, sit on the board letting it drift downwind some. And then sail back again.
Did I mention the water is freezing cold? It is.
There was one unfortunate mishap. I suddenly couldn’t sail the thing anymore. So I drifted in to shore. Turns out the tail fin broke off :-( Completely gone. It floats so I’m hoping it will turn up. That was the end of windsurfing for today.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
What I’ve been up to.
Been a bit quiet here lately! The last week I’ve had practice exams at school. All stuffed into the first 3 days so no time to study much. Anyway that’s all done now.
Last week finally finished a little project with my brother, a small electric power paddlewheel boat, for in the pool. Great fun! Will post some more on it later.
Other than that I’m still working on my fibreglass boat project, and also on my windsurfer. It’s got a homemade rig made from bamboo and an old laser sail. And it works.
Expect some pictures soon!