Friday, September 04, 2015

Messing About with ‘Pike’ – Part 4





An owner of a sailing boat can have a considerable amount of fun tinkering with her, and the usual reasons for doing so are to improve her or make her more suitable for the owner’s use. He may want to improve her performance, her condition, or her interior, etc.. Sadly, some owners think they can improve their boat, whereas by straying from the original design, they unknowingly do the opposite.

‘Pike’ is such a boat. A previous owner added a boom and a tiller extension, both of which I have removed. The boom made reefing the sail difficult and the extension was totally unnecessary. Someone has also changed her rudder into a semi-lifting one. In my opinion none of these changes improved the original boat. With regard to the rudder, it has a number of strings for raising and lowering the bottom half of the blade. There are pieces of metal attached either side for aligning and locking parts together. These additions interfere with the flow of water, causing drag. The only advantage of this arrangement is being able to reduce the rudder’s draught for sailing in shallow water; at the same time the daggerboard has to be raised.

I’ve added an anchor, but it does not adversely affect the performance, or interfere with the functioning of the boat, and it is not fixed to the hull.

Recently I exchanged like for like: The stern buoyancy bag had a slow leak; therefore I replaced it with a new one.

As far as I can tell, ‘Pike’ is ready for her next sail; except the nearside wheel of her road trailer does not run freely. I shall have to investigate the cause and put the matter right.

Link

Crewsaver Buoyancy Bag

1 comment:

Unknown said...

She looks great, Bill. I cant wait to read about your next sail! I think next week is looking better?