Teapot Trophy & Friday Evening Workshop
Dear member,
Two reports are attached of our latest club events as follows:
TEAPOT trophy
This was a fantastically good day at Abbey Meads in beautiful sunshine and temperatures that are more like summer and autumn. The disappointment was the wind, which although basically westerly came and went, varying in both direction and strength and at most there was not much of it, approximately 5 mph.
Before we started racing we had to raise the southern landing stage on the outer end, with a new design instigated by John Townsend. Basically instead of steel pins going through holes in both landing stage and post, which is always tricky to locate and cold for the guy in the dinghy in wintertime.
Instead there is a temporary block and tackle connected to the post to raise the landing stage and this can be done from the shore. Once the landing stage has been pulled up to the correct level it is then tied up to the posts. There was a bit of a learning curve and the need to drill several holes through the post, but the end result looks very practical for future level adjustments.
As well as resetting the course there were one or 2 big patches of weed, which were cleared to leave the course weed free except for the odd strand. Peter Dunne did a grand job in practice by finding all of these patches for me to remove!
He also did well in the racing finishing higher than he had expected and winning Race 3. Four of us sailed 8 races and by 2:30 PM when we packed up there was virtually no wind at all. The results and a photographic record are attached.
The conditions suited UP, which had a new BOOT, (the first since the original design in 1991!) with new winch and rudder servo which reduced the displacement by 110 g and also lowered the centre of gravity of all of the radio gear, and the whole boat by 8 mm. The conditions also suited Peter Dunne’s STARKERS, which was very quick off the wind and Peter was able to get a consistent set of scores enough to win the event by a massive margin of handicap points, 21!
FRIDAY EVENING WORKSHOP – last Friday 2018-10-26
This workshop was all about MAKING and I demonstrated how to make the master plugs from which moulds can be taken to make the mouldings needed for hulls, fins and rudders. In particular I was showing the latest plug for Dave Hollom’s latest special sections for small boats like Footy’s. The method showed a reasonably accurate way of making a plug half of the chord thickness, which is only 1.35 mm thick. This was made out of 2 layers of 1/32 inch plywood and then sanded down to match a drawing showing the glue lines etc relative to the section. Whilst this method is shown in the MYA Handbook 2009-2012 this needed a bit more care because of the thinness of the final product. See the attached photographs and notes.
The second part of the workshop was run by Nick Royse sharing the design method and the construction of his wooden IOM, cutaway to show how the planks go together and the reinforcement etc. This was very interesting as I have never blanked a wooden hull except using diagonal planking and doing it longitudinally in the traditional way is not as difficult as you might imagine and can be done quickly. This is ideal for someone who has the idea to make a special design to suit their requirements etc.
The next FEW is on 7th December and will feature RIGS of ALL SORTS.
Cheers, Roger
