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Thread: Getting Ready for SHTP 2021

  1. #251
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    For anyone who happens to want to follow along next week, or possibly the week after that..

    I'll be sharing the Wildcat's location at the MapShare website: https://share.garmin.com/WildcatfOfLochAwe

    Password: Hanalei
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  2. #252
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    OK, this morning I bought the emergency mast tubing. The stuff comes in 20 foot lengths, so I had the guy at Alan Steel lay a 20 footer out on the floor and block one end with his foot. Then I pushed it up. Easy-Peasy. No problem at all, MUCH easier than pushing up my sheaf standards. So I got 3, 6' 4" sections of the tubing, and two 1' sections for sleeves. That will give me a 19 foot mast, which is plenty tall enough to make a headstay that will accommodate the Piper jib making that shroud angle at the top of the mast only slightly less than 10 deg. .

    Have y'all seen the poly-tarp sails that some of the uber-cheap small boat guys make? I made one for the skerry, just to try it out and it actually worked OK. I mean, it's not as nice, and nowhere near as long-lived as a dacron sail, but the lugsail I made was good enough for me to get out sailing and try out the whole lugsail concept thing. Some pretty big sails have been made out of polyester tarps.

    http://www.polysail.com/article.htm

    Y'all think that polytarp won't work as a sail?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8x9ZdcxPnk

    So in the interests of not spending much $$, but having some sort of semi-sturdy triangle of material that I can hoist behind the E-mast, using a spinnaker pole as a boom, I got an 8 x 10 medium weight tarp at OSH last night, a roll of carpet tape, and a roll of duct tape. I have an inexpensive grommet setter at home. This is NOT a proper sail for the boat. I'm not making a North 3-DL here.... I'm making an 8 x 15 triangle, with reinforced corners, and a folded-over luff and leech. It's held together with carpet tape, a once-around-the-edges (and the middle seam) with my sewing machine and then covered the exposed sticky carpet tape with white duct tape. Carpet tape is insanely strong and sticky . It sticks to the poly material incredibly tenaciously.

    I forgot that it was double-sided. There's a paper backing that you peel off. If you leave the backing on, the carpet tape won't stick to itself. If you peel it off and then try to stick two layers together...well, let's say that you don't get second chances.

    This is crude. However, it's "sail area", it cost me $20 for the tarp and $10 for the carpet tape, and $7 for the duct tape. Hopefully it will never get used.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  3. #253
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    OK, step one...go to hardware store and buy a tarp. THINK ABOUT YOUR GEOMETRY before you buy it. Get a roll of carpet tape, and a roll of duct tape. You can get white tarps, but then why not make something unique and different? Carpet tape is SUPER sticky on both sides. It comes with a paper backing. Lay it down with the backing on, and when you're ready, peel it off. It will stick to the polytarp. In fact, if you tap it down with a rubber mallet and let it sit, you CAN'T pull it back up again. Once you stick a piece of carpet tape to another piece of carpet tape with the backing off, you are committed

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    Anyway, lay out your tarp on some clean, more-or-less-flat surface. Get out your tape measure, and some string, and mark your corners and edges.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  4. #254
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    OK, cut your "hypotenuse"....aka "the leech". That will leave you with a "leftover" triangle, if you have thought carefully about your tarp size. You can also just buy a bigger tarp and not have to use the "back half" triangle. If you buy a bigger tarp, you can use the excess cut-off for corner patches, which you can sew down on your home sewing machine. Believe it or not, a home sewing machine with sailmakers thread will sew through 3 layers of 8 mil polytarp without batting an eye. You have to help pull it through the machine, as the stuff is slippery but aside from that it's a no=brainer. If you do that, then you don't have to set grommets in the corners, you can stitch in some long loops of webbing.

    Anyway, I saved a few $$ buy thinking about the geometry of my triangle and buying a smaller tarp.

    Now, line everything up and trim your leech so it's at least sort of nice and straight.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  5. #255
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    CUT OFF the pre-grommetted sides and the reinforced corners. I know...I know. Just trust me. They will rip out in minutes. They WILL rip out, so just cut off those edges.

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    Now you have your basic triangle laid out on your driveway. You're going to use carpet tape to reinforce the corners and the edges, and then fold over the tarp material to make strong edges. The polytarp is kind of stretchy, so it will curve into some sort of vague foil when it's set up on the mast, but if you want to get fancy and build in some luff round, and put a dart in, at the tack to give it some shape, feel free.

    Make corner patches from carpet tape. Just cut a bunch of strips that look about right. Put down the first one. Then strip off the backing. Put down the next one. It'll stick like mad to the first piece. Peel the backing off the second piece and put down the third one, and so on until you have something that looks like a corner reinforcement. Do all three corners.

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    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  6. #256
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    DO NOT put carpet tape all the way out to the edges of the "~sail~". Why? Because you're going to fold over the edges, at least once and twice (to make a three-thickness edge) is even better. So keep your carpet tape reinforced corners a couple of inches away from the edges.

    Now, if you haven't peeled the backing off the piece of tape which is closest to the edge you can sort of dry-fit a fold, here. Binder clips can help keep 3-4 feet of the folds in place, while you decide if everything looks copasetic, or not.

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    Get your corners looking some sort of neat and then work your way down each edge, folding over the edges and putting down a piece of carpet tape to hold the foldovers in place, every foot or two. When everything looks some sort of straight....and remember, you are making a CRUDE, GET HOME SAIL, not a race-winner, then strip the backing off of the little pieces of carpet tape. Lay on a full-length of carpet tape, and try, if you can, to get one length of tape to cover the whole edge, to lock down that edge.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  7. #257
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    Do NOT...repeat do NOT peel the backing off of the tape you just put down on the edge, if you want to sew all the way around your "~sail~". If you are patient, you can actually run a line of zig-zag pretty much all the way around the sail, right through the carpet tape and the polytarp. My little home sewing machine did it. However, if you pull the backing off and reveal the super-sticky underside, you won't be sewing anything. IN FACT, it's probably fine without sewing, but hey...if you can, why not? You probably can call it good at this point with the carpet tape.

    If you did what I did and put two pieces together, you'll need to tape both sides of that seam. Hey, why not sew it with a line of zig-zag, while you're at it? I did.

    Me, I turned the "~sail~" over and ran a layer of carpet tape down the OTHER side of the luff and the leech. I didn't pull off the backing paper.

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    I actually did this and THEN I sewed around the edges, and sewed that middle seam in the body of the sail. I had some carpet tape left over, so I laid on a "strap" just above the pre-grommetted edge on the foot of the sail, just for some reinforcement. I left the grommets on the foot because I'll fly this sail loose-footed, so those grommets won't pull out. However, a reinforcing strap along the foot can't be a bad thing, right?
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  8. #258
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    Now, go around your "~sail~" and pull off all the backing paper, from the carpet tape. That's going to leave you with a LOT of exposed, extremely sticky tape. It's so sticky that it will rip the color off of the polytarp...not kidding, so for heavens sake don't roll up your sail at this point. You have to cover that sticky stuff. The backing paper will come off after a couple of days, so you can't just leave that on.

    Ta-Daaa!...You have a roll of duct tape! Just cover all the exposed carpet tape with duct tape. No more stickiness!

    Pound in grommets in the corners .... Pound in a grommet every 2 - 2.5 feet on the leading edge for loops of line to go 'round the mast...or if you're making a headsail, you could maybe even put in some little quick-links, which are WAY less expensive than hanks...

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    And you are done.

    This is EXACTLY what I did last night. Well...I still have to pound in my grommets. My **cough**

    "~sail~" ...is about 8' 6" on the foot and 14' 10" on the hoist. My spinnaker poles are 9' 6" so it's a bit short on the foot, but whatever. I'll have about 16 feet of "hoistable" length of mast from where the boom will be, to clear my cockpit cover, up to the top. So this triangle is about a foot short, but that's OK.

    Hopefully I'll finish it, put it in a garbage bag and stuff it in the forepeak and it will never come out again. For sure, UV light breaks down polytarps. No question about it, so you're not going to be using a sail like this to go cruising in the Tropics. Also, Duct tape deteriorates. You bet. So this sail won't last ten years, even unused. But if it stays out of the sunlight, It's going to be plenty strong enough to hoist in an emergency next week, or next summer - God Forbid.
    Last edited by AlanH; 09-01-2020 at 02:00 PM.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  9. #259
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    YAY, my kitchen timer is here. I like to have a non-digital timer to wake myself up every 25 minutes for a look-see. Old Skool. The old one from 2008 has gone missing, so Joan got one that's supposed to have an 80 dB alarm when it goes off. It's ticking on my desk right now.

    I'm stunned. I didn't have the emergency mast/rigging/sails in the original budget and I'm still within 10% of my estimate to do this sail, that I put together 4 1/2 months ago.
    I estimated $2890 for Joan. I'm actually at about $3100, and the original estimate didn't include the whole "emergency mast" and rigging stuff, which adds up to about $200.
    Last edited by AlanH; 09-01-2020 at 05:23 PM.
    1968 Selmer Series 9 B-flat and A clarinets
    1962 Buesher "Aristocrat" tenor saxophone
    Piper One Design 24, Hull #35; "Alpha"

  10. #260
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    [QUOTE=AlanH;27369]YAY, my kitchen timer is here. I like to have a non-digital timer to wake myself up every 25 minutes for a look-see. Old Skool. The old one from 2008 has gone missing, so Joan got one that's supposed to have an 80 dB alarm when it goes off. It's ticking on my desk right now.
    QUOTE]

    Maybe you should suggest that idea to Alex Thompson?

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