Category Archives: Uncategorized

It took 25 men…

Posted on by
4

Thanks for your patience everyone while things went quiet over here. Ravenswing has made various short daysails but we’ve had a lot of business and family commitments this fall. In mid September we convinced Charlie to tow his F27 TriChi to theSummer Splash multihull gathering in Southern Cal. After racing to Catalina, the skipper gets to anchor in a whole fleet of fast-movers.

It was a great weekend – thanks again Charlie and Jim. It was bittersweet to NOT have that be Ravenswing’s first coastal trip, but the boat was not at all ready for ocean work. In Marina Del Rey, walking thru the trailer yard Jim said, “hey, there’s a little MacGregor powersailer like yours in the ’90s”. I got a few steps closer, and dang if it wasn’t our own time capsule! Kind of sad that it’s sitting there neglected, but also a trip to see it exactly as we sold it 20 years ago. Weird. 

From LA it was ‘more west’ … at the Hong Kong Maritime Museum I was reading about the first Chinese junk that sailed to England in the 1840’s. 

And we thought Ravenswing has some heavy helm issues – imagine their nights at sea:

We don’t know how far sailing will take us, but the Hong Kong Yacht Club would not be a terrible stopover. 

Finally after 12 days in Asia humbled by the scope of port automation projects like this in Quingdao

attention came back to the boat. Thinking more about the heavy-effort steering, we realized that in building the rudder cassette we didn’t compare the F39 plans’ for gudgeon height above the water to our custom F36 stretched stern. The result is not enough forward rake ahead of the pivot point, so all the water force is transmitted through the tiller. See the red line drawn on the rudder here – that’s how much surface area in the water should be ahead of the pivot.

Here the straightedge shows how much we actually created (the left edge)

So now we will make a permanent shim inside the cassette that tilts the rudder to achieve this

Good news for the folks who’ve helped on this – there’s enough room in the cassette to make the needed insert, and hopefully not cut in to the amazingly strong and complex carbon work. 

The other major change is to walk away from the linkage & pivot steering system. We reported 2+ years ago about not believing a simple straight tiller to the rudder would work.  But we haven’t been totally happy with the gear, and decided to mock up a simple tiller approach:

Charlie and I strapped this junk in place and pulled off the dock to find out if the tiller can swing far enough side to side between the tower legs. Yea! The boat can still spin in its length and is sufficiently agile at various engine / hulll speeds. The existing gear actually lets the rudder turn too far, causing stalls or being a brake. We’ll set up the new tiller for soft landings on the tower legs to safely limit the rudder travel. That’s the new theory anyway. 

A question for the engineers / experienced out there- what shape will make the strongest tiller that is narrow side to side ?  We want the maximum distance throw up against the tower, so a skinny tiller is important. Charlie’s suggested some type of carbon I-beam configuration. Square tube? Round tube? What do you think?

She likes her boat 

Posted on by
5

That’s the co-owner in the purple hat, enjoying her first sail on her new ship. And how nice to share the day with her pal Leslie!

As a student sailor, Jeanne asked for a job aboard but I countered with asking her to get a feel for the boat on all points of sail without worrying about techniques or traffic. Charlie came to sail (already the Ravenswing veteran co-driver) and RickW sailed aboard for his first time. 

The Marin waters provided ideal sailing today – flat seas, lots of boats to catch, breeze to charge upwind at 9kts, and full sunshine. With lots of hands aboard, the owners got to relax and check out various places to sit. Jeanne is the first to sail from the aft swim steps, and it’s a great little spot. With the jib reefed, the clew is up high yielding lots of comfortable foredeck. Compare last week’s photo with this and see we got the excess sail properly tied and zipped in to its cover. 

Full main and reefed jib is very comfortable with apparent wind in the teens. So much to learn about trimming this mainsail; here it’s getting better but you’ll see we couldn’t get halyard tension:

If you can zoom in to the top you’ll see SOMEone attached the 2:1 block for the halyard to the wrong spot on the fancy Skateaway Design headboard, so we lost 5″ of upward travel. Fixed that back at the dock afterwards – the day was too nice to stop, douse the sail and redo it underway :)

As we headed for Sausalito I wrestled my tiller away from the guys and spiced things up with a full charge up the channel, way above the motoring speed limit, dodging all forms of watercraft. The crew anxiously called out every boat and paddle board as if I was a blind man, but we kept on to go get a view of Tom Siebel’s Mod70 tri Orion, Sig45 open deck luxury racing cat, and huge Protector with four 300hp outboards. Wow does that guy put millions in to the sailing habit. 

So while the super rich have staff to keep their boats expertly tuned, the mere mortals have to solve their own heavy weather helm. This morning we installed the shims on the daggerboard head. Definitely tightened the board in the case, but it didn’t help the rounding up. So now it’s on to making rudder changes. Rick is concerned the trim tab may be to blame, and we’ll get the original rudder painted this week to try on Labor Day. We’ll make a new spacer to push the top of the rudder aft and the bottom forward; the axis point may be wrong. Still a worry to solve this nagging issue. 

To cap the day we headed north towards San Quentin in a breeze that did some gusting off the Marin shore. Rick was driving, with his handheld GPS as a speedometer. It’s like a drug, you just want more knots… The water was fairly flat so we cracked off to a reach and hit the gas pedal a bit. 14kts was pretty easy. That’s her new ‘personal best’, and only a reefed jib and baggy main luff

But the best part of the speed run was Jeanne in the cabin enjoying the excitement from a comfortable window-side couch; we’ve come a long way from scary wet rides on the F27. 

Tinkerers, let’s hear your thoughts on the noisy dagger. It’s shimmed and it got that slanted trailing edge a few weeks ago. At 14kts it makes a bloody racket. How are we going to quiet this down (without hiring MOD70 Orion’s shore team)?

A sailboat on a day like this in a place like this is hard to beat.  Leslie’s getting a big view of the Oakland / SF bridge; it’s your turn readers, just drop us a line. 

Reaching for home

Posted on by
3

We’ve been asked why no posts lately; it’s just a busy August so far with some out of town volunteer work, college back to school, and numerous nights aboard the boat from whence WordPress won’t publish photos (anyone know WordPress well enough?)  The boat has sailed twice since the mast spreaders fix – two nice daysails. We’ll start you with a little Saturday late afternoon reach to Richmond – 

A big rigging question was peoples’ skepticism on our Vee mainsheet setup. See the red mainsheet behind DonK driving the boat yesterday. 

That’s one line, and each bitter end leads to a winch. Note how the final leg of the left-hand block set feeds the line over to the right-hand side. We’re learning how and when to pull that crossover line to travel the boom windward/leeward. You can do it by hand under lighter sheet loads. But 3 of the 4 sailing days so far have been 20+ knots breeze; for that trimming the windward winch is traveling the boom across the boat and sheeting the leeward winch pulls the boom down (mainsheet tension). The big Andersen ribbed winches hold the mainsheet very well, so if we’re wanting to sail on the edge and have a safety fast “blow the main!” I think two people could each hold an end with four winch wraps and no self-tailer grab. So far I’m really happy with this no-traveler deck arrangement. 

Next we want to figure out the reefing full batten jib. Here it is with the reef put in, but all the excess sail not gathered. It’s very high-clewed, forming a steep diagonal line foot of the sail. 

While it looks easy in the photo to just roll that stuff up, it’s very large and the spectra sailcloth is very stiff (a good thing!). Doing this at sea in deteriorating weather will be a nasty job to be avoided – take the reef way before things get sloppy out there. The horizontal zipper in the photo accepts a cover for the rolled/ folded excess sail when reefed. We’re very much inviting curious, patient sailors out over the next month to trial all these sailing control tweaks. 

Finish work continues. Companionway doors finally replaced the plywood version. 

Coco models the aft cabin entry while Lola’s snout points out the engine controls. 

Note the aft cabin hatch had no exterior hardware – we’re securing it from the inside instead with two barrel bolts

Last week we got our only mellow sail so far. Charlie, Leslie, Griffin and I headed up Racoon Straits for Sausalito. The boat glides upwind in the flatter water and we picked off every 40′ boat we could find. So fun to crawl up to their tails and wave. There was wind out past the Marin shore, but the skipper gybed the boat for home instead – just really wanted ONE zero stress casual sail after five years of F36 angst. I want more days like this. 

Yesterday was Ravenswing’s first “cruise”. Destination McCovey Cove, crew was the business owners from the shops surrounding our build shed of 2012-2016. 
Six aboard, BBQ rocked the 3-day marinade, Marcus’ air chair was a hit, we saw Denard Span’s home run actually splash (might go the rest of life and not be able to see that again – pretty great for lifelong Giants fans on deck). The best was flying the actual World Series 2014 Championship flag that was previously at city hall. Look at the size of our orange flag compared to the boats – it got the attention of the cameras, and thus a screen-shot of the tv broadcast

(Yea, the guy on the GrandBanks anchored way too close which was a problem when we swung in the wind). This gear worked well, and what a joy to push a button!

What we won’t show you was the steep learning curve, including anchor chain-to-rope-rode shackle that can’t go thru windlass (duh!), big billows of excess mainsail when reefing because someone hasn’t installed reefing gather lines, dragging anchor because we didn’t back down on it the first time, jammed up mainsail douse because we weren’t head to wind, and no dishwashing water because the same person who didn’t check the gas tank when we left Napa didn’t check the water tanks Saturday morn. All humble pie, and nothing damaging. 

Finally tonight a nod to Mrs. Carter’s vintage eye. Driving to the ballgame on a cold summer morning sporting a 30+ year old, like new Norwegian float coat in just the right colors. Where does she find this stuff? And at my kind of prices no less. Love ya

Nearby readers, let’s go sailing next weekend. Let me know which day works for you!

Aluminum trailer for sale

Posted on by
Reply

To the fans of Ravenswing, I beg your pardon here with a blatant advertising message. Go grab a snack and we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming shortly…

Rick W’s fantastic aluminum boat trailer is now available for sale. It’s a 2009 MagicTilt, made in Florida and commissioned by Bob Gleason at The Multihull Source in Mass. to carry a Corsair 37 cross country. It was stored here in the bay area after Rick launched his boat, and then we borrowed it in 2015 to hold our floats and mast until gathering the parts at the launch assembly point. Before transporting the main hull in June we replaced the bunk carpets and installed LED taillights. In the photos you can see how our 40′ F36 hull extends well beyond the trailer, so an F32/33, or even an F31, would be very secure with the trailer out near the end of the boat. IMG_3193 IMG_3201 IMG_3203
The trailer has readily adjustable bunks to fit many types of boats, and the weight rating is somewhere up around 10,000 lbs (we will have to go over to Napa to read the ID plate if necessary). It cost $9,000, and the listing price today at $4,500. Contact Greg through replies to this site. Thanks!

Upright again

Posted on by
2

The KKMI project managers ended their week Friday with a quick lift of Ravenswing’s mast. We had it all ready to simply slide home the two cap shroud and one forestay big clevis pins and then the guys could release the crane. They only charged for 15 minutes of time (good thing, because it’s $300 an hour!)

So let’s rewind that a bit. Here’s the portable laminate repair shop;

First we did a layer of 9oz Doublebias Carbon, then 12oz uni straps crossing over/under the opposite side. These ended shy of the sail track in each side. Then another layer of the DB. 

At this point Keith / Skateaway Designs returned from an east coast voyage on his boat, and opined that these spreaders are putting undue strain on the mast wall by point loading in the center; the only real cure at this point was to extend the spreader root and better disperse the load through the new carbon laminates. So we scrambled at the boatyard to scrounge up some core cell foam and shaped triangle gussets with the little oscillating multi tool. 

Keith’s second point was that it wasn’t good enough to have stopped shy of the track; these really need to be continuous bands that tie the two sides together. Hmmmm, we’re not about to drill holes in our nice new Todes sail track! But there’s 2″ between each of the clips that hold the track to the mast, and about 1/16″ of play between the fitted track and the actual mast surface. Just enough to slide 6oz Carbon uni fabric underneath…

And slip a bit of plastic in there, hold that in place, then slide the carbon back and forth to wet it with epoxy and not have that cement the track to the mast! Thankfully that all worked as intended. 

A bit of fairing and painting (the yard gives a gate key so DIY’ers can stay late in to the night waiting to recoat) and it was soon all done. 

Note to self: it was starboard upper that broke away. That one got an extra 9ozDB layer to approximate the existing fabrics on the other three. Also remember we chose not to do a second fairing pass, so the surface imperfections at the spreader roots are only cosmetic. 

Boat build finishing with no shop looks like this. Bowsprit getting aluminum etched and primed by the side gate 

The Leneman Steps primed on a table outside the downstairs office

The hatch boards and aft cabin ladder being painted in the tent outside the kitchen window

And the first rudder in the garage getting a new leading edge 

This has been sitting 1.5years since Jim Antrim asked me why I made the water-entry point so narrow compared to the overall chord (thickness). The rookie heeded the master and set that aside to fix as the backup rudder. But living with the wind-vane trim tab rudder has shown that one should be saved for ocean passages work, and this first-built rudder should be the daily driver. So we’ll get it finished off in a series of evenings this month. 

While the mast was in the shed we took the boom home and upgraded the things our first heavy weather day pointed out. No photos taken, but we added cross bracing around the winch, at the first reef clew position, and at the mainsheet connection point. Also built a line guide for the reefing line exit sheaves at the outboard end of the boom. Another hit of black paint to obscure all that, and it was back on the car headed to Richmond. 

Where do they put the end-tie slips you ask? WAY OUT at the end of the docks! Not a good idea to carry the 17′ boom out there (about 50lbs with all the gear on it) alone in the 20kt wind. Wheels and workmate bench to the rescue. The locals looked at this like I was nuts. 

By Saturday eve the rig was all back together, main sail bent on, and the lashings tuned to rake the mast back just a little. I’m eager to sail it again and find out if standin more upright lightens up the heavy helm.  Kind of amazing how easy it is to adjust the tuning on this huge (to me anyway) 50′ carbon fiber  mast. 

As the big boat comes in, one of the small ones needs to go. We’re looking to sell our 11′ Topper, great Britain’s answer to the Laser. $500 for a complete, sporty little race and muck about sailboat. If not for you, tell your friends…

A man’s first sail

Posted on by
3

That’s Larry on the right. He and the missus just retired from Florida careers and they’re touring North America by motor home. They have no schedule, they can go where they please. This month they’re visiting Charlie’s house, which means they’ve watched the Boat People traipsing up and down the dock out back as we continue to fit out Ravenswing for sail. At midnight on Saturday the depth finder came to life as the last real must-have to navigate out the long river and through San Pablo Bay. Larry was happy to join F27 skippers Jim, Charlie and me for the F36’s first sail. A nice summer day outing and Jeanne would pick us up at the marina in Richmond. Larry’s never been on a sailboat before, but hey, what could go wrong? :)Woke up to a super minus tide. Boat lying in the weeds…

Once floating (and breakfasted) and bottom semi-scrubbed from the kayak, we pulled out at 9. The motor mount fix made a major (good) difference. We still need to try the higher pitched prop and get that aspect dialed in. Well, in all the excitement some unnamed boat builder forgot to check the two 3 gallon gas tanks. About an hour motoring down river tank 1 ran out, and guess what, tank 2 had less than a gallon. And the Vallejo gas dock is closed Sundays. 

Enter another Ravenswing hero, Goose. He had planned to intercept us as the photo chase boat once we hoisted sail in the Mare Island Straight. Good thing his West Wight Potter 19 can plane with it’s 50horse motor!

Thank you sir, for running a couple gallons upriver!!!  (And yeah, his coach roof is the entire sliding hatch section of a Catalina 30; wow can this guy mod a boat with gusto and results!)

Back underway, Ravenswing’s final obstacle to sailing was the Mare Island bridge. The flood was ripping, the wind on the nose, and our 60 ‘ bridge raise request held up cars for ten mins as we struggled for decent headway. 

After the bridge, 21 years of anticipation became the moment to set sail. But our fantastic looking lazyjack system completely fouled the main hoist on any point of luffing towards windward. What a mess, with Goose’s camera clicking away. More humble pie. 

We cut the lazyjacks free and in the building breeze set the main at the first reef. In the flat Straits water the boat took off like a scaled cat. A sailboat at last, hallelujah. 

Exiting the Vallejo reach at the Carquinez bridge with no jib yet, we just wanted a feel for the helm and boat responsiveness. In a few minutes the apparent wind was above 20kts and the helm too weather heavy. Hmmm, rudder angle or too much mast rake? But we’re moving too fast and we need to tack away from those oil wharves now. We’ll take a leg to weather and gather our wits for the jib hoist. Another minute or so to clear the wharf and we hit the infamous San Pablo Bay chop. Charlie and I (and a number of you) have raced the f-boats here and been pounded silly by that short steep chop water. The F36 is much bigger and she slammed through instead of lurching skyward. That’s fun. But somewhere in those opening minutes a wave came through that completely firehosed the full crew. Welcome to summer sailing in San Francisco, Larry, the place where we soaked your Levi’s and shoes with icy cold water to start a 30 mile sail. Bad manners from the boat host. And so glad Jeanne is not seeing her new boat this way!

We beat up to Marin without the jib. The boat was very unbalanced, the helm a struggle to keep from rounding up, and without any good plans to hoist and reef the new slab jib. Let’s just muddle through and not break stuff. (The open bottom boom needs more cross bracing where the reefing straps sit under the reefed clews). Near Point Pinole the water flattened out a bit and with reefed main only we were hitting 12kts upwind. This rig pulls like a freight train. 

Got the jib up, full hoist, at the Marin Islands. Took a bit to find a groove, but for a while just south of the Richmond Bridge, Ravenswing hit her stride for the first time. Complete magic as she rose up on plane and accelerated like crazy. This is one powerful cruiser/ocean voyager and I want to dial it in and see what’s possible!!!  There are race courses in her future :)

After a few minutes of fun we hung a left in to the Richmond channel. Jim steered around big tugs with, as Charlie said, the ugliest possible vessel (Asian car transporter), handed over the reins and we tucked in to Marina Bay’s office dock to begin a two month cruise-outfitting and shakedown period.

Today saw hours of 25+ apparent, and it’s the same story you’ve heard here. We’re having a very windy summer, and we’re being reminded to respect the weather as we bring this sailboat to life. But if the dodger had been finished today could have avoided a full frontal soaking.

Thank you Jeanne for handling the bad traffic and picking up the tired crew. Nothing broken, nobody hurt, and Larry a bit wide-eyed. So of course as my lovely wife walks up the dock to our first ‘grownup’ boat slip ever, her eye goes right to the rig and she says, 

Honey, why’s the topping lift way up in the rigging like that? Did somebody let go of it?”  Well, um, that would be me and it’s a long story back near Vallejo. Let’s go get a beer and burrito at LaCasa in Sonoma on the way home and I’ll tell you all about it…

NOT 1,000 square feet

Posted on by
1

Some of you were pretty surprised we got the shop emptied and turned over that quickly. The bad news is “all that stuff gotta go somewhere!” Ugh, don’t look around our small lot at home for a while please. We still have to finish making boat parts, mostly finish sanding, priming and painting. Here’s the new paint shed (code name for an old bug tent now on the back patio under our messy big trees)

The big work table and the large power tools get half the garage (miraculously the car is in fact parking inside now). That’s half the DeWitt Dinghy in the top of the frame – fun little 8′ solo boat!

And all the supplies and small tools go in the 8×6′ tin shed, which got a massive shelving system added on July 3. Still shoehorning stuff in.  

Back at Charlie’s dock this afternoon we removed the stern tower and fished 8 cables through. Anyone building something like this, please note to lay in messenger lines BEFORE sealing up a clamshell design, and make continuous internal conduits with gentle exit bends. My sporty exterior look required much contortion with wire fish tapes and bent fingers. Jim is down from Oregon right now and brought all his carpentry skills to bear on this one. The wired tower slide home and the guys bolted down the feet from the aft cabin while I stood out on the swim platform relaxing with a cigarette (just kidding Mom) Tomorrow is supply plumbing (drains and tankage are done), and finishing the reefing system before hopefully a full daysail on Sunday.  Perhaps we’ll get most of the tower electronics installed too. 


Enjoy the weekend!

Humbled by the wind

Posted on by
2

For twenty one years this boat build has been sustained in part by daydreams of sailing anywhere the dreamer wants, confident in a strong, capable vessel. So of course on the day of the maiden sail when things should be tested in light zephyrs, we pull off the dock into 20+ knots on the nose and a big flood tide coming up the river we need to charge down many miles past Vallejo and in to the Bay. Damn, this is not going to be an easy day…

The 20hp motor and 10″ propeller are relatively small for the windage size of the boat. The motor is in the break-in first ten hours where you can’t run it beyond 2/3 speed. The apparent wind was up over 25, plus that north bay chop was starting. The builder who thought himself so clever with a motor mount ‘sled’ made that motor leg protection shield extend about 3″ below the water surface now paid the price of diverting water flow around the propeller area oddly enough to create major cavitation problems. So after a half hour of degrading conditions (that afternoon wind was building), motoring upwind, we had to admit this was a bad way to test new sailing systems. That was an ego blow, but some great learnings. The first: wow does Ravenswing sail well under ‘bare poles’. This shot is a few miles later, back in protected waters, but still sailing over 5kts with the head sail strapped to the deck and the main down at the boom. After a night of reflection, it’s pretty funny that her first sail didn’t involve sails. We learned to use the rotating semi-wing mast as a tall skinny sail, and actually tacked the boat with just the mast rotation when motoring back to the dock hours later. 

For those who visited the assembly / launch site, you can picture Charlie, Dean, Anton and I sailing back and forth doing two mile upwind/downwind legs in front of the people fishing from that dock. The main was double-reefed and we never did hoist the jib in that very narrow waterway. You sailors will be disgusted re: sail shape / trim, here with the main tortured up against a lazyjack I didn’t quite finish in time to make it easily adjustable. 

Yes, these photos make it all look mellow and the author here suspect :)


We sailed and motor-sailed enough to get a feel for key things. The revamped steering is much better. The daggerboard is humming once up near 10kts, which I think can be fixed by shimming the head tighter in the trunk. The clew-end reefing with the clutches and winch on the mast-end of the boom work well. The Vee Mainsheet worked just as advertised, including the ability to easily travel the boom upwind and down by yanking on the crossover line. (Still anxious to confirm that under full sail). The mast base and rotation setup work very well. We learned where on deck to place line holding cleats for sailing activities like holding the leeward (unused) back stay out of the way. Etc etc.

The jib is hanked on, waiting for another day. 

Anton saw the boat and said that’s a lot of string in the sky


And I had a few moments of reflection to really enjoy the fruits of years in the shop. Ravenswing is actually sailing, phew!


The boat has another new punch list of work needed, but for the next few days it’s all about the shop – finishing projects, moving tools and raw materials home, and nasty cleaning. 

Jeanne instigated a push to build all the cabinet doors before losing the shop. Inch and a half wide mahogany frames, 1/4″ foam core panels, and some cherry vaneer will get vac bagged today. 

More interior comforts finished; this is a great seat for surveying the scene 

And don’t do this: I used locktite to keep these VHF radio side mounts tight. Within two days it ate the plastic away. 

Standard Horizon replaced these at no charge, so another item on the list. 

Enjoy the 4th! We won’t be sailing :)

Argh, wordpress “upgrade”

Posted on by
1

Sorry about recent typos, out of order photos and cut-off posts. This new version of WordPress has some nasty flaws in use-ability. 
Anyway, the steering gear replacement construction is done and now it’s fair & paint. This wide (4″+) turn-table bearing spreads the load out well. Plus we added at 3/4″ bolt underneath to help keep the whole thing in column. 
And now we’re official, courtesy of the USCoastGuard. Ravenswing got her number today so we’ll get busy making an ID plate / board to mount near the chart table. That was quick paperwork turning by the govt!

We’re planning the boat’s first sail for this Saturday in Napa. We have six people saying they want on – can take a few more, so contact me if you want to join the inaugural crew. Can you say EXCITED?

Full Hoist

Posted on by
3

7am muster at the boat today to bend on the mainsail and try the first hoist ever on this mast. Wow, is this a fantastic sail! Fits exactly as we planned and it’s so well made. 

Here’s the Skateaway Designs headboard with the rebate space for the 2:1 halyard block. I love how this gets more head of the sail up in the clean air. 
Ravenswing was dancing on the dock lines, ready to charge as a light breeze filled in. It was bittersweet to lower the sail and get back to a work weekday!

Also got the lazyjacks about 80% done yesterday eve – pics of those once finished next week (under ordered 25′ of line :(

The bow got finished up. Happy with the carbon and glass pulpit, color matched to the rig and beams. The grey dyneema nets kind of tie it all together. 


Tonight in the shop we finished fab and fairing work of the replacement tiller stub