This week we’re driving towards completion of big exterior pieces. First up is the windshield, which after much fussy fairing work is looking pretty good. Time was well spent making accurate patterns for the Tap Plastics people to cut the smoked acrylic windows.

They are rebated in the frames so as to come out flush-mounted. We’ll try just bonding them in, but little blots could be added if needed later. The panes are stored now, awaiting the boat’s final painting.

Next up is the hard dodger roof which is in cardboard mockup now. Trying to find the right balance of minimal windage, being able to see over it standing at the tiller, not whacking one’s head going in/out of the cabin companionway, and not being an ugly blob. Oh, and not blocking the cabin top winches!

That last photo also shows the new stern tower leg stubs getting faired in before the remove-able legs can be sleeved on. Here are the steps so far:

PVC pipe at the center for a wiring conduit and foam core strips shaped to give it all some faux-wing contour. The two stubs were built whole, but I should have done one 30″ and cut it in half. Then we transfered a half-model of the shape and made a plug mold for the 48″ legs. I was pretty darned happy with this first molding project, but…

In the photo you can see dimples in the panel; the vacuum was strong enough to collapse some unsupported wood in the mold. Argh – good learning that a plug must be SOLID.

So the mold got repaired and four leg-halves made just fine without bagging.

Now we’ll join the two sides around some internal rib spacers.

These parts are set aside awaiting 24″ threaded rods that will get embedded in the legs, pass through the stubs and be bolted from inside the aft cabin.

Ok, the box from McMaster Carr just arrived, so those long bolts can go in this afternoon. Then it’s time to design the top part of the tower for all the various gear.

Captain Rick Holway is making sure the Carters have enough sailing miles before launching the new boat. He’s a veteran of the singlehanded sailing society’s solo Long Pacific races, so I pay close attention to his coaching. We picked a no-moon phase for an overnight sail in the gulf of the Farrallones last night.

Outbound at dusk we were among 50+ salmon boats – the prospect of navigating thru that fleet then the northbound shipping lane in pitch black was daunting. So we headed east amongst the unmarked but rather boat-crushing rocks of the middle and north Farrallons.

Zoom in to the next photo and see the separate rocks in the distance – the chain extends for many miles north, with gaps plenty wide enough to pass between.

Throw in an inbound marine layer and by midnight the lack of stars and moon made the sea and sky one black blob. Made me think hard (between 1-4am) about being visually impaired and relying on autopilot vs windvane self steering and how they are mounted.
Ian Jones wrote in suggesting a wider stern tower for solar panels too.

Good idea but it’s getting crowded up there and I don’t want the windage of panels that high – we’ll put those on top of the dodger and out on the beams. I need to widen the tower a bit and figure out how exactly to connect a tiller pilot that can control the new rudder’s trim tab, overriding the vane when the tiller pilot is connected. That’ll be for motoring and when steering to the compass heading is critical (as opposed to optimizing for wind angle with the vane system). And this 24 hour sail came just in time before building the tower legs Tuesday to make it taller and get that radar up well above the boom.

After going about 40 miles out, we got back to SE Farrallon in the early morning for Rick to spot four Albatross. Kind of a rare sighting there, and a nice little Puffin touched down near us to cap the day.

Looks like we have a basic shape in mind for the structure over the stern of the boat, even if we don’t know exactly what to call it. The tasks for this tower are 1. Place the wind vane self steering gear well up in to the airflow behind the mainsail, 2. Mount the radar dome, 3.mount the GPS antenna, 4. Provide the rearmost anchor point for the cockpit shade Bimini, 5. Hold a backup VHF antenna in a pinch. It has to be wide enough for the tiller to swing a proper arc, but can also be a limiter for keeping the rudder from slamming broadside out of control. We also want it to be a sturdy handhold for climbing those steps to/from the stern.

So this is a cardboard mockup with legs of about four feet tall, raked back for looks but also to center the top platform where it best suits the wind vane. The width has been determined by the (arbitrary) placement of the previously made stairs, and the general idea for this thing has been in mind since first watching the Volvo Ocean Race boats a few years ago, with the little towers on their sterns to mount all the comms gear.

And no, the real tiller won’t look anything like this ugly grey PVC pipe – that just did the tiller angle measuring role.
One wrinkle in the construction is that this tower will have to be remove able for the road trucking. So I think we’ll build 18-24 inch permanent stubs up from the deck, then sleeve the rest of the legs down over the stubs, with threaded rod inside to bolt the tower in from the aft cabin. Also need to figure out an internal conduit to easily hide all the wires from tower-mounted gear.

If anyone has any warnings, words of advice on stern towers, or info on the minimum suitable height above deck we can run the radar dome, please comment.