Boat Came With No Stern Rail Nor Stauntions.

[Craig Weis]

My hull was never fitted with a stern rail or stanchions and safety lines so I ordered these from Hutchins [Com-Pac] along with the port screens. About $600 I think. A fool and his money...the safety lines with ends and pelican hooks I had Great Lakes Yacht Service make up for me after the installations were complete. They had them made in about 40 minutes with no charge. I took the boat over on the trailer so the correct length could be ascertained, right into the heated shop. Go figure?

Under all the welded mounting feet I added a 1/4" UHMW pad, cut and sanded to shape for the deck.
Below deck are additional 6mm aluminum backing plates. Cut and ground to shape, bolted through the hard points.

It took quite a bit of fooling around to start the nylock nuts and ss washers for the stanchion fasteners under the deck but above the XL fiberglass cabin liner insert. Just not enough room for a hand. So I used a sliver of 2 x 4 and hammered in a wedge to move down the edge of the XL insert and to my surprise nothing cracked.

This operation was done in a snow storm no less.
I ended up super gluing the nuts and washers together and then super gluing the assembly to my finger or a stick for some of the longer reaches while the 'Frau' turned the 1/4" ss bolts in the snow. What a trooper!!

Interesting the stern rail was drop shipped out of California to my Sturgeon Bay address. The stern rail arrived via UPS and bolted to one piece of plywood. Just a label and a few scratches. No protection during shipping.

I bolted it to the hard points already glassed into the underside of the deck. And used the same bolt holes that once held the German made Hella stern light. That I had to move up onto the stern rail mounting tang. And fish a wire to the lamp/tubing and deck.

I ended up using the shipping plywood to make a new drop board for the companionway hatch. And that I cut on a 45 degree horizontally for easy storage or so just the bottom or just the top could be used.

The top I close the slider and hang from the hasp to keep the low sun from coming in or to keep the weather out, but still ventilate the cabin. The bottom I can close to limit the spray when shipping water on board when beating into the wind, which gentlemen never do.

skip.

[skip1930]

WATERCRAFTS ON LINE

The Aerodynamics of Upwind Sailing from a AIS site...I found this interesting.


Watching a sail boat sail upwind without knowing the aerodynamics that's acting on the sail can be baffling. Is the sail pushing or dragging the heavy boat against the wind? But if you study a little bit about the physics involved, it's actually pretty amazing. After all, it's all just physics. And this time you can actually put into commission a dreaded subject in high school to make you move forward against the wind on a sail boat!

What is Sailing Upwind

Sailing upwind simply means sailing against the direction of the wind. If you're a sailing novice, this might baffle you to the point of disbelief. But really upwind sailing is the most sought after sailing conditions by pro sailors. Upwind sailing gives the most challenge in sail boat racing especially when changing tack; the worse, most embarrassing that could happen to a sail boat while tacking is stalling dead in the middle of the ocean and in the middle of a race. Upwind sailing allows a sail boat to cruise faster than the wind too! And again there's nothing mysterious when this happens; it's all physics.

The Headsail in Upwind

Both the headsail and the mainsail harness the power of the wind to move a sail boat against the direction of the wind. But the headsail and the mainsail serves different purposes. The headsail is the main driving sail when heading upwind. It serves special purpose to add drag and lift on the bow, depending on the type of headsail. It also has a special role when changing tack.

The Mainsail in Upwind

The mainsail on the other hand provides most of the drag to the sail boat. The aerodynamics involved when the headwind strikes the mainsail while the boat is angled 40-45 degrees perpendicular to the headwind from either starboard or port provides the drag that allows the boat to move against the wind. Imagine the aerodynamics of an airplane wing: the wind striking an airplane wing provides the lift that allows the plane to fly. In a boat, instead of a lift, the wind hitting the mainsail creates the drag.

Tacking a Sail Boat

The most challenging to maneuver during sailing is the change of the tack. For the uninitiated, changing a tack means changing the direction of the sail boat say from port tack to starboard tack. A sail boat can't go on one tack alone to finish a race; it will simply veer further and further away from the finish line because of the 40-45 degrees angle a boat must maintain to continue sailing upwind. So tacking is needed to stay on course.

Tacking a sailboat involves careful maneuvering of the main and the headsail. If tacking is not done smoothly and properly, it could cost the team a lot of valuable time; it could even stall the boat!

Why is it better to Sail Upwind

To allow longer sail boats like a schooner to cruise faster than the wind, they're always sailed upwind. The force of the wind to push a longer, heavier boat when sailed downwind is never enough to move it faster than the wind because of friction between the boat's hull and the water. But the faster the wind hitting the sail upwind, the larger the drag created thereby allowing longer, heavier boat to be sailed against the headwind.

You can learn all the aerodynamics that's acting on the sail of a boat, but only a sailor has the ability to work the sail, wind, and the rest of the boat in concert going forward to win the prize. Understanding the physics behind sailing is just the start.