Gregg9020 said:
Can you post or send me a detailed pic of the way you attached the sail to the pipe? As well as the mechanics from the top of the spool to the bottom.
I am thinking I need to redo mine, and toughen it up a bit. My pipe broke in half the last time out. I think it broke at one of the cutouts for the hanks.
THanks,
Gregg
To hold the zip ties in place I used small ss fairleads held on by small ss screws. I started tapping them and quickly realized that with the PVC the screws self tapped. I tried not to make the screws too long, I was concerned about chaffing the forestay.
Next time I would probably bore out the center of a 1" union and cut into rings that I could slide down the pipe and blue glue in place. I think only one placed below each of the 1/2'' zip ties would do. I would place the bottom ring above the bottom zip tie to maintain luff tension.
I put the whole thing together on the front lawn and stretched the luff by tying to tent stakes while I assembled the whole thing.
You may want to add half of a union at the top of the tube to strengthen the pipes edge, though I haven't seen any wear there at all.
I believe I used a 1 1/2'' union for the spool and shorten it on each end about 1/2'' so spool wasn't so wide. I then placed my aluminum plate on a 1 1/2'' to 1'' reducer and glued it to the shortened union. I did the same to make the bottom half of the spool and added another reducer that was just big enough to allow the forestay eye to pass through.
The whole assembly rest on a 1'' cap cut and drilled to snap onto the forestay as previously described.
Hint: I pre-assemble everything at the store picking and choosing parts as needed (that will save you a few trips to the store.) I had to buy a couple of 10' lengths of pipe and a 6' length to get the approximately 24' needed.