Winter Fun!

[David Hall22685]

Hey everybody! How is your winter (late fall) going? Any good winter projects going? I added a PVC tube for the boom and bought a snowboard bag to carry sails, rudder, tiller and anything else I needed so I could load it into the trailer for faster setup.

Also, I have been trying to work on a mast raising system like we use on the Macs but I can't find a good (small) two-way winch for raising and lowering. I tried using the one way on the trailer, connecting it to the jib and it worked fine going up, but was a disaster going down. I and torn between using a gin pole and a extension on the mast rest in the stern. The gin pole would be easier to build but the extension in the stern would be easier to use. I can still raise the mast by myself, but am almost ready to hand the 170 down to my daughter who is a little light to raise it solo.

Anyone else have any good projects going in the off season (for those of you in the off season?) If you are year round sailors :dance:

 

[Manny]

winter woodwork

I'm taking a stab at building hatches to replace the original plastic hatches on my 27'. The v-berth hatch is a trapezoid so it's a little tricky. I made templates out of cardboard from the inside and used those to make the flanges out of oak. The outer lip and the hatch frame are made from ipe. The lip will be fiberglassed to the flange on the underside (so it cant be seen). All the wood will be coated with epoxy and then some sort of finish. I'm still debating what to use for the top of the hatch; lexan or fiberglass. I'm thinking fiberglass.

Manny

 

[BlueRunner]

I'll be interested in how your 17 is when it emerges from it's cocoon. From the few reports here of hull cracks due to cold weather, I "chickened" out and put my ship in indoor heated storage @ $1K for 5 months. Maybe next year I'll go the outdoor route under a canopy that normally park my Jeep under. We don't get much snow out here in the Seattle area, but we do get soon bitter cold spells. In December we had a string where it was under 20 degrees for about 7 days.

I see your profile says WV/VA. Do you have a lot of subfreezing days there?