We have been working on our rig setup, particularly confirming that we have the right stiffening on our top mast. When we first set the mainsail we have excessive bend in the top section which meant we couldn’t get leech tension. This was due to the RS800 mast being designed from the ‘auto rig’ concept from the late 1990’s. We … Read More
Freebooter – Two sail reach in 16-20 knots of wind
A couple of weeks ago we were out tuning Freebooter’s rig, post the work we did to stiffen the top section. We are happy with the work we did the mast is bending nicely and now we are getting the main to set better. On our way back in we hooked up some great waves, on a fast trapeze reach.
Data Driven Decision Making – I14 Handicaps – The RYA’s response and the Rickmansworth results
The RYA have now come back to us with a set of Experimental PYs for the I14 sub classes, many thanks to Adam Parry for his efforts on this. The PYs had been derived from the dimensional data we sent them and their analysis of similar boats. The final handicaps are below: Modern – 758 published on limited data list Penultimate – … Read More
Classic I14 – Where we are & how we got here – The Mast
This unsurprisingly has proven to be the most controversial part of the project. ‘Freebooter’ came with an old Procter Beta mast. It was in great condition for its age, but it is still an old aluminium mast. As we upgraded the equipment on the boat breaking loads move to the next weakest point. The Challenge Our concern was whether the … Read More
Data Driven Decision Making – How to develop a fair handicap for all 14s, especially those in the Vintage and Classic fleets
The challenge The International 14 class celebrates 100 years in 2027, the oldest dinghy class in the world! There are a staggering range of boats, designs and technologies classed as an International 14. Trying to define a handicap system which allows all these dinghies to sail off a level playing field is obviously quite difficult. Combine this with the fact … Read More
Classic I14 – Where we are & how we got here – Fitout
Starting point At the beginning of this project we needed to decide what our end goal was. Bring the boat to its original spec or bring it up to modern standards. The first sail of the boat was made hard as nothing worked properly, then during the strip down fittings broke with no obvious replacement. With no other Classic 14s … Read More
Classic I14 – Where we are & how we got here – Exterior
Preparation Before Christmas 2024 we had completed the initial sand of the hull. Although we were going from traditional varnish to AWLGrips’ AWLWood, we didn’t want to go down to bare wood. The objective was fair the hull by long boarding with 280 grit sand paper. We were working down through the existing layers, we found one layer which hadn’t … Read More
Classic I14 – Where we are & how we got here – Interior
It is a year since our last post, we got into the final charge to get the boat ready to sail and just ran out of time & motivation to do the blog. This post covers the work on the interior of the boat. We will do the Exterior, Foils, Fit Out and Rig in separate posts over the next … Read More
Striping, sanding and more sanding
Starting to race finish the hull We left the third coat to harden for ten days over Christmas and the gave it its last 240 grit sand. The surface was noticeably harder to sand, it took about a day and a half in total to get the surface completely flat and fair. It also gave us the opportunity to look … Read More
Classic I14 – Preparing and doing the first three coats.
We are finally at that point where we’ve done the sanding, done the test coats and now we have to do the first coat. Being honest we were quite nervous as we’ve never worked with AWLWood before and not worked with wood in a very long time. But The time was upon us to walk the walk. Preparation Proper, Preparation, … Read More
Classic I14 – Test varnishing the hull
Because we’ve never used AWLWood and we aren’t going down to bare wood, if we can avoid it, this is all a bit of an experiment. So we decided to a couple of test runs on different parts of the hull to make sure that everything works as expected. For AWLWood going over existing varnish you have to sand down … Read More
Classic I14 – Stage 1 – Sanding the hull
The first stage, as ever, involves a lot of sanding, the boat has been varnished on a regular basis so in order to put the new AWLWood on it we need make sure we have a solid foundation. It is also an opportunity to fair the hull and work the deeper dents out. Because the boat is wooden and we … Read More
Classic I14 – Stage 1 and the plan
We’ve started work on “Freebooter” while we are going to modernise the boat, we also want to retain its provenance. Overall the hull is in great condition and has been well looked after, having been regularly varnished. This means that we can focus on fairing and revarnishing the hull. In terms of fittings, they all work and in on the … Read More
Classic International 14 – Our new project
Our last three projects have all been relatively modern boats, ranging from our all carbon fibre modern I14 to the polyester/glass Wildcat F18. In the back of our minds there has always been the memory of a plot we had with Nick Harvey when the National Maritime Museum was auctioning off its collection of classic/historic dinghies. Nick was keen to … Read More
I14 & RS600- Unpacking our shiny new tiller extensions (Ok they have a matt finish)
The problem with carbon or glass tiller extensions is they are notoriously fragile if you fall over the side! A stronger solution is a kevlar/carbon composite, kevlar being a super tough material. Hence they make bullet proof jackets out of it. But it is also very difficult to effectively laminate together, its hard to get the resin penetration. Enter our … Read More
Finalising the 14 and continue to strip the RS600 down
First job was to finish the 14, the old Pole Sock has reached the end of its life, so Phillip Watson of Watson Sails in Kinsealy made us a new one.
We had a crash – now to fix it! Pt 2
With the hull sanded back to the laminate, we needed to prepare the hull for laminating. First thing to do was to mask the painted hull, so we didn’t contaminant the hull any more than we had. The real risk with doing this is you can end up causing impact as you sand and repair by impacting the surrounding area.
Revarnishing the Bowsprit, oh joy more sanding.
When we refitted the boat, we decided that the bowsprit and boom were in ok shape, not brilliant but ok. The pole in particular has started to take a bit of a battering, and the resin coating was flaking off. As we are stuck in a hard lockdown in Ireland and no sailing is likely for a while, T-Bear decreed … Read More
Linking the lowers to the rake.
In practice this didn’t work so we reverted back to the previous system. More thought required. On faceplate we follow articles by Thomson Boat Works who customise 505s and noticed this one about an auto-adjusting mast ram: Thomson Boat Works As we are suffering from Covid Lockdown boredom and the fact the pole is finished we decided to see if … Read More
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