Feb 2015

Details of my bow net. I almost was not going to bother with it but I am glad now I did because without it, it would be impossible to get on board the boat from the front, even at a beach.

 The small tubes mounted on the inner hull sides , get notched out at about 150 mm spacing, and a fibreglass rod about 4mm diameter is inserted. The lashing from the bow net goes round the rod, back out again and onto the next notch and so on. I made the profile of the net myself by taking a pattern of the bow net space on the boat, minus 50mm all round. After taking it away from the boat I put small nails round those lines and loosely stretched out the netting. Then I put 6mm diameter glass rod round the edge line and tied the netting round that with 2 rows of knotting , all while still stretched on the pattern. Then I trimmed the excess of with a hot knife . Leaving it all attached to the pattern boat I took it back up to the boat and with adjustable saw tables raised it up into position. Then I temporarily attached it with plastic cable ties, pulled the pattern piece out from underneath, and tied off the whole thing to the boat as per the photos. I should have taken a photo while it was still on the frame but forgot.

Testing out the furling and sheeting of the sails on the grass at home. Everything works. I have subsequently made a mast raising jig which keeps the mast vertical whilst preparing to lower it into place.

A word about the sails: There are several options for sails in the plans, depending how technical you want to get, and it is even possible to use large windsurf sails. In the end I decided to go with the system similar to that used by Hobie in their Bravo catamaran and AI outriggers. This is one of the options Bernd suggests with the boat.

The long angled battens are 7 mm fibreglass rod and they are flexible enough that they bend round the mast when the sail is furled. The masts turn in the mast holders (see earlier photos of mast base) and the furling and unfurling takes just a few seconds, per side. I also wanted to try a boomless set up and so I had to supply to the sailmaker  a lot of measurements of the boat , masts, and various heights and spacings so that the clew of the sails would finish up with an even pull , both downwards and outwards when the sails are sheeted in. Worked out well for up wind sailing  but I am experimenting with poling out the leeward sail when reaching to maintain better sail shape. 

  I made a plywood rear mast holder to go with the factory built front holder on the trailer, installed an outboard motor bracket on the boat. I had hoped to avoid having a motor but in the end decided it was worth having one. The 3.6 hp motor provides more than adequate power and the tilting bracket puts the prop plenty deep enough.

Launch day (finally) The boat floats well above its water line till Greg and I hop on both at the stern.( Must go back to the gym soon) We spend a few hours happily coming to terms with the intricacies of the biplane rig in light winds, and then sail back to Westpark Marina and pack up just as easily as the launching itself. I think soon I will be able to manage launching on my own. Of course sailing single handed is easy.

Subsequent sailing days, mostly very light winds. One day we had some good wind for a while going upwind at 9.8 knots, which was the best speed. The boat gets up to 7 or 8 knots very easy even in quite light wind but it takes a bit more wind to really get going. Winds were mostly light on our sailing days , because we were still learning how to handle the boat. The good looking young man in the yellow life jacket is Rodney of KD650 fame.

A short video of Duo 480 Jigsaw:
https://youtu.be/yfKaTrBpgmU

Index of materials (to follow)

Epoxy

Glass cloth

Windows and hatches

paint

masts and spars

sails

sheeting hardware

trailer