 |
| Click on image for enlarged view. |
Regardless of the grand plans, it's always the details that get to you.
I've been fiddling with the bits and pieces of my sailing rig -- trying to pull it together -- but when you put the parts into sync they don't always work.
So I do a little something then step aside for a while to mull over the consequences ...
Methinks: how can I improve on what I just did?
[Given my limited skills]
So via trial and error --and still not as yet up to messing about in a marine environment -- I end up today with a craft that 'looks like' it might sail but has everything hanging off it like a dog's breakfast afloat.
...a dog's breakfast afloat? (Yuk!)
The good thing is that I begin my sailing enterprise with as much sail as I can manage. So shortening sail is always an option...
...so is drowning.
...so is drowning.
I wasn't planning on incorporating a boom but there you go: it has one. Not because it was a rule, but because it makes such good sense to 'boom out' the bottom of the sail rather than trying to stretch it by pulling at the aft end ... with a string.
You'll note my cradle -- the struts that lean into the mast . This will determine whether the rig works or falls apart. The struts are made from a pair of crutches so they turn outward as they approaches the deck. Gravitational forces are going to rule the engineering as the mast leans back as the struts lean forward. But I don't have the option to create a firm 45 degree angle.
So when the wind hits the sail who knows?
The base of the struts are only resting -- in little socks -- on a cross thwart I've tied to embedded bolts underneath.
So who knows what's going to happen at 15 knots?
