Wouter (and the group),
I read that you are building yourself some timber Taipan hulls. I was having a discussion with a fellow Aussie who is a T4.9 sailor (who by the way is very keen on the F16HP concept).
We were discussing modifying standard Taipans to take spinnakers. One of the mods required is to drill a hole at the top of each bow to use for a bridle? to hold the spi pole I believe.
This seems a reasonable thing to do on a composite boat however I have some doubt that a timber boat would take the load. There is also the problem of water getting at the raw timber.
How are you tackling this with your hulls and what are your thoughts on this? And the thoughts of the group?
For your interest I have attached a photo that most of you have probably seen before. This is James Sage on his way to winning the 2000 (I think) Australian Cat rig championship. What you may not know is that this is a home built timber boat. Can you tell? I sure can't.
Berthos.
Why is it that when I compose my messages they have lovely paragraphs as they do when I preview them but once they are on the forum they don't???
Berthos
Bethos,
I'm currently building a new set of timber hulls.
I have added a kevlar patch where the hole will be drilled and also further distributed the load with a layer of 3oz glass and the inside of each ply panel. The glass goes back around 300mm and almost to the keel. (Kind of, to complex to explain exactly what I did here.)
When I drill the hole I will drill it oversize and wrap a bolt the right size with several layers of glass.
With a washer either end I will tighten the nut conpressing the glass forming a glass sleave in the hole.
Prior to this the part of the hull on the inside that will have the hole drilled will be filled with glue mix so I drill through 4mm ply, 6oz kevlar, 3oz glass, glue, 3oz glass, 6oz kevlar 4mmply.
To complicate the explanation even further you must remember the glass that goes on the outside of the bow (so far not mentioned) will be also drilled as it will come back far enough.
Now if it was a timber hull already built I would just drill the hole oversize do the glass sleave thing and see how it goes. I think it will hold up OK.
In my case I have the opportunity to reinforce the new hulls, So why not?
This is just the way I tackled the problem.
Regards,
Phill
Thanks Phil,
I'm looking at buying a used 4.9 which is a timber boat. I didn't want to rule myself out of using a spinnaker with it. What you have told me is both interesting and reassuring.
Thanks,
Berthos
If needs be than you can also lead the spi bridles to the bridle chainplates. This setup is often used on boats that can't have little holes in the bows.
BTW; I know that Kirt just drilled the holes and filled them afterwards in his glass T4.9 nr 159. I looked at it and it looked pretty dependable to me.
I've seen much the same thing on some tornado's here in the Netherlands.
In short, you might want to do with attention to detail BUT it seems that it can be done safely. Otherwise you have the option to run the lines to your bridle chainplates.
Wouter
Hi there Berthos, Ive got a mosquito which Im putting a kite on and Im building a new mossie to take a kite as well. After drilling the hole and placing my bridle rope through Im filling the hole back up with resin to sell it from the weather. But Ive noticed alot of mossie sailors who have kites dont bother with that.
Hi all,
have seen a number of ply Mossies with holes drilled in bows, all seem to have been OK. The ways I have seen used on existing boats to fill hole are, turning boat on end or upside down and filling with resin fibre mix and redrilling. Or gluing a small alloy tube in, then using a large washer on the outside of the hull to distribute load.
Regards Gary. <img src=
alt=
/>