New boat for my rig

[PaulB]

I have a sail rig from an old Snark Wild Flower. It is in like new condition, but the hull [foam] fell apart years ago. I would like to find an easy to build boat, which will use this rig. It is a stayed mast, with a main, and a jib. Thanks for any help.

Paul Bradway

[TomRobb]

How about one of the Bolger/Payson tack-n-tape "instant" boats? They work pretty much as advertised and aren't a bad place to start if you're not sure of your comitment to the thing or the process.

[Steve Paskey]

Paul: It's tough to make a specific recommendation without knowing the size of the sails. An entry in the sail-rite database shows a mainsail of 64 sq. ft. and a jib of about 19 sq. ft., for 83 sq. ft. total. Is that right?

If you're looking for something that's easy to build, you might consider Dave Carnell's "$200 sailboat" -- an adoptation of Bolger's Featherwind. Dave's boat is designed to use the rig from a Sunfish. Assuming that your rig is about the right size, adopting it to the boat would simply be a matter of figuring out where to put the mast so that the center of sail area is in the same place as shown on Dave's design.

Here are links to Dave's site and a story about the Featherwind:

http://home.att.net/~DaveCarnell/sailboat.html

http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/articles/featherwind/


[This message has been edited by DorySailor (edited 12-17-2001).]

[PaulB]

I have looked at the Payson/Bolger boats. I built a Teal a few years ago, and have been looking into a few outhers. My problem is that the rig I have has a stayed mast. I dont know if they could pe adapted to that. I have also looked into the $200 sailboat, with the same problem. I have been studying boatbuilding for a few years, but dont have a ton of experance. Do you think it would be easyer to adapt the mast to freestanding? Or change the boat to a stayed mast? Any input? Thanks for any help.

Paul Bradway

[Steve Paskey]

I'm definitely no expert on stayed masts, but here's my two cents worth. I'm assuming you've got one shroud on each side of the mast. You'll need to buy a chainplate for each side, and bolt that to the hull just below the sheer. Attach the wire to a turnbuckle, and the turnbuckle to the chainplate. The only trick may be in getting the length of the wire correct. Obviously, if you've got a forestay running to the bow, you'll need another chainplate, etc.

I'm sure the hardware is readily available. I would think you could make it work on just about any wood hull. The only potential pitfall I can think of is that is you may have problems with the jib if the distance between the mast and the bow on the new boat is significantly different than the distance on the original Wildflower.

If the rig was designed for a stayed mast, I don't think I'd try to make it an unstayed mast.

By the way, if I remember correctly, the original rig for Bolger's Featherwind (the one Bolger designed) was a stayed sloop rig with a jib.

Steve Paskey

[Todd Bradshaw]

Almost any sloop rig is going to sail better with a stayed mast. It helps keep the jib luff from sagging and the masthead from bending to leeward. The existing mast may not even be strong enough to stand alone, so it's probably easier to adapt the hull for shrouds and a forestay than to try to adapt and reinforce the mast to be free-standing.

[PaulB]

Dorysailor,
I have all the hardware from the old boat. I kept everything but the old hull. I eaven kept the center board, and the rudder. It was about 15" long, so I will just look in that range. Now one more questen. Should I be concerned about the strengh of the boat sides?

Also I had thought of putting the rig on my Teal, but thought it was WAY to much sail for that boat.

Paul B

[Steve Schulz]

Paul,

You could check out the sailing flattie in John Gardner's book Building Classic Small Craft. It's 14 feet long, plywood construction with a centerboard and jib & main rig. Looks like it could be converted to stitch & glue pretty easily if you wanted to.

He's a little sketchy on the rig, saying that some experimentation will be required, but hey, that's what you're doing anyway, right?

Any decent public library should be able to get your hands on the book. That way the plans won't cost you a thing.

Steve