Trailer

I needed a small trailer to transport the Moonfish - but the budget for this project didn't allow for a new one.  Eventually, patient searching and waiting on eBay got me this one about an hour's drive from home:

This must have been built sometime in the 1960s, by a firm of which no trace remains:

The suspension has a weird leading arm setup:

which uses what look like motorcycle shock absorbers (again, produced by a long-defunct firm) to provide both location and suspension.  The wheels and hubs appeared to be very early Mini items.

Detailed examination showed that the shockers were completly shot, as were the bearings and all the bushes:

but that the stub axles and mounting tubes were recoverable:

So I sourced some new shockers from a classic motobike store, modern composite bushes (the originals were nylon !), modern 4" hubs and 400 x 8 wheels (adapted with some additional sintered bronze bushes) and rebuilt the suspension.  I also rebuilt and recarpeted the rear bunks and made new forward bunks where a simple keel support had been before.

All of which gave me this:

which has been very easy to launch from and recover to, but is currently giving me really excessive tyre wear.  Something not quite right in the suspension setup, I think ........



(to be continued !)

Lateen Sail

I decided to make my first attempt at a sail out of polytarp in order to allow me to experiment relatively cheaply until I can find the correct specification (or I just decide to buy a Sunfish sail from the USA - they're hard to come by in the UK !).  After considerable research to get the correct dimensions and then a useful discussion on the 'WoodenBoat' forum about design (Thanks, Todd B !), I eventually had both what I thought should be a workable design and technique.

First step was to mark out the basic dimensions and the offset curves for the head, foot and leech in order to try to put some shape into the sail in more or less the correct place:

The edges were then created, using double sided tape and thin cord:

until the basic shape was complete:

This was then reinforced with tabling and tarp tape at tack, clew and head:

together with eyelets mounted through tape reinforcement at all attachment points, until the sail was complete:

and then lashed to the spars:

At the tack, there is a multi-directional lashing (as per the Sunfish Rigging Guide) and a cunningham:

and an outhaul at the clew:

both leading to jam cleats on the boom ready to hand for the helm:

The sheet runs from a wire horse over the tiller (again, to Sunfish spec), through a couple of blocks on the boom and a pair of double-sided velcro supports:

down to a ratchet block mounted between the cockpit well and the daggerboard:

While I was getting excited with polytarp, I also made a cover from the remains of an old boat cover tarp:

Still to follow - a little bit about refurbishing a 1960's trailer (an ebay 'bargain').

Spars

The Moonfish/Sunfish has three spars - a stubby, unstayed mast and a long flexible boom and gaff:

My mast is made from an old microlight aircraft wing spar from a friend's workshop (Thanks, Pat !) which happened to be exactly to Sunfish spec.  Luckily, it had an eye at one end:

 which is ideal as a halyard sheave.

At the base of the mast I stuch some chrome leather padding (left over from when I re-leathered the boom jaws on our Whammel); here temporarily stuck with parcel tape for a trial fit:

so that it would be a snug fit into the mast socket - made from plastic drainpipe tightly fitted into the oak deck pad covering the oak/epoxy mast trunking below the deck:

While the mast is nicely anodised, the boom and gaff are not (too expensive) and came (to Sunfish spec again) from an industrial alloy stockholder.  The ends have hardwood dowelling inserted and are then capped of with HDPE caps:

At the tack, the spar ends are connected by inserting stainless ringbolts and then connecting them with fishermen's stainless spring rings:

The outer ends had eyes (from my 'Bits Box') for outhauls fitted and a Sunfish spec bronze goosneck rounded off the whole construct:

Sea Trials

After a winter of waiting, we conducted sea trials of Blue Streak (as the Moonfish has been named) on Easter Day.

After suitable christening with beer:

she was launched onto the River Cleddau.

She floated (level !) and the test pilot reported that, when there was wind, she sailed well:

Unfortunately, there wasn't much wind and he was really unimpressed at having to paddle back the last quarter of a mile to the slip against the incoming tide !

Finishing the Foils

Once I had finished the hull and got it out of the garage and onto the trailer, I had bench space to finsh off the foils.  Most of the work was pretty straightforward but, as ever, there were one or two minor challenges along the way.

Probably the one that remains most noticeable is that - in order to get the Sunfish rudder head to fit - I had to sand back the head of the rudder foil through the first, very thin layer of hardwood veneer:

This is aesthetic only ..... but it niggles me.  The foil was made exactly to the specified thickness (3/4") but at that thickness the head wouldn't fit on - let alone rotate around its pivot bolt !  I took off as little wood as I dared and substituted the rather thick teflon washers (which you can now see used on the tiller bolt) for a much thinner pair make from milk bottle (in the US aka 'jug', I think ?) thermoplastic.  Seems to work - another thing to test in sea trials.

Once fully shaped (which included cutting the handle for the daggerboard and ensuring that the curve at the top of the rudder was good), the ply on both foils was given the mahogany wood dye treatment that I had given the decks.  This worked better than expected where the edges were shaped - except where I had had to use filler on voids.  The filler now stands out far more than I am comfortable with - all functional, though I suppose ...

Next, the foils were given a coat of epoxy, before I applied a layer of glass cloth on both sides and biaxial tape on the leading & trailing edges and bottom ends of the foils.  All of which went with several layers of epoxy and quite a bit of sanding !  They were then finished off with several coats of the same (Coo Var) yacht varnish that I had used on the decks.

I'm more pleased with the rudder:

than I am with the daggerboard:

although this is all aesthetics.  Functionally, they should both be sound.

A few more shots:

Daggerboard handle and mahogany deck stops:

Trailing edge:

leading edge:

Black dots on the leading edge were the 'cut to' marks on the glass cloth.  I forgot them until after I had squeegee'd on the epoxy.  Duh !

Much less filler on the rudder edges:

If I can find the right stock and some time over this winter, I may well replace these plywood foils with solid wood boards.

Daggerboard

The daggerboard diagram in the Sunfish class rules was much easier than the rudder one to take accurate dimensions from:

 I did have to take into account, however, that the distance between deck and bottom of hull (given as 13 3/8" for the Sunfish above) is different in the Moonfish.

Once I had the outline dimensions, I laminated two sheets of 12mm ply together using epoxy thickened with silica spread pretty thinly after prepping the boards with neat epoxy to prevent soakaway weakening the join.  I then marked and cut out the blank with a jigsaw, using a thin Starrett blade and drilled holes to get around the curves accurately:

This was then planed accurately to size all round, before marking out both the thickness and the depth of the foil edges:

These were then all planed, Sureformed and sanded back to the marks.  In doing this, I came upon quite a few voids in the ply laminations (but not in my glueline !) which I filled with filler and sanded back.  I lived to regret this later !  Sorry, no pics of the foil at this stage !

I did this work quite early on in the project, as the plans were very clear that the Sunfish foil was differently sized to the Moonfish ones and that the box in the central 'girder' of the frame had to be built to the revised dimensions.  The work this far gave me the dimensions I needed, so I left work on the daggerboard there until the end of the project when I finished off both foils.

Getting Ahead of Myself

I've got way behind with this blog and will work hard to catch up.

Today, however, is the Red Letter Day - completion:

Sorry - couldn't resist !

I still owe posts on the daggerboard, tiller, spars, sail and trailer and will get on to them directly.

(Just hope the 'Sea' Trials don't get in the way !)