'PORTUGUESE' DINGHY

'PORTUGUESE' DINGHY
My first build (2007) - designed by Hannu Vartiaala (Hannu's Boatyard)

Monday 18 May 2015

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:





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