Fully dressed and waiting to go...

Hi all,
So yesterday morning we awoke to the sound of the little wind wheel spinning around. It is unusual to have wind early in the morning here... and annoying as we had left Sailrocket outside fully rigged. The rig was lowered, the boat was tied down and it was behind a shed... but I checked anyway. It looked like she had moved and in the early light I could see that she had jumped off her trestles and was sitting on the rear skeg. I went out to check it out. We sat it back on the trestles. The wind was blowing from the north which meant it was blowing from behind. It was only around 10 knots but as we walked away it managed to get up under the wing (due to the new upturned flap) and flicked the wing up 30 odd degrees. The boat leapt off its trestles once more and lunged into the shed. The 'Widgee stick' which the wing sits on for transporting snapped at its base but thankfully did not fail completely.
So we were once again doing early morning laminations.
Hiskia came in to help as we were hoping on going sailing. The morning eventually cleared up and it blossomed into a lovely day. Remarkably for Walvis Bay... the wind did not pick up all day... at all. This is a very rare occurrence. We siezed the opportunity to work on the new flap mechanism in detail.

The wing has become quite complicated as building in a powerful and practical system is not easy in such a fragile structure. The main flap section is very light weight and the loads have to be shared all around it and applied evenly. Thankfully I asked Harken UK for a dozen of their 'micro-blocks' to be sent to Helena the day before she left to come out here. They arrived the next morning minutes before she left the house. Nice work HARKEN. Everyone of those blocks is now employed in the wing and activated by various grades of kitesurfing string.
We have set the system up and yesterday we set up a number of block cascades to put in the necessary 100kg of load onto the flap. The mission was to keep chasing the weak link until it was a sturdy and reliable system. The wing had to be lowered and removed a couple of times. The clear covering had to be removed in panels to access the 'piano'... but the good news is that now we have a full flap operating system.

Once this was achieved, and after a couple of pizzas, I set to reviewing all the other sheeting systems on the boat. Some bits and pieces were left over from other systems and practices which we no longer use. It was with great joy that I was able to remove some of the bridles and sheeting systems. The penalties imposed by some of these systems now outweigh their value. They were left on as an extra method of controlling the wing in a situation but now the new 'tame' wing should not require them. The weight, windage and complications are now gone.
I love taking things off the boat.
So once again we are rigged and ready, tried and tested. Once again it blows from the North. So once again we may not have the wind we now desire.
The hight tides are coming later in the day so after tomorrow we may not have good water for sailing fast. We will still go out however as I'm sure many other things still have to be learnt on the road to 50 knots.

A big thanks to the guys at DUNLOP tyres the other day too. Our little tyre on the 'pod-trolley' had a blow out and there were none in walvis Bay... and I looked everywhere. Thomas from Dunlop brought this blown out tube back from the dead and now the trolley is back in action. A silly little thing but one that plays an important role in our whole sailing scenario. The fact that they didn't want to be paid for it was a generous gesture. Cheers guys.

Paul.

Paul Larsen
Mobile: + 44 (0) 794 684 1929
E-mail: paularsen1@aol.com
www.sailrocket.com

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