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July 1, 2001 Issue
July 15, 2001 Issue
July 1, 2001
A Masthead Float
By Bradford Lyttle
Tipping over in small sailboats is always undesirable, but, if the boat does not turn entirely upside down (turn turtle), the situation often can be remedied by quickly climbing over the side, standing on the centerboard or daggerboard, gripping the gunwale, and leaning backwards. This generally rights the boat, after which, taking down the sail and bailing vigorously, usually makes it possible to resume sailing.If the boat turns turtle, a much more serious set of problems quickly can arise. For one thing, everything loose in the boat tends to fall out of the boat and, if they can't float, to the bottom of the body of water on which you are sailing. Several years ago, I was sailing a Snipe in Burnham Park Harbor in Chicago, and a vortex gust coming around one comer of the McCormick Place Exhibition Center tipped me over. I had my wallet, spectacles, and other things in a covered cookie can that was designed to be lashed to the boat, but had not had the presence of mind to secure the tether. Everything went irretrievably to the harbor's bottom.
Because the Snipe had a wooden mast, I was very much surprised that it turned upside down. I had assumed that a wooden mast would float enough to prevent the boat in which it was stepped from turning turtle. What happened was that wind blowing on the bottom of the Snipe caused the boat to drift to leeward, water caught in the sail, and the turtle turn occurred. The experience freed me of the delusion that a safety factor lay in a wooden mast.
Another experience that I had turning turtle occurred in a Flying Junior (FJ) that I purchased some years ago. The FJ is a 13' sloop originally designed as a trainer for teachng people how to sail the Olympic class Flying Scott. It has an aluminum mast. Because of its exceptional ease of sailing and seaworthiness, it became a class in itself, and the mainstay of many college, university, and other sailing clubs. I have had many fine sails with the FJ in the Thousand Island region of the St. Lawrence River.
However, on one windy day, when I was sailing alone through a channel between two large islands out into the eastern end of Lake Ontario, during a tack, the mainsheet fouled on its swivel pulley/clamcleat fitting, and I tipped over. Almost immediately, the FJ turned upside down. While this situation might have posed an interesting challenge had I been in my teens, I was in my late 60s, and simply did not have the strength to right the boat or otherwise cope with all of the problems.
Fortunately, there were a number of people picnicking on a dock on one of the islands, several of them noticed my predicament, and they came out in a power boat to rescue me. They towed the boat and me back to the dock, introduced themselves as members of the Kingston, Ontario, Yacht Club, and proceeded to right, and baif out, the FJ. On noticing that the flotation chambers had not been adequately corked and were flooded, they emphatically observed that I was sailing an unsafe boat, a criticism that was fully justified. The next day I changed the mainsheet pulley so that it would not swivel 360 degrees and foul the sheet, and solidly plugged the flotation chamber drain holes.
These experiences turning turtle made me thoughtful about how to prevent small sailboats from doing so. In looking through a catalog distributed by Murrays, a California company that sells catamaran, windsurfing, and other kinds of sports gear, I noticed masthead floats that could be attached to the tops of catamaran masts. These were important safety devices. Once it has turned turtle, a catamaran can be much more difficult to right than a monolmll. The floats were made of molded plastic, teardrop shaped, and were of two kinds. A large version was mounted on ball bearings and had a fin at one end that would keep it pointed into the wind. The smaller float was simply streamlined, and did not rotate. In studying the floats more, I noticed that they were rather heavy, weighing several pounds, and somewhat expensive. While they might have been ideal for catamarans, they probably were too heavy for the small monohulls that I sailed.
Therefore, I set about to design and build a masthead float suitable for my boats. The main body of the float consisted of two 1.5 gallon bleach bottles. I then made a 3/4" square oak piece whose length was the same as the diameter of the bottles, and down the center of the piece drilled a 5/16" hole. I had noticed in a boat equipment catalog that it was possible to purchase small ball bearings that would not rust and had purchased two of these that were 3/4" in diameterand acconnnodated a I/ 4" shaft (thermoplastic ball bearings with glass balls, available front McMaster-Carr Supply Cornpany). I then drilled Out the ends of the oak piece to accept the hearings with a snug fit. Next, I fitted a 1/4" stai niess steel rod about 30" long through the bearings. I held the rod in place with stainless steel collars secured with Allen head setscrews.
After removing the rod, I made two nearly half-circular pieces of wood, which, when epoxied to the oak piece, made a disk with the same diameter as the bottles. For strength, I thickened the West System epoxy with silica powder. Using epoxy thickened in the same way, I then cemented the flat ends of the bottles to the disk. Next, I made an aluminum fin and epoxied it to the end of one bottle. This gave me a float that would turn and point into the wind.
Calculations indicated that, since such a float would displace about three gallons of water, it should produce a buoyancy of approximately 25lbs. It seemed to me that this should prevent the masthead from sinking. However, it also was apparent that, once the boat had tipped over, the shock of the float hitting the water easily could break the epoxy glue, and the bottles would float free. Therefore, I lashed the bottles and wooden parts together with nylon string. Even if the float disintegrated, its major parts still should produce buoyancy. I drilled two holes in the free end of the stainless steel rod and screwed the rod along the top of the FJ mast.
This float is much lighter than the commercial catamaran floats, and cost only a few dollars; the main expense being the ball bearings. I have used it for several years, and have not noticed that it significantly affects the way in which the FJ sails. I have not tipped over with it since it was on the boat, but have rea-son to believe that it will prevent the boat from turning turtle.
After the second summer of use, the bottles broke away from the epoxy securing them to the disk. My guess is that the plastic of the bottles constantly flexed slightly and gradually pulled loose. I then reattached the bottles using clear 100% silicone sealant. Since the silicone is flexible, I expect that the bottles won't pull loose again. However, were I to make another float, I still would begin with silica-thickened epoxy as the material with which to cement the bottles to the wooden disk. The thickened epoxy, although it did not last indefinitely, did create seats into which the bottle bottoms fitted snugly. This made the silicone hold better when it eventually was used as the adhesive.
July 15, 2001
The Founding of Edey & Duff, Inc.
By Mait EdeyHere are the simple unvarnished (merely linseed-oiled) facts about that historic sequence of events: the founding of Edey & Duff, Inc.
Why historic? Today a huge multi-million dollar industry exists devoted to the design, building, and equipment of cruising sailboats. Seventeen or eighteen years ago this industry did not exist (this article was originally published about 1980). The experts consulted at the time were unanimous in their opinion that it could not exist.
To be sure, people went cruising under sail. But appropriate new boats were not being designed or built for the purpose, except as occasional custom jobs. People had a choice between older wooden boats or new fiberglass racer cruisers, so-called. The latter existed in degenerate form because the market was Serving newcomers to sailing, and such customers could be captured by mass production and mass marketing. No company was building a line of wholesome cruising boats in modem materials appropriate for cruising. The prevailing dogma was that the fashion had to be obeyed, no matter how unseamanlike. Here we honor the man who proved that dogma false. Today there are many companies building a great variety of boats for cruising; this entire industry follows the example first set by him.
In those days I had an old wooden Stone Horse, Little Slipper. I loved her and thought she was a remarkable boat. I was living on Bassett Island at the time, which gave me a good view of the transient floating population. I marveled daily that people bought the boats they did. The little fiberglass racer cruisers of Stone Horse size were such awkward and treacherous sailors that their owners didn't dare to sail them in and out of the harbor. There was a boom in motors and gasoline.
It made me sad to see the trend towards ugliness and incompetence. My Stone Horse was as obedient and clever as I could want. But she had been designed more than 30 years earlier. Was this progress? Breck Marshall had recently begun building his little 18' catboats and seemed to have found a small niche in the fiberglass boat market. I suggested to him that he build Stone Horses, or something similar. It seemed to me he couldn't lose with a small cruising sloop so outrageously superior to the competition. He agreed that the Stone Horse was an excellent design, but thought me naive for supposing people would buy something merely because it was better.
He attributed his own survival to the uniqueness of catboats. He said that any fool could recognize a catboat, but that most people wouldn't know a Stone Horse from any of the dozens of 23' fiberglass stoops in the glossy magazine ads.
Most summer days I went sailing in the late afternoon out on the Bay, sliding home by sunset. One evening I found my course converging with that of a rakish black ketch with a clipper bow, and I sailed over to have a closer look. She turned out to be a leeboard sharpie. I happened to be intensely interested in sharpies. I had read about them in Chapelle's books as a boy and studied their plans, but I never had chance to sail one, and as far as I knew they were extinct. At the wheel was a man with short, fuzzy blond hair. I drew alongside, sailing parallel, and said hello. We exchanged compliments, He said Little Slipper was doing pretty well to keep up with Blackgauntlet, being some 10' shorter. He was bound into Hospital Cove for the night, and as we approached Bassett Island we diverged again.
Early in the morning, hooked by my curiosity about the sharpie, I rigged up my dinghy and sailed around to Hospital Cove. Blackgauntlet was lying there, a strange and splendid sight with her big leeboards like folded wings and a long, bright pennant from the masthead. I came alongside and was invited aboard. Maggie was turning out pancakes. It was the first of many of her meals I was destined to enjoy. I was introduced to Ian and Jane, and inspected this remarkable vessel. We ate and gammed for a while, and things were going so well that I suggested moving around to the other side of the island so they could meet my family and dig some clams.
So up anchor and around to the Mill Pond, where several more pleasant hours were spent. Of course Peter had to go aboard Little Slipper. Too bad, he said, that boats like this aren't built any more. I perceived that I was dealing with a man of some discernment. We went on to agree about the decadence of modern boats and had a good time complaining to each other, for a while.
I ventured to ask him if he thought a builder of Stone Horses might not succeed in this dismal scene. He said he thought such a thing might be possible, if people could somehow be helped to understand the facts of life afloat.
Now, I was neither a boat builder nor a businessman. My aptitude for business was and is vanishingly small. I am better at day dreaming. During the next weeks I thought from time to time about my encounter with Peter. I imagined sleek new Stone Horses cruising the Bay. I imagined people discovering the deepjoys of cruising under sail in real boats that do what you want them to. I imagined the expressions on people's faces as it dawned on them that it was actually possible to get underway or to set an anchor under sail without panic. Peter was not a boat builder either. Unlike me, however, he found something appealing about quitting his job and starting his own business. He had admitted that much about himself He wanted to be his own boss and do something creative. It would have something to do with boats, but it would not be boat building. A man would have to be crazy to get into boat building these days, he thought. He was explicit on that point. We kept in touch. During the next couple of months I gradually perceived that, even if a man would have to be crazy to get into boat building, Peter had not ruled out a lapse of sanity. He leaked a few clues that he might be something of a wild man.
Could people be helped to understand the facts of life afloat? I was inexperienced, to say the least, at boat building, and I was confident I would ruin any small business I was left in charge of, but I had an evangelical feeling about good boats. It was perfectly clear to me exactly why Stone Horses were good and those other things bad. I couldn't see why it wouldn't be clear to anyone else, too, if I were given a moment to explain.
In our succeeding conversations Peter and I always found occasion to agree about Stone Horses and the potential success of an imaginary builder. Too bad, we agreed, that nobody was doing it. Too bad, we agreed a week or two later, that this important public and artistic service was left ignored. If we were boat builders, we agreed still later, we would lose no time in seizing the opportunity.
After some weeks of this, Peter began to sound increasingly restive about remaining in the employ of somebody else. I once went to see him as he spent a few days at a boat show demonstrating a bilge pump. He was mournfully pumping water from one big tub into another and back again. I think it was at about that time that one or the other of us dared to mention that we might consider the step. An intense period followed, during which we warily sized each other up. The stakes were high. Finally one evening, after a long walk on the beach around Mattapoisett Neck, the historic handshake occurred, giving birth to the enormous cruising boat industry we know today.
The next chapter began when we started clearing land for a boat shop next to Peter's house, only to discover that the zoning law had, in effect, made boat building illegal in Mattapoisett (and in all the towns between New Bedford and Chatham) except as a prior nonconforming use or unless located at the dump, It was the first of an abundant series of crises in our little company's precarious gestation. But that is another story.
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