New boat, same me

I did it again. I bought another boat. I’ve finally been convinced to join the PT fleet in Evans Bay. This blog will mainly serve as a little historical reminder to show my progress and to analyse my races and stuff. I owned a Farr 3.7 for about 3 years but I think that now is a good time to change.

The boat

Mr Jinks (I think it needs a name change to be honest, used to be called Charmed Quirk which I much prefer) 862 is an older Kevlar hull, ply deck PT. It has a still very crisp Doyle that flattens out beautifully. It does need a little bit of setting up however. Hoodie (Mike Hood), who sold me the boat, and one of the ones convincing me to join the fleet, met me on Satuday and helped me rig up one of his old masts, from Skytrain on which he used a Doyle with, and we got the rake all set up nicely. Thankfully there wasn’t really anything major that we had to change. Just remove a few shackles here and there and play with stay adjusters.

Todays jobs

Today I wanted to get as much of the rigging purchaced and rigged up as possible, and hopefully go for a test sail too. It was 5-10 knots and very warm so was very much looking forward to get on the water.

Upgrades galore

I had made a list the day before of everything that I needed to get so hoped I woudn’t have to make too many trips out to Barton Marine. First trip was a huge success getting pretty much everything that I needed, most of the rope and other bits and bobs I thought I might need.

There are some tweaks I want to make though, I want to make everything continuous so I’ll have to do a heap of splicing one day, nothing I can’t do though. I think I’ll grab some SHOCK blocks and lash them together and attach them near the forestay, that should work perfectly.

Downhaul

Thankfully this was pretty straight forward, just a couple of blocks as the mast had existing swiveling cleats on it. Then some line and rig it all up. Annoyingly I haven’t been able to get quite the range out of the downhaul adjustment I would have liked as it bottoms out quite early, something I’ll keep looking at and trying to improve. I have an idea for something I want to try with it that may be kinda cool.

Vang

The vang was a fun one. Luckily Hoodie had a bent stainless plate with holes in it which was designed for the vang, so I was able to use that. A pair of RF20175 cleats and other blocks, various shackles, and some lines later and I managed to make this.

Needs some adjustment as the bolts interfere with the swivels, still works perfectly either way though.

Mainsheet/boom

There were some funny blocks on the boom, I had an old boom that Hoodie found somewhere that fit the gooseneck, so I ripped them all off and replaced them with some Ronstan 40mm Orbital blocks. Of course a lovely 55mm ratchet as the final block though.

The boom had an outhaul car as well which was quite nice. It doesn’t run the smoothest though which I think is due to the shackle running along the top of the boom. I may cut out that part of the track as it doesn’t really do anything anyway.

Lower Forestay

This part I was pretty keen on doing right. Originally it had a set of weird Clamcleats where you had to pull the rope up to lock it in. I replaced these with Ronstan Cam Cleats, which thankfully had the same screw base and size for the allready tapped threads so all I had to do was find some 3/16 bolts.

I replaced the tertiary line with some new fandangled 1.8mm (felt thinner) dyneema which weighed nothing but was strong as anything, spliced it all up and am very happy with the result. I didn’t need to replace any blocks or anything here which was nice since they were all pretty happy and running smoothly. I still need to add a secondary line with an additional block to double the purchase. I had to steal it for the vang.

Rudder

The rudders were actually really nice. The stocks were in fantastic condition as well. Hoodie reckons that the blades might be the ones that are incredible upwind

Other bits and pieces

The traveler was in pretty good nick. The car could be upgraded with some ball bearing blocks, which I might do. I replaced the swivel cleat block though to a newer RF67 as the old one was a bit crusty and didn’t close properly either.

Mast rotation is another thing I have to take a look at. I bought Barton’s out of RF20175 cleats which I had planned to use. I also needed to bolt the block to the end a little better, I totally forgot to bolt it on properly and lost it when I was putting the mast away! I found one of the new RF25109 blocks that is designed for lashing to something which fits a bolt though the center. I think I’ll attach that to the end and that will also give me a little more room to mount the cleat.

I made a lovely little line for the rudder movement limiting with a small carabiner that works really lovely.

The result

She looks pretty darn good, nice new shiny lines and stainless. Everything how I want it. I finally left the yacht club around 6pm with basically everything I wanted to. Managed to get the sail up as well. Still gotta work out this swiveling mast lock thing, I think it isn’t quite working how it should be, I’ll lay the boat on it’s side some day with the sail up and take a good look. Also need to get better at hoisting the Doyle.

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