My rivet gun has died. It has been with me for over three years and set rivets from Cleveland, OH to Key Largo, FL and countless destinations in-between including Virginia Beach, VA, Myrtle Beach, SC, Lake Lanier, GA, Lake Norman, NC, Lakes Hartwell and Keowee, SC, Lake Eustis, FL, Tybee Island, GA, Hollywood, FL, Pensacola and Destin, FL….It has been in service on my Nacra 5.2, Nacra 6.0NA, Nacra F18, and in heavy duress on this I20. As you can see, we have quite a history together and it’s sad to see it go. It did go out in a blaze of glory – setting in excess of 40 stainless steel rivets just in the last several weeks. With the finish line is sight, it dropped just shy of completion when the jaws broke while installing the last Harken pivoting mount…what shall we do with the ol’ gal?

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

Looks like we have finalized our t-shirt design for this year!

Two things today just couldn’t stand the pressure. Travis Phillips helped me again this evening to disassemble the rubber snubbers in the rudder system. These snubbers form the pivot between the two rudder arms and the solid tiller bar that connects them. The snubbers on this boat had only about 3/16″ of the rubber material exposed between the aluminum fittings. This results in a lot of extra stress on the rubber - and these have been known to break. Travis found that one of them had cracked nearly in two - it was about to break clean. Good thing we were replacing them! With things apart, we took the aluminum tiller bar into the shop and sawed about 1/2″ off each end so more of the snubber would be exposed in the joint. Then we reassembled the system with new rubber pieces and realigned the rudders (I was erroneous in thinking I didn’t have to do this the other day!). Realigning these canted hulls and rudders when nothing is square was difficult. After several frustrating attempts of measuring, we tipped the boat up stern high and sighted down the hulls aligning the rudders by eye. Then we measured - and lo and behold it was right.

As I indicated yesterday, I tried to tighten up the rivet pin in the cleat swivel this morning at work in a hydraulic press. I lowered the piston on the pin and applied a slight pressure and upon inspection, I didn’t change much. I put it back in and applied a little more pressure and the whole thing flattened like a pancake! It’s mangled and won’t even move so I put in an order for a new replacement from SailMax.biz.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

Tonight I mounted the swivel mount for the halyard cleat on the main beam. I managed to reuse some old holes in the beam that were in good shape (only a slight amount of corrosion). There was a spinlock in this place that was used on a combo tack line / halyard setup but it was near the end of it’s effective life span. These Harken cleats aren’t as sexy but they are very robust and reliable. Like the holes for the swivel mount, I was also able to recycle one other hole on the beam for the eyestrap after some careful manipulation of the shape of the eyestrap. I only had to add one hole for this entire thing (extra holes are bad juju). I still have to mount the tack line swivel sometime soon. I have another swivel mount but it has become a little loose on the swivel. I believe I can tighten up the swivel pivot by putting it in a heavy duty press tomorrow and save $40.

I also finally got the spinnaker bridles sorted out. I’ve tried twice to get the correct length but they keep coming in too long. I took the last pair I received and cut them shorter than needed so I could re-crimp in the thimble and use some high-strength line to adjust the spinnaker pole height on the beach. I don’t have a set of crimpers myself so I borrowed some questionable equipment to make the crimp. I didn’t feel too confident in it so I gave it a test load and one came apart with a “BANG” - that won’t work! So I elected to “punt” and cut the wires a little shorter removing the crimp I just made from both wires. I took them down the road to Mainsail Marine where local boat working expert, Bill Hendrix who is a great catsailor himself, put in a couple of double crimps that look like they’re supposed to. I mounted the pole and set it just below the height it was originally - it looks great.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

Not a whole lot to report this morning. I finished up the port installation on the starboard hull, made plans for mounting the spinnaker tack cleat and the spinnaker halyard cleat (I have to revive a loose Harken swivel first), and sent off a list of new lines we need to be ordered. We have a new spinnaker sheet (3/8″ Samson Apex), a new spinnaker halyard, and tack line (both 1/4″ Excel Racing w/ Dyneema core) on the way. Because we are still running the older design bail for the spinnaker hoist, we elected to not strip the cover from the front of the spinnaker halyard because chafing of the exposed core could become an issue. We could do that later if we address the spinnaker hoist mechanics.

It looks like we might have some rain this evening so it will give me a chance to eye-splice the jib sheet tail and the jib uphaul and/or finalize the Team Seacats T-shirt design so we can send them off to be made.

OK…so I probably over-engineered this but what I have here is the ultimate trapeze bunji setup. For those not familiar with catamaran trapeze systems, we have two wires (sometimes more, sometimes less depending on the boat) that come down from the mast hound on each side of the boat. We hook into these wires and suspend ourselves, in a standing posture, off the side of the boat to help counter balance the power of the boat. These wires are usually kept in place near the side of the hull with a bunji that runs through the hull and under the trampoline in some way. We had an issue a couple of years ago because the bunjies simply ran across the boat from one trap line to the opposing trap line. We broke a bunji and it left the leeward side trapeze rigging dangling and swinging from the breeze and the wave motion. We didn’t give it much thought at the time and continued to sail on a tight reach. When the wind angle changed and we elected to hoist the spinnaker, we found that the loose dangling trapeze line had knitted itself and the spinnaker halyard with the sidestay. I spent 15 minutes on my back working to free the snarled rigging while staring into the sun and having waves wash over my head every five seconds. Meanwhile the rest of the fleet took off with the chutes flying. That won’t happen again.

I’m sure this has been done before and probably in a similar fashion - but I set out to design a system that accomplishes several things. First, I wanted a system that was separate from side to side. This way if we broke one on one side, it wouldn’t release the trapeze line on the other side. Second, I wanted a backup bunji somewhere so that if we did break one, we could use the backup. Third, I felt like the crew should have some extra length in the bunji under the trampoline since they are the more likely of the two of us to make a tarzan-esque flying trip around the forestay during a pitch-pole (sorry Frank…it’s true!). This “Amazing Flying Bambini” maneuver is usually what breaks a bunji - but having extra length might help it survive. I made a diagram to keep all this straight in my mind. Under the trampoline are two double blocks with a becket and two single blocks. If we break either the crew or skipper bunji, at worst we will lose the backup on the opposite side if it was the crew bunji. Even then, the backup bunji on the near side to the break will remain operational and we can simply transfer the near side trapeze line to the backup bunji where it peaks out of the side lacing with a loop and a stopper ball on it. To better understand the system, click the image below - each color represents a separate bunji. Have I completely gone overboard? Feel free to comment below!

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

With Tim Owens’ help Saturday evening, we set a record time and applied nearly all the mainsail graphics in about three hours. I had spent about 3 hours making the graphics that morning and used up about 160 linear feet of vinyl material (Bonnie and I have a vinyl graphics business on the side). The first year I did a sail like this, I had over 40 hours in it! I only had to apply a couple of graphics Sunday morning (that I hadn’t yet cut) but the mainsail is mostly done.

Today, Travis Phillips came by to help me check off a number of things from the current to-do list. Travis mounted my F18 rudder blades (2nd generation Nacra rudders that are a little wider and get a little better traction in the water) to this boat’s upper castings. My F18 lower castings were already seated to snuggly retain these rudders. We also checked the rudder alignment and it was spot on perfect (whew! One thing we DIDN’T have to work on). Travis did some metal work on the traveler cleat to get the angle of the cleat to suit a trapeze position a little better and replaced two of the foot straps on the back of the boat. Meanwhile, I worked out the details with the rigging at the front of the boat.

I remembered that we had a dilemma last year mounting the TackTick because we could only mount it under the spinnaker pole because of interference everywhere else. The compass was easily visible but the spinnaker pole shadowed the top-mounted solar cell that charges the battery on the compass and it died on us on the last race day (when we needed it the most!). I set out to rig the pole around the compass and it came out quite nicely. Typically the self tacker turning blocks are mounted right up by the bridle wires so there is enough line to feed the roller furler (even then you have to release some purchase to get it to furl). Since we’ve elected to not go with the furler I decided to move these blocks back on the spin pole to allow room for the compass. That doesn’t mean we can’t ever run a furler again…it just means that we’ll have to continue to be creative to get the rigging to work properly if we choose to do so in the future. I also mounted the new Ronstan swiveling cleats for the jib sheet on either side of the front bram provided by SailMax.biz. The next problem was the jib uphaul line and I found a way to route that control back to the beam again without interfering with the compass.

The jib uphaul is now run back under and to each outboard end of the front beam so it can be tweaked from either side of the boat. I used the cleats where the mast rotation control lines usually go. Since we work with mast rotation much more often than jib uphaul, I intend to run the rotation control back to a new cleat to be located near each dagger board where it is more accessible. I’ve got to place an order soon for hardware to finish up the self tacking jib tail and finalize the jib uphaul. We also don’t have a spinnaker halyard cleat or a tack line cleat sorted out yet.

Travis also helped me mount the mid-pole snuffer hoop this evening as well. We’ve done something a little out of the ordinary with the hoop in that it’s mounted further back on the pole (it’s actually “mid-pole” now). I had some grommets added to the trampoline to facilitate the attachment of the back of the bag. My hope is that this will help launch the spinnaker easier. It’s complicated; With the hoop mounted so far forward, the tackline doesn’t pull much spinnaker out of the sock when it pulls the tack out. The tack line is the only line that goes straight into the snuffer so when it leaves the bulk of the spinnaker (which is pretty much in a ball at this point) in the hoop, the halyard has to pull it out at an angle. This takes a LOT of effort on the sailors and is stressful to the spinnaker. Hopefully, the tack line will be able to “birth the baby” by itself leaving the rest of the hoist to go quickly and smoothly. It also presents less windage than being stuck way out there on the spin pole.

We had a tornado warning last night and some pretty bad-a$$ thunder storms blowing through. Between showers, Bonnie helped me secure the boat to the ground with ground screws. There was no time to unstep the mast (and I wasn’t terribly keen on doing so with lightning all around). The boat weathered the storms nicely.

I did get a little work in on the spin pole. I removed it and took it inside the workshop to remove the end cap and the eyestraps on the end so I could remove the wire rigging from it. I shortened the new wire rigging (because it was too long even after sending back the first round) with the intention of using 1/8″ spectra to tie the thimble end of the rigging to the pole. This gives some adjustement on the spin pole height too. I re-rigged the spin pole this morning and tied in the spectra with three loops. Because I don’t have the upmost confidence in soft lines in this application (chafing) I’ll tie a separate safety loop between the end of the rigging and the pole. This way we would still notice a failure but it wouldn’t end our day.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

Here’s another shot I just wanted to share with you folks. The boat is really coming around. I still have a lengthy “laundry” list but we’ve got some more help coming in this weekend to hopefully get the boat about 90% finished.

We’ve changed the video player to pop-up automatically on the main page from today until the Tybee 500. We’re really looking forward to the aerial and onboard camera footage that will be provided by AdventureOnline.TV!

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

It’s not quite that close yet, but it’s getting there. I got the sails up tonight and determined that I have to modify some of the rigging. I need to cut off a tail on the forestay that was setup for the ‘new’ jib system (which is not reliable enough IMHO for ocean distance racing). We’ve gone to the old-school wire halyard for the jib instead and the extra ring is just hanging loose up near the top of the jib.

I still can’t get the right length spinnaker pole bridles, so I’m going to have to cut these, re-swage them, and since they will now be too short, use high-strength vectran to fine tune the spinnaker pole height. It’s nice to have this adjustment anyway.

Because we forgot to rig the spinnaker halyard the other night, I wasn’t able to check the hoist height of the spinnaker (a concern of mine since we had some trouble with the new Nacra20s at the U.S. SAILING Multihull Championship). We’ll have to lower the mast and re-run the halyard to check it too.

There was an additional problem we had at the Championship with a patch that wraps around the luff of the mainsail near the foot - it jams in the entry to the luff groove in the mast making hoisting the sail difficult. As the mainsail is downhauled this patch transitions the entry point leaving it jammed and with some downhaul on the main. Eventually the patch begins to stretch open making the issue worse and when it comes time to drop the sail (we have to raise it slightly to clear the halyard hook at the top of the mast) it can be impossible. We need to find a solution to that.

Tommorow night I’m going to run around the boat with a tape measure and make a list of the needed hardware and lines.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

Several folks came by this evening to help put the Team Seacats I20 together. Travis and Courtney, Chris and Ann, Chris Zander, David and Robin, Tim and Kristen, and of course Bonnie pitched in to grill out some grub, put in some work on the boat, and shoot some pool. As far as the boat goes, we got the hulls assembled, the trampoline installed (thanks to Chris for putting in the ooomf in the lacing), the mast got stepped with the trapeze rigging. Naturally, we forgot to rig the spinnaker halyard at the top of the mast but we can deal with that later. We only wish that Frank (who is about 800 miles away at the moment) could have joined us.

Pictured here are Chris Owens, Chris Zander, and Tim Owens (no relation).

Tim Owens, David Strickland, Chris Zander, and me (trying to get into position before the flash goes off).

Now this is a more natural pose. Me on the left, Tim Owens (the man with the smile…and common sense), Chris Zander, and David Strickland. Strangly, Travis Phillips avoid all photos and Chris Owens missed most of them too. I’ll get them soon enough….(note: no animals were injured during the taking of this photo)

I made a comment last week about the finish being “acceptable”. I was wrong about the finish - it turned out to be a LOT better than simply “acceptable”. There is still a little more to buff out (looks like the quart of compound will just be enough) but the hull on the left is complete except for the topsides. Will ya look at that shine!? Travis Phillips, who used to sail with me until he severed his acheles tendon in a tennis accident late last year, helped out big-time this weekend. 5 hours and two sunburns later (yes, we were both wearing sun block…but not enough apparently) we sanded the port hull from start to finish. We started with 220 grit, then 320 grit, then 400 grit, and finally 600 grit. I put a tee in the water hose so we could both have a water supply for the sanding. Travis came back this evening to help me finish the one remaining side of a hull and we both went at it with two mechanical buffers.

Bonnie and I are having an informal cookout tomorrow evening with the folks that have graciously pitched in thus far, and I’m going to squeeze another evening out of them as we start to put this boat together (insert evil laughter). With their help, I hope to get the trampoline on and the mast up in the air. I’ll take some more pictures and try to introduce the guys and gals (that put up with all this nonsense).

I wonder how long my driveway will be blue like this?

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

I went out to the course at Spring Fever with Neville Cork on his power boat this afternoon and took some shots. I’ve had some things come up that prevented me from attending the regatta this year. The weather has been spectacular for racing with the temperature in the upper 80’s and the breeze between 10-15 with some higher gusts. There’s a large 18 boat F18 fleet and approximately 35 to 40 other types of catamarans in attendence. The racing was great today and the perspective from a chase boat on the water was interesting. I took over 160 pictures today and they’re available at the Flickr site…click the image below to go there.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

OK…it’s taking longer than expected but the results are coming out OK. The new gel coat is buffing up very easily because it’s not as hard as the old gel coat. I was getting concerned that I couldn’t get the old gel coat to a good sheen but discovered that I was only being stingy with the rubbing compound. With copious amounts applied to the buffer/polisher the old gel coat does shine up quickly. I’m not sure that I have enough compound but it will be close (I’m ordering another quart this weekend to be sure). I’ll focus on the bottoms first because I can do the sides later with the boat assembled if I happen to run out.

In some spots, there is a difference in the color between the old and new gel coat. The old gel coat seems to have turned a little dark-greenish in spots. It’s not something you would notice outside of 5′ away … and I almost think it has an interesting look when you do notice it. However, once graphics are applied, it probably won’t be visible at all. Click to enlarge the photo. I have some well needed help coming in on Sunday to help me sand the remaining areas on this hull and get started on the other one.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

I received the pictures back that I took during my short visit to Performance Catamarans earlier this week. Unfortunately the disposable camera really needed the flash when indoors (my digital camera would have been borderline in here). Fortunately I did use the flash on several pictures! I’ve uploaded the photos and added descriptions on the Flickr site…click the photo below to go there.

As far as the boat work goes, I’m still wet-sanding the hulls. I have about 2/3 of one hull done and did some test buffing along the very bottom of the hull. The finish is good but it’s not perfect…it’s taking a lot more time than I had anticipated and the ‘acceptable’ finish might have to do for a little while…it’s certainly not bad enough to detract anything from the performance of the boat (I’m probably being too picky about it - as usual). The the fairness of the hull bottom looks great!

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.