legs for a Triton - careening an Alberg 30
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SORRY:
Thought I'd check em out again, but for some *#&^@!?)(#!! reason can't get the said Article OR Project to come up!
The legs were take apart poles, I believe, with custom pads for feet, that were not lashed to the uppers but to the aft lower plate - and had lines leading from the feet fore and aft. No way could you go cruising without them.
If you carried other poles viz spinaker, my guess is to be usable for legs on an Ariel (ie lashed to the shrouds) they'd have to be at least 10'.
http://www.alberg30.org/maintenance/...ized/careening
I guess technicly careening can mean leaning the boat more to one side than the other - just as it means resting the ship on its bilge. This site takes the upright approach and could possibly be a way of getting the rudder OUT if you want to dig a 30" deep hole on what you're sitting on. (You need a 28" drop to clear the top of the rudder shaft from the bottom of the rudder tube.)
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Dream of a maintenance-free s.s. and foam rudder?....this taken from a skipper's list of things to do at HAULOUT From a 'geocities' site:
"Drill hole in lowest point of rudder to drain water.
Rusty water or lots of water = bad.
Epoxy hole shut befor refloating."
Baldwin's Give Your Boat Some Legs
(this could be a new thread - but it still is apropos access to the rudder)
Jim Baldwin's Sailnet article now comes up using the address in the previous post.
If whisker and spinaker poles don't have a place on your cruising A/C then this invention of Jim's is fantastic. He uses s.s. pipe/tube. Relatively common 6061T6 aluminum might work as well.
The article is not complete in that there are no closeups of the fittings. Most important is the method of attachment of a leg to the chainplate. I believe Jim temporaryly removes the aft lowers, using that plate.*
Some exploration of 'Some Legs' for the Commander or Ariel should probably be done on the hard. I have trouble 'seeing' the legs at the top 'attached' to a single point on top of the chain plate, obviously by a bolt or pin. Couldn't the leg be lashed in some fashion right to the upper shroud, which is almost vertical? In other words I would rather have a two point tie to the upper shroud in order to have a stiffer leg. One lashing at deck level, another a couple feet higher. What am I missing here?
Another thought is that if the center shroud is used, the fore and aft lowers on either side could be employed to position and steady the legs, again by lashing. Maybe - like the feet below - a plywood devise that clamps to the shrouds with a couple clamps for the leg poles could be designed. Ariels with inboard shrouds might benefit with a gizmo that clamped to the shrouds but standoff the proper distance outboard for the legs to be at a optimal angle. Seems to me that an optimal angle would be slightly knock-kneed, wider at the bottom than the top.
Another 'exploration' is necessary to articulate the footpads. Seems to me the pad to pole joint has to be a universal type - able to lay flat at whatever angle the boat is to the surface. How?
Another problem is whether the legs can or ought to be adjusted IF the boat decides to lean and a foot starts sinking?:eek:
Another issue is that the flat part of the keel is aft of the shrouds. Is there any tendancy of the A/C to nose forward or downward? An inclined beach would counter that problem if the boat is bow in. Yet most of the Ariel's sitting surface is under the companionway - the keel starts upward from a point between the two big windows in the cabin - that might put "unintended" pressure on the legs at the shrouds.
That means there is less than 6' of horizontal keel surface (in the 25' length of an A/C). And all of that is concentrated in the rear half. If you wanted to remove the rudder, it would be dicey to say the least, even tied to side of a quay.
Has anybody done this - tied off at dock side and have the tide go out to work on the bottom?
A THIRD LEG MAY BE NEEDED AT THE BOW. (just being difficult - and voluminous as somebody once said!:p )
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Anybody carrying oars (see appropriate archives) might find that they could be adapted to leg duty. Blade up with slip on footpad over the handle, and a clever, simple attachment of the blade end to the shrouds...
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*So far as I know Jim Baldwin is the only one on the Web who has been thoughtful enough to share his Boat Legs invention. His boat is a 28' Pearson Triton, BIG sister to the A/C. He is a double circumnavigator, and MORE than obviously knows what he is doing. Don't mean to second guess or demean in any way whatsoever his methods, ways, or means. I'm positive that knowing how to stand your boat up is as important as sailing it, or climbing the mast. My intent is Ariel specific, and hopefully to get to the root of things with discussion. I could be wrong. And could be assuming too much.:confused:
alteration to fiberglass rudder
Per Ebb's challenge (in post #253) I'll describe my method of repair for A-231's rudder.
Disclaimer and Warning:
If you have a functioning plank rudder leave it alone. This method is not a simple sheathing of the current rudder. The end product is a fiberglass rudder with a wood core. If your rudder is has a couple splits, has a solid shaft and you really, really need a boat project then this method may be for you. I have no personal objection to any approach to rudder repairs that are safe. I make no claim this is by any means a recommended method of repair to the Ariel/Commander rudder. It has however, worked for me for the last 10 years.
Problem description:- When we acquired A-231, the rudder had failed in the same manner as Tim’s on A-24 ( a vertical break from the propeller aperture to the top).
- A P.O.’s attempt to repair the rudder looked to be un-reinforced thickened epoxy to glue the broken halves together. As a result, I had a series of bad repairs to address or the need to fabricate a new rudder from scratch…
- I elected to sheath A-231’s rudder while keeping in mind the many failed rudders I’ve seen around boatyards. Most sheathed rudders I’ve observed have been simple affairs of 6oz cloth with no attempt to keep the actual rudder core dry. The most common failures I observed were the result of (1) a poor bond between the rudder skin and the rudder shaft, (2) freeze damage or swelling from the resulting water entry, least common was (3) trauma to the rudder skin from a grounding. Many of these fixes did more harm than good as the fiberglass skin often just trapped water and led to early failure from rot. Clearly water entry in a sheathed rudder is the root cause of failures…
- A-231’s rudder is essentially a fiberglass rudder with a wood core. The difference from a traditional fiberglass fairing are: first, a thick skin over the bulk of the rudder (two layers of 6oz cloth and a layer of mat yielding a 1/8” - 3/16" skin), and second, a significant effort spent on sealing the joint between the rudder shaft and the wood core of the rudder. For A-231, the rudder shaft is sealed with both a ½ inch of thickened epoxy with a secondary seal of 3M 5200 in a groove at the fiberglass/shaft boundary.
The following entries show the steps followed in A-231’s rudder repair.
wood core fiberglass rudder
Bill is text book on his rudder reburbishment!
If I may comment....
Fiberglass rudder with wood core imco is absolutely the correct concept.
Water or callit water vapor will get into wood that lives under water no matter what is done to encapsulate it. Nothing wrong with that except that the wood will want to swell and move. So layers of glass and matt are called for to immobilize the 'core' as much as possible.
I'd emphasize to some readers that the best plastic to use is twopart epoxy. Vinylester could be a possible second choice. Polyester should not be used in this ap.
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Wrapping the ruddershaft.
It is my opinion you can wrap the ruddershaft with CLOTH layers of glass. This isnn't clear in the cads. Observe how much room there is if you don't have the original wood rudder on your keel. The original rudder has the bronze shaft exposed with the blade carefully tabbed onto the aft side of the metal. There should be plenty of room to take a few turns of glass around the shaft. Epoxy sticks pretty well to cleaned up bronze. It will go a long way to welding the different materials together: wood, metal, frp. Including perhaps some questionable bolts and screws hidden inside the wood.
As bill says: In wrapping the shaft keep in mind the turning of the rudder. You don't want to hamper its radius/swing. I would, as bill suggests, I think, keep the wraps to 6oz cloth, no xmatt. The buildup of 6oz cloth is minimal. Two layers is good, but one or two more may be possible.
[Make up a layer test of scrap fabric and epoxy and measure the finished thickness. Wrap something bendable like cardboard of the same thinkness around the shaft while it's on the boat and see what if any limits have been added to the swing of the rudder.]
GOOD suggestion to clean out the cove in the end of the keel once the rudder is removed. Best chance you'll ever get - and you can barrier coat it too. Creating depth is good, width may be a bit of a problem, depending on how skinny your keel is overall at the rudder. (Rotary rubber drum/sanding sleeves seem to be becoming scarce. One catalog source is Klingspor, www.woodworkingshop.com
You used to be able to buy sanding sleeves/drums in sets for pretty cheap. But if you have to get singles: a 1 1/2" sleeve/drum in a drill will fit nicely the cove in the keel, coarse grit. So, of course will the 1"!!! If you are renovating the boat, it is not possible to do it without a complete set of drums.
Apply the 6oz cloth at a bias (45 degrees) around the shaft, it'll double the strength and there will be no puckerings.
Actual work-in-progress photos would have been great for this important upgrade variation. Oh well, next time!:D
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As a matter of curiousity: The original lines drawings, presumably by Alberg, shows the rudder shaft as 1 1/2" D. Almost as if the original shaft was to have been wood. The 'sternpost' is 2" across on the drawing. Our 1" bronze shaft translates to a much thinner rudder at its leading edge. Could say that fiberglassing as above brings the rudder closer to Alberg (vs Pearson) spec! And more hydrodynamic off the thicker end of the keel. I wonder if anybody will take the opportunity to add some modern foil curves to the blade and skinny down the trailing edge? A wood core fiberglass rudder would be a good opportunity, but ofcourse there would be no going back. Foil shaping may help correct stalling and steering problems some have mentioned?