Why so much weatherhelm?

The last few times out, getting more comfortable with the boat, and sailing in different conditions, I've noticed it really has a lot of weatherhelm when powered up. Last time out, at anchor, I dived into the water with some goggles and checked out the keel, turned out, I was winding the keel out too far, so its just hanging off the front bolt. With a few more winds on the winch, and a couple more dives to check I think I have it sorted, 9 or more winds on the keel are needed for the correct angle, and maybe more when getting overpowered. It now sails a whole lot faster when powered up, and heels a whole heap without losing speed.  I also have a nice hum coming from the winch wire, which is speed dependent, very useful for gauging your relative speed when tweaking your trim.

There is also the issue of my mainsail, which is pretty baggy, and falling apart. It does n't look that bad does it ?

The price we paid reflected the condition of the mainsail, which in most boats of this age is past its best.  In the meantime, I put the stiffest spare top batten that I found in the boat in the sail, and this also made it handle more wind.  Every time I go out, a few more stitches seem to unravel.  Well it is a 35 year old mainsail ! 
A new sail would really reduce the weatherhelm, and I suppose it might reduce the tiller weight too, as the centre of effort should be more forward on the sail?

Nalder Polyant Dacron main - pretty crispy

The modification I made to the rudder cant (see to-do-list) has had a good effect on the tiller effort required, boat still rounds up into the wind when released, but is much more manageable.  Very happy with the result of this mod.  It also means that if I fit an autopilot at some point, its not going to be using so much power.

Also looked at the rig tension and the mast rake.  Setup the mast according to the specs of the Farr website, which required shortening the forestay, and more tension on the cap shrouds, and now we have prebend and correct rake. The boat now steers itself on some points of sail.
 

The to-do list

After the first few trips out, it was obvious a few things needed doing. Here's my short list :

New car needed to tow the boat out - not really surprising, but my 1.8 litre front wheel drive car wouldn't tow the boat out successfully ! 

After talking to other owners previously, I knew I needed a minimum of a 2.4litre 4 cylinder auto 4wd car (such as a Mitsubishi Outlander).  I found a Nissan Rnessa, and a deal was done. Its a oddball japanese car with Nissan 2.4 litre KA24de engine, and full time 4wd. 
In the US the Nissan Pathfinder and Navara was spec'd with this engine, so I figured it might be up to the job. 

Tows the boat out of the water and up the ramp like a champ @ 1800rpm.  Its also got a 1650kg curb weight, which outweighs the boat by a safe margin, according to the previous owner, the boat and trailer weighs 1240-1300kg all up. I have since towed it down country, and provided the outboard and rudder is in the car, I get perfect weight distribution, and no trailer sway, even @ 100km/h.
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Boom topping lift - Need this to take the weight of the boom when raising the sail. Almost impossible without it, makes reefing more difficult. - Fixed ! Not sure why I haven't seen any other Farr 6000's with a boom topping lift, everyone seems to use the spinnaker halyard, wrapping around the mast and back to the boom end. This doesn't work for me, as you can't raise the mainsail all the way without catching the spin halyard on the way up!

 I have rigged up a single 50kg breaking strain kite line(sleeved for strength) to the top of the mast with a stainless steel eye strap riveted on.
 

It can be set at two heights, one under tension to hold the boom above your head, and one to take tension off the line, so it clears the main sail leech nicely in practise, even though I expected there to be a clearance problem when i first starting setting it up. You can hardly even see the extra topping lift line from a distance.

Its actually impossible to raise the mainsail without lifting the boom up to take the tension off. Without the topping lift, even if you can raise the sail up the track, it puts a lot of tension through the halyard hardware, and stretches the luff of the sail.  As a bonus, for light wind the topping lift can be left tensioned to give the sail a deeper shape.



Replace marine battery - the previous owner put a heavy 85aH marine battery, which is not sealed, and its a flooded lead acid type.  Not good in a boat that jumps around, and tilts all the time. - Fixed - Replaced with a AGM battery normally used in server UPS power supplies. A trademe seller was selling these new for much less than the new deep cycle battery I already had in the boat. I needed a solar regulator for this new battery. Sold the old battery for the same money as the new one cost!







Boom fittings - the outhaul pulley was knackered. - Fixed! Riveted it on with some heavy duty rivets.  The outhaul is almost correctly setup here, note the rope attaches onto a eye strap on one side with a bowline, and through the snap-shackle, then through the pulley on the side of the boom, to a cleat further along.  Should really have a pulley on the snap shackle.  This gives the correct 4-1 purchase for the outhaul, and pulls the sail from the centre on the boom.



 Main halyard - very stiff lifting the sail, my guess was the pulleys needed some lube along with the sail track. - fixed !

sharp things - the safety line around the boat had sharp bits if cable sticking out, nice for slicing your fingers on - fixed  ! replaced with nylon ties.

Outboard - adjust angle - easy. done!

Depth sounder/speedo - a previous owner had used horrible ducting to run the cable around the inside of the cockpit, with multiple screws instead of one hole for the cable.  - Fixed - rerouted, holes filled

Interior lights - some aren't working. - fixed !

Minor leak from transom - I think its coming from the rudder pintle. - update 05/03 - fixed ! 
I thought I would experiment a little, and adjust the cant of the rudder. A little forward cant is useful in reducing the pressure on the tiller when well powered, so I tasked myself with removing the top rudder pintle, and inserting a spacer, and refitting.  Sounds simple right?  Well I had to buy new longer bolts, as the original ones were only just long enough, and they didn't have the crucial load spreading washers on all 3 of them. I forgot to take the original bolts to the shop, but luckily I got the right size, and guessed they were imperial in the 70's! Refitted and looking good, photo to follow :

The spacers are 3.5m or 4mm.

The problems started when I looked at the lower rudder pintle.

Attempted drilling them out, but my plain high speed steel drill bit, and weak drill didn't work too well, and reached the point of no return, they were definitely loose now, and prone to shearing off. 
Next day I came back to the boat armed with a cobolt 5.5mm drill bit and a fully charged drill. 2 hours later and I had them all out. The original holes looked in ok condition, so I refitted new bolts into the original holes, and fitted everything with proper 3M Marine Fast Cure 4200 adhesive/sealant.  There was no previous sealant to remove, apart from on top of the bolts. The photo is during the fitting. 

boarding ladder broken - managed to break this last night, so another job, - Got the local welder (Steeliots) to do a spot of welding..05/03. They did such a good job, you'd never know. The extra angle on the boarding ladder makes it easier to climb aboard, but put more load on the ladder hinge brackets.

Spinnaker sheets/guys - I had one rope that looks like it was for the spinnaker.  I need two ! I have been using the one rope when poleing out the genoa, but when gybing its a lot of effort to swap the rope to the other side! If I'm running the spinnaker, I do need two. At least I've established the length of rope is enough for the spinnaker. The current one is quite a heavy diameter rope, so the second lengh I am buying is more like 6mm diameter instead of 8mm. Also needed an extra snap shackle. I have added a bobble on the end, as suggested in a magazine I read, so the shackle doesn't get caught in the pole jaws. 



Bow roller - After anchoring a few times its obvious a bow roller would be handy, and stop the chain and warp grating through my hull deck join strip.
It amazes me that no-one else ever fitted one. There was a existing cleat where the bow roller needed to go, so I unbolted it, and even managed to use one of the original holes for the new hardware. 
Its mounted to the right of the forestay attachment, which suits me fine, as the anchor locker opens to the left, so you stand on the right hand side of the bow when managing the anchor anyway.

Lets do it !

Well on December 24th I decided on a boat.. well that is I bought a Farr 6000.  It was more likely that my family would come out on this boat than any other small trailer boat, and share the costs, and in the long run this will be cheaper than a keel boat. It seems to be the most popular boat around both in size, design, and numbers manufactured. In NZ there is class racing for this boat, and it does great double duty as a cruising boat.  

Brought it home from Taupo, a 4 and a half hour trip for my poor little 1.8l manual 5 speed wagon, that really wasn't up to the task. Car = 1100kg vs boat and trailer = 1140kg ! This was the only car I had for the 4 hour drive back up to Auckland was my 1.8l manual Nissan station wagon, which struggled, but made the trip. Definitely need a bigger car. Here is a pic once we got it back to the farm (taking up half the driveway !).

The one we found was in better condition than others I had seen, it also had a full complement of sails - main - jib - genoa - storm jib - spinnaker. The minus, at least we thought was the colour is not the most popular around, particularly when the gelcoat has faded. It was less golden and more tan... than the boat name 'Goldie' inferred..!

The mainsail was looking pretty sad, the numbers had previously parted from the sail, and someone had coloured in the sail numbers with a vivid marker. The condition of the mainsail was pretty common for these boats, many still use the original sail, which is probably fine for lake sailing in light winds.  The rest of the sails were in very good condition. 

On further inspection of the important bits, the drop keel looked in reasonable condition, still mostly covered in paint, not rust, and a new winch wire and reconditioned keel winch had been installed. All the fittings are well mounted, and had been updated where necessary by the last owner.

The engine starts first go, and although I didn't know much about engines, it seems the Suzuki twin cylinder 8hp 2 stroke is quite popular still, being easier to start lighter and smoother than the newer 4 strokes available. It's a 1999 model, and was recently serviced, with only lake use.

 The first picture is from the previous owner, it definately had a lot of oxidation on the topside gelcoat, but the hull was in great condition, with original gelcoat, with a small amount of touching up.

In this second picture, after several hours, boat soap, wash down and cut and polish, came a much brighter yellow, rather than muddy tan colour !  The colour is growing on me, and have people coming up to me all the time complementing me on the boat.

                    

would you like to upsize that sir?

Roll on a few months, and trawling through trademe, I discovered a boat called a Hartley TS16.
16 ft of solid ply boat, traditional design (ugly at first sight, but in racing form they look sporty.). Very popular in Australia, and towable by any car, 500kg on the trailer. Solid cast iron plate centreboard, and wide beam, still quite a fast boat, still a big dinghy though. 
After reading other people websites about pocket cruisers, my interest was caught on small fun boats.
Looked at a couple, but they are still small inside, and it has now dawned on me that I am looking for a replacement for my campervan lifestyle.

Looks fast huh.. actually a bit of a handful, need two for ballast.  The only ballast is in the centreboard, 50kg of primitive flat boilerplate iron!



 




Some people's ideas of comfortable cruising are different to others ! 

 You'll notice the size of boats I'm looking at is creeping up... the investment of time in sailing is almost as large as the financial commitment.  (Ok not quite as large.. !) .. if you are going to do it, do it with the right boat.  I have also been struggling with the fact I have lots of other hobbies, which sailing will take me away from. Given that setting up a larger boat takes the same time as a small boat, but you are likely to want to sail a bigger boat for longer, it made sense to look at 16ft boats (which are also trailable with my car).

 

What really caught my eye with yet more googling, was the NZ built Farr 5000. Built in the late 70's but still a modern looking kind of boat, I started searching for one of these. With an all up trailable weight of just under 1000kg, its towable with your average 2 litre car. Until you see someone on the front you don't realise the scale of these little boats. Its really a microcruiser, but the largest volume little 16ft you can buy.  I have only seen a couple listed in a year, and they do command a premium, it seems they did not sell many in NZ, which is a shame. I spent lots of time reading an australian blog on her voyages in a Farr 5000, and was inspired to keep looking for one of these great looking boats.

Unfortunately most of the best Farr 5000s, and 6000s seem to be living in the South Island, and few and far apart, so looking at multiple boats is difficult. I really really wanted to get sailing this summer, so the hunt was on. 

After some debate, I decided that *maybe* I could stretch to a Farr 6000, which by all accounts is a big jump in size from a 16 ft boat, being beamier and longer, and more seaworthy in terms of being able to handle some wind and waves. After all I was planning on cruising in the Hauraki gulf, which is a pretty windy place.

The first Farr 6000 I viewed was a bit of a let down, after a drive down to Napier to view it. I really didn't know what the average condition of a 35 year old boat should be in, but I could see lots of money to be spent.   It's true what they say.. BOAT = Bring out another thousand !

The hull was down to bare fiberglass in many places, and loose fittings all over the boat, average sails, and a motor that wouldn't start, a severely rusted keel, and dubious winch condition put me off. Thanks but no thanks... 

 

the ongoing search and the reasoning

For the last 6 years I have owned a small camper van, and in NZ the camping lifestyle suited me, and surfing around the country has been great.  I have spent 10 years surfing! 

The grand finale was a Indonesia surf trip in June 2012, and after that, well 32 degree bathwater and boardshorts, I was spoilt, and didn't surf again till December!
After a short foray into laser sailing next to my house in Panmure, I remembered my sailing experience from 20 years ago!  I decided that I'm grown up enough to buy something bigger that floats more than a few inches off the water. Sailing those little lasers is quite a physical sport. 

the hunt for a boat

End of summer in NZ last year 2012, was looking around for a boat, something I could take out with a mate, do a bit of mucking around on, something bigger than a kayak, with the aim of fun on the water while being more of a social adventure than surfing. Looked at Phase II sailing dinghys, a 12ft long boat, barely bigger than a laser...

Phase 2 sailing dinghy

They are lots of fun, fast, but you get really wet, and well, sometimes you go upside down... so almost bought one, but then spotted a different boat, which looked quite exciting ... a Australian NS14...2ft longer  than the Phase 2, larger cockpit, still easy to handle by yourself. Very popular in racing circles in Australia, a skiff with amazing speed, not far off from a catamaran, but very rare in NZ, so they are not popular.  Am I going to do racing? Maybe not.. can I duck under that boom all the time straining my back? Prefer not to... Here's a token picture, they are nice looking boats...

The NS14 - a radical design in early 80's.

Anyway, time went on, and after failing to negotiate with the owner of the only boat advertised, and no trailer with it either, so big fail...  but I really wanted a small boat, something I could store at my house. 

So back to square one.. thinking about things like setup time, vs sailing time, led me in a new direction.