Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Fun Stuff

Now that the paint prep is done, I can turn my attention to matters that are a little more interesting than all that sanding. There have been a couple projects I've been waiting on, which should have big performance improvements.


Since our mast was pretty old, we decided to replace it with something a little more modern. Although the yard isn't exactly the best place to work, we were able to warm up a corner of it to lay up our new carbon fiber mast. The weight savings are going to be huge, taking almost 60lbs out. I think we'll have to paint this aluminum colored so as not to alarm the rest of the fleet.

Less fun than the carbon mast, but also worth doing was sanding the inside of the hull. We do this to take unneccesary weight out of the ends of the boat. I was able to remove about 20lbs from the front and back tanks of the boat, all in dust form! The downside is there are certain areas of the boat that you cant walk on, but thats a small price to pay.

Since the old dacron sails are so heavy, we asked a local loft to prepare a laminate mainsail for us instead. Much lower stretch, and half the weight! Again, we'll have to find a way to make this look like dacron, but that should be easy as I've got some leftover white paint from my parents living room ceiling.

Thats been a pretty busy day, but should all be worth it this season!

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