Wanted to take 9000 sailing last Sunday but arriving at the club I found out there was a national Optimist racing happening going on. Sharing our lake with 50 or more Optimists racing is a tedious thing- they are everywhere, on land and on the water (the terrace, the parking lot, the showers, the landing, name it).
Went home and spend Sunday afternoon cleaning up the workshop happily knowing I was doing it to make room for building a Minisail Meson.
(above: 9000 back in the workshop)
Very few of these come to view and I know only about two of them existing. One is Tom More’s and another one popped up for sale early 2012 on Ebay (in that order the pictures below). Let’s hope for some more barn finds in the near future.
(Above photo: Minisail.org.uk)
(Above photo: Ebay early 2012)
A Meson is a GRP hull that had to be completed at home with wooden decks. The decking basically follows the plan for the Sprint, which has a long cockpit and an open transom, with a pivoting centerplate.
The original "plug" for the Sprint got recently in hands of the Minisail Class association and for now Tom is taking care of it. Thank you tom. (A plug is an original -positive- mould to take a -negative- mould off. With the latter one can make a GRP hull)
So a Meson has the GRP belly of a Sprint MII (centerboard for sure, and higher transom I think) and is a bit different from a standard Monaco bottom.
Apart from none of both being my favorite hull shape I think it would be fun enough to cut the deck off from a Monaco and basically re-deck it with a wooden deck, rear end open and transform the dagger into a centerboard.
The features I do like:
– Wooden top
– Open transom
– Centerboard
– Free deck layout design
I happen to have a GRP Monaco that would be a perfect patient to perform the surgery on. It’s deck has been carefully mended after a mastfoot failiure, as were the inner parts fully restored: A perfect hull.
More so, how many Minisails would I end up with? I might as well make this one to use now I have the old and the new Sprite for sailing.
My first consern now is about the first step. Getting the grinding disk out and cut off the deck. That must release a massive amount of hardened polyester/glass-fiber dust. How can I protect myself and the environment for the job?
I’ll need to ask a professional for advise I guess.
Anyway, the Minisail building goes on!
Greetings,
Ronny
Building a wooden Minisail 