July | 2016 | Building a wooden Minisail

Some weeks ago two lovely sisters, good sailors and friends of mine, found the forestay chain plate of their old 470 finding it’s way through the deck and asked me if I could take care of it.
Having told them I probably could, but cosmetic surgery aftercare would be for them, they agreed.
Browsing the interweb I found a documented report of a similar repair on the French website forumvoile.com.
With a good insight of the specific construction I went over to have a second look at the patient and it was obvious I wouldn’t be the first one to get that nose done.
The deck had been lifted before and was sealed shut. No way I would lift it from the hull with a few gentle ticks from the hammer.
Out with the (fantastic) oscillating tool and off went a good part of the front deck.

Found the original GRP square profile gone and the repair GRP-wood combination end-of-life since the (second?) wooden back-up material had dissolved.

I cut away most, if not all repair-GRP.
With some pitch pine wooden stock I made a wedge profile and fitted it snugly in the corner, wel soacked in epoxy and three layers of 280 g/m² over it, re-creating the original GRP profile… Sort of.

That needed curing so hang on, I’ll finish this nose next week.

All images courtesy R.Baker

At Staunton Herald things are well organised, sailing’s only allowed when the green flag is up. And at about 6 P.M. it went up on Friday evening. For Friday evening clubsailing… How I love this and just cannot imagine this kind of discipline would get installed in clubs in Belgium.
I rigged the boat and got out in the midsummer sun (and a gentle breeze) on the lake to discover it along with some other plankers, the lovely TOY playing along.
Half an hour later I came back in and heard water slashing in the hull when pulling it up a trolley. Quite a lot of water in the hull there.
It didn’t take a drop in Ostend or Wormer.

The 760 km on the trailer between Wormer and Staunton Harold must have shaken the old hull and opened some seams.
And it did fill up really good since I saw the bow submarining on the last race downwind course day two second race. Never had that with a boat before.

Still it was fun to sail and not a big issue, I’ll waterproof the cigarbox. A bit disappointing it sank during a Nationals yes.

Different issue and completely my fault was losing the centerboard all together during race two of day one.
The item freed itsself from the c.b. king-pin (because I didn’ secure it) and slid away trough the c.b.slot happily knocking the hull. I managed to pull it back to into place again after a while, but by then the race had ended.
As also by then the wind was gone, luckily the gentle rescue-people towed me in.

So really the first attempt racing the Meson wasn’t flawless, still I love sailing it, and as usual: room for improvement.