Mizzen boom, MkII

Three nights aboard, with five days sailing isn't a bad sailing return for half term.  Daisy II is currently on the trailer, in preparation for next weekend's Wells-next-the-sea rally.  This has presented an unusual opportunity to catch up on a few modifcations.  Most important of these is the MkII mizzen boom.

During early Spring of 2011, I reported on making a MkI mizzen boom to replace the standard bumpkin arrangement.  This was only ever intended as a prototype and, at the time, didn't even warrant a coat of varnish.  It survived the whole of 2011 on the mooring, showing little signs of suffering from the elements and providing endless fun, tinkering with the rigging and sail configurations - exactly as had been intended.
So successful was this MkI version that it was varnished, rather than replaced, early in 2012, with rigging rearranged to the final, preferred setting and it spent another season being put through its paces.
There is still nothing much wrong with it.  The boom provides endless hours of fun, means that there is no bumpkin snagging on other boats/jetties when in tight spaces, looks sufficiently elegant and presents a much bigger face of sail to the wind, particularly when reaching and running.

Mk1 version, made March 2011 and still functioning well in May 2013

So, why replace it now?  The MkII version needed to be more permanent, substantive and to correct the shortcomings of the original: the MkI wasn't quite long enough to provide tension to the foot of the sail (MkII is about 15cm longer) needed to be a little more substantial in girth (MkII 43mm v MkI 35mm) since it tended to bend when sheeted in hard, and I harboured some doubts about the home made jaws - these depended on improvised string to provide tension to the tack of the sail and in keeping the jaws close to the mizzen mast.  It is also better to build from a position of strength - with a fully functioning current set-up, rather than working in reaction to a possible future breakage.  MkI was made from a ready-made piece of 35mm dowelling; I wanted to have a go at fashioning the new one from original timber.
Lastly, a gooseneck was ready and waiting for use.  This had been ordered from Norfolk Marine when the Mk1 was being made but, being cautious at the time, I reckoned on improvised jaws involving less dramatic surgery to the main mast, whilst trialling various rigging and positional arrangements.

Gooseneck

The new boom was made from a piece of 2.4m (shortened to 1.73m), 45x45mm spruce: the least knotted piece to be found in Homebase!  Planing along each edge length-wise, this became octagonal and, subsequently, crudely hexadecagonal in cross-section.  A surform helped form the rounded end.  Sanding with, respectively, 80, 120, 180 grit paper left a reasonably cylindrical piece of wood (in fact, by accident rather than design, slightly oval in cross-section, which is handy in hopefully providing more vertical strength when appropriately positioned).  This task took a couple of hours.

Left to right, original timber, after various stages of planing, after sanding

Ring out the old, ring in the new

The gooseneck needed securing to both mast and boom.  The mast needed reshaping, since the gooseneck jaws were semicircular, next to the square cross-section of the mast.  Using a chisel and Black and Dekker Powerfile belt sander, a horizontal channel was cut in the mast to fit the jaws of the gooseneck - not my best piece of woodwork and a little retrospective filling may yet be in order.

Gooseneck attached to mast

The other end was tapped, gently but securely, into a hole drilled in the non-rounded end of the boom.

Put together, with rigging attached, it looks like this:

New boom, unvarnished but rigged and in place

Everything is now disconnected ready for action from varnish and brush. Next weekend's Wells-next-the-sea rally will provide a great, first opportunity to try out the new arrangement.

The other modification, currently in preparation, copied directly from a device being used by the skipper of coaster Windsong which I noticed at the recent Pitsford Rally, is a wooden support for a ratchet strap used to secure hull to trailer when towing.  The design allows the strap to be tightened without causing undue stress to the hull.

Ratchet support

The support will have leather softening on the underside in contact with the gunwhales, and I might need to look at ways of ensuring the metal ratchet itself stays on the support.  Again, there will be an opportunity to put this to the test on the way up to Wells-next-the-Sea next weekend.