Nice meet up with the DCA at Bosham yesterday, arrived early and had a mooch

Anyway, discussion about boats has led me to post a few off the Gull´s schemes and other topics

Righting lines

Port and Starboard lines simply attached to the chain plates, they have figure of eight knots to aid pulling. These are lead to meet in the middle of the transom. At their outer end is loop about a foot long of 6mm bungee. A coffee stirrer is simply used as a toggle fuse to join the two lines. The tension caused by the bungee holds everything in nicely

Boarding strops

I have a loops of line either side of the transom that is used for reboarding. There is some PVC hose pipe to act as a rung. They are held in place by more coffee stirrers.

Splicing tools

After the DCA meeting a couple us went to a nearby chandler. We had been talking about splicing of Dyneema. The commercial ones retail at more than £40 pounds

I won’t deny that it’s a nice bit of kit but for years I have made my own, firstly just from copper electrical wire and now from piano wire I had lying about

There are plenty of videos out there but here’s one just to save you looking. It’s really simple and it’s not mentioned much but knots really weaken the rope. Dyneema is also relatively cheap.

What to wear

It’s 31st Jan today and plan to sail tomorrow. We discussed what to wear for dinghy cruising.

As a base layer I wear Roster Polypros – they have a thin fleece lining and made of Polypropylene which repels water (Hydrophobic). They aren’t cheap but work and last.

https://www.roostersailing.com/collections/mens-ranges-polypro

They work under wetsuits but for cruising I just add layers of fleeces / fleeced trousers made of Polyester. This has the advantage of being warm when wet. I have cheap fleece lined trousers of Amazon (£20) and wear hiking or sailing they keep me warm when wet. Over the top Decathlon Sailing Trousers and either a dinghy spray top or Guy Cotton smock.

Tacking Jib

Today, in the drizzle but wearing Polyester trousers, I did a few jobs including improving the self tacking jib. I have moved the forward pivot point forward to prevent the boom hitting the mast. It’s now a nice simple system. It’s just an experiment and in terms of aerodynamic efficiency poor but this is just about understanding a system that could work.