Trouper 12 build

[Michael Rogers]

I'm going to attempt to attach some inadequate photos. If I succeed, I'll post some comments. If I fail, there will be an embarrassed and embarrassing silence, probably of several days, while I enlist the help of computer savvy (adult) offspring.

Michael

[Michael Rogers]

Good heavens! There were supposed to be two pics, so I'll try to sneak the other one in with this post. Apologies for the background clutter in one - we've had the builders in. Ignore the dates on the pics: I haven't set the date thingy on my camera.

(I don't suppose any of you can imagine how stupid my IT 'block' makes me feel. When I ask for help, people in question whizz round the keyboard and screen as if it's all self-evident, remark "that's how-----OK?", which it isn't, and I'm none the wiser. End of whinge.)

My Trouper 12 has some mods and 'enhancements', some of them to do with the rig. The pics were taken during 'rigging up', hence the untidiness and clutter - for example, the sheet isn't sorted. Anyway:-

I glassed her outside up to the two top (clinker) strakes. I tried, but didn't have the skill, to sheathe these as well, so had to leave them.

I also glassed the cockpit sole (floor) and the decks, with lighter stuff. This was because I was given a puppy, during the build. He is now a large (40kg) dog, and in theory may come sailing with me, and I thought some anti-scuff might be a good idea. The cockpit sole also had some antislip granules added to the final coat of paint, which has worked very well.

The cockpit coaming, as supplied, is 4mm ply. This looked a bit flimsy to me, so I doubled it with a second layer of 4mm ply, and I'm pleased with the chunkier result although I'm sure the thinner one would have been functionally OK.

I have added a teak rubbing strip, screwed(/plugged) but not glued, and oiled rather than varnished, outside the gunwales. This is, in theory, sacrificial in terms of scuffs etc, and could be fairly easily replaced if it got more severely damaged. I also made similar strips to protect her 'hips' where the tumblehome leaves the last few feet of her top strake potentially vulnerable on each quarter (it also further enhances the attractive tumblehome effect - well I think so anyway).

I have used brass keelstrip. Before final fitting the screw holes were drilled out larger, plugged with epoxy and redrilled for the screws, and the strips were bedded in Sikaflex (messy stuff!).

I've used Jotun two-pack paint. I'm mostly pleased with the results (tricky stuff), and it certainly seems to be tough. Instead of varnish or oil, I've used Seacoat on hardwood and spars. This again isn't easy to use in some ways, but gives a fantastic gloss finish which, again, seems to be amazingly tough.

I made a chunky hardwood cleat for the foredeck, and since I took the pics I've added two more smaller ones on the after deck: all through bolted with ply backing pads. I splashed out on lovely polished gunmetal foredeck fairleads (I call them my bow-chasers) and fitting for the painter.

The original design has a rectangular 'hole', with hardwood coaming, in the starboard side of the after deck, to accommodate an outboard. I've moved this to the centre line, and given it a half floor about 10cm down, to accommodate a stand-up double block for the sheet. (More details about that in a later post if details of the junk rig are of sufficient general interest.) In the process I re-jigged the various components of the transom, and was left with the problem of making a neat junction between the after edge of the deck and the top of the transom - tricky in terms of curves in various planes and my limited skill and tool repetoire. I've made a sort of coaming out of several layers of structural mahogany veneer.

The rig, again, meant re-designed partners (where the mast goes through the deck), to accommodate the various running lines through bushes. Below the coaming in the midline, I have fitted a horizontal bar, between the lockers, aft of the mast, where the halyard passes through a block and the other lines through bullnoses, on their way (down each side of the daggerboard case) to camcleats on the underside of the DB-case-support (should be visible in one pic if it wasn't so small). There they are all to hand when sailing.

About the rig? - suffice it to say now that the mast is a 15 ft (13 1/2 ft above deck) CF tube, with short (about 4 ins) pine/fir (can't remember which) masthead and heel, these turned down for me by an obliging fairly local timber yard where they have the lathes and skill. The spars were made from laminated Douglas fir. The sail is 80 sq ft, 6 panel (= with five aluminium tube battens), designed by yours truly (with expert JR advice), made by Chris Scanes ('Sails and Canvas', Topsham, S Devon) with cambered panels.

I've been able to sail twice, and can report (being scarcely able to believe it) that the results surpass my considerable expectations. 'Cavatina' is wonderfully stable (she should be with 5 1/4 ft of beam on a LOA of 12 ft!!) but not a bit dull; carries her tall rig with aplomb; is quicker in stays than any of the other half dozen or so small boats I have sailed over the years; is close-winded (nobody except Those in the Know would believe how well a modern junk rig goes to windward). Downwind - I have virtually no experience of planing (many years ago crewing in a Scorpion dinghy, I think), but if a speed obviously faster than hull speed + a change in the forefoot noises + a slight but perceptible lift of the bows + plus a 'wow' from the skipper is planing, then that's what she did, briefly in a F5 gust. She was built to be my dotage boat, for me eventually (and metaphorically speaking) to sail into the sunset in. She will do very very nicely.

Michael         (Trouper 12 'Cavatina')

[Clem Freeman]

She looks a cracking little boat.

[Tony]

Hi, Michael.

Great looking boat!  (Removes hat and stand in awe.)

"The sail is 80 sq ft, 6 panel (= with five aluminium tube battens), designed by yours truly (with expert JR advice), made by Chris Scanes ('Sails and Canvas', Topsham, S Devon) with cambered panels."

Now you're talking!  More details and photos of your junk rig would be most welcome. (Particularly how the battens are controlled.)  "Four Sisters" needs new sails soon and ........ well why not!

[Michael Rogers]

Hi Tony

If you are serious about looking further at junk rig (if....serious? When are you ever not serious?) Can I suggest the following -

1) Have a chat with Robin Blain. His phone number is on the Sunbird Marine website - they have been rigging and re-rigging yachts of all sizes with junk rig for over 30 years. Robin is a founding father of the Junk Rig Association, and extremely genial and friendly. He has just JR-ed a Swallowboats BC20 for his own use, and says he is very pleased with her. One of the many things I like about Robin is that although he makes a living out of all things JR, he is very generous indeed with advice and you never feel you are being sold anything.

2) Chris Scanes at 'Sails and Canvas' (Topsham, Devon) is likewise very approachable. Robin rates him very highly as a sailor and sailmaker. Chris has JR as a niche, but is also the sailmaker for the Devon Yawl (= GRP Salcombe Yawl) fleets which race very keenly all along the S Devon coast. I'm no expert, but the two JR sails he has made for me have been beautifully done.

I plan, weather permitting, to take some pics of details of Cavatina's junk rig. Watch this space, but (probably) don't hold your breath. I hope my enthusiasm for junk rig is at least mildly infectious!

Cheers      Michael

PS Mention my name to Robin and Chris if you think it will help.

[Tony]

Thanks for that, Michael.

Yes, serious!
   Lug rig has advantages for me that make it preferable to Burmudian. I do not want to be resigned to relatively poor windward performance though,so I'm always tweeking something or other. Full-on Junk rig is a fairley expensive tweek and I still remain to be convinced that it's more windward than balanced lug. (A proper sprit rig IS - or so I hear.)
   Knocking up a cheap junk sail from sticks and sealing wax might not prove anything so perhaps I need to "just do it!"  All that string and battens and stuff  didn't just happen so I need to understand it all better before I start manufacturing - and the last thing  need is more weight aloft!

Cheers!
Tony

[Michael Rogers]

Hello again Tony (and other seekers after JR truth)

I have been giving your needs much thought (hem-hem), and propose to start a new thread in the Technical area to report on some further sources of JR info I have tracked down. Give me a day or so.

[Steve Joyce]

Hi Michael,

just catching up with the forum again,  great to see your pictures of Cavatina.  Looks really great.  Hope you can get some good trips in this year.  Mine got wet today again,  but only because it was lashing it down... maybe next week

[Michael Rogers]

Hi Steve

Welcome back (wherever you have been! - if it's on the forum somewhere, I missed it).

Everything else being more or less equal, Cavatina (and I) will be in action at the Bala Lake Rally, the Rally at Cardigan (Teifi) at the end of June, and the English Raid on the Broads at the beginning of August. At some of these events I hope to cross paths with some of the forum contributors whom (amazingly!) I have not yet met - high time! Otherwise, weather and domestic commitments allowing, it will mostly be the Mere at Tatton, where I may bump into Mark Kerry and/or Terry Cross. Here's hoping - ahoy!

Michael