Sailing Hestur !!

I have very little time to write, but here are a few pictures of the end result. Words cannot describe how delighted we are with the boat. We set off south From Ullapool on the 20th of may for a five day 'test sail' and got down to Oban. Lots happened in these few days including southerly winds and Engine failure !! all fixed now. We have been in land locked Shropshire for the last week but heading back to the boat tonight to sail back north to Ullapool (of course now we have Northerly winds!!!)

THE JUNK RIG IS AMAZING!!!

Will write more about the final rigging soon...

Sail Loft

Heres a quick clip feeding the sewing machine a 12 foot seam. This is joining the top two pannels of the sail to the bottom. These are Chinese Junk sails. I have decided to make them 'flat' rather than 'cambered' as some people are doing these days - flat sails are a bit quicker to make and as these are the first sails i have ever made I thought i should keep it simple. Below is the sail plan for Hestur as drawn by J Benford.I am using a Sailrite zig zag sewing machine which has been fantastic. Its a very solid portable (its heavy) machine with a walking foot that seems to be able to sew any thickness of canvass - if it fits under the foot it will sew it!!  My sail loft at the moment is a conservatory of around 100 square foot and the sail is 320 square foot!  I bought the Dacron sail cloth off ebay for 150pounds. good value -   I have finished the main sail and am close to finishing the fore sail so we should be test sailing towards the end of the week....

I have also been making the battens and yards from some nice Ash. getting close.....

Kind of sailing

 So we could not resist . I have not quite finished here proper junk sails so we thought we would try an old spinnaker from Maureen (our old boat). We raised it up on the main halyard to the top of the fore mast and let it fly - and we did. We had a fantastic cruise down the loch at 5 knots (relatively small spinnaker and towing heavy tender) in a F3/4. we were even able to reach across the wind with the sail flying on the port side and were very surprised at how stiff and steady the boat feels as it was quite a pull. also what was amazing was how little the masts deflected (look at main mast compared to the loaded foremast in photo).

I am back to finishing the the junk sails so more soon........