Hestur News

Just realised that i have not put up any 'Hestur news' recently and people may be thinking that we have drifted off - O no , not yet.... I just cant believe its been nearly two months since we launched.

So that first little 'test sail' south - as a briefly said in the last post we had made it down to Oban where we left Hestur for a week. After that Charlotte and I returned to sail north again back to Ullapool. Of course we were hit by 5 days of north east winds (absolutely our direction of travel) This would really show us how Junks go to windward - they do. Heading north we decided to go inside Mull then outside Skye taking in the Outer Hebridies (Barra) . This proved to be a good plan as the Minch provides a great seaway for tacking against northerly winds! Heading west across the Minch towards Barra we experienced our first largish sea and strongish wind aboard Heatur - F6 with 10foot crashers. She performed perfectly with nothing unexpected (sometimes big bangs when breaking seas slap big flat topsides) and we were broad reaching at 6knots + with two pannels up on foresail and 3 in main. Very easy sailing with no deck work - all reefing done from cockpit (sometimes we need to go and tie last batten down at forward end when reefing the foresail??!! main reefs fine).

From Barra back across to Canna in the Small isles and up the west coast of Syke. We had a very big whale breach (jump clear of the water) about 10 foot away from the boat, never seen that before. not sure what type it was. no photo!. we then battled the north-easters for another 48 hours back to Ullapool. When sailing on the wind she will sail herself if you balance the sails - we often leave the helm quite literally for hours and hours not even lashed. This surprises me as she is a fin keeler - think it must be the substantial skeg arrangement.

In all is was a great test sail and we have learnt a lot about the boat and she has showed us a few problems that we fixed on route (most engine related! - I will write about this another time just for the engine boffs out there. lets just say valve springs oops)  

A total of 10 days 360 miles (quite a few days were windless and enginless! - not all sailing). Humm i cant think of any bad points on the boat. good. One point is she has high topsides so its a long climb from the dinghy. She is very comfy for two people cruising and 4 is no problem either - Nick and Maddy joined us for the initial sail south. 

Over the past month or so I have been slowly ticking off the remaining job list (still quite long) including a nice oak saloon table and Self steering gear - very exciting.  - home brew trim tab and wind vane..........     

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........

Doryman

Just woke up to find a lovely post by doryman on his fabulous blog here:  http://dory-man.blogspot.co.uk/  (not sure how to make clicky link) theres even a short movie.
cheers Doryman and thanks to chris perkins too of his great pics...
We are just off to put a few hours on the engine around the local islands. fingers crossed.

Shes a floater....

what a week i'm off to bed...
more when i wake

progress film

As I have been very slow at updating this blog I thought I would Make a movie to show progress. The Sailing season is just starting here in Ullapool with a few local boats goiing in this weekend. So not long to go......

At long last I have finished the masts, and have one coat of primer - Heres a picture of me electric plane-ing them into the round. This made my arm ache after a few days!