Family sailing - Flatten

July 27, 2020 by Lukasz Kumanowski

It was blowing hard last few days so we waited for calmer weather for family sailing to Flatten. Finally, we got the window on Saturday although forecast was warning against hard wind again on Sunday.
We departed home harbour late afternoon on Saturday. Wind was blowing from the right direction so we sailed all the way on broad reach, only on genua.
Flatten welcomed us with only few boats, most in the inner harbour. Since long-keel Meritaten is not really turning on a penny I never go into inner harbour. External pontoon was empty and Thomas’ wooden motorboat was there so we hanged with him.
Approach on sails but last few meters with help of Yanmar-san. Never enough training!

Apart from small rain in the evening - reminding us that it’s summer in Sweden - weather was perfect. As always - we took a walk around the island which takes no more than 10 minutes indeed.

My favourite place which I doped “The Fisherman Harbour”, was exposed to wind so empty.

We tested my new bathing/boarding ladder and it prove to work very good. I dismounted the previous, rope ladder which now became flowerpot shelves. The new ladder became a part of the onboard equipment on Meritaten.

Late night onboard, playing games in oil lamp lights.

On Sunday we took a bath in the sea. Water was far from warm, around 15 degrees, but taking a dope is compulsory when on Flatten!

We left around 1400, with beam to broad-reach so again we sailed only on genua. It was indeed blowing hard, we were reaching 5 knots on partially rolled sail.

After entering Vätökanal we still were able to sail, now on run. For the first time the wind was steady enough to go on sails under Vätöbron!

We arrived to Rosättra around 1700, just in time to meet Kaika entering her berth.

Good family sailing it was!

Upstanding boathook

July 24, 2020 by Lukasz Kumanowski

I found this article many years ago in Wooden Boat Magazine. Bought it together with bronze boat hook hardware with aim to build a proper thing. So far I had aluminium, telescopic hook (on my previous boat, Safir Motoko) which I sold with the boat. Now, on Meritaten, I have standard, wooden boathook from mass chandlery. It’s fine but I lack few functions:

grip should be oval so that the hook is always held in the proper position for action
it’s too short - most often I needed extra 40 - 50 cm in length
it floats flat when dropped accidentally into water, impossible to grab from passing boat without jumping into water
opposite end needs to be wide and flat - to push on boats or obstacles

My new boathook should accommodate all my desires and should also match the boat. I had few attempts during the years.
Once I converted very long oar into boathook.

I took this idea from OffCenterHarbor video. It worked quite OK but was ugly and still floated flat.

Second approach was made from hickory, bought at chandlery as gardening tool’s handle.

That one was nice but it didn’t float at all - bronze hardware was too heavy so I added several cork spheres on the stick to keep it floating. It even floated as it should - like fishing float - but it was sticking out just a few centimetres. Probably 20 more cork balls would improve the situation but that was a dead-end anyhow. It was round and too short.

New boathook will be built from two types of wood, for aesthetics and strength/elasticity. As a core I chose walnut, surrounded by Oregon pine. All pieces were glued with thickened epoxy, colour matching core piece (WEST filleting blend gives mahogany-like colour).

Nails at both ends helped to keep all parts in relative stable position. Moderate clamping force to get a bit of squeeze-out. As always - you never have too many clamps!

Epoxy cured overnight so I cleaned the assembly from excess glue.

Square beam it became. I started with shaving service end to mount the bronze hook. According to drawings and my measurements I needed to go down onto small diameter, leaving the big one spaced 4 inches apart.

Adding few intermittent rings helped keeping the progress even on all sides.

I mostly used drawknife and spokeshave, block plane was of help to keep track of edges.

Once close to the final dimension I gradually sanded away the wood, marking high areas with hook itself.

I leave a small void at the end of the stick, to fill it with lead, if needed.

Assembled boathook in its raw form was taken for a swim. I wanted to get a feeling how much I need to shape it to get proper floating behaviour.

Obviously a lot needs to be removed - it floated dead flat.
I started shaping the handle and went to the lake every few hours to see if I’m getting closer to desired behaviour.

Many shavings later I came to the state that I didn’t want to remove any more material. After all, this hook needs to be strong so I cannot remove too much wood.

In principle I was removing most material from the far end, opposite to the hook. This is to lighten it: once the hook sinks I want as much of the handle to stick out as possible.
Closer to the hook I was keeping as much wood as possible - to have buoyancy big enough to float high. The whole thing here was to keep a delicate balance between centre of weight and centre of buoyancy. Once this balance is achieved we are at home.

Tests of the final-shaped handle with hook showed correct tendency but it still floated flat. Obviously, the boathook being much longer than standard required heavier bronze hardware. I taped 40 cm long brass bit to the service end and hook sinked directly, with enough of the handle sticking above water to call it a day.

But that was not enough - it was sinking like torpedoed ship, meaning there was too much weight added. We are after a graceful sinking, kind of like submerging WW2’s submarine. That should give us much more length left above the water.

By removing brass bit by bit I came to the stage where hook was sinking slowly, with grace. So we came to this sweet point!

Now it was just to shape the remaining brass into something more pleasing. Two brass screws, countersunk in the bit, will hold it connected to the handle.

Sanding and oiling followed.

I’ve chosen to use only Owatrol D2 here. The handle should be protected and smooth but must not be slippery. Varnished wood will not be as firm in grip as oiled. Time will tell if I made the proper choice but for now it looks fine.

End-grain was saturated properly using old socks filled with the oil.

Saturated wood was left to cure overnight.
Next day we took the hook to the harbour for final tests. Patrik and Helen on “Flicka” got interested so we jumped on board of their spectacular, ferro-cement Colin-Archer to show hook’s behaviour on deeper water.

New boathook behaves as desired!
I’m pleased with its form, it’s matching Meritaten and hopefully it will serve us long time. It was fun to build!

Bathing & boarding ladders

July 20, 2020 by Lukasz Kumanowski

My bow ladder prove to be single-purpose device. Now reduced to single step it works fine to enter the boat while in berth but we need to have a way to get onboard from water also.

I could, of course, buy ready-made stainless steel ladder for few thousands SEK but it felt like more fun to make my own.

I like the concept of using fender-board as a ladder. I started with laminated plank (pine shelf which was left from another project) and cut foot openings/steps every 30 cm.

Japanese saw was the best tool to cut clean the openings.

Filing and sanding to finish the steps.
I added reinforcement beams on the bottom. This way the ladder can be used not only in vertical position but also as a bridge to land.

Components were not glued but only screwed together, brass screws. This way I can service the ladder easily and it is robust enough to not need gluing. Sanding of the whole assembly.

The ladder will be oiled, not varnished nor epoxy-coated. It will give her satin finish and maintain the proper grip for safe walking on it. Varnish-like surface would be too slippery.
Pine wood, compared to old mahogany, seems to be very bright and flat. I wanted to give it some more weatherly-look to match my boat.
I painted it with flames!

There used to be custom to surface-burn wood, for protection from elements. We know now that it’s mostly useless as a protection but moderate burning can add some character to otherwise flat-looking wood.

Oiling in Owatrol D1, left overnight to cure.

Some rope work followed.

Rope is screwed with brass screws doped in Ettan. Since it’s a braided rope it was possible to hide screw heads inside the rope so that bump-protective role of the rope is maintained.

Done!
Field tests show that the thing is robust. If not on the boat it can serve in our tree house, too.

I’ve made it long enough so it will go deep under water while being hanged from bow or stern. This way it should be easy to grab it and lift oneself up.
So far we’ve used it as a bridge to the pontoon, it’s too cold water to try bathing seriously!

Sailing with Kaika

July 17, 2020 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Jim asked if I go for sailing and I had some reasons to go for sailing so we decided to sail together, both boats.
We met in the morning in the harbour to decide where to sail for a night. Wind, as always, was a decisive factor. With moderate Southerly wind Idskär became the target - knowing that we will anyway not find place in Arholma, spending a night on anchor, in protected bay, was appealing.

After some planning and preparations we were ready to go. Communication on VHF.

As often, it was blowing hard in Rosättra. I had some close encounter with neighbour boat when leaving the berth, when my cast-away manoeuvre failed to work. Emergency engine on full throttle saved us from problems this time.
We started by sailing North in Vätösundet.

Nice and easy, with beam- and broad-reach all the time.

After passing Örarna we entered Lidöfjärden and started to beat against the wind.

Sailing close-hauled is not the strongest course of our boats but we did well. During one of many tacking manoeuvres something splashed heavily close to my boat. “Wow - what a fish!” was my thought.
Well, it was not the fish.
It was one of only two ancient winch handles which I restored last winter… Stupidly I have not laced it and genua sheets took it into the sea.

That’s a pity, only one left - now properly laced to the boat.
I’ll need to make a copy of the lost one - and substitute plastic head with teak of Tufnol.

After reaching South of Björkö we started to head towards Arholma archipelago. I often get lost here so I try to get close to cardinal mark which warns against ground here.

We entered Idskär bay on sails, close hauled - the bay is opened from North, giving quite good protection during Southerly wind. There were boats already in the bay but the anchorage was empty. There is a place for 2-3 boats to anchor there so we were lucky and dropped anchors in the middle.

Boats prepared for staying overnight - we turned into house-keeping procedures: Jim feeding his parrots which woke up and started to make noise. I was mending my newly made bow ladder to use it as bathing ladder.

Knowing that Jim is close with his dinghy I decided to give it a try and take a dope in the sea. He warned me that it’s cold but I wanted to try and the ladder needed to be tested anyway.
In case the ladder failed and I could not get back on board I put my life jacket - to survive in water before Jim comes to rescue me.

Well, the ladder did not fail but my bath was only 6,4s long.
It was not cold.
It was damn cold!
I jumped out of water as soon as my brain got reports from all skin sensors: we are in liquid nitrogen!

Ladder prove to be single-purpose device: it works as bow ladder, to enter deck when in berth. As bath ladder it required too much attention to make it user-friendly. I have a hard time seeing my girls using it.
I’ll need to make a dedicated bathing ladder then.

My plan to swim to Kaika for a beer failed. Instead Jim took his dinghy and came to visit us on Meritaten.

Smoking pipes, drinking coffee and talking till late night. Planning for next day sailing. It was dark when the party was over.

Wind was still blowing and occasional swell from open sea entered the anchorage but otherwise the nigh was calmed and peaceful. Our anchors sat good and there were no signs that the wind direction will change so we could sleep peacefully.

My mast-top light is of wrong type to be used as anchor light so I lighted additional light in the cockpit.

Next day started with perfect weather. Open-sea view waiting to be explored.

Breakfast and relaxing time before leaving. My renovated pentry is serving the purpose excellently!

We decided to round Arholma on open sea and then head back home.

Wind was steady from South so we could sail on broad reach or running.

Leisure sailing during perfect weather.

After rounding Arholma on North part we started to head South, beating against the wind.

We didn’t decide how to sail home yet - we were about to decide when we reach Idö height. Keeping contact on VHF we sailed close hauled. Kaika sailed faster and after few hours I lost sight of her and Jim. At some point they came back to find me and we continued sailing together.

It was a good and tiring sailing. Wind increased in speed and sea got disturbed. Our boats were in their primary element.

While sailing together we took opportunity to photograph each other. Not so often one gets himself and the boat on photo while sailing.

We decided to go into Norrtäljeviken, with the hope of beam-reach sailing there and broad reach in Vätö Sund.

Wind got considerably weaker in Norrtäljeviken so we had calm sailing, racing a bit against modern sailboat (which got behind us in the end)

We reached Vätösundet southern opening with enough wind left to sail us through narrow channel in the beginning.

Lazy sailing, side-by-side, in Vätösund - perfect ending for an active sailing day.

Before reaching Vätöbron we had to start engines - wind died, as usual in this part of the channel. We went on engines this last leg to Rosättra.

If not for the incident at the end this would have been perfect ending. Exactly while we were entering our berths there came a small motorboat which made so much swell that both of us crashed our boats into berths. Meritaten got scratches by riding over steel boom. Kaika crashed into the pontoon, bending her bronze protection plate on bow. Neighbour boats were jumping in their berths, one of them almost loosing it’s boarding ladder.
Brainless drivers are everywhere.

We’ll fix these dents so no worries. These were very good sailing days!

Broken mast cleat

July 15, 2020 by Lukasz Kumanowski

Probably during mast-lift one cleat got broken. Embarrassing situation as it is difficult to buy a replacement - modern cleats have different screw pitch.

Since I still have quite a bit of teak in my storage I took a bit (broken chair from Tze) and decided to carve my own cleat. Let’s see it as a first step into procedure of making wooden mast for Meritaten.

I’ve decided to make the cleat bigger and more massive. Not only because it’s wood but mainly due to ease of handling when working with halyards.
Cutting, carving and planing to get the basic shape.

Once I was happy with the shape I aligned the broken cleat to transfer hole pitch. It must be the same - mast has threaded holes waiting for the cleat of exactly this spacing.

Countersinking to hide mounting screws.

Sanding and smoothing all for the final step - oiling. I could have left teak “as is”, to let it become silver, but I’ve decided to try keeping it bright.
Final product, after oiling, looks good to me.