Lysander 17′ Sailing Cruiser designed by Percy Blandford

[Tim RoweParticipant @timrowe83142]

Crikey Ray

I’d better get a move on with those sails!

Tim

[Ray Wood 3Participant @raywood3]

Hi All,

The Lysander has been progressing really well mainly due to the cold weather, and storms etc !!

Paint shop next , the transom hung rudder may be interesting !!

Regards Ray

[Chris FellowsParticipant @chrisfellows72943]

Hi Ray – you really are making progress, that’s turning into a really nice little boat.

Will be interesting to see how you tackle the rudder as I have two similar ones to do and have already taken on board Colin’s solution on his Greek fishing boat.

Also very interested in how the mast is mounted on the cabin roof as that is the way the full-size Fisherman is but I was concerned at strength given the comments in the pre-build (now bumped to Page 1) when I was thinking about a bolt on rudder and comments were made about it possibly breaking. I don’t think that would have been the case given the relatively small sail area and only sailing in calm conditions but as you know I decided to go with the drop keel solution.

I’m taking the mast down to the hull keel and the top of the dagger box will be continued across to the mast to tie in the forces. Was then thinking I’d have to have the mast in one piece but it would be good if it was removable/able to fold down like yours. Is there any danger of breakage at that point though? Though I assume the mast rigging will stabilize the mast and combat that?

Chris

[Ray Wood 3Participant @raywood3]

Hi Chris,

I only have a dowel support under the cabin roof/ tabernackel down to the keel, the forestay and shrouds will keep the mast insitu, as the gaff rig has a seperate top section to the mast , not sure I will make the mast fold down it’s only a small boat really, but it works fine on my Silhouette 🙂 which is much bigger.

Regards  Ray

 

[Chris FellowsParticipant @chrisfellows72943]

Cheers Ray.

Thinking about it my pond yacht when I was young had the mast held by a bent steel tabernacle fixed to the deck, not the best engineering, and that was fine.

You’ve mentioned that with your other builds that you don’t remove the drop keels and I guess the sails. How do you transport them in the car, just lie them on their side like I do with my DF65?

[Ray Wood 3Participant @raywood3]

Hi Chris,

I only have an average size Renault Captur 1500cc diesel 60 mpg & no road tax 🙂  But with the seats laid down I can lay a DF95, DF 65 & a Victoria in the back with blankets between them 🙂

I seem to have lost the enthusiasm to go to the lake !! Brrrrr

Regards Ray

 

[Chris FellowsParticipant @chrisfellows72943]

Yeah, I lay my DF65 yachts down Ok but they are pretty robust. Wondering if you did the same with your scratch builds?

I haven’t been down the lake for ages! My wife and a couple of her sisters are into women’s football so we’re going to Wembley for tonight’s match against USA, so will be well wrapped up!

Chris

[Ray Wood 3Participant @raywood3]

Hi All,

Lysander is coming on ok , I think it would have looked better in the wood varnished !!

I want to get her finished so I can have a few winter months back on the aeroplanes for next year 🙂

My rudder solution used before on my sailing barges is 1/16 ID brass tube soldered onto 8ba brass countersunk screws with a continuous brass pin through the lot not pretty yet !!

Big disaster today when I realised I’d given Tim duff information on the sails dimensions 🙁 which lead me to draw the rig fullsize, something I should have done from the outset really, moral of the story don’t imagine study plans are drawn to scale !! and check everything 🙂

Regards Ray

 

[Tim RoweParticipant @timrowe83142]

Everyone knows Ray builds at the speed of Warp Factor 10 so it was time to get my skates on and make the sails.

This is what the real thing looks like and the rig is quite distinctive for a number of reasons.  The mast is stepped well forward and is large in comparison to the jib.  The boom is significantly raised at the aft end presumably to give a bit more headroom for occupants of the cockpit.  It is a Gunter rig which is basically a Gaff that is raised right up to snuggle against the mast so it has the appearance, at first glance, of being Bermudan rigged. The advantage of the Gunter is that all the spars fit within the length of the boat which is useful for trailering and camping. This is the same rig on the famous Mirror dinghy and I know Ray has a very pretty sailing model of the Mirror. Perhaps he will post a picture.

Ray is totally forgiven for the slip-up on the drawings because we sorted it out before anything was cut.  Here is the corrected mainsail and the step on the forward side of the sail (luff) is to allow for the gaff when it sits against the mast.

As it says on the drawing, this is the jib with the corrected dimensions but this time we have a little slip-up with the angles.  The 30 degrees should be at the top of the sail (Head), the 55 degrees should be where the 30 degrees is at the lower fore end of the sail (Tack) and the missing angle at the Clew should make them all add up to 180 degrees.
Ray will be forgiven when he buys me a beer on his next visit to Mallorca!

I have made quite a few sails using cloth and Mylar film and I always make a template out of 3mm ply so I am building up a library.  Currently I templates for the following:

IOM (A and B rigs)
Eventide
Wild Duck
Thames Barge Veronica
Swallow (A and B rigs)
Gallileo (A and B rigs)
Lysander

The dotted red line is a straight line the head and the clew.  The curved area outside the dotted line is called the Roach and provides some extra sail area for free.  it also looks much nicer than s straight line.  The reason for marking the red line comes a bit later.

At the top of the picture is a roll of the cloth.  The cloth is actually quite stiff and even at only 3.5 oz / square yard it is on the heavy side for this size of model.  It is important to cut the amount you need for the project and counter-roll it for a couple of days so that following on, it stays reasonably flat.

To be continued.

Tim

 

 

[Ray Wood 3Participant @raywood3]

Thanks Tim,

My 3 subjects at school that I was any good at were Technical drawing (not angles) that my dad taught me to scale up drawings aged 7 a Spitfire obviously !! Woodwork & rugby ! amazingly I made a living as a site engineer, in those days everything was square so a 3,4,5 triangle worked 🙂

I definitely owe you a beer in June, the next scheduled trip to Mallorca, Bernice and I are going to Cape Verde in January to get away from our lovely weather here 🙂

Regards Ray

[Chris FellowsParticipant @chrisfellows72943]

Very interesting as regards the sails and as I’ve said elsewhere timely for me, though it will be awhile before I need a set.

I did broach the subject to my SiL when having lunch at the pub though as she is an excellent seamstress.

I was wondering about the cloth as I want something more realistic than the plasticky stuff used on the DF yachts.

Chris

[Tim RoweParticipant @timrowe83142]

HI Ray

You will enjoy Cape Verde for sure.  Evelyn tells me we are going on an 8 day cruise in June and hopefully the dates won’t clash.

My sail making board is white Melamine faced chipboard which is a bit challenging for taking photos with the white sailcloth.  I should probably paint one side black.

Here the two templates are laid out on the cloth.  The blue tape at the top is showing the long edge of the roll and is aligned with the warp threads of the material.  The weft threads run at 90 degrees to the warp.

A word about this woven sail cloth.  The basic fibres are polyester and the early trade name was Terylene. In some old publications you can still see sails advertised as Terylene and it was a revolution when compared with cotton, flax and other natural materials.  Du Pont developed a fibre especially for sails and it was given the name Type 52 Dacron yarn.  Nowadays Dacron is the ubiquitous name given to most woven sailcloth material.

In most day-to-day fabrics, the warp thread is stronger than the weft thread.  This is why when ripping up old material for rags, in one direction it tears easily and in the other direction you might need scissors.  Sail cloth can be made stronger in the warp or stronger in the weft if a particular orientation is required.  If they are equal, the cloth is called balanced.  Resins are also used to fill the weave in various ratios depending on the quality.  I have got not idea about the structure of my cloth which I bought from Frank Parsons of Nylet and for a model it does not matter.

Sails are much better if they don’t act like a sieve so they are given a very tight weave and then they are heat treated.  Paradoxically polyester will shrink but this is used to advantage as when the cloth is hot rolled this shrinks and compresses the weave, leaves a smooth surface (also important) and makes the material low stretch.  Nylon is different.

You can see that the leeches of the sails are aligned with the wrap direction of the fabric.  The most common mistake with home made sails especially if made from cotton or old sheets is to line up the warp with the luff of the sail.  You do not want the leach of a sail to stretch as it will lose its shape and go wavy even it you fit battens.
Having some stretch on the luff of a sail is beneficial because varying the tension can induce some camber and help make the sail more efficient.  The purpose of the dotted red line is to align the average of the curve of the leech to the warp.  This is really important.

Tim

[Chris FellowsParticipant @chrisfellows72943]

Is that Dacron that you are using then Tim?

Sails I think will be bigger than that for the Fisherman but can you get a lighter weight than 3.5oz if needed?

Chris

[Tim RoweParticipant @timrowe83142]

Hi Chris

Yes it is Dacron.  Lighter cloth is possible but may not be proper sailcloth.

Ripstop, the stuff they use for spinnakers is much lighter but has a square pattern which would not look right on a scale model.

Tim

[Chris FellowsParticipant @chrisfellows72943]

Thanks Tim.

[Tim RoweParticipant @timrowe83142]

Wild Duck, Eventide and Lysander are fair weather model yachts. Maybe 10 knots of breeze will be the top limit so the sails won’t be stressed and won’t be flapping about like mad things.  The combination of tight weave, hot rolling the cloth and the resin fill makes a cut edge quite stable with little tendency to fray.  The original sails for the first incarnation of Galileo were made over 50 years ago and just cut with Mum’s scissors.  They took quite a thrashing in the early days, have been through the wash a few times, treated with stain removed and otherwise abused but they are on the boat now and still work fine.  I had to re-hem the jib and main luffs and replace the luff hooks but apart from trimming a few wisps they have not come apart.

As I am making the sails for Ray however I am taking no chances and the sails are cut out with a hot knife.

Here is the hot knife.  It is a professional tool that I bought some years ago when I was doing a lot of work with full-sized ropes.  Craft type hot knifes can be bought for around £20 or so.

Refence points are lightly marked out on the cloth to be rubbed out later.

For cutting any straight lines I use a steel rule weighted down as shown.  For curved lines I use the corresponding edge of the template.

Like this.  The blue tape holds the cloth down and the weights stop the template from moving.  Incidentally the weights were made by casting lead into used seafood tins.  The lead was filled, primed and painted and finger grooves filed in the side for security. They are surprisingly heavy!  The bottom of the weights are faced with 3mm MDF left bare.  This allows them to placed or slid around on any surface without the lead causing marks like a pencil.  The paint also protects against absorbing lead through the skin and there is no exposed lead to mark anything.  Through normal wear and tear (and dropping one on a tiled floor) they have been repainted a few times.

Here are the cut blanks.  When cutting, the speed is critical. Too slow and the material cut and doing a second pass risks an untidy edge.  Too slow and the cut edge will discolour which spoils the look and you will scorch the edge of the template.  A couple of practice runs on some waste areas are well worthwhile.

This is the quickest stage and now there is quite a lot of finishing before they will work.

On to the next stage.

Tim

 

 

[Ray Wood 3Participant @raywood3]

Thanks for the update Tim,

You cant beat having the right tools for the job 🙂

The June trip isn’t booked yet so I will avoid a clash with you cruise .

Just sorting out the spars and fittings, I think the gaff will be fixed in position for the sake of simplicity.

Regards Ray ( where is seems to never stop blowing & raining )

[Tim RoweParticipant @timrowe83142]

Edit on my earlier post:

Too slow and the material cut and………  Should be

Too slow and the material won’t cut

Tim

[Chris FellowsParticipant @chrisfellows72943]

Have the Fisherman templates arrived yet Tim? Lol!

Chris

[Tim RoweParticipant @timrowe83142]

Hi Ray

We are here in June. Off in July.

Have you fitted the radio gear in Lysander?

Hi Chris

I got one of those funny messages from DHL which I deleted!! Sorry

Tim

[Ray Wood 3Participant @raywood3]

Hi Tim,

I haven’t thought that far , but yes I have a suitable servo which needs an extension arm fitted for the main, Spars are prepared with some fittings made.

I tend to use Velcro to locate the radio gear on the bulkhead 🙂 it works for my aeroplanes ..

Regards Ray

[Chris FellowsParticipant @chrisfellows72943]

Tim – no problem, Ray says he will bring it over!

Looking forward to the rest of your masterclass.

Chris

[Tim RoweParticipant @timrowe83142]

It’s a conspiracy!!

Tim

[Tim RoweParticipant @timrowe83142]

We have the basic sails but they have to have various details for fitting to the mast and booms. The sail plan of the original shows the jib slightly overlapping the mast. Technically that makes it a genoa and in a model that complicates sheeting.  It is much easier to have the jib on a boom that fits inside the foretriangle and therefore becomes self-tacking, only requiring one sheet (rope that controls the angle of a sail).  I forgot to ask Ray if the jib on Lysander was on a boom but seeing as they are for Wild Duck and Eventide I think that is the plan so we have a main boom and a jib boom.

These are the things we need.  The deck patch material is a sticky-backed fabric that we use for closing deck openings on racing models.

This is a patch on the foredeck of an IOM racing yacht.

And my box of bits / materials

5mm Double Sided tape (enough to last for sure)

The holder for my double sided tapes because left loose they tend to go out of shape. I have tree widths of tape and they are kept flat and the edges protected from dirt by sandwiching between four MDF discs held together with a bolt and wing nut.

This is Luff tape usually used on the front edge of a sail.

We will also be using clear acetate for the battens. The function of a batten is to support the roach of a sail and in this case only the main sail has a roach (the curved aft edge of a sail). Being clear they didn’t cooperate with my camera.

Tim

 

 

 

 

[Tim RoweParticipant @timrowe83142]

Oops

This is Luff tape

Tim

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