Monthly Archives: May 2020

geekery, LOGBOOK

Back on Track

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We have been trying to solve a recent recurring problem. The sail is not sliding up and down the mast as easily as it did when it was new. It doesnt hang up every time, and sometimes it is worse than others. We have always been able to get it up at least to the second reef point. Usually it just takes a little fiddling, letting it down a bit and re hoisting till it goes on up. It doesnt hang up coming down. The mast is about 45 feet long at the luff. It has a male track with a small amount of bend, and a joint in the track just below the Tangs, which is about 3/4 of the way up.The joint is kept in column by a spline that is screwed in with very short, small, metric, fine threaded, flathead screws. The question up to now has been whether the problem is with the track, the cars, the sail batten tension, the bearings, or something else.

This is the suspect car. If you move it from side to side with your hand, it moves a bit more than the others. This is the car that seems to be hanging up. We pulled the car and replaced the bearings. it still wiggles and it still hangs uo.

This is another view of the car in question. Note how it is out of alignment with the others. This was done by pulling it over by hand.

OK this is the track. This photo was taken aloft, right about where the thing seems to be hanging up. There is a scored place, a scratch on it, not in the side grooves, but on the face, The screws are in tight, and don’t seem to be protruding enough to catch on the car. The track is otherwise in alignment.

What we have done so far: gone up the mast and checked the joint in the track. It seems to be OK. It happens to be at the deepest point in the mast bend (It is bent fore and aft by tightening the diamond shrouds, which are swept back)

So, today we eased the diamonds about one thread on the turnbuckles.

This car is at the first batten which is a fiberglass rod, which is tensioned from the leech end with a big flathead screw. So today we backed off the tension on the batten till there was none.

The car bearings are torlon 1/4 inch. We removed the car, and replaced the bearings. I couldn’t tell any difference in the appearance. They all seem to be round without any flat spots or scoring.

To be continued.

local history

HIGH SEAS AND YANKEE GUNBOATS

Roger Durham

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1570035725/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This is the fascinating story of a blockade run aboard the Canadian  S/V “Standard”.  Her 1862 voyage was from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Sapelo Sound, Georgia, and up the inland passage to the North Newport River, where her cargo of clothes, medicine and ammunition were off-loaded near Colonel’s Island at Melon Bluff. The much needed goods were then transported to, and eventually sold in Savannah.  The Brigantine was then scuttled in the river by her crew, as their escape was made impossible by the pursuit of the Union blockade steamers “Wamsutta” and the “Potomska”.  Author Roger Durham pieces the story together from different sources , most notably the very descriptive diary of James Dickson with his  accounts of the offshore perils, and observations of the wartime coastal conditons at Blackbeard and St Catherines Islands. The local home guard fired on the “Potomska” and  “Wamsutta”, as they descended the river at half moon bluff, mortally wounding two Union seamen. They were buried on Doboy Island.