Innovative ideas for repairing boats great and small

Mast climber – click here or on the picture for a device to help in climbing a mast.

Up the mast video.  How not to replace a masthead instrument. Quite a long story of Murphy’s law.

SOME INSTRUMENT REPAIRS.

If you have an old Navman 3100 instrument with a faulty display it could be the ribbon cable and can be repaired with a kit from Indigo Electronics (worked well for me!) – see this link:    http://www.atomic4.com/navman.html

Or if you have one of these old Nexus NX2 wind instruments: repairs to Silva Nexus NX2 Wind Transducer .  (As done by 2018 Club Commodore and Bosun).  But note that there are variants of this instrument.

OTHER REPAIRS.

Experienced members are always happy to share experiences of repair work to supplement your own researches (plenty of advice on Google).

Knots

A suggested activity for those with sailing-withdrawal symptoms while staying at home: get a length of rope and learn more knots using the link to Grog’s Animated Knots.  Or play around with the RaceQs system of replays linked in the race reports page here.  In the links to “Videos via YouTube”  there are not only excerpts from some of our races but a selection of other sailing related videos, and YouTube learns to suggest similar ones based on your viewing history.

For those who are not dyed in the wool traditionalists with the Ashley Book of Knots on the shelves, a great resource is Grog’s Knots.  There is a good “app” that can be downloaded to a tablet, but the same information is available on line here.  The animations can be paused and progressed step by step.

Webmaster’s Knot of the month is the Trucker’s Knot (or “Truckie’s Hitch”).  This knot is so useful it has many names and many variants.  Webmaster’s favourite variations are:

a) start with a full sheepshank rather than directional figure 8 to form a loop which is both stable and easy to untie after heavy loading.
b) for tying down a load on a trailer, with a long rope, use a bight in the rope to complete the knot so that multiple truckie’s hitches can be made without miles of rope being fed through the loop.  This system can be untied very quickly and easily. Quoting from Grog’s page,  “Real Truckers: The Animation was prepared to show the structure of the knot. In practice at step 6, a Real Trucker will pass a Bight of rope through the Loop and then use the Bight to tie off the knot with half hitches. This allows him to use one long piece of rope to tie many Trucker’s Hitches.”
c) For maximum (theoretical) mechanical advantage and a self-locking effect, allowing easy tightening:-  rather than just once, pass the free end of the rope round the trailer bar and through the loop twice, with the second pass underneath the first one.  When this is tightened down it automatically locks and only needs a loose half-hitch or slipknot for security.

Last knot of the month was  the Zeppelin Bend.  Note the importance of the correct layout of loops because a “lookalike” can easily be made which simply pulls apart.  So test before you use.  The free ends must be diagonally opposite each other and the loop with its free end on top goes on top of the loop with its free end below.   Like the last knot of the month, it will take a very heavy load without jamming. 

Before that the “knot of the month” was the Perfection Loop, but tied by the alternative method: “Alternative: It can also be tied through a fly or lure by passing the free end along the path shown in Frame 7 of the animation.”  This is a great alternative to the bowline.  [Actually Frame 8 gives a clearer overview of the knot which  basically starts with an overhand knot then the free end forms the loop through any object, then back through the knot as in ‘frame 7’ or frame 8.]

Entertaining listening

Entertainment – For 50 minutes of entertaining listening – there’s an ABC podcast of Sandy McKinnon’s interview about the Journey of Jack de Crow.  (Or copy and paste the URL below.)    Several members went to his talk in Queenscliff, 10 years ago (May 2010).

https://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2014/10/20/4110627.htm

Sailing game

Here’s a game of tacking practice.  Enter International competition!!! See who was number 8 on July 31st (below right)!

Silva Nexus wind instrument repair

To comply with quote in the “Sailing Anarchy” forum, our experience in repairing the Siva Nexus NX2 wind transducer (reported in “Sailing / Keelboats /  Boat repairs”) is also linked  here