he b gb

Up in Smoke, don’t stare at his birthmark.

Looking very good Pil.

Pretty sure 42 (XL2 in Roman numerals) is just her name, taken from ‘Hitch Hikers Guide to the Universe’.

Here’s a joke For this Temp fellow about ‘sex and travel’. Fuck Off.

Thanks for your reply Bill, I remember racing against a sister ship called Matchless (may have been a bit smaller) which was based on Lake Macquarie (NSW,Australia) back in the 1990’s. She was super fast and after having a look on board I couldn’t believe how lightly she was built. Everyone used to wonder if she would ever do a Brisbane to Gladstone race (which we all thought she would easily win) but she never did. I heard that some time after she broke her mooring in Lake Macquarie and was wrecked never to sail again. Anyone out there know if she ever competed offshore?

Looks like you have to have arms like Popeye to steer her?

Maybe we should ask @Bill Gibbs if he would have enjoyed sailing Afterburner from the USA to NZ. It would be interesting to hear his comments.

I helped build one of Jeffs’ designs around 15 years ago and it was built from Duflex panels. Duflex differs from Durakore in that it doesn’t have the timber veneers and comes from ATL as pre glassed balsa cored panels. They are very stiff panels but end up quite a bit heavier (but much cheaper) than the pre glassed pvc foam panels also produced by ATL.

I couldn’t agree more! Love your boat DDW, only thing missing is an extra hull !! Cheers to @Sailbydate for starting this excellent thread. My boat coming.....and going.

Thanks Russ, the diamonds are a long story, I’ll try and give a quick explanation. When I finished the 14mtr mast blanks I felt that they seemed a bit too whippy so I decided to stiffen them up with the diamonds. This was accomplished for the athwartship loads at the price of greater loads at the bearing levels.(ie. the rigs lost some of their bending off/ depowering characteristics) This was acceptable to me as my sail areas per rig are quite small due to there being 2 rigs. My other concern was fore /aft whipping when beating to windward in steep seas. I feel I’ve fixed this concern by taking spectra stays from the spreader ends to the wishbone ends to reduce the forward inertia via the cranked on main sheet (these stays with turnbuckles are also used as the base for the lazyjacks). I beefed up the spreaders hugely by laminating jumpers to the spreaders to take backward loads and also laminating struts from the spreader ends to ‘up the mast a bit’ to take the downward loads. This all seems to be working as there are no signs of any stress fractures after 8+ years of sailing. Hope this makes sense. Cheers,Gerald.

Good one snags, this was on tv here a week ago. Seconds after this screen shot the plane crashed into a petrol tanker. Funniest scene I’ve ever seen in a movie, the tanker didn’t even budge an inch when the plane hit it and exploded!! Next thing Cary Grant steals an onlookers Ute and is of and away again. (Don’t know if he managed to throw the poo tickets in the back of the Ute before he got away though?)

Some mast detail

Thanks Pil for the compliment re ‘Cactus’. she is 45’ by 28’ and weighs 4.5 ton empty. Her rigs cost me $7000 for the two, this may sound cheap but I did everything myself and so you would have to add my one year of labour it took to build them (call me crazy but I enjoy mucking around with boats and don’t include my labour as a $ value). The extra deck and floor reinforcement did not add up to much as the mast conduits are situated at a major crossbeam which handles the transverse loads with maybe an extra 20 kg per side to handle the fore / aft loads (plus 20kg per side for conduits and bearings etc). The all up weight of each rig is 150kg for 14mtr length (1.8mtr bury, 12.2mtr above deck) . Would I do it again? No way, this is definitely my last boat. Would I do it again if it wasn’t my last boat, Definately!