The ferryman

Biru-biru helped me out. I had to catch a half mile ride from Bananal Beach, on Ilha do Governador, to the small Palmas Island, where my nephew and godchild was having his birthday. After several arriving power boaters turned me down, Biru-biru appeared, and said he could take me there with his boat. During the 30 minute crossing he didn't stop chatting with me for more than a minute or two. At 62, he seemed to have an admirable health... he barely sweated when we arrived, after a crossing through a choppy sea, with a crosswind coming from well forward of the beam. I was grateful the good canoe was fairly stable. But it did provide a safe even if shaky passage.

The little Palmas island is a petite jewel in the Bay of Guanabara. Sitting there in the shade, under the trees, with an absolutely stunning view, is a privilege. What is not tolerable, is the poor quality of the water. 

Pimped up Boom

 This weekend I advanced on the main boom, and I think it will look really nice.It is also very light. I can handle it one-handed, without effort. My Mother came along to help unwrapping the boom from the PVC. And of course we came to take a view at Arpex, to check, wether it really exists.

The boom is coming out nicely, with some little fancy details, which help to cause a nice impression. Like the idealized carbon harpoon on the boom-fork. Check it out below.

 

But also the carbon-wood finishing, at the boom end is nice to look at.

I am trying to activate contacts in the Ramos Yacht Club in order to source bamboo rods for the sun shelter. 

Mark II for the tent

After some thought and advice from friends, I have adjusted the design of my deck tent. Three major factors were considered; cost, windage and structural anchor points and tendons. 

Tent development

Today I made a few sketches, developing the much needed sun protection and deck tent for Arpex. I plan to use material like bamboo, which is cheaply available, and fit for the purpose. 

That is the sort of material that I had in mind for the cover and tent. However it is not as affordable as I had imagined. So I need to check what is the relative advantage to using acrylic sun resistant fibers.

Optical effects

A funny thing happens to me when I look at some of the videos and also still pictures. Arpex sometimes looks like a model to me. Actually it is even more strange, the relation of size seems to be stretchable. It can vary from +3 feet to model size. Really. I start to think about how such a boat would look like if it had, 3,... or 6 feet more. And while I start imagining the possibilites and improvements, the boat starts looking like the little model I held in my hands 8 to 7 years ago. One of the reasons for these strange optical effects in my mind, are early model test videos. See below.

Wish I could take it away for a shakedown sail

Looking at my boat from different angles, and taking pictures to be able to look at it at home, helps me a lot to develop solutions for problems at hand.

Wish I could take Arpex away for a shakedown test. But for, now I still have to finish to most important adjustments on the beams and the boom. I will then also address the sun shelter, and the netting. Some neat ideas are popping up. I want to have something which will work as a bimini during sailing, a cover at the mooring and a shelter-tent, during anchorage.

Work Ongoing

The first beam is almost ready to close. Since I want to add a cleat on the starboard beam end, we need to drill and prepare for the bolts to hold the cleat. Above you can see Roger, who is checking alignment.

Additionally I advanced on the boom, which received another lamination of carbon. I really enjoy the work on the boom. It will look nice in the end. And I suspect it will be nicely usable.

In the evening I produced a fine dinner, which was very tasety indeed. My mother brought me some new spices from Germany.

Below two picture from just before lamination. Actually the fitting before cutting the cloth to size.

Here you can see, that the boom fork has been laminated with glass also. Sice I do noth think this looks very fine, I have also covered this parts with two layers of carbon. In the end, I decided to extend the carbon coverage at the next opportunity, next week.

Arpex On Hold

Arpex is sitting in the Ramos mud, waiting to receive the improvements which will liberate it from this smelly bed. In this location the light gets favorable in the afternoon. specially this weekend, when an approaching thunderstorm made a lovely contrast to the sunlight coming from the opposed direction.

 I took a little while to put the boat in good order, ready for an Admiral's inspection. Well, ... you know what I mean. It is a figure of speech. Anyway, while poking around I noticed that the splice on both shrouds looks weird. I need to find out whether this is something I need to worry about. Notice on the picture below, that the right side of the grey spectra line, coming from the top towards the friction ring, is somewhat streched out and slimmer that I would think it should be.

 Cleaning and scrubbing the boat felt very good. I enjoyed it and will make a regular exercise of it. It os a satisfying feeling to have all in good order.

Carbon Post-Curing

The work on boom has started, and it seems it will be a quick job indeed. First I had to prepare the the piece, by cleaning and sanding it. Then the order was to carefully cut the precious black stuff, and test the fit. I then pre-pegged the carbon cloth with epoxi, in order to then wrap it around the boom. The final touch was to wrap the laminate into regular kitchen PVC film. This resulted in a very clean finish.

Today I went to the club in the morning hours to check the result. Indeed, I could pull off the PVC without much difficulties, and the result is quite pleasing. Carbon reaches its best when you give the laminate a heat session for post-curing. I don't have a stove t´for that, but I figured I could wrap it in black plastic, and leave it in the sun for a while. I am pretty sure it will reach quite high temperatures. Maybe it works. It is worth a try. I'm confident, that the boom will be sufficiently strong now.

 Here, below, it the boom wrapped in black plastic, in its post-curing stage.

PlaneSail - From 1992

I had seen drawings for such boats, but actually newer knew that they had actually been built and even sailed across the Atlantic. These are not quite my cup of tea, but, I have to admire the out of the box thinking and boldness. And I thought my boat, Arpex, was kind of whacky...

See the boat at 3:50min. I wonder how it actually performed, ... and is it still sailing?

Back to Work

On Saturday Roger and I went to work on the new beams. They will replace the existing ones. They will be built in plywood, and I am happy that Roger was able to source a very good quality material.It is impeccable 15mm and 20mm Ceder plywood. This will be reinforced with Freijó wood. And here, again I was happy to find good stuff.

We managed to get almost all of the wood cut, and glued on first part, of one of the beams. We had a lot of work drilling and driving in the stainless screws, which will, by the way, stay in the beams.

It felt good to be beack in working modus. To have the boat stopped is putting me down a little. I want it back at its mooring, in Urca, and back sailing.

Arpex in good light

Yesterday Roger and I had a good working day on Arpex. We started work on the new crossbeams. I'll post pictures and report in a few of hours.

After a couple of weeks without seeing Arpex, due to work on weekends and then carnival, it was a comforting sight to see that the boat is sitting sound and safe moored to the pier. It still looked great, and even better in the afternoon sun. The long wait is straining my patience. now that the boat is in the water, I want to have it operable, and close to home. I want to feel it swaying on its mooring... Which is why I hope that the improvements don't take too long time to finish.

Rio - 450 Years

My city, Rio de Janeiro is celebrating its 450th. year today. It is a place of great natural beauty. Even after 450 years of abuse, nature still offers many wonders, day after day. Which is why I am hooked, and love it despite its many problems.