I have a new (old) Sailrite sewing machine!

I have a new (old) Sailrite sewing machine!

I picked it up on craigslist.  It is the generation 1 model, but works great!  It came with lots of extras...  I have already started on making spinnakers for my Hobie 16.  The sail dimensions were not as bad as I thought, although it will need some work.  I think I overestimated the dimensions originally, and will only have to do minor work on the leftover pieces to make them work, we'll see!

I'm going to start a new blog about it:  homemadehobie16spinnaker.blogspot.com/

Morris now has the sewing machine

I handed off Ernie's sewing machine to Morris.  He has a project sewing some tarps together for his Prindle.  If I want to make this H16 spinaker, I'll need to find another sewing machine!  It's not going to be easy, I've been measuring what fabric I have with possible patterns without much luck...

Top parts of the spinnakers will not work, as-is

I took a closer look at the top halves of the spinnakers, there's no way they will work as-is.  I'll have to re-cut every panel and make a new head as well as new clews.  Also, I'll have to sew all the cut panels together.  I might be able to cut them in a way that I'll keep half the seams and sew sets of two panels together requiring only half the sewing.

But that means I need to come up with some spinnaker pattern designs!  Arrg!  That was not the plan...

More Hobie 16 Spinnaker Pictures

OK, some of these are not H16s.

And some links:

• https://www.hobiecat.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=50953
• http://www.thebeachcats.com/pictures/?g2_itemId=11741 

Planning Hobie 16 Spinnakers

I've been looking around on the web for Hobie 16 spinnaker rigs planning to make mine out of the leftover spinnakers. Here's a good picture:

It appears that the spinnaker pole extends out about twice as much as the bridle wires, which will be about 13 feet.  That means that the foot will have to be 13.5-15 feet, depending on where the pulley ends up.  For a completely temporary rig, I'm thinking of attaching the pulley to the base of the side stay?  I'd have to bungee it so it wouldn't drag when that hull is in the water though.  Hmm.  Need to think about that some more.

From what I've read, you can rivet a H14 tang a few feet up from the H16 tang, even on a comp tip.  I'll probably be using a H16 tang because of the chute scoop rigging.  That's going to be about 20 feet high.  That means the luff/leech needs to be about 24 feet long.

The top halves of the spinnakers I have leftover from the pool shade cover are 22 feet and 20 feet, so I can lower the new tang or there'll be some play there.

The feet of the top halves of the spinnakers are way too large.  They're each 26 feet!  I will need to do some serious trimming to make these fit.  I might have to re-cut the entire sail.  Hmm.  This may be a bigger project than I thought...

Here's another picture:

Ernie needs his sewing machine back!

Ernie is back in town and needs his sewing machine back.  So, I'll need to find another one to do the H16 Spinnakers.

I was reading that you can attach a H14 tang to the composite part of the mast for the spin with no problems...  I may try that, along with my chute scoop.

Thanks again for the use of your machine Ernie, it worked out great!  Let me know if you need help with your boat covers...

Spinnaker Project Done!

I finished up the clews of spinnaker #2:

I remembered to glue the panels on the same side again.

Then I hung them both up for pictures.  I use the top halves of some old-school fiberglass windsurfing masts and pulleys to run rope back and forth between the house and the fence to keep the spinnaker from drooping down on top of our heads:

Here's spinnaker #1.  I used some hooked bungees to attach the clews to the hooks, but I plan to buy some plain bungee rope and tie loops to the clews so that I don't have the potential of hardware snapping back in case of a breakage.

Here's a shot of the spinnaker resting on the ropes:

And hre's a shot of the wind bellowing the sail up off the ropes:

You can see in this shot that one clew is red and the other is black.  That's where I glued and then sewed the clews on different sides.  This does not affect the operation of the spinnaker at all, I'm wondering if anyone will even notice it.

This was taken just after noon, the hottest part of the day, as you can see, there is shade over the whole pool, success!

Here's another shot of it bellowed out:

The stains on the spinnaker almost remind me of tie-dyes, so this is perfect!

Here's spinnaker #2.  I used the bottom halves of the windsurfing masts to make tie points by the fence because this one is over sized compared to the first one:

Here's a picture of spinnaker #2 resting on the ropes:

And here it is bellowed out:

 I still have the sewing machine, and with the chute scoop, I'll be making two spinnakers for my Hobie 16.  The first will be the full length of the mast, and the other will be a smaller one that will attach to the existing mast tang.  I still have that third spinnaker that needed some minor repair, I'll sew that up and maybe make some of my money back, we'll see.  I may come back and post it here, we'll see about that as well!

Overall, this was a great project.  Thanks to Ernie for the use of his Sailrite LSZ-1.  Thanks to Sailrite for their videos, that made the whole thing doable.  This is a great machine, I hope I get one for myself!