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!

OT: Got a Chute Scoop

This is slightly off topic, but I scored a 25' Chute Scoop (new, $183) for $30 at a local estate sale.  It is a little stained on one end, but it is all there.  I might use this for the Hobie 16 spinnaker?  I didn't plan to document the Hobie 16 spinnaker project, but maybe I will...  We'll see!  I was planning to build a snuffer system, but maybe this is more simple.  I wasn't planning to race with the spinnaker on the H16 anyways, it would be more for fun. So it may work?

Another Mistake

I should have waited to patch spinnaker #2.  Instead of patching it with discolored material from spinnaker #1, I could have used the pristine material from the panel I removed from spinnaker #2 when I re-sized it.  Aw well, live and learn.  I will not re-do those patches.  This is a pool shade cover, not a spinnaker for a boat!

Here's a picture from the dry fit of Spinnaker #2:

The ropes are there to prevent the spinnaker from bowing down to touch our heads.  When there's a breeze, the spinnaker puffs up and down, it's fun to watch.  It also makes a great sound!  As you can see, this is just not tight enough along the edges.  The removal of the panel and the re-do of the clews should do the trick!

Here are the clews cut out of the panel:

And here are the clews glued to the re-sized spinnaker.

Now I need to sew them and re-do the leather chafing.

Did a Dry Fit of the Spinnaker Pool Shade Covers

I put the spinnakers up to see how they fit...

Spinnaker #1 (the small one) fits the existing setup perfectly!  Three corners fit along the house, and the fourth gets pulled towards the fence corner.

Spinnaker #2 (the larger one) is too large.  The foot of the sail doesn't get pulled tight along the side of the house, and the side towards the fence doesn't pull the sail away from the house, so it rubs against the roof.  So, I have to do some modifications...

First, I'm going to have to make two new anchor points on the fence line to pull the spinnaker away from the house.  Second, I have to trim the spinnaker.  I originally kept both sail numbers thinking that would look good, and it did.  However, that made it just a bit too long along that side of the house.  So, the panel along the new, second foot needs to be trimmed off.

What I'll need to do is:

• Remove the leather chafing protection
• Cut the panel off with the second set of sail numbers
• Trim the clews
• Glue the new clews to the trimmed spinnaker
• Sew the new clews
• Sew new stay tapes
• Re-sew the chafing protection

It sucks to have to re-do the clews and the foot for this spinnaker, as well as make up a new anchor system, but I think this will work out in the long run.  Having a larger pool shade cover that covers essentially the entire pool will be good to have.  

Spinnaker # 2 - Done!

Today was a big day, I started and finished the second spinnaker.  Here's the pictures I took:

Here are the two Dacron panels:

After dry fitting and trimming, here is the panels with the webbing applied with double sided tape:

Here are the clews with the webbing sewed:

And the other sides:

And closeups:

Here I should have noticed that the spacing wasn't quite right:

Here's the panel ready to be glued to the spinnaker using my "ledge" contraption:

They're attached!

I shuffled the steps around because of where I was working, so I sewed the rings in:

I then sewed the stay tape, note the new white tape stops a bit past the panels on the side where the red stay tape is:

Ditto on the clew with the green stay tape:

I tried something new, and used some paper towel to make a template, and was able to use some scrap:

They turned out extremely well!

I can't wait to see this one hung up!