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Boston, MA (02/24/03) - We're back in Boston
after nearly 1000 miles under our keel. We've sailed the coast
of Nova Scotia and across the Bay of Fundy with ice on our decks
when we left and warm summer weather when we arrived.
We've spent time in Maine, New Hampshire, Marblehead,
Boston, Plymouth, Long Island Sound, Narragansett Bay, Martha's Vineyard,
Nantucket and Hyannis and points amongst.
For anyone interested in building a high tech custom
boat like Barbara Ann, plan for a year of design, two to three years
of build, a year to figure out what you did wrong, and then a year
to get it all right.
We've sorted out all our minor problems and we're replacing
the one major problem, our defective Carbospars' Aerorig mast and
boom. After a single year of sailing, the mast and boom developed
dangerous stress cracks, probably because it weighed nearly twice
its design weight. The rig had to be replaced but it certainly won't
be missed. We won't miss the excessive weather helm, uncontrollable
oscillations, leaky hydraulics, and broken or jammed halyards.
Our new new free-standing carbon rig from Ted Van Dusen's
Composite Engineering, will shave nearly 3000 lbs. from our weight
aloft. The result is expected to be a much stiffer, better
balanced boat with 35 per cent more sail area due to additional roach
in the main and larger conventional self-tacking, fractional jib
and staysail. At Robbie Doyle's suggestion we're adding a 4.5' bow
sprit to increase the foretriangle for improved balance. Our
new length overall will increase to 57.
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Since the mast is somewhat bendy, we're going with
Antal sliders for easy hoisting and lowering of the main. This
means that we can't use boom furling (which requires a bolt rope
on the luff.) Instead we're going to use the Dutchman sail
flaking system, which basically turns the sail into a gigantic
Roman shade to guide it into place on the boom.
We'll use our ever-present sun shade over the boom
as our sail cover either open to the rails or wrapped up under the
boom.
Beyond the many operational problems with the Aerorig,
the overwhelming issue was weight. Barbara Ann was designed
for a spar weight of 2000 lbs. The Aerorig came in at double
that and we didn't find out until we unstepped in July 2002 and weighed
it.
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Barbara Ann