Friday evening was a time of parts. The first part was (is?) the tiller. I drilled yet another hole in a surface I had worked hard to seal -- the rudder head -- and now the tiller is attached. This will make the boat easier to steer, I'm told. Other builders have added a tiller extension, so they can move forward or hang out over the rail and continue to steer. You can buy such a device for around $45, or you can build one from scrap wood and a little varnish. I believe I will build.
Part numbers, 2, 3 and 4 are cleats. Their purpose is to give the jib halyard, main halyard and downhaul something to hold onto. Without these cleats I would have to hire college students to hold the sails up. Check that, I could probably hire PhDs for less, in this economy.
Much has been written about these cleats on Passagemaker dinghies. The original design calls for one on each side of the mast, and one forward facing, located a bit higher on the mast. The instruction manual says the forward-facing cleat is for the jib halyard, which makes no sense -- the main halyard would work better here, since it passes directly over the top of the mast and one could run it straight down the front of the mast and tie it off. The jib halyard can go on one of the side cleats.
Also, the book says the downhaul -- that's a line that holds the foot of the sail down to keep it properly stretched out -- runs from one side-cleat, up through a hole in the boom, and back down to the other side cleat. But when I went to the Wooden Boat Festival in Port Townsend a couple of weeks ago, the PMD on display was rigged differently, with the top of the downhaul passed through the boom hole and knotted off, and the other end tied off on just one cleat.
Wait, there's more. Sailors the world over have complained about the placement of the forward-facing cleat. Apparently the jib, or jib sheets, or maybe both, hang up on this cleat every time the boat comes about. Well, that's no good.
So I have made a different cleat arrangement, which I hope works. The main and jib halyards will run to the side cleats. The downhaul will attach twice to the other cleat, which I have placed stern-facing. I guessed about height. I hope I haven't completely goofed -- but, if I have, it's temporary, since I hope to replace the mast over the winter with a hollow wooden birds-mouth design.
Note the tangle of high-tech halyard line. Right now I have one very long piece of this line, which will be used for both halyards and, if I have enough, for the downhaul and possibly the bridle (more on that later). I am loathe to cut the line until I feel more certain about proper length of each piece. So for now it stays neatly coiled until either (a) the sun rises, (b) a bird sings, (c) a dog barks or (d) the phone rings. Then it immediately becomes spaghetti.
To gain a sense of purpose for all this rigging, I tried running the gunter yard -- which will lead the upper part of the mainsail through the boat's voyages -- up the mast. Without a parrel (a loop to hold the yard jaws close to the mast), this was a little tricky, but I got it up there.
Today I will be lacing the mainsail to this yard -- yeah, I'll take it down off the mast first, I know. Lots of other lacing tasks, too. A few more parts to deal with. We're getting really, really close to Actually Sailing.
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