Over the weekend I stitched the three bulkheads into the hull. This is a temporary move, designed to help the hull hold its proper shape while I apply goo all over it to make it more rigid and watertight and generally better for staying afloat.
The manual provides measuring instructions for properly locating the instructions, but I'm beginning to realize that, like speed limit signs on our street, the manual is more of a set of guidelines, not to be taken too literally in some cases. The fun is figuring out when to break the rules.
The way the measurements came out, my center bulkhead is about an inch farther forward of the stern bulkhead than "normal," whatever that is. Is this a problem? Probably not.
But there's one thing to consider: sailboats depend on the right relationship between the sail arrangement (which has a 'center of effort') and the dagger-board or keel arrangement, which functions as a sort of center of resistance and pivot point. Each boat is designed so that the force exerted by the wind is (usually) a bit aft of the pivot point. That way, if one accidentally lets go of the tiller, the boat will automatically turn toward the wind, which is a good way to keep it from being blown over and sinking without a trace while you regain your hold on the tiller.
With most sailing craft, you can adjust the center of effort a bit by raking (leaning) the mast forward or stern-ward a bit, until the boat performs "just so."
So what does this have to do with the bulkhead locations? I'll tell you. Now. The center bulkhead location is also the aft end of the dagger-board trunk, which is a kind of a slot through which the dagger-board is slipped to dive down there into the water and act as a keel and pivot point. Therefore, the center bulkhead location helps determine where that keel is going to be.
Too far forward and the boat is going to want to come up into the wind too much, and there will be too much pressure on the tiller and rudder, and the boat will not sail as efficiently, plus the captain's arm will get tired. Too far stern-ward and the boat will not have its turn-into-the-wind safety valve and if the skipper lets go of the tiller, the boat will turn away from the wind, capsize and reward the skipper's wife for making all those timely payments on his life insurance.
There is some considerable room for error here, of course, because one can adjust the rake of the mast. But how much room for error is there? I dunno. If I don't come back from my first sail, maybe it will be the bulkhead location's fault. Which of course would be my fault, because I couldn't tell the difference between a hard-and-fast rule and a guideline.
Now you know what kind of random thoughts occupy a drilling-and-stitching session. And here you can see the results:
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