Everglades Challenge: Putting Pieces Together

Frankenscot, our Everglades Challenge boat-to-be, continues to evolve. The last couple of weeks have included plenty of boat-building activity, but most of it of a fussy and non-thematically-related nature. 

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The standard Flying Scot mast is a hefty chunk of extruded aluminum. Because we plan to rig a trapeze (no, not with spangles and leotards -- nautical. Like mountain-climbers.), we figured the FrankenScot's mast might need a little extra something. 

<------   Like these spreaders.

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Sidebar extra: 
A mast stands upright because of pressure, one way or another.  It's like holding a tall stack of pennies. By pinching them between thumb and finger, you can hold fifty cents' worth sideways without having the column bend. Same with sailboat masts. 

With the base of the mast stabilized in some sort of step, a system of cables or stays presses the column against its base.  A headstay and side-stays, for basics, then perhaps a backstay, lowers and uppers, check-stays, baby-stays and so on.  All designed to hold the mast in position. 

Spreaders exist to push the stays outward from the mast, which allows for greater control of how the mast deflects and where it bends. Spreaders function in something like the same way as a pier on a suspension bridge -- to distribute the load without having to construct a whole dang mountain. 
 

Another peculiarity of the Flying Scot class is that the design requires any bailing to be done the old-fashioned way: by hand.  Downwind during a windy race, you can see plumes of water being flung via feed-scoop, sponge, detergent bottle, or bucket. 

TwoBeers installed a "real" bailer in the floor of the Frankenscot. These nifty little valves allow water to flow out when the boat is in motion, and then can be shut when not needed. These are not a cure-all for -- you know -- the DAMPEST sailing conditions, but it should at least make the boat easier to keep dry when there's spray, splash, and rain.  

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View looking up from the waterline.

The racks are ready for sea-trial.. 

This black trampoline (no, not like that. It's the nautical kind of trampoline.) provides a rigid, light, but (potentially) comfortable spot to perch. The material is a vinyl-coated mesh, designed not to stretch, while the lashing is a high-tech Spectra cord, rated to hold something like 800 pounds.  

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Since TwoBeers has modified the former Flying Scot pretty far from its workmanlike beginnings, he plans to test those modifications sooner rather than later. So he fitted a standard Flying Scot rudder back onto the boat.  

It's a beaut.                          ----->

Depending on how the sea-trial goes, there might be a shaplier rudder in Frankenscot's future. 

For sails, there's a Lightning spinnaker, an SR-21 genniker or two complements of Josh Wilus and the local Doyle Sails, a standard Flying Scot main (reef points to come), and a Lightning headsail to try.

If the project continues, the jib will eventually roller-furl, and the standard blocky centerboard will be replaced with something with curvier and more hydrodynamic. 

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