Sqoop: a square-rigged sloop

  The day of reckoning has arrived.  It’s time to see if all the planning, fabricating, re-rigging, etc. has paid off.  Today’s objective:  sail  Sqoop  upwind as a fore-and-aft rigged vessel, then convert on the water to a square-rigged vessel and sail downwind using her full-sized square sail.  First, I secured the yard-spar in place with the braces, then attached it to the batt-car/t-track assembly using a soft shackle: Next, I attached the center of the square sail’s head to the yard-spar and attached the sheets and tacklines (foreguys) to the sail’s clews.  After making sure the sail wasn’t twisted, I shoved it all into a home-sewn sail bag for temporary storage.  The outer corners of the sail’s head (earrings) will be attached to the yardarms just before hoisting. My first mate and I shoved off and motored out of the marina, heading into the wind: We raised the mainsail, unfurled the Genoa and beat upwind for an hour on a close reach; what a glorious day to be on the water!  We t

  Once she was pressure washed and on the hard, I could for the first time get a good look at the hull below the waterline.  When I had dove on the boat the previous summer to give it a scrub, I found just a light film of green algae which came off fairly easily.  To me this said the anti-fouling paint was still doing it’s job, although I did notice a few random places where the paint had flaked off. I was hopeful that  a few hours of prep work and a new coat of paint would make everything hunky dory.  My service advisor agreed and started the prep work.  A couple days later, he called with the bad news that more chunks of paint were coming off as he worked due to a previous layer of barrier coat not adhering correctly to the copper coat below.  He recommended removing all the old layers of paint down to the gel coat and starting over from scratch.  With just a slight hesitation (my previous cost estimate would be out the door due to a huge increase in labor expense), I agreed.  Here’s

  I have grown to really appreciate the boat’s 8HP outboard motor.  This little four-cycle engine starts easily, runs quietly and pushes the boat along at 4 knots at a midrange RPM; it uses only about a half gallon of fuel each hour at that power setting.  Now that the boat’s on the hard, it’s a great opportunity to do the annual maintenance and keep the Yamaha purring along dependably. Time to pull out my metric sockets! GEARBOX OIL First up is the gear oil and two concerns immediately come to mind:  Can I get the drain screws out without stripping them and will the old oil be contaminated with water?  Thankfully, the answer to the former was “yes” and the answer to the latter was “no”! As you can see, the used gear oil was dark mocha, which means it needs to be changed, but it shows no evidence of the dreaded milkshake color or consistency; this is a great indication that the seals on the gearbox are still doing their job and keeping the water out and the oil in.  After putting new p

  It was time for the big reveal.  The hull below the waterline had not yet been exposed to air during my tenure as her owner, and now she needed to show us her bottom, warts and all.  Actually, this past summer we dove into the lake to give her hull a light underwater scrub, so I had a pretty good idea of what to expect.   I made a Monday morning appointment at a recommended boat yard and began the journey westward.  My plan was to move the boat to Shilshole Marina the weekend prior, so that on the morning of the haul out I would only need to make a quick, easy trip over to the boatyard.  Of course, the weekend arrived and the weather was not ideal; rainy and windy.  I had a sporty sail around Mercer Island and across Lake Washington but once I got to Montlake Cut, the rain ended and the wind subsided. I stopped at Ivar’s for lunch, picked up the crew and we motored past Gas Works Park and into the ship canal.  The Fremont bridgemaster kindly opened the two bascules for us and soon we

  I got word from the sailmaker that the full-sized square sail is nearly complete.  After fabricating the test sail myself, I figured I had learned enough during the process to move along and hire a professional to craft the full-sized version; it will even have a foot of draft built into it (like a spinnaker) which is not something I wanted to even attempt.  Anyway, I will soon have a 180 square feet of 1.5 ounce ripstock nylon to proudly hoist.  You don’t see very many square sails around Lake Washington and Puget Sound, so I’m thinking about what unique insignia I can display on my blank canvas of dark blue, and I have a number of symbols influencing my attempt at graphic creativity. If you’ve read through the design document (click  HERE  to view), you’ll know that I’ve incorporated the golden ratio (aka ‘the divine proportion’) into the design.  This is most visible in the dimensions of the square sail; the ratio of the foot (and height) to the head is 1.618.  It’s also imbedded