Following the Pied Piper.

[Larks]

Ooh that looks nice!!! As a matter of fact when I opened this page I just said to my wife "ooh that looks nice!!"......

[Candyfloss]

Thanks Greg. I'm really happy with the way it looks. Roof next.

[Candyfloss]

As Kerry pointed out, there's not much to post about when you are just sanding & painting, painting & sanding.

Four coats on the cabintop, final sand, probably Monday;



And undercoat on the washboards & hatches;

[Larks]

It may not seem like much to post Graeme, but it's still good to see that it's all ticking along nicely. I'm of the opinion that any post with progress of some sort is better than no posts at all.

[Redeye]

Graeme, She's looking nicer and nicer every day. I hope to see you out on the water when I come home in Dec. I'll bring the merlot.

[Candyfloss]

I have to say it's very satisfying Greg & fortunately not a very big area, but kneeling on those narrow little side decks for the two hours or so it takes to sand it is not the most fun I've ever had with my clothes on.

Redeye, you've got yourself a date.

If any of you caught the news item, the Kiwi yachtsman that ran onto a reef in the Caribbean & was rescued by the Venezuelan coastguard this week is an acquaintance. He used to work in the hardware store here in Thames where I get all my stuff before he headed off on his great adventure. I'm relieved to hear he & his wife are O.K.

[floatingkiwi]

I reckon you should somehow taper those coamings toward narrower at the top . They look too square and bulky. At least a good rounding off in the right spots might make them look a bit more elegant. But then, I am a fussy b$%%^#d. And where they meet the cabintop. Is there a way to make them both flow into one piece, it looks like a water trap or it doesn't belong or something.
Regardless, its gonna be the best lookin Piedy out there my friend.
I don't think I am requred to remind you of the fantastic job i think you are doing anyway.
I too, although I am not sure I know who he is, am relieved to hear the guy in Venezuelan waters is OK.
Right there is any one of us.

[Rayjing]

Hey Graeme,your cabin top looks very smart,but am just wondering,are you going to put a wooden pad on the cabin top for the mast step ?. Trying to figure out who was it from the local hardware shop that had the misfortune in Venezuela. My partner is well known in thames and knows most people there. I saw one of your exquisite little dinghies in Reido's last time I was in Thames,saw who built it,and wondered if it was you.<br>&nbsp; Floating Kiwi,there is nothing like a fat coaming to park your freckle on whilst sailing,although I understand your critique.Now all graeme has to do is work out how to make some classy glass holders in the cockpit for when he has a merlot (whilst at anchor of course),not like me,knowing my station in life,I would just swig it straight out of the bottle,I blame it on my upbringing !!,(just joking Graeme)

[Candyfloss]

Thought very hard about that Kerry & if I made then any thinner at the top they would cut my bony little arse in half when I sit on them, which purpose is at least half of the reason for their existence. They are in fact skinnier than Des shows on the plan. The only thing I would change on them if I could would be to run them further aft, a few hundred mm is all, making them longer & more in proportion, but that was the longest run of mahogany I could buy (& transport) at the time, so it's what I've got. As for the connection with the cabin coaming/cabintop, patience my friend, there is more & better to come.

[Candyfloss]

Ray, his name is Dick Oliver & I believe he originally came from Devonport.

Yeah, that was my dinghy.

Now you've got me wondering about the plan I had for recycling the mast step that came with the boat & whether what I had in mind will actually work. I'll have another look at it tomorrow. Fitting a mast step pad will be no difficulty, but best done before final painting!

[Rayjing]

Graeme,I remember putting one on 'Active', plus a slight champher on the bottom of the mast. The pad just levelled out a place for the mast step,and everything fitted snugly. These masts do have a bit of rake in their set up,but you do what you are happy with. Another Merlot or 2 will sort it . Cheers

[RFNK]

I like the wide coaming a lot! The whole boat's really looking great Graeme!

Rick

[Candyfloss]

I had the same arrangement on Candyfloss Ray, but I also added the mast rake, taken straight off the plan with a bevel guage. Turn the guage around, put one arm on the top of the mast step, put a level on the other & if the level shows vertical it's near enough. Pied Piper has quite a lot of mast rake & quite a lot of slope on the cabintop. I really hadn't thought this through.

I have a hole thru the roof indicating the center of the mast which I located while the roof was still on the ground. So far I have managed to resist the urge to fill it in! If I lose this point, refinding it will be quite difficult, as it can't be done from the inside because the post is in the way, & everything on the outside is now rounded off.

Glad you like it Rick.

[floatingkiwi]

Thought very hard about that Kerry & if I made then any thinner at the top they would cut my bony little arse in half when I sit on them, which purpose is at least half of the reason for their existence. They are in fact skinnier than Des shows on the plan. The only thing I would change on them if I could would be to run them further aft, a few hundred mm is all, making them longer & more in proportion, but that was the longest run of mahogany I could buy (& transport) at the time, so it's what I've got. As for the connection with the cabin coaming/cabintop, patience my friend, there is more & better to come.

Great. Yeah, I thought about it afterward and realized I was looking closeup at a part of the boat and not the whole picture, which I am sure is as good as your judgement.

[Rayjing]

Hey Graeme,I also think with the wooden pad on the cabin top,you will get a better loading on the ply by giving the downward mast compression a bigger surface to spread its load,if you know what I mean.Its all good,your boat looks (to use an ozzie coloquism) Shcmick !!

[Candyfloss]

You are absolutely right Ray, but there is no point in getting carried away with it either. The other side of the ply, the inside of the cabintop, is only supported by........what it's supported by, which in my case is a 9mm ply box, which is no great footprint, & the 15mm kingplank, which I suppose helps. On Candyfloss I didn't have the kingplank & man, I put some tension on that rig, way more than this much softer rig will be carrying. The Des Townson formula for setting rig tension, I was told, was that you wind it up 'till something breaks, then back off half a turn.But that's for masthead rig.

[Rayjing]

Yeah,had some tension on Active as well,remember we Got on top of a wave once and screamed past an 'Alan Warwick 42',that was a hoot. Good times

[Candyfloss]

Good times indeed Ray, & may there be many more.

Spent all the day I had to myself today going over my rig. It came with the boat. What more can I say.

First conclusion I came to was that the existing mast base just won't do, it was designed for a keel-stepped mast. In a perfect world I would automatically use the system I had on Candyfloss. For a first try, it was perfect. The mast base was an aluminium casting with three sheaves each side & all the lines internal, leading out to the deck organisers. Nothing to do with me, just the way Foster's Rigging supplied it. I'll phone them tomorrow to see if they have one to fit my mast extrusion & at what price, but I doubt it. This mast is so much skinnier than Candyfloss' was, I can't see how you could possibly get all that into the space available.

Next best option is to make my own, or rather, have it made. Hell, it's no huge engineering feat, like the new Kopu bridge for instance. There is a cast aluminium base plug came with the mast, it looks a little the worse for wear, but I'm sure it could be revived. Weld that to a 6mm rectangular base plate, weld rails either side with holes for the turning block shackles, a web at the back for the kicker (maybe wide enough for turning blocks for the main outhaul & reefing line as well, yes?) a hole in each corner to bolt her down & Bob's your uncle. Oh, & a web at the front for the spinnaker pole downhaul turning block. You might as well take all the lines to the mast base instead of only the ones that come thru the mast & leave the rest to be bolted thru the cabintop with associated risk of leaks & stresses in places you don't want them.

[Candyfloss]

Amazing good news. NZ Rigging on Auckland's North Shore have a mast base that will fit, or can be modified to fit, for $50. It's on it's way.

[Larks]

Amazing good news. NZ Rigging on Auckland's North Shore have a mast base that will fit, or can be modified to fit, for $50. It's on it's way.

Sounds like a good buy Graeme.

[RFNK]

The Twister mast sits on a big plate like that and I'm keen to either modify it or rebuild it to a similar arrangement as yours. So, lots of detailed pictures as you go please!!!

Rick

[Candyfloss]

All of a sudden I'm really excited about my rig. So far it's just been sitting on a back burner, nagging away at the back of my mind, but now that I have the cabintop on I need to figure out exactly where I have to cut it off so it will fit without my having to alter the length of the stays. I measured the length of the mast against the specification on the plan today & it is 5mm over length. I can live with that. Thanks Ray for kicking my arse & getting me onto something I should have been thinking about more seriously long ago.

Consider this guys; I'll be cutting about 1200mm off the end of the mast to raise it to cabintop level, leaving in excess of 8 metres of mast climbing into the sky above a 6.7 metre boat. Consider also that the boom overhangs the transom (by a few mm only, admittedly), and the huge roach on the main, & you can see how this is serious sail area, which she carries easily, & why, nearly 50 years after she was first designed, Piedys still rule the Waitemata. There is still no boat in her size range that wants to race the Piedys in open competition, & plenty of much bigger boats that wish they would just go away & stop embarrassing them.

Rick, it would be my pleasure to detail how my rig comes together.

[RFNK]

Good on you mate! Good luck with it!

Rick

[Rayjing]

One last word about the mast step pad,what I've seen in the past,and probably happened on candyfloss to,is when a lot of stay tension is wound on,it leaves a footprint on the maststep pad,and what I am thinking about is if you put megatension on your cabin top without the mast step pad,you may damage the ply. On our T34 we had a massive dint in the mast step pad,but it didn't affect the integrity of the cabin top. Graeme,I will say no more,you know what you are doing. Great news about your new mast step.........,we want photographs !!!

[Candyfloss]

After a couple of hours sanding this morning my rooftop was finally satisfactory, so I had a cup of tea & started on my rig.

The boom that came with the boat is a new extrusion & unfinished;



So I might as well start with the gooseneck. This is what I've got;



And it fits here;



A bit the worse for wear, but a file cleans it up satisfactorily;

[RFNK]

Nice and simple

Rick

[Candyfloss]

Then a washer, a spring washer & a nut finish that bit;



The rest of the gooseneck requires a bolt that I don't have, so I move on. These have to go;



They are spinnaker pole launcher/holders, required by the boy racers because the standard pole is too long to fit on the deck. I'll be cutting mine down so it does fit (sacrilege!), so off they come.

Next I need a cutout in the track at the front of the boom to drop the slides into;



And a slot at the back end to fit the outhaul sheave box into;



This defeats me. I can't see how I am going to make a halfway decent job of that with the tools I have available, so I loaded it into the back of my wagon & dropped it into the local engineers shop. He does not want to use the sheave box, because the sheave axle is not captive & will fall out & there is no easy way to prevent this, so he comes up with an ingenious way of mounting the sheave on the boom end casting. Suits me so I left him to it.

[Rayjing]

Hey Graeme,can you still purchase plans for the piedy and other boats?. Just saw the sail plan in your latest post and wondered..

[Redeye]

Graeme, little bit of thread drift here, but is that a MkII Cortina or a Hillman Hunter gracefully aging there in front of the flax bush?

[Slacko]

That looks like a Hillman to me, refusing to die quietly.

[Redeye]

Yeah, that's what I thought... looks very much like one I smashed up (right front) about 20y ago, sold it complete for parts up Thames way...

[Candyfloss]

Yeah Ray, you can, from Sue at townson@ihug.co.nz. She has the complete catalogue.

I also have the list, but it won't post on this Forum, the Word document is too long.

[Candyfloss]

That's a Singer Vogue guys (a ponced-up Hunter), one of two. Brian, the guy who owns the barn, also has a split screen Morrie Minor, an (original) racing Mini, two MGB GTs, an RX7 & a Falcon ute. Bit of a petrol head.

[Candyfloss]

Just in case anyone is interested, this is the complete list;





One day I'll understand Photoshop, but not any time soon I fear.

[RFNK]

Which one's Candyfloss on that list Graeme?

Rick

[Redeye]

That list is a great resource. I have some original plans at home from Des, various lines plans he gave to me when I was a kid. Now I can line them up on this list.
Interesting to note that Contessa, 36ft plan 22 is for sale at the moment.

Ahhh the Singer Vogue, the delux version of my rust bucket. I just remember that even with a wheel alignment and balancing, the Hunter would vibrate and shudder all over both lanes when she got to about 130kph. Fearfull thing, almost as ungainly as the Commer van - steered like a drunk hippo that thing.

[Candyfloss]

Design #34, Whisp, Rick.

Candyfloss was actually the Mk.2 version. Des was originally asked to design a trailer boat, which pretty much limits you to 25ft x 8ft, but he couldn't get his head round a boat so lightly ballasted, under-canvassed & tippy as a TS would have to be & declined the commission. He finished the drawing, however, by putting a real keel on her & a decent rig. John Peet (who may or may not have been the original client, I'm not sure) liked it & built "Whisp". Des walked over her & decided she could use a few more inches of beam & yet more sail area, so he redrew her, lowering the cabin coamings an inch in the process.

At least, that's the story as told to me by David Peet who built the first Mk.2 "Bliss". "Candyfloss" was number 6 to the plan. Ray's "Active" was well under construction by then so must have been 4 or 5. I met Ray, briefly, when I bought the keel mould off him.

[Candyfloss]

I believe that's typical of McPherson struts Redeye, when they start to wear the wheels flap about like a very flappy thing indeed. My Anglia van suffered from the same malaise.

[Stiletto]

Hey, dont forget that one of those poxy hunters won the London to Sydney Marathon!

My Dad had one of the later ones and quite liked it.

[Johnmac]

Just in case anyone is interested, this is the complete list;





One day I'll understand Photoshop, but not any time soon I fear.

Hi Graeme
The building numbers you are missing for Talent (#38) are - 44, and for the Mk II (#38/2) - 26. Between them 66 were built, that's pretty close to Twilight numbers.
As you probably know the two designs (38 & 38/2) are virtually identical apart from four lines; bow profile drawn out slightly, transom slope reversed, slightly flatter sheer (37mm), & the aft profile of the hull where it meets the lower edge of the transom dropped slightly. Also, regarding the ? next to Dreamtime (design #33), this design was a refinement of Restless (#31), and then it grew into Talent (#38). Kinda mirrored what he did with the 32s - first Moonlight, then Starlight and then the perfect compromise Twilight. I know Des considered Talent the perfect compromise between #31 & #33.

Your boat is a credit to you, I enjoy watching your progress.
Best regards
John

[Candyfloss]

Thanks for that John, and could you tell me please, is Dreamtime the design for the Townson 34, the fibreglass production yacht, and how many were made? 14 just doesn't seem enough, but I can't find any better candidate.

[Candyfloss]

The courier finally did the decent thing & delivered my new mast base, almost. Actually I had to go fetch it from the agent's. Anyway, here it is;



It's not the right one for my mast, but I didn't expect it to be. First it's designed totally for the wrong mast extrusion, mine is round, not elliptical. Then again, I don't expect Fosters have ever been asked for a deck-stepped mast base for a Piedy before & I'm certain they don't have one at any price. Also it has three sheaves per side & I only need two, so here's the first job for my engineer. I'll cut off the top flange, then cut 20mm out of the middle of it, removing the middle sheave in the process, & he can stitch it back together again. Then cut the top flange off my existing mast base and weld that onto a plate that in turn gets welded on top of the reconstituted mast base.

Well, after two glasses of Merlot, that works for me, but I'll see what the engineer says tomorrow.

Best buy a new blade for my hacksaw. This could take some armwork.

[Johnmac]

Hi Graeme
The Dreamtime 34 was designed for timber and is a different yacht to the GRP version, although not by that much. After Moonlight, Des didn't stray too far from his design ideas & figures.

The first of the GRP versions was Moonspinner, however the figure listed under this for the numbers built (22) seems wrong, my records show 38 GRP boats were built. As you probably know Austral Yachts in Whangarei did the GRP version, the project had been pulled together by Dick Jones, Alan Smith & Peter Southey. Des wasn't that happy with the GRP version in the end. Austral overbuilt the hulls to make them strong enough for Cat 1 which was never part of the brief to Des, hence they had to cut back on the ballast to make up the difference. Des hated how they did the windows and also the alloy toe rail.

All else being equal the timber 34s such as Talent will out perform the GRP versions due to a better ballast ratio & lower centre of gravity.

Best regards
John

[RFNK]

So the lines run through the mast and exit via those sheaves under the base! Wow! I've never seen that setup before. I like it a lot. Great, clean design. I can see why you were so keen to use it. Good luck with the modifications!

Rick

[Larks]

Ditto, You've got me wondering whether I could make one up for the H28 now. That's a lot of kit for $40.00 when you look at the work involved Graeme, good score!!! I know this is an old one/second hand one, but did you say that Fosters actually made this or at least had these made for them?

[Rayjing]

A hacksaw !!,what about an angle grinder(4" or thereabouts) with a 1.2mm cutting disk. Will be a lot cleaner,quicker. Looks like a nice casting.Just a thort

[Candyfloss]

It's a hell of a casting isn't it? I'm sure Pete Sibley would be impressed. I don't know how many styles Fosters have made, but this is not the same one I used on Candyfloss, I don't think. Maybe it is, it was a long time ago. They all were made to fit the standard extrusions we use in NZ. This one has never been used, or there would be holes thru the flange where it was riveted to the mast. It's obviously been laying about for a while. I guess nobody builds small boats much any more, they just restore them! They were probably glad to be rid of it.

A cut-off disk. Duh.

[Candyfloss]

John, the list I have is as published by the Zephyr Owners Assoc. It obviously has some errors. I'll ask Brian Peet if he has a better list.

[Larks]

They don't seem to show them on their web site, I'm wondering if they still do any of them???

[Candyfloss]

Sorry Greg, I've been talking shorthand again.

Herewith an abbreviated, unauthorized history of Fosters of Fanshaw Street, and any Aucklander is welcome to correct me on any point.

Fosters was established more than a century ago when Fanshaw Street skirted the shores of Mechanics Bay, in what is now some of downtown Auckland's most desirable real estate, & at the time was surrounded by boat sheds, boat yards and boatbuilders. The waterfront is now nearly half a mile away. The Foster brothers built an unusual brick & plaster building on a corner that turns back at about 45 degrees, so it is a very triangular, ornate, three-storied edifice on a steeply-sloping site. You have to see it to believe it.

Their fierce determination to be New Zealand's foremost yacht chandler finally waned ten or more years ago, and they allowed their sparmaking division to separate off, calling itself Fosters Rigging. Fosters then sold all or part of their core business (I'm not sure of the sordid details) to American giants Harken and now call themselves Fosters Harken or Harken Fosters, depending on who you are talking to.

Whoever it was that established Fosters Rigging has apparently quite recently grown bored with doing that, or perhaps they were made "an offer you can't refuse", but anyway, when I phoned Fosters/Harken to get a number for Fosters Rigging, a very nice girl told me that they have been taken over by New Zealand Rigging who operate out of Northcote on Auckland's North shore, one of my favourite places, but not somewhere I want to live any more. But that goes for the whole of Auckland.

Howsumever all of that may be, if you want to contact the vestigial traces of the once-mighty sparmaking division of the once-mighty Fosters of Fanshaw Street the only help I can give you is ++09 480 8090. And good luck with the grumpy bastard I spoke to.

I hope this helps.