Swallow Yachts Association
Swallow Yachts Forum => General Discussion => Topic started by: Bryn Weightman on 28 Oct 2009, 23:11
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I recently purchased a Storm Petrel, she is being much admired by everyone who sees her, definitely the prettiest boat I have ever owned.I have sailed her a couple of times, in quite light airs, I must admit, but have been quite impressed and think her performance will keep me happy. However, I do think she is far more tender than I anticipated and am wondering if any one has any suggestions as to stiffening her up a bit. I'm not in the first flush of youth by any means and not as nimble as even a few years ago so really want a boat that I can move around in and not feel that she is going to ship water over the gunwhale each time I get in or out. I'm not too keen on adding ballast as at the moment she is a delight to launch and recover. Would the addition of bilge stringers help? Any suggestions would be very welcome
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Bryn, Ahoy from another proud Storm Petrel owner! They are head turners, aren't they? On Lake Garda in 2008, an excitable Italian gentleman with little English was almost beside himself with his enthusiasm for my 'bella bella barca', and followed this with a pleading 'You sell, si?'
If you look under this 'General Discussion' section at 'Typical Use of Water Ballast', you will find my contributions describing the use of floppy 10 litre camping water carriers to provide water ballast, which has transformed my boat's performance from this point of view. If you load/unload these bags after launching and before recovery respectively, none of the ease of launching etc is lost. You will be delighted at the difference. Try it!
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Bryn, with respects to Claus, but in the light of my own Storm Petrel sailing experience, I suggest you try water ballast first. It is so simple and very effective.
I considered rig reduction for my SP, but at the time felt rather daunted by what to do, and why. Now that I am into rig design a bit, I think the effect might well be to make 'dull' rather than less tender. Make no mistake, the SP is a lovely boat to sail, and it would be a pity to remove the sparkle just to keep her more upright, when a bit of water ballast does the trick in that respect.
I would be very interested to hear more from Claus about what rig modifications for his Bay Raider he made, and why (I hope I haven't missed this in past posts: if so, I'm sure Claus will give us chapter and verse). This will get a bit technical, so if I can find the time (we are in the process of moving house, so bear with me if necessary), I'll try and start a separate topic in the 'Technical' section. Bryn might like to follow it there (or not!).
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... I considered rig reduction for my SP, but at the time felt rather daunted by what to do, and why. Now that I am into rig design a bit, I think the effect might well be to make 'dull' rather than less tender. ...
Michael, you are right of course, taking on ballast makes a simpler fix.
Reducing the rig is more radical, and non-reversible except you build your self a second rig.
But making the boat dull is really far from me.
From my experience with the waterballast boats I know that in terms of performance they clearly prefer a reef rather than a full ballast tank.
I would recommend a rig reduction if the prevailing average wind and sea conditions where you mostly sail are regularly too challenging for comfort or safety. Boats could do with two different rig sizes: A full size rig for inland lake sailing, and a somewhat smaller rig if the boat is mostly used on the open sea.
You often see that boats sailed on lakes have much taller rigs than their coastal peers. That doesn't make the boats with smaller coastal rigs dull where they are sailed.
Ultimately the usual local wind strength determines which rig size and sailarea suits the boat best in practice, not the designer at his desk.
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Many thanks to everybody for their advice. My home sailing club is on a lake where we launch down a slip. then pull the boat alongside a landing stage in order to get on board and I am finding it extremely difficult to get on board, to get off again , even to get a turn when coming alongside, as soon as I try to do any of these things, the side goes down and I feel that she is going to ship water over the gunwhales. It is this basic tenderness that worries me. As far as tenderness under sail is concerned, I have not sailed her in anything of a breeze yet, but so far have no problems on this score. Obviously reducing sail area would be the answer, if there was any worry.
As far as looks are concerned, I think she is the prettiest boat I have ever owned. I live in France near the Swiss border a lot of the time, so it is very likely that I will take her there next year and sail on Lake Geneva. I have been sailing my Tideway 10 on Lac de Sainte Pointe, on the French side of the border and she has caused a lot of interest, so imagine what the Storm Petrel will do.
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Hi, Bryn.
I sympathise. My CBL ( a modified Storm 19 with bilge boards and standing lug rig) is on the tippy side, too. 90 kg of lead ballast stiffens her up a bit – worth it in a seaway - but at the price of lost performance in light winds. In sheltered waters I prefer to take most of it out, but, of course, I cant do it on the fly. Over winter I will be messing about with a bilge pump, valves and water tanks. The aim being to make some kind of rero-fit variable ballast system.
Reducing the overall size of the rig (or better still having 2 sets of sails like Claus) makes sense to calm down a powerful boat like the SeaRaider – it has plenty of performance in reserve, so to speak – but, like you, I would hate to permanently lose that light airs performance, so effective reefing must be the answer.
Incidentally, I believe the Vikings used rounded boulders in the bottom of their long ships as ballast. The idea was that it all rolled out in the event of a capsise and the boat stayed afloat. I presume they then had to row to the nearest beach for more before they could stand the sail again! After experimenting with plastic water carriers rolling about in the bottom of the boat, I would prefer the ballast to be firmly bolted down.
Cheers!
Tony
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Hi again. This risks getting rather technical for the 'General Discussion" section. However, it's partly a horses for courses matter (there must be a suitable nautical metaphor, but it escapes me). To Bryn, as a fellow Storm Petrel sailor, I would say, you will find the roll-flat-when-empty-and-with-a-wooden-dowel-handle-built-in-at-one-or-both-ends 10 litre water carriers I use will NOT roll around around, but fit snugly against either side of the dagger plate case. If you want to use four, slide two partly under the side benches. They stay put.
In my foray into rig design I had to get to grips with concepts like Centre of Lateral Resistance (CLR) of the hull, Centre of Effort (CE) of the sail plan, and 'lead' (expressed as a percentage of water line length), which is the horizontal distance between CLR and CE. It's not rocket science, and both CE and CLR vary in practice according to conditions, but there is a consensus that they can be roughly determined, using rather jolly methods involving balanced and suspended cardboard cut-outs, and used to help in rig and sail plan design. Centreboard craft usually do well, in terms of helm balance, with a lead of +5 to +10%. (Bear with me, I'm coming to the point.)
Storm Petrel was originally designed with a single sail, the jib being offered as an optional extra a bit later. With full, two-sail rig she is well balanced with, like most boats, a tendency to weather helm in a blow and/or when well heeled. With 'one reef down' (the jib taken down), she has marked weather helm: so, in a sense, I wasn't surprised to work out that, with her original non-jib sail plan, she has a lead of MINUS 2-3%, ie the CE is aft of the CLR. The other striking feature of the design is a very raked mast, which (as Claus explained to me elsewhere in the forum, some time back and before I had a handle on these things), is bound to increase weather helm. I haven't had the opportunity to ask Nick Newland (who designed her) why she is so rakish. Were I not heading off in a different direction rig-wise, I think I would try bringing her mast nearer plumb (wouldn't be difficult - there's room for another mast step) to see what effect this had on her balance, with both one-and two-sail rig. It would cock the clew up in the air a bit (headroom already isn't a problem), but might improve her reefed helm balance
Which brings me back to my beefing about reefing. In a rather tender boat, even lowering the jib (= 'first reef') isn't straightforward when the wind freshens. The forward end of the club boom can't be reached across 4 feet of foredeck. I tried roller furling (a la Storm 15), but found it fiddly in various ways. What would be well worth trying (I haven't got round to it) would be to put the jib tack (effectively = the outer end of the club boom) on an outhaul.
SP's gunter gaff is called, rather aptly, the 'topmast' in the building instructions. Reefing the main involves lowering the gaff, altering the point at which the halyard is attached, re-hoisting, tying in reefs to the foot of the sail, which is by now thrashing around enthusiastically in the freshening breeze, and adjusting the clew outhaul, and snotter if one is still being used. This is most emphatically a run-for-shore job. What if no hospitable shore is nearby, or if the wind strengthens while making for it? I love my SP to bits. I built her, she is really beautiful, and she is a real greyhound in the right conditions. However for me this "inconvenient reefing" is a no-no for the rig as it stands, and "something has to be done". Which is the main (but not the only) reason I am exploring a radical alternative.
Sorry, a bit of an essay that, and arguably (as I said), in the wrong section of the forum! Hope it's of some interest.
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I think the water carrier idea is probably the most practical and has the advantage of losing its weight in the event of a capsize, and I shall certainly try it.
As far as the rig is concerned, I have not sailed her enough yet to really be able to comment, but my initial feelings have been that it is rather unhandy compared with gunter rigs that I have sailed with before. I know that the idea is to keep the rig simple, but I think it's simplicity makes it difficult to control. I feel that a conventional boom with gooseneck etc and a double topping lift as used in Tideway dinghies would improve matters. Also, I think the gaff jaws could be improved if what is fitted on my boat is standard. Altering the attachment point for the main halyard when reefing is always a problem in gunter rig, although many years ago (about 60) I had a gunter rigged dinghy that used two halyards, a throat halyard and a peak halyard that ran on a wire span along the yard and this arrangement made life a lot easier. This boat also had roller reefing, the foot being laced to the boom. Yes, it's another piece of string to pull, but the sail was far easier to control One could make a much neater job of stowing the sail too. For now though it appears to be a bit of trial, eror and see what happens.
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Bryn, it seems that you and I had similar sailing upbringings 60 years ago!
I have rebuilt my SP gaff jaws with solid jobs out of marine ply. Additionally, because of the slimness of the gaff, you will need quite thick cheek pieces of hardwood, to fare the jaw width into the slim gaff. It's worth doing.
I have also replaced the snotter with a gooseneck and clew outhaul, as in the new generation of Swallowboats. However I'm sure you've worked out the significance of the sprit boom, with its 'out and down' thrust keeping the clew down so that it can't rise and thus keeping the sail flat (achieved in a different way for the jib with the fascinating geometry of the jib plus club boom), and not needing a kicking strap. If you went for a 'normal" boom at the foot of the sail, you would certainly need a kicking strap of some kind for starters; and you would have an entirely different boat, I think. The Swallowboats sprit boom rig has a lot going for it, but reefing.... well, you've read my bit above: nuff said.
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Michael,
I do not know the Storm Petrel directly, but I am interested in all your comments about reefing the rig when things are getting hairy. I went through all of these thoughts when choosing the rig for my BayCruiser. I loved the simplicity of the BayRaider sprit boom and gunter, but could not see how it could all be handled when there is a cabin in the way. In the end Matt and I decided that the very conventional rig of furling jib (no self-tacking balanced club) and Bremudian mainsail on a standard boom with topping lifts and slab reefing is actually a perfect solution to these problems. That presumably is why it is so common. Providing nothing jambs or tangles I can furl, reef and stow everything from within the cockpit. The reefed or stowed mainsail stays up over my head and I never have to go forward. The downsides: I need a kicking strap and topping lift/lazyjacks (more string), the jib is not self tacking and I need a full length mast. The non-self tacking jib is not much of a problem, and a conventional jib is much easier to back if you want to heave to or get through a bad tack. I spend a lot of time hove to, watching the world sail past, so it is probably better for my style of sailing anyway. The mast isn't a problem either as it is carbon fibre and I can raise and lower it quite easily.
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Julian
Really interesting, thanks. There are downsides to everything, and every rig is a compromise. I'm not against 'string' as such when it is part of means to useful ends, and can be taught to behave (I would say that, wouldn't I, as someone contemplating junk rig!!).
I think the BayCruiser is a beautiful little boat. She is, of course, not just a BayRaider with a lid, and it would be interesting to see how she sails alongside a BayRaider. As I said, it's all a matter of (sea) horses for courses - how and where and why you sail. Heaving to and watching the sailing world go by must be relaxing (when you've got oodles of sea room!).
Incidentally, your accounts of sailing in Poole Harbour evoked powerful nostalgia. Sailing a Lymington Scow there in the early 60s, I watched an osprey fishing in the stretch of water south of Brownsea Island. On the same water, in a home-built kayak, I found myself in the middle of a large school of harbour porpoises; in some mysterious way they emanated friendly curiosity, and it wasn't scary at all, although there must have been 30 odd of them, breaking the surface around me and 'hissing' as they breathed. They swam much faster than I could paddle, although for a while I did my best to keep up.
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Michael,
That's what I had decided was the best answer to the gaff jaws. I think basically, I am going to conventionalise the boom, yes, it means a kicking strap, but you are losing the snotter. I also think that I would rather sail with a normal sheeted, rather than the self tacking jib.. I know all these alterations will produce a somewhat different boat, but I think it is a question of what you feel most comfortable sailing. I have also wondered if there is enough rudder blade in the water too. Any thoughts?
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Bryn
I will be very interested to hear how your modifications go, sailing-wise. A self-tacking jib is fine up to a point, and the very flat jib on its boom goose-wings very readily down-wind, which is handy. On the other hand it is often useful to be able to back the jib, as someone (Julian?) commented above, and I think self-tacking is probably an over-rated bonus.
The foot of the mainsail has quite a marked roach, and I'm not sure how you will fit a conventional boom - loose footed? It might set OK. While you're about it (!), what about trying the main halyard on a fairly tight strop along the gaff, to simplify reefing? I don't think you would need separate throat and peak halyards, but I'm not sure to what extent the gaff might sag/swing away from the mast.
I must say, I would also want to try eliminating most of the mast rake (see my comments in my last post but one, above). It might be worth doing the cut-out-sail-plan exercise to predict the effect this might have on lead, balance etc.
Rudder blade size - I remember a query about this from a prospective SP-builder, way back in the early days of this website, and before the forum had its current format (I think it was before I had my boat in the water in 2004). Matt Newland's reply was that tests on the prototype had shown the size to be more than adequate. I must say I haven't had cause to be concerned when sailing. I wonder whether a double-ender needs a relatively smaller rudder than a transomed boat, because the effect may be more direct with water streaming past the blade with much less turbulence than that created aft of a transom? Just a thought. Anyone else have any views on this point?
It sounds as though you are planning a rather more drastic rig modification programme than Claus probably had in mind in his comments! I hope some or all of the changes you make are worthwhile. SPs are beautiful boats, and I assure you they can sail - and how! Your boat is well worth any effort you put into making her more biddable. Keep us all posted in due course.
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Bryn
I hope the following will help you with the "mods." on your SP.
My son and I have a Storm 15 "Iona" which I believe is based on the Petrel. We found the simple rig very different from the bermudan rigged dayboats we had been used to and looked for "solutions" to "improve" it.
The main "problems" we identified were dropping and stowing the sails when beaching with an offshore wind and reefing while sailing.
The first thing we tackled was the boomed jib to which we fitted a drum furling system. This is described with photos earlier on the forum. It is easy to use and has worked perfectly for the last two seasons.
The boomed jib is a joy to use, just cleat it and forget it.
I fitted new gaff jaws (Mirror type) so that the gaff could be lowered to a horizontal position while still attached to the mast. We intended using the gaff in this position to wrap and stow the mainsail while rowing. We abandond this idea after we learned how do a harbour furl.
We intend to tackle the "reefing the main while sailing problem" this winter.
Not having worked out the finer details we intend to:-
Fit a double sheave in the masthead to take two halyards. ( You say you had a simular system on an earlier boat)
One of the halyards will be attached to the gaff at the normal sailing position, the other to the gaff at the reefed position.
The gaff is hoisted on both halyards to the normal sailing position. To reef, the gaff is lowered on both halyards to the reefed position where the reef is applied with pre positioned cordage.
I hope all this makes sense. At least the main is in a raised position when the reef is applied and not in a pile in the bottom of the boat.
As for the other two points you raise.
We try to aviod jetties by starting and landing on the beach or slipway.
The S15 is a well balanced boat and the rudder seems the ideal size. On a run I sail with the rudder in the raised position (less drag)
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Michael and Julian,
Many thanks for your replies. As far as the jib is concerned, I think the advantage of being able to back it far outways the advantage of a self tacker, and if you have a crew, it gives them something to do.
A strop on the yard (Gunter rig is technically a lugsail, therefore yard, not gaff) will only work with two halyards, the throat halyard raises the luff to it's maximum and the peak holds the yard up to the mast.I think the idea of two halyards, one for full sail and one for reefed is a good one and well worth investigating.
With the amount of roach in the foot of the sail, the boom has to be loosefooted, but this is fairly common practice in a lot of dinghies these days, and I think gives a far better shape to the sail. The tack will be held down with a cunningham and the clew hauled out to a block on the boom end and cleated.
How you stow a sail is a matter of personal choice, I personally like to see a sail neatly stowed on the yard and boom, then raised out of the way with a topping lift.
As far as I can see, my rudder has been made with only one position, and that's up, I will have to see what I can do to alter it.
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Bryn, the arrangement of the gudgeons in relation to the steel rudder pin is somewhat critical (to put it no more strongly!) to allow 'down' and 'up' positions, the idea being that the rudder rides up by itself when it grounds in shallow water. A fair amount of the rudder blade is below the line of the keel in the down position. Most people also fit a rudder uphaul so that it can be hoiked up if desired. I wonder whether the builder of your SP might have got his gudgeons 'muddled'?
I hope I'm right about gudgeons, by the way. And as one with a tendency to nautical-terms pedantry (because I think it's such a wonderful heritage, and to be preserved if possible), I stand corrected and educated re gunter yards!
I'm such an IT duffer that I don't think I can manage to include some helpful photos, but Cross pere et fils have provided some very clear pictures in their report on fitting an electric outboard, elsewhere in the forum. SP and Storm 15 are the same in this respect.
Two other points about the rudder etc. First, the Crosses have described (and illustrated) a modification to reduce play in the steering, fitting an extra gudgeon (yes, another one) to the rudder and extending the SS rod. They report that it works, and I intend to modify my SP accordingly, because the unmodified system feels a bit 'slack'.
Secondly, I wonder whether you are using push-pull or tiller steering? I started with push-pull, but had a very early 'incident' (my only capsise so far!) for which I blamed the steering. It was actually a jammed mainsheet during an early season taken-aback-gust, while I was trying to work out whether to push or pull (the water was icy cold). I switched to tiller with a fairly lengthy extension, which was OK but not brilliant. Recently I have reverted to push-pull, cranking the tiller underneath a handsome (expensive!) sheet horse from Classic Marine, and now wish I had never given up push-pull. It very quickly loses its counter-intuitive feel and becomes as instinctive as side-to-side, gives a much wider range of rudder movement (this relates to the long after deck of a SP), is wonderfully sensitive, and allows a freedom of helming position in the boat which a conventional tiller can't provide. Matt Newland, if he reads this, would be fully entitled to say "I told you so", because he sort of did, but he is much too nice a guy to score points like that.
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Michael,
My boat is away having a cover made and fitted at the moment, but when I get her back in a day or two, I'll experiment with the rudder. When I bought her, I was only shown the rudder in the up position and on rigging her to sail could not see any other way of fitting it because my initial reaction was that there was not enough blade in the water. In fact I asked Nick at Southampton boat show if my rudder was the right shape. Maybe, gudgeons and pintles need adjusting or something. I have the long tiller and extension, interesting to see what you say about push and pull, and can see the advantages bearing in mind the long after deck. Is your horse mounted on the sternpost or across the deck? A double ender I had years ago had a horse on the stern post and it was very effective.
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The horse is mounted across the deck, screwed down to the two hardwood blocks inside the after deck coaming, to which the end of the mainsheet on one side, and the mainsheet block on the other, are made fast in the original design. Classic Marine did a fantastic job getting all the subtle angles right for the bronze end plates to be an exact fit, to be screwed down with four 1 1/4 in bronze screws each side.
The sliders offered by C M were a bit elephantine for a SP, so I made a slider out of a suitably sized D-shackle (a bit of bending required), which works well.
The push-pull tiller was made up from about 8 narrow slips of mahogany structural veneer ( 1.5 mm) laminated with epoxy, cranked by bending round a whole lot of suitably placed nails hammered into a board to make a sort of jig, so that a full range of push-pull movement is possible under the horse. Sanded smooth, it is slim but very rigid, and is an elegant dark red-brown colour.
I used a Holt SS universal joint-type tiller extension hinge to attach the tiller to the (hardwood) actuating lever, about 10 '' long, which is bolted through the rudder head, sticking out at right angles on the starboard side, and held on with a butterfly nut. One advantage of the horse is that the lead of the sheet is now always on the leeward side, instead of being fixed on one side which I found disconcerting on the previous sheeting arrangement. I also think the sail sets better.
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Michael and Bryn
It seems that I also made a gaff over my yard and mixed up my pintle with my gudgeon.
I find this nautical English very confusing.
Do you gaff the roach as well as the gudgeon?
How is that my wooden yard is 3 yards long when a timber
yard is over 500yds long?
Micheal
Trying to teach me French idioms when I have not yet mastered English! Anyway how is the wishbone on your Mary Carries Chicken?
Back to the serious stuff.
I find your horse arrangement very interesting. Being used to a center mainsheet I too find using the main from one side, awkward. I have toyed with the idea of clamping a mainsheet jammer in the center of the aft bulkhead.
Does the tiller remain under the horse when the rudder is in the raised position?
Re. Your rudder mod.
If you have a problem obtaining a longer pintle bar Email me on terrycross@martexmarine.com and I will see what I can do.
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Terry
I can't reply to all that, but it made me smile. You're not a script writer, are you?
I have a photo of the horse and steering, a bit on the dark side. I'm just scared I'll make a mess of attaching it, but I'll have a go.
In answer to your query, the hinge between the after end of the tiller and the lever on the rudder head (there must be a nautical term for it, surely? - anyone know what it is?) is up-and-down as well as side-to side (and I don't know the engineering term for that, either, sorry!), which caters for my push-pull tiller. Your conventional tiller would foul the horse when the rudder is raised, at least without some special shape or articulation. Another problem to solve?!
Thanks for the link, Terry. That's very kind. We are moving house on 16th November, so you will all be relieved that this flow of blather from yours truly will cease, at least for a while. You must excuse me: Storm Petrels have hitherto not featured strongly on the forum, and Bryn's query rather got me going. You will have gathered that I love my boat, and have given her a lot of care and attention (note in the photo, for example, the rope fender to protect the hardwood sheer strake which is a feature of SPs: its thickness (1 1/4 in diameter) looks exaggerated by the camera angle). I apologise if my enthusiasm has slipped the leash somewhat.
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Can anyone explain to me, in words of one syllable, why my attempt to attach a photo has failed? (I'm a Mac-ee, just to be irritating)
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Everyone....
Sorry about my father's strange and eosoteric sense of humour....its an aquired taste.
Michael
Difficult to say why your pic wont show but i'd be happy to post it for you if you email it to me. Paul@familycross.co.uk.
Bryn
I've seen your boat!!!! I was admiring a beautifully built Storm Petrel last week. apparently, It was in the sail makers to have a cover fitted. so i'm guessing it was yours. I was there collecting my son's new Optimist. Yes, theres a third generation of Cross sailors coming on..he has the same sense of humour as well.
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Michael,
I'll investigate the horse situation, I think the horse on the sternpost that I had on an ex naval Julia dinghy back in the fifties might be more suitable, but I shall give it thought, as I am not keen on the mainsheet being on one side. I might take it through another block on the boom more or less level with the usual steering position then down to hand. I've used that arrangement in the past.
Paul,
If it was P & B where you were collecting the Optimist, then it was mine. I collected her this morning, they made a good job of the cover. I only live a few miles from there in Market Harborough and sail at Middle Nene S.C. Are you local?
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It was Pinnell and Bax...They are Winner optimist main dealers. We Sail at Barnt Green and live in Worcestershire but i can often be found in your area beside one of the many northamptonshire lakes idulging my son's craving to compete in every available race.
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The forum is a very public place to display my incompetence in matters IT, but I shall have one more attempt to show my pic. If it doesn't work again, I'll take Paul up on his kind offer
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Fat lot of use that is. Sorry, guys, you'll have to skim round the landscape to get an impression. I shouldn't bother.
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Fat lot of use that is. Sorry, guys, you'll have to skim round the landscape to get an impression. I shouldn't bother.
No worries, Michael.
I have no problem viewing the over-large images you get on here when you post a #.jpeg of any decent resolution.
I can just right click on the image, select "view image" from the pop-up menu and Bob is your proverbial...
Mind you, I am running FireFox on a Linux operating system. Can you do something similar in the Gatesian world?
To prevent the problem in the first place, reduce the resolution (= ppi) by running the image through something like Photoshop which has a -Save for Web- option.
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Michael,
I like the look of your rope fender, is it fastened in the traditional way, wired to the topstrake?
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Well, I did draw attention to my fender, so it's my own fault that I have to try to explain how I made it. No, Bryn, there's nothing conventional about it, it took me absolutely ages to make, and nearly drove me mad. The end product, however, is handsome, serviceable, and can be removed for danish-oiling the sheerstrake. It is in two lengths, one down each side, the four ends terminating in wooden plugs a few inches short of stem and stern; I fared these in such a way as to look reasonably elegant.
I consulted the lovely chap whose name I forget, who presides over a rope museum in Ipswich, has written books, and has an MBE (I believe) for services to rope. He advocates a SS wire down the middle of a suitable size of hemp hawser, but couldn't really help with how I could fasten this securely but elegantly to a topstrake which also acts as coaming round recessed decks fore and aft, and along the sides of the cockpit; and in such a way that didn't look loopy between fastenings So ...(deep breath) I used modern plastic pipe, as used these days for plumbing, including hot water: and wound 6mm synthetic hemp round and round and round and round and round and.... nearly 150 metres (no, that's not a misprint) of the stuff, about 75 metres each side! However before doing that, I had to devise my fastenings. Holes drilled in the coaming approx every 30 cm (equidistant, except for one place dictated by the shape and structure of the coamings), reinforced on the inside by cup washers and on the outside by flat washers, all countersunk and araldited into place (you can see the inside appearance on the photo, far side of the boat), to take 4mm countersunk bolts. These screw into nuts, which are inserted and araldited into wooden plugs, which are in turn inserted at intervals into the pipe in such a way that each bolt has a hole in the pipe opposite it, through which it screws into the waiting nut-in-a-chunk-of-dowel, thus holding the fender invisibly and securely at frequent intervals along its length. It actually isn't a big job to undo all 26 bolts to remove both fenders. It's slightly more fiddly to get them back on again.
Could there possibly be a more complicated way of doing it? - I very much doubt it (there's a challenge). Is the bloke who did all that (I hear you asking each other) somewhat barmy? - very probably. Is the end result aesthetically and functionally satisfactory? - well, actually yes. Would I recommend anyone else to do the same? - don't even think about it. Apart from anything else, work out the cost of 150 metres of 6mm synthetic hemp. There are several hundred turns down each side. Plastic pipe 13 ft long doesn't behave gracefully or gratefully when you attempt to revolve it several hundred times while winding on rope as tightly as you possibly can. Then, from lack of foresight, there is the matter of several passable long splices (lots of practice needed)....... I could go on, and if the end result hadn't turned out (excuse the pun) rather well, I would have taken up golf or gardening instead.
You did ask, Bryn. But both 'Cadenza" and I are glad the fender is there. Just try to think of a simpler method, there's got to be one.....