Hypergallery of launch

Hello!

It was on the 27th of July that we launched Kvark. Ever since I have promised more media of the event. I finally managed to gather all the pictures and videos and put them in a single folder. The day was a special one and so seem to be all the pictures. I wont thus filter most of them and will present them here as a hypergallery of the launch of Kvark. I will later, as always, edit the video clips into a single file and perhaps even produce a melodramatic slide-show of the construction photos. Alas, here is the gallery (pictures taken by Villem, Raivo, Ülle and I):

That took two hours. Now I’ll get to the videos.

Two days ago I ran aground for the first time in my life and the boats life. It happened very unadventurously right at the yachtclub. There was a strong breeze blowing straight into the port and I failed three times to get the boat to sail. I simply put the rudder too far port with too little speed and the boat stalled, causing it to drift downwind. I learned from no mistakes and repeated that three times. The boat ended up standing on its keel. But people of the Saadjärve yachtclub gave us a friendly tug with a powerboat and we were off. Today the wind was also into port but I had learned from my mistakes and easily made way. Still sailing with polytarp! Still going good. This morning the wind was about 5 – 6 m/s. She goes upwind rather well with the mainsail up, at least 45 degrees relative to the wind direction. She prances a bit from side to side when sailing fully downwind. With both sails up, she can actually hold course. This is an ice feature but we need to explore it further, as we both had practically no sailing experience before starting the build of the boat. The learning curve is steep, I say!

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Raw sailing(video)

Hello!

Sailing Kvark has been a joy so far! I stayed on board for about 24 hours. Of these hours I slept 9. I filmed some raw footage, could not stop taking a selfie shot on board:

She is a bit wobbly when unloaded. In this video, my girlfriend is sleeping in the boat while under sail. Tacking did want to give her a involuntary shift of sleeping-side.

I had some friends over to sail too. Then we had three people on deck and one below. She heeled her portside windows into water a few times.  That was a thrill, the water flowed out of the keel ballast tanks for a second or two so I could hear bubbling when the keel went back into water. So we know that ballasting is good for her.

Joosep fixed some rope (blue rope seen on fore deck in the video above) as a jury fore railing. It has turned out to be very effective at keeping people on board, as it kept one of my friends from sliding into water on a tack. What added excitement was that the rope actually came loose from its aft shackle and almost tossed my other friend overboard. Luckly, he got a hold of the mast. His feet did kiss the water, though.

I also excecuted a fine MOB (Man Overboard) manoeuvre, but instead of a man it was my dear cap that flew overboard. I got hit in the head by the boom three times. The third time was a charm and the hat flew over. I cursed out loud and thought that there it goes, ready to give it up. Then I thought again, of the fine things the hat means to me, and excecuted a jib and aimed the cap-rescue for a windward course. I  made the approach, saw the cap dissapear under the starboard side in the fore and then rushed to stretch my hand over starboard: and i got it! I felt really proud.
Other than that.

Sleeping two people in the boat is an excercise. I am a tall (6.3 ft) and rather wide guy. This meant that unfortunately my girlfriend had a worse nights sleep than I. The night was rather cold, 9 C (48 F) and the cabin interior was covered in dew in the morning. No trouble, a rag and good ventilation got rid of it. Should add a ventilation port into the companionway hatch.

All good for now, 20150802_224843still gaining momentum for editing all the launch material for a good post. So this raw video will do for starters.

Also, so far the top-speed under jury polytarp sails has been around 10 km/h or 5.4 knots. Downwind that was. On the left is a picture of my GPS, which shows the result of the 24 hours. Up and down the lake very many times!

Cheers!

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A few sailing pictures

Hello!

The title says it all:

More to come!

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