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I would like to say congratulations to all QLD boats who sailed in the Qld state titles. A special congratulations to Rex Scott who is the QLD state title holder for this year (not for long- haha). It was a great series and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I completed only the last races and to my surprise i was crowned Junior title holder for this year. But once again congratulations to all who competed.
1546 – Skinny – Ryan Kirk
😈 👿 😈 A number of Vic Sabres go through Tudor Insurance Brokers who seem to have a “group” policy which you get added to.
Like you my previous insurance broker quoted $330 but Tudor is only $180.
I am covered for boat, trailer, sails, mast and rigging $8,000 with 3rd party liability $5,000,000.
Excess:
$100 each and every claim.
$500 whilst racing or mast damage.Contact details:
Tudor Insurance Australia (Insurance Brokers) Pty Ltd
1st Flr, 9 Clyde Rd, Berwick, Vic 3806
PO Box 256, Berwick, 3806
Email: [email protected]
P 03) 9707 3033They also have a web site http://www.tudorinsurance.com.au
Shane.
No State Assoc other than Victoria owns a mould.
There are a number of professional builders with their own moulds.
Whilst Vic own the mould, it is used under licence and maintained by a professional builder…Robert Botterill & Sons who do make glass hulls with timber decks. Alan Riley’s (Nat’l champion) is one of these.
A list of professional builders and contact details is on this web site…see “Boats and Equipment”Barry Eastgate
1611I’m nearing completion on a Sabre. I looked everywhere for 5 mm ply and the response taht I got is that they just don’t make it anymore. I was a bit worried about the glassing process but after having a go it it’s actually pretty easy and I would not hesitate to do it again.
There are a few tricks to keeping the weight down and I found that West System has a very informative web site for epoxying http://www.westsystem.com I believe the trick is to keep the amount of resin used to the minimum amount as extra resin doesn’t actually make the mat any stronger. A plastic scraper is the best for applying not using a brush. A dry roller then can be used to remove any excess.
I’m not completely finishes my boat so I’m not exactly sure how heavy it will end up. A good person to talk to would be Phil Johnson. He gave me a few pointers and seemed happy to do so. I think his contact details are on the website.
Good luck Shane
Any of these ideas would be good enough for an older boat. The only thing about replacing the whole decks is is boat really worth all that extra money and time to pull them off and replace them? Personally I would put some fibreglass on then go over the top with thin marine ply. If you have the time and think the boat is worth it replace the whole deck as it would be stronger again. Hope this helps you.
Ryan 👿 😈 👿
Don’t know where you would get it from Ronny as i live in Queensland but maybe start looking for timer called gaboon. I think its 5mm or 6mm but its really light.
Ryan 👿 😈 👿
Hi there
My dad and I did what you are talking about on an older sabre no. 996. What we did was get the paint right of and let it sit in the sun for a few days to get rid of any water in the timber (prey it doesn’t rain!). Buy the fiberglass product Bote Cote with the pump top to get exact measurement for the resin. When you buy the equiptment there is a thinning agent you can add. Lay on 2 coats with a paintbrush and Squeegee the rest of with some really thin balsa wood. Once dry hit with 40 grit sand paper to rough it up a bit. Make some more resin up with no thinning agent and put your cloth on. MAKE SURE you Squeegee of the rest of the resin off so only the cloth is wet. in total this should only add on at a maximum of 2kg but it added about 1.3 kg onto ours. Hope this helps you.
Ryan 👿 😈 👿
Hi Lea,
Good question! Not really sure how to answer except to say “think fluid” when going up wind in heavy weather. The idea that you flatten the sail, hike out hard, and sheet in as much as you can and luff up to spill whatever power you can’t handle is what I would call “thinking rigid”. It’s also slow, mostly because this technique encourages pinching, which is particularly slow in heavy winds.
You are always sailing in a fluid environment. The wind is never steady. There are always waves – some bigger, some smaller, some from different directions. The fastest and best way to sail is thus very fluid in order to stay in harmony with your environment, not mechanically checking the luff to see that you are not sailing “too high”. Heavy wind sailing is no different except that some of your movements need to be a more pronounced to cope with being overpowered. Keep the following ideas in mind in heavy winds:
1. As you stated, set the sail up flat. Keep the centreboard all the way down (in some classes it pays to lift the centreboard a bit in heavy whether – the the Sabre’s board is short and flat, so you make too much leeway if you do this on a Sabre). It does sometimes helf balance the boat it you let the board rake back a bit. Another important point is not to sit too far forward. I find it best to sit about 15-30 cm back from the thwart in heavy winds. This helps the bow to lift over waves rather than plough through them.
2. sail for speed, not height. There is still a balancing act between height and speed in heavy winds (you are still looking for the best Velocity Made Good (VMG) to windward), but height comes once you have speed. So make sure you keep the boat moving fast. Sometimes you can actually make the boat plane to windward.
3. you must be continually moving – the mainsheet should be being played for each gust and each wave to keep the boat flat and moving. Usually these are fairly subtle movements of only an inch or two, but a big gust or a big wave can require a big movement of the sheet. The tiller will always be moving too – again subtle movements to point a little higher as you head up into a wave, and a little lower to accelerate down the back of the wave. Synchronised with this, while hiking out you lean back as you head into a wave, and forward again when going down the back of the wave.
4. Concentrate on the feel of the boat – its motion through the water, the power in the rig, and the balance of the boat, rather than the sail. Develop a feel similar to balancing a pole on your hand (think of the mast as the pole!). When you do this, you actually don’t look at the sail much at all when sailing upwind!Two things I would recommend you do is:
1. get a hold of Ben Ainslie’s book: The Laser Campaign Manual (about $60). Ben is probably the hottest dinghy sailor on the planet. His book not only describes how to sail dinghy, it also contains a CD showing you how Ben does it. Have a look at how Ben sails to windward – he is very fluid, and a picture is worth a thousand words.
2. practise sailing to windward (particularly in heavier winds) while trying to maintain a steady heel to windward of 10 degrees. You will find you can’t do this unless you are watching to windward to locate gusts and waves, and you must sail with a bent sheet arm in order to automatically play the mainsheet correctly and keep the boat’s angle of heel steady. It’s not easy, but it will help you develop the feel and anticipation you need to sail a boat quickly upwind in all wind ranges.Most of all, have fun!
Regards,
Alan Riley
Sabre 1564Hi Lea,
What do you mean the tiller sometimes “gets away”? In what circumstances are you having trouble? A self-centering tiller sounds awkward and carries the potential for snarl-ups if you ask me! It is also unnecessary because the tiller (tiller extension) should always be in your hand, particularly in heavy weather.
It sounds to me like you are letting go of the tiller for some reason, most likely when you are tacking or gybing. In both cases, you need to learn to steer behind your back. When tacking or gybing, move to the other side of the boat and complete the maneuver without letting go of the mainsheet or the tiller. This means you will end up sitting on the other side of the boat with the tiller and mainsheet in the “wrong” hands and with the tiller behind your back. You can steer and control the boat quite comfortably like this, but it does restrict your ability to hike a bit. When you are ready, use the hand still holding the mainsheet (the rear hand, towards the back of the boat) to hold both the mainsheet and tiller, while you quickly bring your other (front) hand around to take control of the mainsheet again. It takes a bit of practice, but all the top sailors do this.
If you are letting go of the tiller while trying to make an adjustment, the problem may be with how you are holding it. How do you hold the tiller? There are 2 ways – with a “golf stick” type grip (holding the tiller with your thumb pointing along the tiller extension towards the tiller itself so you have to hold the tiller by your side), and “telescope” style (holding the tiller in the same way you would hold a telescope – with your thumb pointing towards the end of the tiller extension so it comes across the front of your body). I prefer the telescope method because you can bring your hands together and use your tiller hand to hold the mainsheet while adjusting things with the other hand. I used to use the golf stick style, but with the tiller down by your side the only place to put the mainsheet if you need to adjust something is in your mouth (I don’t believe in cleating the mainsheet), which I stopped doing when I broke at tooth (very painful, not to mention expensive!)
Hope this helps!
Regards,
Alan Riley
1564I’ve been a bit out of touch with Sabres for a few years but intend getting back and have secured a decent old boat as an interim ride while waiting for Phil Johnson to get around to building me a hull – plywood supplies and other orders permitting!
But I’ll help if I can!
The rudder box retaining clip (the springy bit of SS screwed to the transom and bent out a bit to clip the rudder in place via the bottom gudgeon) has been illegal for some time and should be replaced with a split ring or “p” clip thru a hole in either pintle.
My last Sabre had a flat mounted (sideways) “Clam” cleat screwed on the underside of the thwart to allow adjustment of the mainsheet bridle. It was plastic but seemed to work OK with the size and type of cord on the bridle.
I have found the the “Clamcleat” Alloy Junior Mk2 was OK for the main halyard (the one on my boat was the one with the open side that allowed you to take the halyard out of the cleat and run it directly thru the sheavebox at the base of the mast – but I don’t think that matters much and I don’t know that the opensided one is available any more.
As for the shackle on the pivot, I can’t envisage how this fits in the overall scheme of things!
Good luck!
Mike
The Sauna sail is a great midwinter event. Water is warm aprox 70fin places. The pondage usually only has small waves so unless you fall in things are pretty good. The club provides the food that sailors like but the foodies hate ie pies pasties etc etc etc. The event is well run on the water.They have doing this for a long time. I would encourage all Sabre peoplr to give it a thought. I usually go for the Sunday,leave Melbourne abot 6.30 am. It is an easy drive Morwell. If when you get up in the morning it raining do not go back to bed. The weather pattern at Hazelwood is usually quite different and a good day is had by all.
I am intending to go again this year on the Sunday.You really want to be getting this sort of thing out before the end of the season. Once people pack their boats up, they’ll stop thinking about next season. You really want people talking to each other – “you coming to Tassie” etc – otherwise it’ll be October, and even if they did want to go, there will be no places on the ferry.
Hi Andy et al…
The national association does have some funds it can make available for the training video, but we can discuss that later.
I believe that this video will be of great benefit to all sabre sailors around the country and will also show that we are ahead of the international/olympic classes in Australia with the availability of a DVD.
In terms of shooting and needing to have a stable environment for the camera, some suggestions from personal experience:
– filming at Albert Park Lake – shore and in the tower at the point
– filming off a pier (say, Black Rock or Frankston) in windy weather may be a way to show how to “work” the boat downwind.Another option that we may want to consider is looking to interview, get quotes from….some of the former sabre sailors that have go onto other classes and been successful??
Cheers,
Maree Early
