Week 21/22 - Fittings / Rigging

All what is written about in this post happened the last 36 hours before the boatlaunch... it was just crazy!
Some of us and myself have been working day and night since a while with some very few hours of sleep each night. But the motivation to get Glóey finished for the launch on december 5th 2012 was unbreakable.

The fittings on a boat can have a similar effect like accessoires in the world of fashion. They add accents and set contrasts to the timber which ends in a joyfull unit for our sences.
Sorry, if I'm a little sentimental at that stage but while working those last hours on the boat I simply was too exhausted to realize it all...

Most of the fittings we used on Glóey are in bronze which is an excellent material combining very good properties of strength and corrosionresistance with optical beauty.
It was no question for me which material to use on the fittings... all material on Glóey is just of the best available quality and therefore it was a kind of logic to run that concept all the way to the end.

A cutterrig incoorporates a lot of robe and blocks. All robe is of braided type with a hemp color (Lyros Classic).
I used 12mm on the mainsheet, 10mm on all halyards and foresailsheets etc. and 8mm for the toppinglift and the topsailropes.
There are 6 ashdeckblocks (Davey) fixed on the masttabernacle and all the rest of the blocks are tufnolblocks (HYE). They are much cheaper but excellent quality and they look good on a wooden boat with creamy sails.
Beside that aspect they are also aging very well and only need minimal maintenance.

Quite a lot of fittings were necessary on the mast and spars. On the photo to the right you can see the cranseiron at the fore end of the bowsprit. It has 4 eyes and connects bobstay, bowspritshrouds, and traveller for the flying set jibsail.
Bobstay and bowspritshrouds as well as the 4 mast shrouds, the forestay and the running backstays are in 7x19 stainless steel wire (3/16").

All throughfastenings are either sealed with epoxy or at least bedded with butyl mastic  This is an important measure to avoid moisture getting in the timber.

On the photo you can see the chainplate for the portside bowspritshroud. The 316 stainless machinescrews are fastened through the beamshelf inside the hull to spread the load on the structure.

Other fittings which are not positioned over such a strong element are reinforced inside with a hardwoodpad (like turningblocks on the coachtop etc.).

Oh yes... I nearly forgot it... the flags :-)
They were under my workingbench for many weeks because I absolutely wanted to have a UK and a Swiss flag hoisted on launchday. A nice last work the evening before launchday.

The following picture gives a good overview on Glóey's deckplan with all those numerous fittings she needed. There is indeed also a pair of oarlocks because I wanted to be able to row out and in the harbour instead of having an outboardmotor which mostly takes a lot of the charme on a boat...