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Author Topic: Yet Another Victoria  (Read 2891 times)

AlisterL

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Yet Another Victoria
« on: January 05, 2011, 09:13:44 pm »

Greetings to all,

This is by no means a build log, but I thought it might be useful to show what mods I made to my Victoria. By the way, it's my first yacht :)

First off, this is a model that I rescued from our local online auction site - we have TradeMe in NZ and not eBay. Someone had taken it into a place called Cash Converters - the name should explain what that place does - and they were on-selling it - fortunately I was the only bidder and got it at a good price. The box had been opened and whilst there were numerous fingerprints on parts and parts taken off sprues, nothing was assembled and all parts were present.

I did a couple of mods not shown in the photos but detailed in Martins build elsewhere in this section, where leftover ply was used to strengthen around the keel mount area and build some supporting verticals. I also added, but can't photograph, a piece of ply that I put in across the width of the underside of deck, where the mast mount point and rigging lines connect into the hull. This is held in place by those same vertical bits of ply. And epoxy :) I did this because it seemed to me the the deck was particularly flexible across this width.

I spent some time looking at the Victoria resource centre (http://www.victoriarc.org) and decided to modify the way the sail control line went through the Cockpit Rope Bushing. It seemed silly to have the line move vertically when it needed to move horizontally, so I substituted - eventually! - a fishing line snap as in the following photo. I tried several bits of bent metal before arriving at the the snap and this is why there are a few scrapes on the cockpit cover.



Also in this photo you can see that I changed the way of connecting the sail control line and the main/jib control line. No matter what I did I couldn't get the suggested method, using knots, to stay in place without some sort of tension on the line. This little ring is actually salvaged from a key ring and does the job almost perfectly. A counterpart located on the end of the sail arm on the servo - again the line needed to move horizontally and was being made to move vertically prior to the mods. The only downside to these mods so far is that the ring used where the sail lines join has caught (once) on the hatch cover handle and the ends of ring on the sail arm butted up to each other rather than overlapping as in the photo and this allowed the line to escape once - since fixed with a little glue - I hope!

The other mod was at the top of the mast where the main sail is supported. The instructions called for a cleat, but I substituted a home-made bowsie (if that's the correct term) as it was much easier to make work and adjust.



I have had Victoria out on the water a couple of times now - the second time was Christmas Day and in Auckland that was quite windy. So windy that Victoria had what I conservatively estimate was a 70 degree lean when going across the wind. Actually it was so windy I had trouble making any distance up the lake and had to resort to sailing back and forth across the lake. It was really too windy that day... With any luck, I will have it out later this morning! So far, sailing a yacht is a LOT of fun :)
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Alister

AlisterL

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Re: Yet Another Victoria
« Reply #1 on: January 12, 2011, 09:12:22 am »

A couple of shots from the sailing. Very light winds that day, which is quite unusual for Auckland and this location :)






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Alister

tigertiger

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Re: Yet Another Victoria
« Reply #2 on: January 12, 2011, 09:50:23 am »

Congrats on the launch into the sailing side of things.

I like the mods you made, I will incorporate them into my refit.

I think you will have a lot of fun with the Vic, I know I have had fun with mine.  :-))
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AlisterL

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Re: Yet Another Victoria
« Reply #3 on: January 12, 2011, 08:22:01 pm »

Thanks TT,

just for more info I have taken a photo of the addition to the sail arm. In it you can clearly see the ring I put in:



Be careful if you do this to make sure that the rigging rope (rope?) can't escape from the ring! As you can see if you compare the two rings, the ends of the ring on the sail arm is not overlapped but butted-up instead.
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Alister

tigertiger

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Re: Yet Another Victoria
« Reply #4 on: January 13, 2011, 01:56:24 am »

Hi Alister

I find the sheeting runs through the plastic on the sail arm very freely, without the risk of catching or trapping that the ring presents. The only thing I might do is bevel the edges of the hole in the sail arm.
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AlisterL

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Re: Yet Another Victoria
« Reply #5 on: January 13, 2011, 02:38:08 am »

Hi TT,

I have to be honest and say that I didn't even try the sheeting directly through the sail arm, I just went straight to the ring, so it may be as you suggest an unnecessary modification.
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Alister

Dekan

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Re: Yet Another Victoria
« Reply #6 on: January 15, 2011, 07:44:11 pm »

Sorry Alister but I don't like the ring in the sail arm idea.

I didn't need it in my Vic and I have never seen it used in another one, and I have seen at least a dozen now...Its just something that may rub or get caught up on the rest of the R/C set up..
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AlisterL

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Re: Yet Another Victoria
« Reply #7 on: January 16, 2011, 01:22:15 am »

Hi Dekan,

I don't believe that the ring will get caught on any RC gear or other bits in the hull as the end of the sail arm  is well away from anything else. The only thing that could snag is the rigging itself as, by way the rigging runs tension is not always present on the line, but that is inherent to the Victoria anyway. If I have any more trouble with it then I will remove it.

Thanks for taking the time to make a comment!
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Alister

malcolmfrary

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Re: Yet Another Victoria
« Reply #8 on: February 07, 2011, 06:38:07 pm »

When the ring fails and the line drops out or catches in the gap, it will be a good time to re-route through the hole in the arm.
If the line is turning back on itself, it doesn't really matter whether the turn is horizontal or vertical, but I would normally go for letting it have the biggest radius possible.  The bevelled hole in the arm fits this, as does the arrangement at the stern.  For the running rigging, I prefer braided salmon line for its very low surface friction - the only downside is my inability to tie a secure knot in the stuff, but thats what superglue comes in handy for.
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