Tag Archives: marblehead blog

Drying Out the Inside of Your Boat After Sailing

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After a pretty wet day’s sailing, I pulled the bung off the F6 Marblehead and let the water out, as you do. This prompted a couple of discussions with Clubmates, LT and GH. It seems that when they get home, they pump dry air through their boats to keep the electrics dry. Good thinking.

As an aside, my IOM has a massive wide pot aperture, so I thinking airing the hull and electric is less of an issue with that. You can almost put your hand in, it’s that big. If you have a 60mm pot in your IOM, you might think about this though.

We had a great discussion in the bar about whether it is best to push dry air in, or pull damp air out. I decided on the latter for me.

Prompted by LH, I ordered the bits from Amazon : 40mm USB powered computer fan with 3 speed switch, a hygrometer to measure progress, (total less than £20 I think) and for my spare room, a 2m USB extension cable. The pot in the F6 is the ubiquitous Sailsetc 60mm pot, so I ordered an extra pot and lid for £2.50 plus postage. Although you can get a pot lid separately and save £1, I reckon you need the whole thing so that when you drill a hole in the lid to suck the air out, you can hold the whole affair by the pot as you drill.

This is what it looks like with the fan in situ. Note I have glued it on the lid for now, but I suspect in the longer term I’ll bolt it on using M3 bolts. There is a 3 speed switch on the fan and in initial tests I ran it on the lower speed. You need the bung out obviously so that dry air gets in to displace the damp air coming out. The hole in the lid exactly matches the fan diameter.

LT also suggested a hygrometer to place in the airflow to monitor progress. Amazingly it costs about the same as London coffee.

This is what it looks like, when it’s running. Fingers crossed it works fine.

This was the fan we used from amazon:-

ELUTENG Mini 40mm 5V USB Fan Desk PC Fans with L/M/H 3 Adjustable Speed Portable USB Computer Fan USB Case Box Electronic Cooling Fan 5300 RPM with Metal Grill for Laptop/TV Box/AV Cabinet/PS4/Router

This was the hygrometer:-

Goabroa Mini Hygrometer Thermometer Digital Indoor Humidity Gauge Monitor with Temperature Meter Sensor Fahrenheit (℉)

Racing Report – Marbleheads, Sunday 29th October 2023

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Despite the rain, Datchet members had a very lively weekend. The home fleet fielded seven of its Marbleheads and some great racing was had with Rohan Williams winning the day.  Three of our members travelled to the final 2023 One Metre Ranking event at Woodspring.  In an extremely competitive fleet of 36, the Datchet team put up a really great show. Datchet’s Craig Richards won third place with his 3D printed One Metre… and winning chocolate biscuits!

Looking forward to even more than Craig’s biscuits, it looks like we might have up to four new members by year end.  Next week we race our One Metres.  It’ll be close racing as always ! 

Sail Numbers – Putting Them in The Right Place…!!

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If you have new sails, you’ll be wanting to get the numbers and insignia on them – and if you race internationally then you’ll want your country code as well.

Where is this all defined? Read through your Class rules first, and then for at least the international classes, you’ll need to check what it says in the Radio Sailing Appendix (E) of World Sailing’s rules…. subsection “G”.

Most of it is there I think, letter size(min max), gaps, which side is highest (starboard), distance between rows and all of that.

You can use stick on numbers if they comply, but I feel most people use an indelible pen. BG Design does great stencils in the correct size (if you tape them together, you have the correct gaps) and can supply an appropriate pen. In the end, I went to the local stationers and bought two indelible pens – a superfine and a chisel ended felt pen (much more versatile than a round point).

I taped the BG stencils in place, traced around with the superfine. The error to avoid is ink leaking under the stencil, so keep the pen moving quite quickly. Then I removed the stencils and used the chisel ended pen to “colour in” the outlines. Worked well. There are some good hints and tips on the Sailsetc website. Worth a read.

https://www.sailsetc2.com/index.php/products-by-class/international-one-metre-class/sails/sail-identification/stencil-for-rg65-insignia.html

Take a look at Rules Appendix E here:-

Click to access sailing-radio-racing-rules-of-world-sailing-appendix-e.pdf