Summer Sailstice 2020. Rolled ZIP out early morning, after looking outside and seeing a nice 10-12 knot breeze coming in from the NNW.
ZIP is the oldest Sunfish in existence, built 1953. She has had a few changes along the way. One change was that she came from the factory painted red, with the coaming and rub rail finished bright. We changed that up a bit to showcase her wooden heritage. Her solid wood mast is now a hybrid mast, aluminum bottom section with tapered wood top, circa late 1950s. She also got a bigger rudder at one point, the spoon tip that was used in the 1960s, and we changed out her 31 inch daggerboard for the 39 inch Barrington board of 1980s vintage. Her 1980s North Sail by the Fogh loft in Canada was retired and replaced by a beautiful sail cut by Hunter and his team at Schurr Sails Pensacola. And we replaced her wire 3 loop bridle with a line bridle.
Walkaround video: https://youtu.be/Oi92DTOeRG0
The Fearless Crew...well Skipper anyway...
Wait, why does Clark have a drill in his hand? More on that later.
Launch Video: https://youtu.be/54F0pwc-hH0
Skipper took out ZIP for the first Functional Check Float (FCF) where she checks control rigging and watertight integrity. She also sailed backwards a bit, I'm sure that was intentional and took ZIP up to Vne (Velocity never to Exceed).
She was chattering as she rolled out on Final Approach with the discrepancy list
Skipper liked how ZIP creaked like a square rigger while she was on a run. Wooden yard on wooden mast. And she liked the wave sounds on the hull.
Maintenance Discrepancies:
1) Sheet rigged wrong, we missed the forward block. Did you notice in the pictures? Here she is trying to sort it out during a tack. We caught the aft block and the two sheet hangers, but missed the forward block.
2) Forward sheet block too far aft.
Skipper called out the Flight Line crew aka Boat Captain (me) and we looked over the rigging and discussed block placement, we felt that the forward block was too far aft and interfered with movement in the small cockpit. Another factor we discussed was that ZIP did not come with an open fairlead/sheet hook in the cockpit like later boats did, and we had added a ratchet block to the forward cockpit lip. A quorum of The Usual Visitors was present and consensus was reached to move the forward block forward to place it over the ratchet block, that's when the tool box came out. We used an awl to unscrew the old block, they are screwed in with a wood screw on a bronze eyelet that captures an eyelet on the Wilcox and Crittenden block. We drilled a tiny hole about 7 inches forward on the boom, 7/64th inch bit on the DeWALT drill, as a pilot hole and screwed the block into the new position. Rigged the sheet correctly and Skipper declared "TLAR" (That Looks About Right) from her vantage point on the Gun Deck.
Salty Dog Rigging aka Marine Carpenter Clark.
3) Sail too low. We like the Geezer Rig (copyright claimed), it gets the sail up where it catches the breeze and up out of the cockpit, where it knocks hats off and catches on PFD collars. The Geezer Rig reduces the use of Skipper's salty vocabulary. We raised the rig by moving the halyard down one ring on the luff of the sail. The gooseneck could be moved forward an inch or so to raise the aft end of the boom a bit, but we'll get to that later.
Skipper launched for FCF 2 and had a great sail.
My turn, I took ZIP out and sailed her flat. Luckily for me the wind was dying off.
Zip video: https://youtu.be/v_Q0xUPeoPs
Final Approach: https://youtu.be/peCph8xOU5M
Log of ZIP.
Love this site - so helpful. After looking for about 5 years, I just picked up a wooden Sailfish in very original but excellent condition, with at least one refinishing in the past decade as far as I can tell. It may be mid-to-late 50s judging by the "elephant ear" rudder, aluminum/spruce mast, different carry handle and strip running under the bow. Any other things to look for in dating this boat?
ReplyDeleteThe sail is from an old Sunfish, but it's bent on using the original approach to lashing. I would love to source an original style Sailfish sail if I could find one. Hope to is to one day find a wooden Sunfish and use this rigging on that one. No idea if it's a kit or factory-built - no need to take it apart just yet. I do want to fix a bit of rot on the keel strip at some point, and a gouge on the side of the hull. Would thickened epoxy be good for that?
Do you have the measurements of the mahogany coaming and rubrails for early Sunfish? I'd like to do a "retromod" tribute to the first production Sunfish, albeit using a Sailfish. Got a can of leftover green tint #03 Kirby paint from my Snowbird restoration.... Let me know if you'd like to see photos to add to the base of knowledge on these boats. We also have two mid-60s Super Sailfish, an orphaned Minifish, and a Grumman aluminum square stern; would love a sail rig for that one.
Which Sailfish did you get, what length, 12 or 14? She sound late 50s.
ReplyDeleteThickened epoxy is good for everything :)
Which coaming, the long one or the smaller V shape. I suppose you saw the V shaped coaming that our Super Sailfish ZSA ZSA has, they called her a Sailfish 14 Deluxe. She also has toe rails and rub rails.
Best way to reach us for email is with private message to facebook Small Boat Restoration, or post your email here if you like. We'd love to see the photos.