Recent content by cowlum

The desire to cruise long distance on a budget boat is alluring for me. Going small for the sake of small not so much. John Guzwell, Johnny Wray, Tania Aebi and Shane Acton are all authors I enjoyed reading and their adventures appeal to me. When at a Maritime Museum in Brisbane I came upon...

Was this the Queens Birthday Weekend storm?

An older article on Andrews journey in his Ericson 27. No modern navigational aids...

Went round Brooks Peninsula in northerly 25-30 knot winds after it had been blowing northerly for 40+ for a week in my e27. Largest waves I've experienced. The waves compact at the peninsula and become short period. Trailing seas with heaps of correction on the helm required by me. Only the main...

I removed and rebuilt my mast a couple years after a bought it. It was apparent once it was on the ground that the head stay rigging pin was without a cotter pin. It had been held in with pressure only probably since one of the previous owners had the furler installed. Possibly if someone had...

Looks good. Mine is similar to your original, its almost wasted space. How do you supply the water pressure and where does the grey water run to?

The extension is shaped exactly the same as the port side squab so the stern most slat cant move forward becuase the rails get closer. Just stern of the bow most slat on the beamshelves were a couple of stoppers but currently the slat rope is being used. The slat rope stops the middle slats...

It took me a lot longer than I had anticipated to finish my current boat projects and start putting the interior back together for the summer. Apologies for the delay. This is the system i built about 4 or 5 years ago. The build aesthetic could have been better but the function is great. I...

Thanks for the replies guys. I've decided to go loose footed main as per the suggestions. Instead of slugs I'll go with the velcro strap assuming there's no hardware in the way. This is completely different to my original plan. It's also simpler. So I'm glad I asked.

I'm just going to take the advice given here and work towards a loose footed main with two or three plastic slugs at the clew. If I sail cautiously it wont take long to work out if the boom and slugs are up to the task. If so, onto sailing and other tinkering, if not, I'll reassess.

good call! That is an idea, I'd need to shave of the upper lip. Not sure how I'd do that gracefully though.

Thats not a bad idea, not really an issue on an e27 where everything is so small. I have crewed on some much larger boats where we have to squirt lubricant in the track every couple of weeks to make things manageable. My E27 is strictly cruising, adjusting the outhaul is rare :)

Thanks Christian, The 'velcro strap with outhaul' is the setup on all the raceboats I crew on but all those boats have a mainsheet that attaches near the velcro strap. If the mainsail creates any upward forces its transferred directly to the mainsheet and would also create some compression...

Make sure your plumbing doesn't cause an airlock. apologies if I'm telling you how to suck eggs. I found it an easy mistake to make ;/

Hi I'm starting on a project to build a sailpack for my e27. My main sail is currently a bolt robe that's slid into the boom track. To facilitate a sailpack I'd like to sew a number of slugs to the foot so that there is space for the sailpacks slugs. The slugs sewn into the main foot would...