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PostPosted: Mon Jul 24, 2017 3:02 pm 
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Joined: Wed Aug 31, 2016 11:51 am
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I would like to be able to launch my i9s safely with the mast and sail already mounted on the hull by means of the shrouds but somehow without the sail being deployed to the point that it luffs wildly or even catches in the wind and starts trying to sail when I don't want it to. With the shrouds supporting the mast to hold it in place, furling the sail around the mast is not an option as it would be on the Hobie rigid-hulled kayaks. What I'm looking for is a way to keep the sail basically folded close to the mast until I am launched, away from beach/shallows/dock, & out on the water and ready to sail, when from my seat in my i9s, I would somehow be able to let the sail out from being folded close to the mast so that it would start catching the wind in a controlled way for actual sailing. When sailing is done and time has come to return to shore, I would like somehow to be able to reverse this process from my seat so that the sail could be brought in close to the mast without it luffing wildly or still catching the wind and trying to sail. I'm hoping that at least one of you experienced Hobie inflatable kayak owners with an i-Sail Kit already has this figured out, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks

Kent


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PostPosted: Wed Jul 26, 2017 4:42 pm 
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Joined: Sun Apr 20, 2008 6:18 am
Posts: 3058
Location: Sarasota,Key West FL
It's super simple to make a mast topper and furler kit for a hobie kayak, including the inflatable (makes no difference which boat , inflatable or rigid).
What I used was a hardened 3/8 to 1/4 socket adapter. The 1/4" part needs to be at least 1" long. I then pounded the extension into the top of the mast. I then burned a hole in the strap at the top of the sail with a solder iron. I then took a piece of 7/8 dia alum tubing around 2.5 ft long with a 1/4 hole drilled about 5" from one end.
On the inflatable you would attach the back stay at the back of of the rod, the two front/side stays would attach to the front of the rod.
For the furler you just get some 1.5"dia pvc and two end caps. It costs about $5 bucks and 30 minutes of your time to make the Furler.
On ours we had quick snap clips so we could quickly snap the stays on.
We alway launched with the sail furled and strapped to the side of the kayak, actually we have never launched a hobie without a sail kit strapped to the side of the kayak (not even once).
All your rigging and pulleys remains on the boat always.
On the inflatable the rod at the top can likely be much shorter., we had ours configured for hard kayaks with jibs and spinnakers.
Hope this helps
FE


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PostPosted: Sat Aug 12, 2017 6:26 am 
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Location: Sarasota,Key West FL
I'm still standing behind the PVC furler concept as the easiest and cheapest option, shouldn't take more than an hour to make with just an electric drill as the only tool needed. Shouldn't cost much more than ten bucks, (maybe $20 if you have to buy a whole socket set in order the socket extension piece you need.
Basically you will be cutting off and removing the existing stay lines and replacing them with something else (a different design) at the top, (just sayin the original design kinda sucks)
The key component here is the spin bearing at the top of the mast. There are a dozen simple ways to achieve this, I will list a couple so you can select from the menu and select which will work for you, and what is easily available at your local hardware store.
All options involve modifying the top of the aluminum mast itself just one time.
I'm not sure if Hobie uses the exact same aluminum mast as is used on the regular Hobie kayaks, (I am assuming it's the exact same part).
Our favorite pastime is Hobie kayak sailing and pretty much every one of the half dozen Hobie kayaks we have bought we purchased the sail kit along with the boat, all hard kayaks, we don't own a Hobie inflatable, (our two inflatables are a different brand and used for a different purpose (ie.. not kayak sailing), basically we tow extra people out to snorkeling areas with our TI mothership. We keep the inflatable in the back of the truck along with our 4 person inflatable just in case we need them, (BTW, you can't haul gear, ie... scuba tanks, big cooler, etc in an inflatable kayak, they just flip in the ocean. In ten years of kayaking (year round down here) we have never launched a Hard Hobie kayak without a sail kit strapped to the side of the kayak, not even once, just in case we find favorable wind. I installed a furler system on every one of them before ever taking any out on the water.

Before doing any thing pull the mast and look at it. If it's like all mine were you will find a plastic plug shoved into the top of the mast. Remove the plug. Just below the plug you will see a bungy stretched over a cross pin. The cross pin needs to be pounded out and removed, along with the bungy, (on all mine I just stretched the bungy up and snipped the bungy, leaving all the remnents inside the mast.
Now carefully measure the ID of the tubing at the top, that's the diameter you have to work with, ( I don't recall the exact diameter but I think it was around 3/8 dia ID, you need to measure yourself.

Option 1: On my first sail, I happened to have a 1/4" socket extention in my tool box, the 1/4" dia part was about an inch long, the large diameter part was just the right size so I pounded into the top of the mast and I was done, (the extention is hardened steel so it is very strong and doesn't rust easily).

Option 2: after the first one, when I went to the second sail (my wifes boat), I had already used my socket extension and didn't have another so I went to Home Depot and bought a 1/4" id x 3/8"od 3/4" long brass bushing and simply epoxied the bushing into the top of the mast. If I recall correctly I had to chase a 3/8" dia drill into the end of the pipe so the bushing would drop in easily, (this was all ten yrs ago so my memory is fuzzy). If the tubing ID is already larger than 3/8", then just let the epoxy fill in the gap, (doesn't need to be pefectly straight and on center, close is enough.

Now all you need is a 1/4" diameter hard round pin to drop in the hole, I used 1/4" dia drill blanks on some, 1/4" dia carbide blanks on others, all depending on what I had laying around the garage, (I'm a retired engineer/tool maker so I got all that crap just laying around the garage).

Now for the topper itself we just used 7/8" dia aluminum left over from old bent masts, about two feet long (lol we had plenty of them layin around, the cost of trying to run giant spinnakers and jibs kayak sailing, yea your goin to bend a mast once in a while, (just saying).
This style mast topper worked ok with Hobie rigid kayaks with just a 1/4" cross hole drilled about 5" back from one end, with the hard pin jammed and epoxied into the hole on later versions, On the first one I just used the hole.

On the inflatable you will need something at the top to tie your stay lines, one front line and two side stays to. Each hole needs to be around 3-4" off center so all the lines clear the sail when furling, this will of corse decrease the angles of your stay lines slightly, but no enough to hurt anything. I use a lot of that polyethylene cutting board material, (available at walmart for about $5 bucks, I would get one at least 5/16 thick or thicker. Now with a saber saw or hack saw cut a triangle out of the board, (doesn't need to be fancy or neat). Before cutting drill four 1/4" dia holes, one in the center and one near edge/ corner of the triangle, not too close to any corner. Your stay lines will be tied to the outer 1/4" holes and the 1/4" pin will be jammed/glued in the center hole so it doesn't fall out. The nice thing about polyethylene is it floats so if you drop it accidentally it won't sink to the bottom like aluminum would, plus way cheaper.
Your new stay system is now done and can be used even without a furler right away. A perfect triangle will work as described above (with the 1/4" dia hole in the center), since you already have the rest of that giant cutting board just layin around, you might want to make up a second top plate with the front stay hole a little closer to the rotation point, (about 2"), then the two side stays in line or slightly forward of the rotation point side to side, then further out from the rotation point (maybe 6" inches, maybe try 8-9" out as well, (8"-9" from center will likely not work, but would be worth trying if you have the cutting board material anyway). This way your side stays don't interfere with your sail when in downwind, (just a suggestion).
Now just find some light line similar to what Hobies uses, (our local Hobie dealer stocks that line, as I'm sure most boating places do, (aka West marine, etc).

One additional pointer, I always have my sail kit along when kayaking, furled and stored on the side of the boat, (where your double ended paddle stores on the hard kayas). If I want to put it up while on the water I always leave the front stay clipped to the boat, this serves two purposes, first being if you drop that top plate in the water you can retrieve it with your paddle, (remember it floats). Second reason is what the heck do you do with that stupid plate when not sailing,,, I just stuff mine under the bungy on the front hatch. If I find usable wind I grab the furled sail, clip on the clue line, grab the mast topper slip it on, (with the front stay line attached, (btw that front stay doesn't need to be super tight, (so you can still get the mast in the hole obviously). Once up you clip in the side stays sitting next to you, if you want them a little taught so the mast is raked back just a little, it helps performance a little, however you still need to be able to furl/unfurl the sail easily so you can't bend back too far. Make sure your rear stay lines are untangled and dangling all the way down before raising the sail, otherwise you can't reach them once you put the sail up.
After trying it all out and it works to your liking, then it's on to the simple PVC furler, I'm sure if you look thru the Hobie archive, (or search youtube) you will find at least a dozen instructional videos on how to make them, their super simple to make in less than an hr, with no special tools, and cost about $5 bucks in materials.
Hope this helps
FE


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PostPosted: Tue Aug 15, 2017 1:52 am 
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Joined: Sun Aug 12, 2007 5:17 pm
Posts: 679
Location: Auckland NZ
In the days of heavy cotton sails, oakum and hemp they used a technique of "scandalizing" the sail - you could do a similar thing (the old ways usually work best).

Basically scandalizing involved hauling the clew of the sail (where you tie the sheet to) up towards the top of the mast so that the sail really didn't have any shape left for sailing. You could rig a simple system for scandalizing via a couple of microblocks attached near the top of the shrouds and one near the base of the mast. A couple of lengths of really thin line from your hand to the bottom of the mast, up to the blocks at the shrouds and from there down to the clew (in fact it is probably better to use one piece of line of twice the required length that goes from your hand to the base of the mast, up one side of the mast, through the turning block, down to the clew, through the cringle, up to the other shroud turning block, back down to the base of the mast and back to the helmsman's hand).

To scandalize, release the sheet (and yes, this does need to be long enough to be able to depower the sail on all points of sailing and still be within reach), haul on the doubled line, the clew will rise to the turning blocks and should completely depower the rig. To sail release the doubled line and sheet in. Like the sheet the scandalizing line needs to be long enough - in this case so that it doesn't cut into the belly of the sail on any points of sail but with the end remaining to hand so that the sail can be scandalized again..

If you want to try it the cost would be a few little blocks and a long length of fine line - you could easily test the principle on dry land with far less outlay than that (string and loops of string instead of blocks). If you decided to put a "proper" solution into action I would strongly recommend not cutting or drilling anything: the loads on our boats are so tiny that most rigging blocks etc can be tied on to something close enough to where they need to be with small amounts of the lightest paracord so that your pride and joy remains in an unmodified state just in case you want to resell it in the future.

My $0.02 FWIW hope it helps & do let us all know how you get on.


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PostPosted: Sun Sep 10, 2017 11:23 pm 
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Joined: Thu Oct 21, 2004 11:39 am
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So I was the same way, no way was I taking it out without a way to depower the sail. I settled on a pulley system for the forestay. I rig the boat on shore, then let the forestay line out until I can lay the sail on the starboard side of the boat and secure it with some bungees. When I get out into the lake, I undo the bungees, plant the sail like I'm claiming the kayak for Spain with my right hand, and pull the pulley line with my left hand. Once it is up I attach the downhaul bungee.

It worked very well, but the sailing sucked because I had something wrong with the mainsheet. Is it supposed to be on a traveller line? If not, do you have to undo the pulley and move it every tack? EDIT: Never mind, I was making it much too complicated. I get it now.

Here are some pictures, unfortunately there aren't any in action because I only have 2 hands. Sail down and sail up. Total cost was about $50, mainly because I bought a ratcheting block system at home depot so I had more control. I think having done it a jam cleat or tie cleat would be sufficient.

Let me know if these images don't show, since they are to my google photos:

Image

Image


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PostPosted: Mon Sep 11, 2017 9:09 am 
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Joined: Sat Aug 13, 2016 3:21 am
Posts: 5
kd5crs, your picture do not show up.


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