Sheet Leads

An often overlooked component of a headsail is the sheet lead position. While some people treat these blocks as static and permanently set attachment points, the truth is, they are meant to be moved around depending on what you are trying to achieve with your headsail.

Sheet leads are typically only able to move fore-aft, but some yachts are equipped to allow arthwartship adjustment as well. Fore-aft is by far the most common form of adjustment, where the sheet block is setup on a car mounted to a track. 

In the simplest of ways, moving the car forward is ideal in light air situation while moving the car aft is ideal in heavy air situations. The reason is, as you move the car forward, the force of the sheet is transferred up into the leech of the sail, allowing the foot to fill in. This creates a bigger chord in the sail and generates more power. When you move the sheet block aft, the force of the sheet gets transferred over to the foot of the sail. This will cause the foot to flatten and make the sail flatter. A flatter sail will generate less power and thus allow you to maintain control as the winds build. 

As you transfer the force of the sheet from foot to leech or leech to foot, the other side of the sail becomes ignored by the force. So when the car is forward, the leech is under control while the foot is ignored. When the car is aft, the foot is under control and the leech is ignored. This can serve some additional benefits as well. 

When winds build, you want to flatten the sail by tensioning the foot. Moving the car aft will accomplish this and it will also alleviate force on the leech. This will cause the sail to twist and the opening leech will spill excess air from the top of the sail. In high winds, this is ideal and will allow you to continue sailing along comfortably and safely. 

When you are reaching and have eased the sail, you may find that your sail is developing a twist, even though you don't want it to do so. Moving the car forward will allow you greater control of the leech and grant you the ability to close the twist in the sail, maximizing the power from the headsail. 

As of now, we understand that moving the car forward will control the leech and moving aft will control the foot, but where is the car to go to control both? The answer is somewhere in the middle. 

As you move the car forward and aft, the angle the sheet makes to the sail will change. With the car aft, the sheet will come into the sail at a very shallow angle. If you continue this line, it will meet the luff of the sail somewhere down near the tack. As you move the car forward, the sheet will meet the sail at a more extreme angle and the imaginary line will reach the luff further up towards the head of the sail. 

The neutral position where the force on the leech and foot are about equal is when the imaginary line that extends forward of the sheet meets the luff at about 40% the height of the luff (from tack to head). This point is considered to be the neutral position for your sheet block, and anything forward of this position is for lighter airs while anything aft is for heavy airs. 

An Easy Way to Varnish

Varnish is very easy to do. You might hear horror stories about the varnish rippling or dripping, or anything else you could be afraid of happening. The truth is, varnish is not paint and should not be thought of as paint.

When you apply paint to a surface, your goal is to cover the surface with a pigment. In order to accomplish this, you need to apply a sufficiently thick coat of paint, and many of them. You will hear people talk about applying thin coats of paint to avoid runs and drips. Varnish is the same in this regard; you want to apply thin coats of varnish to avoid runs and drips.

The difference between paint and varnish is the thickness of the coats and the number of coats needed. A thin coat of paint is actually a very thick coat of varnish. You usually apply 2 to 3 coats of paint for full coverage and to fully pigment the surface. With varnish, you are looking more at a dozen coats, each super thin.

The ideal thickness of varnish is so thin that it hardly covers the surface. The wood will still appear poorly coated after the first coat because the brush was rather dry and you didn't apply enough varnish. This is actually good.

This super thin coat will dry without any risk of drips, runs, or crinkles. It will dry into a smooth and hard layer that is ready for the next coat. As the coats go building up, the varnished surface will begin to shine with the beauty of the wood.

To recap, you simply want to apply a coat that is so thin that it feels like its too thin. Your brush should be as dry as if you just ran out of paint and are trying to spread what is left in your brush all over the rest of the surface! Each coat builds on the last, and it takes about 12 coats to get a finished product.

Since it is impossible to dip your brush into a can of varnish and have it come out dry, there is a trick to achieving this super thin coat. I simply dip the tip into the varnish a quarter of an inch (about 6mm), then I wipe one side of the bristles on the rim of the can as I extract it. This wipes the amount of varnish on the brush down by half. I then take this super dry brush and stroke across the grain on the wood to put a thin little puddle of varnish on the wood. As I slide across the grain, the brush will run out of varnish and become completely dry. You will see that no more varnish is present and you simply have a thin streak on the wood. I then brush over this streak with the grain to spread it out until that entire area feels dry and the brush is sliding over the area without effect. I then move to the adjacent space and repeat.

It pretty much feels like if you are "not" varnishing the wood 12 times with a dry brush. While it may seem labor intensive to coat something a dozen times, it really goes quickly since there is not much being done each time. Since the coats are so thin, they also dry quickly, allowing for faster recoats, and there is no sanding between coats because they are so thin. After around 3 or 4 coats, the wood will really start to look pretty. Around 10 coats, it will look almost perfect. Around the 12th coat, the wood will be gorgeous and protected by a waterproof finish!

While varnish may not be touted as a waterproof finish, it will become so with enough thin coats. I have finished a piece of red oak (a very thirsty wood that should never be placed near water) in my shower, where it has received a daily dousing of hot water for the past 4 years and it has never formed any stains from getting wet, even though it is right next to the shower head and gets soaked each time I shower.

This finish will go wearing down over the years, and it would behoove you to reapply new coats if it ever gets looking a bit thin.

That's all it takes to varnish a piece of wood! A dozen "bone-dry-barely-there" coats.

Benefit of Living Aboard

Living aboard has many benefits: it's cheaper, you can work less to have the same lifestyle, and you can spend more time doing the things that you really love! One more unsung benefit of living aboard is it acts as salesperson repellent!

How many times have you been at a home improvement store and had to deal with a pushy salesperson trying to get you to put solar panels on your roof, or redo your bathroom or kitchen? They won't leave you alone no matter how many times you tell them you are not interested.

While they may seem very pushy, there is a magic set of words that will make them turn on their heals and walk away. When I tell them "I live on a sailboat" they just leave me alone. Apparently, they are not able to work on boats, so they will not waste any more of their time on a hopeless cause when there are other dirt dwellers in the vicinity.

While this may be all good fun, it was a bit annoying for me when I was actually looking to buy solar panels. I actually stopped the solar city sales people to ask them about buying solar panels after they turned away. I wanted the great price they kept touting, but they finally told me that they are only able to work on houses and were not able to sell the panels individually for a boat.

And thus, I came to discover that this pushy salesperson repellent is just another added benefit to living aboard!

Varnish Brushes

At any store that sells varnish and its brushes, you will see a huge range of brush prices. There will be the disposable chip brushes that will cost around a dollar, all the way up to the fancy animal hair brushes that can cost over $30 a brush! Is the money worth it? Should you really spend all that much money on a brush?

The choice is up to you about spending that kind of money on a brush, but the truth is, you can make do just fine with a disposable chip brush for under a dollar.

The big advantage that the expensive brushes tout is that they will not drop bristles in your finish. Chip brushes are famous for shedding like a dog on a hot day! If you use a cheap brush, your finished product will be riddled with bristles that are trapped in the paint or varnish.

This may sound like a perfect reason to pay for the fancy brush, it will prevent this catastrophe! The truth is, a cheap brush will only drop the loose bristles. If you can get these bristles out before you start, it will work just the same as an expensive brush; providing you with a bristle free end result! To get the bristles out, all you need to do is tug on the fibers and knock the brush around a bit. I typically brush my pant leg or hand hard, bending the bristles over fiercely as the brush passes by. This will dislodge any loose fibers and pull them out. Then I quickly and harshly brush my palm, knocking off any bristles that are at the brink of coming out. Lastly, I grab all the bristles by the end of the brush and give them a slight tug. This will pull out any stragglers that might have still been deciding if they were going to fall out or not.

After this ritual, which only takes about 10 seconds to complete, I can paint on my coatings without any fear of a stray bristle in my finished coat.

The best part about using really cheap brushes is I don't feel bad about throwing them out when I'm done. I don't have to worry about residue from one project contaminating my next, or the fear that the brush will get damaged if I don't clean it instantly. Instead, I can focus on what I'm doing and chuck the brush when I'm done!

Drilling Holes in Wood

Drilling holes in wood is a fact of woodworking. Be it for fasteners, dowels, or a hole to tie through; eventually, you will need to put a hole in your project and you want to make it look perfect.

A common problem with drilling wood is grain tear out. This occurs when the drill bit first makes contact with the wood and starts to cut into the wood itself to make the hole. As it cuts in, the wood will begin to split along its grain like if it were being planed against the grain! This is easy to avoid with a wood plane since you can choose the direction to plane the wood in, but a drill bit will cut the wood in opposite directions. Rotary tools will have one side cutting with the grain and the other side cutting in the opposite direction, leading to this dreadful problem!

There are a few tricks to avoid this issue: drill through other wood first, and spin the drill in reverse first.

Drilling through other wood first is ideal. You will want to clamp a sacrificial piece of wood on the front and the back of the object you are drilling. These two pieces will suffer the grain tear out while your piece of wood will be protected. As you start your hole, the first piece will have its grain tear out. The drill will work its way deeper into the wood where the other fibers around will prevent any tearing, as the drill simply bores its way through. When you get to the piece of wood you are trying to drill though, the surface will be protected and covered, keeping it all safe from tearing. It is impossible for the grain to lift up because the top block is pressing down on it!

As the drill exists the back, the same issue can occur as the wood gets rather thin and the force of you pushing can cause a massive explosion of an exit wound in the wood. A second sacrificial block will ensure that this wound occurs on a scrap piece and not your project.

If you can not place a second piece on the back of the hole, simply drilling with very light pressure will avoid the exit hole injury. If you let the drill cut and pull your way through the wood instead of pushing with all your might into the wood, it will hopefully exit in a very easy and carefree manner, creating a nice and even looking hole without damage to the surrounding grain.

But say it is not possible nor practical to clamp sacrificial boards on every hole you need to make, what then?

This is a rather simple one, run the drill in reverse under lots of pressure. This obviously works better on softer woods, but softer woods are the ones that suffer more from this phenomenon. As you spin the drill in reverse, it will very slowly cut its way into the wood, creating a hole. Since there is no cutting blade digging in, it will not tear up the wood as it goes. The reason you need high speed and pressure is friction is going to be doing most of the work.

It is not uncommon to see a bit of steam rise from your hole as you scorch your way through the surface. The wood will abrade and burn away as you begin your hole, at least an 1/8 of an inch, if not all the way down to a 1/4 of an inch. Once you have reached this depth, it will be safe again to spin the drill forward and bore your way to freedom on the other side. The slight hole you made at the beginning will get you past the risky area where tear out occurs. This will let you quickly and easily start your hole and then drill away without much risk to the surface of the wood.