Lewis Update

Sorry it’s been a while since my last post, I’ve had to sort out some new mobile WiFi internet access as the marina WiFi was a)crap and b)expensive and apart from that there were a couple of weeks when frankly there wasn’t anything to report other than me moaning about the howling winds and torrential rain. Jon K’s gentle hint was very timely in reminding me that I was well overdue writing an update (Thanks Jon!)

I’m pleased to say that there’s been a bit of a change this past week though and although we’ve been down below freezing every night the days have been sunny, calm and surprisingly warm for the time of year. This pleasant weather has lifted my mood and allowed me to crack on with lots of jobs including the wind vane build.

I’ve pretty much finished making all the metal bits and as the picture below shows it’s now quite a collection.

At the bottom of the picture you can also see the vane counterweights, a small one for the bottom pivot and a larger one with a carbon fibre rod for the vane itself.

Today I’ve been up to the timber merchants and came back with some nice American Oak which I’ve cut up into the necessary sizes. The larger piece at the bottom is for the pendulum. Because the stern tube on Gleda is a full 1 metre above the water the pendulum will be 2 metres long which is the maximum the design allows for.

I’ve also fabricated the stern mount out of teak and temporarily fitted it to the stern tube. This was obviously a make it up as you go along job but I think I’ve come up with something that’s plenty strong enough and pretty neat. The design of this Hebridean vane is such that the whole thing pivots on the stainless steel rod you can see protruding from the mount. This rod sits in a stainless socket that rotates within the mount, the two nuts you can see can be tightened until there’s enough friction to keep the pendulum in the water whilst underway. This means that should the submerged pendulum strike anything in the water it can be knocked up out of harms way without damaging anything.

Next job is assembly and shaping the pendulum after which I can slot it all onto the mount so that I can try and figure out how to get it connected to the tiller bar. That’s going to be a challenge.

I’ll do my best to update more regularly from now on.