Monday, June 29, 2009

The Shape of Things to Come

In the mail this morning I found a package from John Illet. No, not my new centerboard (that's probably still a couple of weeks away,) but a couple of Fastacraft centerboard well cutoffs he sent me that will match the new strut. The pieces allow me to rough fit my boat's cassette with the cutoffs so that when the new board arrives, I'll have one less thing to do. Below are a couple of pics of the well and its cassette insert. I'll hold off on gluing the cutoff into its final exact position until I have the new board in hand and can adjust its rake to 8.5 degrees.







I also noticed that the FC strut's chord at about 5 inches is significantly longer than the 4.5 inch chord of the Eppler 836 section I'm making for "Plan C." So I'll need a couple of different cassettes to accommodate each strut.



John also set me a new FC wand pivot. I was delighted to find at the bearing surface a couple of hard plastic washers with eight tiny ball bearings. How something so simple can make the pivot resistance go way down is now obvious, by had eluded me when I built my first wand pivot. I'm glad there're smarter people than me working the development side to the class.

Enjoy the Scottish band The Headboys



The Shape of Things to Come, by Boyter-Lewis-Malcom-Ross/The Headboys (1969)

Caeser's praying for rain, lightning flashes around
The prophet is screaming, his head hits the ground
You should hear the warning if you read the signs
Play with your own life but don't play with mine
There was Moses and me when the wind took the change
He hands out the menu, he moves out of range
If you knew the action, you see us so blind
Play with your own life but don't play with mine
Oh oh oh oh
The shape of things to come
You're not invited to stay, you're not intended to go
Can you tell the future? I don't think so
You should hear the warning if you read the signs
Play with your own life but don't play with mine
The shape of things to come
You're living your way, I live in mine
May be tomorrow we will collide.

2 comments:

Marcel Herrera said...

Hi Joe,
Can you put a pic up of the ball bearings for the wand mechanism? im really intrigued as this has been one of my main problems with comfortable ride height

Joe Bousquet said...

Will do (tomorrow).