Broken Gaff jaw

[Paul H (admin)]

Despite doubling up the 9 mm plywood jaws to 18 mm thick on my ex-Heron gaff, the parral rope ripped out in the Itchenor channel:



I was dropping sail to reef in F5 gusts, the jaws stuck somewhere and snap! I anchored and quickly grabbed my DeWalt drill to make a temporary 8 mm hole, which lasted for the remainder of the DCA Cobnor fortnight.
The jaw may have caught on the goose-neck track, I don't know.

To fix the gaff I have sliced off the (glued) jaws and spacers with my band-saw and sanded the Douglas Fir smooth - it's around 47 mm thick.

I have plenty of red mahogany to reuse, including a Mirror transom section 21 mm thick which seems suitable for the jaws.

Paul Fisher's Lynx 14 spar plan specified large curvy jaws in 18 mm ply like this:



The jaws were tight, and have been told there should be at least 12 mm clearance around the 64 mm aluminium mast. With 16mm spacers the jaw gap will be 79mm, giving 13mm clearance. I'll dry fit new jaws and see how they look.

1 Will red mahogany be suitable for jaws? the grain will run along the gaff.
2 Does Paul Fisher's gaff jaw plan look sensible?
3 Is 12mm clearance sufficient? With more clearance I could line the jaws with slippery plastic.

regards
Paul


PS: I don't have access to a stainless steel fabricator and the gaff jaws that Classic Marine sell look very overpriced in comparison with a reclaimed transom! CW uses a jam cleat for quick release of the parral rope, which I will copy.

[Chris Waite]

 "CW uses a jam cleat for quick release of the parral rope, which I will copy...."

Just a minute young fella!

No he doesn't; Chris has stainless rod gaff jaws that are attached to the gaff by a welded tab inserted into the 'C' section alloy gaff within a wooden plug and screwed through there.  He then took a length of half inch diameter grey plastic water-pipe and eased the ends over the rod forming a complete and semi-permanent loop that is held in place with Monel seizing wire inside the tube and twisted together at the tab to hold it in place.  This not only acts as a parrel, but also to mitigate chafe on the jaws themselves.

It works

I am sure that life will one day demonstrate why you should need to release your parrel line in a hurry and to that end I have light snips aboard, but the Great Sod is watching and so far has not come up with a sufficiently good reason to give him the belly laugh he craves.

Jamming the jaws on the gooseneck track, now that would be a spiffing reason for your breakage; nothing to do with pole-dancers' topping lifts mind.  So there's no good reason to have blamed and removed such a useful device.

We shall see, won't we?

We just shall

CW  

[Paul H (admin)]

I noticed a short rope around a spar on PollyWee that secured in a cleat. (not a gaff rig, but it looked inspirationally quicker to rig/unrig than messing around with tight knots)

The lowered sail did catch on the temporary and low down topping lift/lazy jack - I was there! Three issues compounded: a long gooseneck track, sail caught in the middle and a gust.

I will file the aluminium gooseneck track to smooth the edge that was catching. Jaws with more clearance will of course help significantly.

-Paul

[Chris Waite]

Ahh - That short rope!

A rope strop within a slippery nylon tube used to hold the balance lug boom to the mast and it still doesn't have a cleat.  It has a Wichard clip ( http://https://marine.wichard.com/rubrique-Safety_snap_hooks_(patented)-0202040403000000-ME.html ) hooked into a stainless eye on the boom.  Here is the same thing on a previous dinghy -



Note that the blue vertical line is the halyard and that the boom is held down by the strop being under the staghorn cleat on the mast.  To hold it up, simply slip the strop over the top of the cleat.  That was alright for 60 square feet, but Polly Wee has eighty square feet and to set it properly a downhaul was found to be necessary.  The black toggle is the fall of the topping lift which runs down the outside of the sail holding it to the mast when it is lowered.

If this goes on I may need to crawl under Tit Willow's cover

And photograph her gaff jaws

CW

 

 

[Paul H (admin)]

Chris,

Thanks for the photo, the nylon tube is a must have, but where can you get slippery nylon tube when you need it?

Searching ebay throws up flexible, hard wearing, nylon pneumatic tubing, about £3 per metre delivered:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/121288073987

It's not Nylon 66 which is the very slippery version, but certainly smoother than rope.

I must have seen the gaff cleat on another boat at Cobnor 2019. I need a form of quick release as when I tow her I often unrig the gaff and slide it into the cabin. Knots get extremely tight and time consuming to rig/unrig.

-Paul

[inwe]

Give up on ebay and try suppliers, you are more likely to find what you're looking for! For instance
" The Plastics Shop.co.uk ". I think it was here that I bought my Nylon rod.
Richard

[Chris Waite]

I agree; it's not easy, is it?

So far I have had more offers for porn than I have for piping.  Try this -

https://www.abbeyextrusions.com/products/nylon-tube

CW