When the Spirit Says Stop

Back in college (uni?) we used to branch out on Sundays, looking for transcendence, or maybe we were just religious voyeurs. One Sunday found us at a Baptist church where we were the only white people in the congregation. The preacher said "I'm a-gonna preach until the Spirit says Stop". Apparently the Spirit was otherwise occupied, because the guy preached for two hours straight. Christ that was a long sermon.

On November 1, when Mothing killed what was left of my L4-L5 disk (admittedly not much), things were going alarmingly well before the crash tack that ended in grief. But the boat flies so high it runs out of rudder, even upwind. So I made a mental note to fix that.

Johnny Z's Eppler hydrofoil tool was only about 50 inches long, which should be fine, but it isn't for a rudder, since the lower end of the gantry is well above the waterline. I went ahead and lengthened the foil. Then I flipped the boat, shot the laser level at the hull waterline, blocked the racks until it was level fore and aft, then mounted the mainfoil and jury rigged the new rudder in a plausible position. Turns out I added about 3.5 inches too much strut, assuming one wants the rudder and mainfoil to fly at the same depth. But I wanted more bow down anyway when flying, and the lifting foil is mounted rather aggressively positive, so I think it will fly up above the mainfoil even if the strut is a bit longer. I did a little math and figured I could scrub a couple of degrees on the bottle screw without looking too weird. Not enough.

I don't mind looking a bit like a truffle hunting pig when I hydrofoil, but an extra 4" of height at the gantry lowers my bow 3" and sailing with the bow seven inches lower than the gantry seemed extreme. So I cut some vertical off the rudder again. It is now 12:30am and the heat gun is blowing on the gudgeon reinforcements; I was tempted to try the whole setup with plexus only but that seemed foolhardy. So a little midnight madness, and some time for blogging while I play fire marshal. I twittered it up. Looks a bit long, frankly.

Tomorrow is the acid test. Zack should be there with the Mach2, Nat and Bobby on CCZs, me on the Prowla, Richard on a Bladerider and a newbie on Zack's old BR for six, which is quite a fleet for this neck of the woods.