Rig and acessories

Manta had originally no sails at all, so we had to design the whole rig just by heart. There was only one traditional rule of thumb: "everything must fit into the boat". So, the maximum length of the spars was approximately 15-16 feet (4,5-4,8 m). "To fit into the boat" had another meaning: everything should look traditional.

I carved the pulleys from oak and the loops that hold the sail to the masts were bent from finnish juniper.

 The blocks are made from 12 mm (1/2") oak plank and all the metal parts are brass. The sheet rope is the only part wheere we didn't use hemp. For easier handling we used a hemp imitation called Hempex.

I built a bench for the mast. It's just a 50 mm (2") plank attached to the boat with two natural pine crooks. At the bench is also two belaying pins for the jib falls. You can also see lowest of the mast hoops, which are used to attach the sail into the mast.

The bowspirit is removable. It can be folded into a small package for storing under the front seat. You can see the pin, which holds the bowspirit to the boat: the pin goes through a link which is normally used for the jib. As the bowsprit is only a toy which allowed us to play with both jibs at the same time it had to be designed with minimal modifications to the boat. Besides the link for the jib there is absolutely no other modifications to the boat.

Among other things I built a small 1:20 model of Manta. The planking is made from 1 mm (1/25") "planks", and the whole boat is assembled with 5 mm (1/5") copper nails, which were cut to needed length and riveted.

Next: Sailing with Manta

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