My 33-year-old Potter 14 is beat-up enough that I am not reluctant to drill
holes in her to try out a modification. I've done so much experimenting,
some of it successful, that I am changing my sail number to "X234." Here
are some of them, many of interest only to those with gunter rigs:
1. Lazy Jack: Added a single loop of line as a lazy jack to support gunter,
boom, and sail when yard is lowered. It runs from masthead, down under
boom, back up to block at masthead, down mast to fairlead at mast base, and
back to cleat on cabintop.
2. Endless Genoa Sheet. Because of the swept back cabin sides on my first
generation Potter, I couldn't see a good way to cleat the genoa sheets, so
I designed an endless sheet. The sheet goes from the clew, through a
stand-up block on the track on the rail, to a turning block on the quarter,
across to a similar turning block on the opposite quarter, and back forward
through the other stand-up block to the jib clew. Just forward of each
turning block is a cleat that allows securing the sheet from the high
(windward) side of the boat.
3. Rudder Push-Pull Rod. A simple rod connected to the trailing edge of the
rudder blade serves to push the rudder blade down or to pull it up and
serves as a flag to alert me if the rudder comes up on its own. It has a 74
Mazda gearshift knob on top. The 1/2 inch aluminum tubing I used for years
recently broke, and I replaced it with a smaller diameter aluminum rod,
which is working well.
4. Gunter Gooseneck. The foot of the original gunter yard on the early
Potters had plywood jaws that straddled the mast, a traditional method for
gunter rigs. It was unsatisfactory because the yard could separate from the
mast when being raised or lowered, allowing the yard to fly free, supported
only by the halyard. Also the jaws would sometimes get jammed sideways on
the mast. I removed the jaws and installed a gooseneck on the yard and a
track on the mast, providing a secure connection of yard to mast, and the
gooseneck slides up and down in the track as required. The yard now pivots
with the sail, improving aerodynamics, and the setup is smooth, strong, and
troublefree--a vast improvement.
5. Gunter Reefing. There was no provision for reefing my gunter rig; the
rigging/sailing instructions just said to lower the jib to reduce sail.
Since there was 2 ft of sail between the foot of the gunter yard and the
boom, I added a pair of opposing hooks to the yard, 2 ft above the point
where the halyard attaches to the yard. I added jiffy reefing grommets to
the original sail, 2 ft above the foot. Now I can lower the yard, reroute
the halyard under the hooks, and rehoist the yard, which is now suspended 2
ft lower and again snugged against the mast. This allowed me to jiffy reef
the bottom 2 ft of sail and also reduced weight aloft, greatly increasing
my comfort factor when the wind reached 15-20 kn.
6. Mk II Sail on Gunter Rig. The small sail area of my original gunter rig
main made it impossible for me to keep up with the other, newer local P15s
when we sailed together (unless the wind was strong enough to overpower the
larger sails), so I acquired a used Mk II-type sail and mounted it on the
gunter yard and boom. The sail sets well and provides the increased
performance in lighter winds that I wanted. There are a couple of drawbacks
though that I've not yet solved satisfactorily. (1) The long batten sticks
out at a 90-degree angle when I lower the yard, making it impossible to
furl without removing the batten, so I then have a cockpit full of sail,
hanging from the spars like a curtain, and I have to stand up to see where
I'm going. (2) Because of the increased sail area aloft, the reefpoints on
the Mk II sail are 3 ft above the foot. With only 2 ft between the base of
the yard and the boom, my reefing method (5 above) does not work well with
this sail.
7. Cabintop Stepped Mast. The original wooden gunter rig mast stepped
through a hole in the cabintop into a slot on the cabin sole. A molded
rubber seal fits closely around the mast at the cabintop to prevent spray
or rain from leaking in there. All three stays have to be connected and
disconnected to rig and derig at the ramp, which adds considerably to the
rigging/derigging time. The rubber seal deteriorates with age and the seals
are no longer available. To solve these problems required more than usual
courage on my part since I had to take saw in hand and saw the mast off
level with the inside edge of the cabintop. The stub was stepped inside and
secured to the cabintop with angles, after I reinforced the cabintop with a
plywood doubler. The stub was now the compression post, and the mast, now
shorter, lighter, and easier to handle is stepped in a recess on the
cabintop. Lever-type stay adjusters on the side stays allow me to ease the
tension enough to remove the mast from its recess and lower it to the
cabintop for travel, leaving all three stays attached to the boat.
8. Lateen Rig. The mod in 7 above works well, but rigging/derigging still
took longer than I liked because, with the mast on top, I now had to secure
the mast to the cabintop and bowrail and wrap up all the dangling lines and
stays to keep them from trailing on the street. Larry Brown ("Frugal
Yachting") and our own Lars Mulford were extolling the virtues of their
lateen-rigged Potters, so I holesawed a hole in the cabintop at the forward
edge and installed an aluminum tube sized to serve as a socket for a
Sunfish type 10 ft mast. I secured the tube strongly to the cabin sole and
the cabintop, then installed a Sunfish mast, sail, and spars. That has been
working successfully for a couple of years now, and I've only recently
begun tinkering with the gunter rig again. With the lateen rig, Manatee was
the third Potter to finish in the Cruiser Challenge. She is faster off the
wind and only slightly slower upwind.
9. Electric Propulsion. The Seagull Forty Plus that came with my boat has
been generally reliable and required negligible maintenance, but with no
neutral and no reverse, it was sometimes too exciting when motoring in
close quarters. Docking required shutting the engine off and estimating the
coast into the dock. The motor was also very loud, not good for my already
jet-engine-damaged ears. I also disliked having to mix oil with the gas and
having to transport an always oily outboard. I decided to experiment
seriously with electric power, investing in a 70 lbf thrust saltwater
MinnKota that required 24 volts, powered by two deep cycle batteries
weighing 45 lb each, providing ballast alongside the centerboard trunk. I
haven't used the Seagull for a year and a half, and I have yet to run the
batteries low enough to noticeably slow the MinnKota. I made a terminal
board that is mounted behind a clear glass port in the cockpit seat, where
I connect the motor's cables to the cabling that goes to the batteries, a
very neat, low resistance installation if I do say so myself. While I was
at it I added a switch box behind another glass port to switch the running
lights, connected to one of the batteries. I have yet to install a digital
voltmeter to monitor battery levels. The industrial quality DVM I bought on
E-bay requires 110 V, so I also bought a small inverter to provide the high
voltage for the meter.
10. Batwing Mod for Mk II Sail. This is a work in process. It occurred to
me that I could solve the problem of the long batten on the Mk II sail by
removing it and installing an even longer (10 ft!) batten that would run
from the base of the gunter yard up to the corner of the Mk II sail,
previously supported by the original batten. This is technically a batwing
gunter sail I believe, something like the batwing sails used on canoes,
except they usually have two or three battens radiating from the base of
the gunter yard. Yesterday I bought a 1/2 in x 3/4 in x 10 ft stick and
connected it to test the concept. It worked okay in the driveway. The stick
supports the corner as well as the original batten, and the sail now folds
neatly when the gunter yard is lowered. I don't know how well this will
work on the water however, and a proper installation with this sail would
require adding a 10 ft long batten pocket and acquiring a 10 ft fiberglass
batten. The long diagonal batten may also be too disruptive of the sail
camber. A better solution (probably expensive) might be a redesigned sail
with the same area as the Mk II sail, but using a shorter, more horizontal
batten, about boom length, lower on the sail. The lower section would be
approximately rectangular, and the upper section (above the batten) would
be triangular.
11. Built-In-Bungee Main Furling. A bungee cord stretched along the boom on
both my gunter and lateen rigs simplifies furling. The cord is simply
stretched across the bundle of spars and sail and hooked on the opposite
side of the boom in two places.
Sorry this is so lengthy, but then it's a very old boat, and I've been
messing about with it for 30 years. It's not a complete list.
Random ideas for future radical mods to Manatee:
1. Build a higher cabin deck to clear the protruding batteries and at the
same time make the sleeping area wider.
2. Remove the centerboard trunk and install leeboards to make the cabin
much more roomy and accessible.
3. Remove the arm from the centerboard, seal the top of the trunk, and add
a cable and tackle from the cockpit to raise the board from the trailing
edge. One of the UK Potters used this method.
Harry Gordon
P14 X234, Manatee
Mountain View, CA
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