Ohana: 1978 Cal 34-III Hull No. 96
Yup, serious bimini envy, that's me. As far as I can tell, my wheel is in more or less the same position as yours. My boom definitely extends further, though. Your boom is 6-12" forward of your wheel, whereas mine is the same amount aft. Which is the change the interwebs tell me Cal made to the series-III, so not surprising. Anyway, it's the longer boom that has me worried, as I'm skeptical I can get a bimini to accommodate the boom/sail/topping-lift and still be large enough to provide meaningful shade. I hope to find someone having an original CAL-34 (1st edition) with aftermarket wheel and aft-mounted traveler, who also has had a successful bimini retrofit.
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SailingChris
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- Joined: Fri Oct 18, 2019 9:15 am
Just a note from the Great Lakes, where we are not yet in sailing season, so we get all our boat excitement vicariously. I've enjoyed reading the intelligent questions and equally informative answers in this thread. Yay for keeping these great old boats going and having fun sailing them safely. Earlier I had pleased to see that this is a renovation while sailing the boat, instead of deferring the fun until everything is perfect. Things will never be perfect but they can be good enough for now. By sailing our boats we learn what needs to be changed and improved while still getting out on the water.
Our sailing season is creeping up on us. My older boat, the lovely old 1061 Seafarer Polaris, will launch on May 13 over on the Lake Huron side, and here on Lake Michigan, the sweet Cal 20 will go in, after a vacation, in early June. I hate to leave her hanging on a mooring unattended for three weeks so will launch when I am back.
Chris Campbell
Cal 20 #1220, Martha C
Our sailing season is creeping up on us. My older boat, the lovely old 1061 Seafarer Polaris, will launch on May 13 over on the Lake Huron side, and here on Lake Michigan, the sweet Cal 20 will go in, after a vacation, in early June. I hate to leave her hanging on a mooring unattended for three weeks so will launch when I am back.
Chris Campbell
Cal 20 #1220, Martha C
Long overdue post to thank Mary Mac and all her help with my Bimini design. Mary was so kind and let me measure and copy her design. I couldn't have done it without that help. I changed a few things from her design.
Background. Cal 2-34 with wheel. I have a removable forestay for storm jib. I have a second removable forestay for staysail (both attach to same point on foredeck). That means I need running backstays in heavy weather further complicating the bimini design. The backstays can come down to big blocks on massive eyes on the transom, also used for drogue, or to tracked blocks on a short section of 1-1/4" track either side of the coaming just forward of the standard rear deck cleats. I also have to lead the sheets from an emergency trysail back through the bimini. The Schaefer furler boom overlaps the dodger and ends forward of the wheel.
Keys:
1. Punching extra holes in the solar panels along the edges with stainless grommets to allow zip tie mounts to tubing. After I did it, someone said you should just have used solid panels. Maybe. Everyone said the unsupported panels would fly off. I was worried about that. I've been out in 50+ mph including 60-70 mph gusts in that bomb cyclone we had in SF last year. The panels give and flex but dont break. So far, so good. They also got me to and back from Kauai in the SHTP.
2. Using Mantus swivel jaws for mounting the bows on the existing pushpit rail. The problem is the rails are not parallel and so when you come to mount (or remove) the dodger the bows wont raise & lower. The swivel jaws completely solve that problem. You'll know what I mean when you try it.
3. Ball and socket jaw slides from Taco. Allow easy disassembly and replacement of solar panels. I fully expect to have to replace a panel at some point. I can either remove the panels in place, by cutting zip ties. or just pop the whole panel and tube assembly out using the ball and socket joints. The ball & socket disconnect with just a twist of a locking mechanism.
4. Ball and socket joints also used for extra supports or stays to create a roll cage for offshore. I can remove the two stays that connect to the pedestal rail and separately two stays that attach to the dodger. With all stays attached the bimini is pretty solid laterally (pushing port to starboard, sideways), and you can hang on it. Without the stays there is no easy way to get rigidity of the bimini. I tried with several triangular braces (triangle more rigid than rectangle) but nothing worked as well as using the stays. The stays do reduce movement around the cockpit, but thats sort of the idea offshore. I have all my instruments on the bimini (active radar reflector, weatherstation, AIS antenna, VHF spare, GPS, Iridium) so that another reason to keep it as rigid as possible.
5. I just bought the Sailrite long bows (three but only ended up using two), not the kit. I just bought other tubing locally, shipping is hard otherwise. I tried bending my own. Forget that.
6. Hard parts were (a) Figuring out what to do about backstay. Just keep measuring and I finally created a design that is pretty impervious to backstay position and allows me to look up the mast at the wheel. It does not provide perfect rain protection and I dont think any bimini would anyway. (b) Getting it all together on land maybe 20 times through the assemble/measure/disassemble/reassemble loop and planning on how to get it on the boat single-handed. It was just a lot of planning and practice (c) Getting all the angles in 3D right. You can only do so much with pen and paper. Lots of string and cardboard.
Thanks Mary !!!
Background. Cal 2-34 with wheel. I have a removable forestay for storm jib. I have a second removable forestay for staysail (both attach to same point on foredeck). That means I need running backstays in heavy weather further complicating the bimini design. The backstays can come down to big blocks on massive eyes on the transom, also used for drogue, or to tracked blocks on a short section of 1-1/4" track either side of the coaming just forward of the standard rear deck cleats. I also have to lead the sheets from an emergency trysail back through the bimini. The Schaefer furler boom overlaps the dodger and ends forward of the wheel.
Keys:
1. Punching extra holes in the solar panels along the edges with stainless grommets to allow zip tie mounts to tubing. After I did it, someone said you should just have used solid panels. Maybe. Everyone said the unsupported panels would fly off. I was worried about that. I've been out in 50+ mph including 60-70 mph gusts in that bomb cyclone we had in SF last year. The panels give and flex but dont break. So far, so good. They also got me to and back from Kauai in the SHTP.
2. Using Mantus swivel jaws for mounting the bows on the existing pushpit rail. The problem is the rails are not parallel and so when you come to mount (or remove) the dodger the bows wont raise & lower. The swivel jaws completely solve that problem. You'll know what I mean when you try it.
3. Ball and socket jaw slides from Taco. Allow easy disassembly and replacement of solar panels. I fully expect to have to replace a panel at some point. I can either remove the panels in place, by cutting zip ties. or just pop the whole panel and tube assembly out using the ball and socket joints. The ball & socket disconnect with just a twist of a locking mechanism.
4. Ball and socket joints also used for extra supports or stays to create a roll cage for offshore. I can remove the two stays that connect to the pedestal rail and separately two stays that attach to the dodger. With all stays attached the bimini is pretty solid laterally (pushing port to starboard, sideways), and you can hang on it. Without the stays there is no easy way to get rigidity of the bimini. I tried with several triangular braces (triangle more rigid than rectangle) but nothing worked as well as using the stays. The stays do reduce movement around the cockpit, but thats sort of the idea offshore. I have all my instruments on the bimini (active radar reflector, weatherstation, AIS antenna, VHF spare, GPS, Iridium) so that another reason to keep it as rigid as possible.
5. I just bought the Sailrite long bows (three but only ended up using two), not the kit. I just bought other tubing locally, shipping is hard otherwise. I tried bending my own. Forget that.
6. Hard parts were (a) Figuring out what to do about backstay. Just keep measuring and I finally created a design that is pretty impervious to backstay position and allows me to look up the mast at the wheel. It does not provide perfect rain protection and I dont think any bimini would anyway. (b) Getting it all together on land maybe 20 times through the assemble/measure/disassemble/reassemble loop and planning on how to get it on the boat single-handed. It was just a lot of planning and practice (c) Getting all the angles in 3D right. You can only do so much with pen and paper. Lots of string and cardboard.
Thanks Mary !!!
- Bimini 1 IMG_0626.jpg (613.71 KiB) Viewed 117 times
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