Anti Bruise Technology

After a particularly poor showing at the Draycote blast, Team Trim have decided to finally get around to a job that has been needed since we bought Ooops. Namely to remove the now obsolete castle, the knee eating ridges in the floor and to add kick bars and pro-grip to the interior. The following describes the progress:

1. Decide not to sail again until boat does not destroy knees – 25th March 2007
2. Buy a garage – 28th March
3. Buy pro grip – 29th March
4. Make garage fit boat – 31st March
5. Remove interior – 2nd April
6. Reinforce back of centreboard mound - 7th April
7. Apply pro-grip - 8th April
8. Touch up interior paint - 9th April
9. Go Sailing - 14th April

Additional items left:

1. Make spinni single line - 14th April
2. Reinforcement of wear points wih Polymorph
3. Add kite sock

This is a vital step. The real thing driving this project is the memory of Hayley struggling to get up the stairs to the bar at Draycote. Given that there was a warm shower, a cup of tea and a beer waiting at the top Mrs Trim would normally have been up the stairs before I could blink; I ended up offering to carry her¹⁾.

Others who sailed the boat that weekend (Noicey and Stu) also suffered knee bruises and claimed to have no grip.

Notes: (1) Angled grip patches on deck provide no grip and destroy knees unlucky enough to hit them (2) Castle is no-longer of use and gets in the way. It also hurts when you hit it on the way down the capsized boat.

We live in a two bedroom second floor flat at the North end of Brick lane. We are lucky to have a gated parking space, but the resident’s committee complained to the landlord when we parked Maud (a landrover) with Ooops on the roof.

A more subtle approach is needed, so we bought the Garage – an LDV Convoy.

Ordered sheets of 2mm lunasoft SL ²⁾ (used for innersoles) and a “bund” of 25mm thick stuff³⁾ for “kick bars” from www.algeos.com. I’ll have some of the latter spare after this so feel free to get in touch.

Total package weighed 4.5kg on delivery, so might have to re-think how much I was planning to use.

One of the front seats needed to go to allow the bow to protrude into the passenger area. As I needed the drivers seat and the passenger seat was a twin a small internal modifaction was required. This was subtly effected using a grinder and a Stanley knife. Some duck-tape was then used to make the remaining seat look presentable. I’ll buy some seat covers next weekend incase my handiwork offends any traffic police.

Luckily the Garage came with a 3kW inverter that is driven directly off the engine. So I parked up away form the flat and applied the grinder to the inside of Ooops! Most of the rear patches were rotten on top and the castle almost finished off my grinder blade. I then got busy with the band sander and left a smooth-ish interior.

NOTE: Always use gloves and a face mask. Grinder Vs Boat results in lots of dust. In addition try not to park near to any clean looking cars as the dust from your handiwork will travel downwind.

A piece of the old castle was used to provide sway stiffness to the rear of the remaining centre board case tunnel. This will also provide the anchorage for the bow-sprit retrievalelastic and tack line. The plate was cut at an angle to allow a resin equivelent of a “full penetration butt weld”. Two patches of bi clost were then added add shear capacity/stiffness. The lower edge also has a fillet of resin behind it to increase bond with deck.

Newspaper templates were used to cut the pro grip. This was then attached using Evostick Impact adhesive. This is a one-hit solution and takes real care to get the first contact correct. Luckily the progrip is failry strecty and forgiving to apply.

Hayley decided that after all this work it would be nice to make it look the part….

Took Oops! out in light breeze on Saturday 14th. Normally this would be a painfull experience for both knees. However the new interior works a treat and was almost comfortable. Spinni works better and the single line deployment is an absolute must. For anyone who still has two lines I can only advise that it will take about five minutes of thought to convert your system!