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Here's a quick update on my S-Boat project.  The boat was brought down to the New York City area from Newport RI this past fall.  I've been able to spent my weekends installing into the hull 66 new steamed ribs, finished reframing two weeks ago.  Now I'm making all new floor timbers, over half of the 34 completed so far.  In the next few months I hope to have the entire backbone of the hull completed and keel refastened.  Ben  

I was driving in the Bronx today and spotted this boat being hauled on a trailer.  When I got closer I thought it looked like a Commander but something seemed wrong, not enough draft on the hull.  Was lucky to be able to snap a picture as I drove past.  It was Commander with her keel cut off for the scrap, the rest being taken to the dump.  Farewell Cuba Libre!

Hi everyone!  Thought I'd share this blog posting by an artist named Marie Lorenz in which the subject is Ariel 109 Noesis, her new skipper Rich and his girlfriend Pali.  Hopefully Rich will start posting on this thread soon!

http://www.tideandcurrenttaxi.org/?cat=32

Ben

Thanks, you guys.  Everything's OK, I just have too much on my plate with the S-Boat project, racing on sailboats and paying bills to keep giving the Ariel the attention it deserves.  I'm sure I'll regret selling it in the future, it is the prefect sailboat!

The TP-10 is a very simple auto-tiller, the most basic of Simrad's line.  There's no wind transducer.  You just steer your course, press a button and the the auto-tiller will try and keep a heading in the current direction.  Shifty winds, wakes and waves can play havoc with the auto-tiller's function.  The TP-10 works best in moderate weather condition where the chance of getting the rudder over-powered is minimal. Sailing in the right conditions it's pretty nice to have aboard, frustrating in very light and heavy winds.  

I regret to inform the forum that I have sold Ariel 109.  I will be sending the new owner's information to Bill soon.  Hopefully he will continue Ariel 109's thread on this forum.  I will truly miss reading and writing posts here.  I learned so much about sailing from the good information and advice posted here, thanks to all!  

Ben

Sailing with the Simrad TP-10 auto-tiller, second hand,  taken from the wooden Rhodes 24, payment for looking after her, ha!  Nice to be able to leave the tiller and adjust leach lines and jib-track cars while sailing by myself.  A bit of a toy, with limitations, but worth having I believe.      

Using Delrin plastic for the die-set on a tubing roller would great for curving aluminum track.  The Delrin won't mess up the anodisation on the track.  You can buy the Harbor Freight tubing roller at their stores for around $60 without a base and clamp it on a workbench.

Harbor Freight sells this tubing roller that with the purchase of an addition die-set will curve rectangular stock on end, like a jib track.  This machine is well made and a good value for a backyard workshop.  

http://www.harborfreight.com/tubing-roller-99736.html

http://www.harborfreight.com/3-piece-die-set-66598.html

Yes, the photographer Ben Zucker climbed my friend Hans' Coronado 41's mast to take that shot.

Ariel 109 made it into the New Yorker's online edition!  The pictures are from a trip from City Island down to New York Harbor made about two weeks ago.  The photographer Ben Zucker did a beautiful job!  It was my first time through Hells Gate and into New York Harbor.  Nice to be out sailing again.

http://www.newyorker.com/sandbox/portfolio/sailing-new-york-city/

Hey Carl, found an original winch handle that fits those beautiful  Merriman Brothers bottom handle winches.  Can't be many of these left  around.  Don't know if I should use it on the boat or put it in a safe  deposit vault.

Ben

You can buy copper rod at McMaster-Carr.  It's easy and fun to hammer and peen rivets.

http://www.mcmaster.com/#copper-rods/=r0en3w

Hard to tell from your pictures but I believe you must be fresh water cooled.  You have a heat exchanger hanging from under your cockpit bench.  An electric coolant pump is also hanging there.  Your engine looks to be in very nice condition, for it's age.  The mighty Atomic 4, I know of a 50' sailboat that has your same motor, moves along quite well with it.

Here's the "re-sculpted" tiller back in the Ariel.  The bolt I added on the end to use as an adjustable stop against the rudder stock works nice.  Still need to drill a hole in the starboard bench for the auto-tiller mount and epoxy in it's bronze bushing, some warmer day.

Another book from the Strand, from a chapter called "The Roaring Barbary Coast".  A really fun and informative book that you wish wouldn't end.  

""Trust no one--they'll have you hocused aboard an outward-bound hellship before you know you're born", was the tenor of his warning.  "There's only one place in 'Frisco worse than the Coast, and that's Chinatown: there they'll murder you for two bits.""

This may explain some of the edginess of the correspondence between denizens of that area on this board, ha!  



It's one thing to cut and glue in a board, another to fair it up with the lines of the boom.  My fingers are raw from all the sanding!  I was able to carve the boom end to fit this bronze cap that is part of the out-haul on Tern.  It's unique to her, I believe, something to do with her being the final S-Boat, built a few months before Pearl Harbor.