Clevis Pin and Cotter Pin Orientation

When performing a rig inspection, one of the most often overlooked areas are the clevis pins and cotter pins. While some people may think of these as regular metal connectors, they are actually much more than that!

Clevis pins are metal cylinders that are made of stainless steel and fit into a hole that is a specific diameter in relation to the pin. The pin and hole are such a close fit that the sheer forces on the pin are evenly distributed and the whole assembly is incredibly strong. If you placed a smaller clevis pin in the hole, the pin would deform and break at a relatively low load, simply because the pin was being point loaded by the sides of the over sized hole.

Clevis pins have a head on one end and a hole on the other end for the cotter pin to retain the whole assembly in place. When a clevis pin is installed, it should always be installed so that the head of the pin is higher than the retaining side. 

Secondly, the cotter pin should always be oriented so that the head faces up and the legs face down. The legs should be splayed around 10 to 15 degrees to ensure the pin will not fall out while trying to avoid stressing the metal legs. When the legs are over-bent, they can snap off, making it easier for the pin to fall out.

The reasons for the clevis and cotter pin orientation may seem nit-picky, but they make perfect sense when you factor gravity into the situation. Orienting the clevis pin head up, and the cotter pin head up provides many levels of safety to prevent the stay from coming disconnected.

1. If the leg on the cotter pin breaks, it will be held in place due to gravity until it is found during an inspection and replaced.
2. If the clevis pin rotates and the cotter pin is now upside-down; and a cotter pin leg breaks off and the cotter pin falls out or the cotter pin legs are not open enough and the cotter pin slips out: the clevis pin will still be held in place by gravity.

If the clevis pin were placed with the head down, it could easily fall out if the cotter pin were to fail. Orienting the pins with their heads up simply adds more levels of safety to the system, making the connections more forgiving in the event of a failure.

In lieu of cotter pins, ring pins can be placed to secure a clevis pin in areas where there is enough space or where the risk of fouling the cotter pin legs is high. Check stays and running back stays. are typically connected with a ring pin to avoid snagging the headsail if it rubs over the side of the mast. Lowers typically use cotter pins because it is nearly impossible to fit a ring pin between the two stays. Orienting the clevis pins so the cotter pins face each other protects the legs from snagging and fouling any lines or sails. This keeps them safely tucked out of the way, yet easy to service and inspect.

Next time you look over your rigging, be sure to take a close look at the clevis and cotter pins!

Installing the Trusses

The bottom portion of the tiny house has now been sheathed in 1/2 inch plywood and it is time to install the trusses! The sides of the trusses have not been cut, making the rafters a full 8 feet long. This may seem extreme, but with our limited crew, the long rafters helped get the truss on top of the wall frame.

The truss raised and one edge of the rafter was set on top of the wall frame. I guided the edge of the rafter along the edge of the wall frame as my dad walked the truss towards the structure. This effectively raised the truss onto the wall using its framing as a ramp system. Once the truss was on the wall frame, it was securely screwed into place.

The truss replaces the long board that was originally used to square the wall frames. Now that the plywood sheathing is in place, they are no longer needed. 

The trusses are raised, but we were concerned that they may fall over since they are only screwed on at their base. To fully secure them, we set stays inside the structure, nailed to the vertical sections of the trusses and set against cleats nailed to the subfloor. The stays were then connected via a horizontal member which tied the whole structure together and prevented any motion fore/aft of the walls, frames, or trusses.

Our next step is to raise the main beam of the house, the equivalent of a keel on a boat. It is equally as massive as a boats keel, weighing 130 pounds, spanning 18 feet, and needs to be set in a small channel 13 feet in the air. We have our work cut out for us!

Reef Clew Line, a closer look

An alternate method to rig the reef clew line discusses leading the reef clew line over the leech of the sail and back onto the same side. This will ensure that the sail is pushed out like a window blind during reefing rather than getting bunched up under the clew line.

You can see how the clew line is led through the sail and up to the clew reef cringle, back over the leech and through the reef block on the boom. This will ensure that the sail is kicked to port as the sail is reefed and the vertical sections of reef line will shield the sail cloth from getting pinched in the reefing system.

The downside to protecting the sail in this manner is the leech will suffer from chafe as the clew line will constantly rub this area. This is easily maintained with a chafe patch (a sacrificial piece of sailcloth placed in an area of wear that can easily be replaced while protecting the underlying sail).

Fixed vs Folding

The salon table is an important piece of furniture in a sailboat, and they come in many different styles to meet the varied needs of different sailors and liveaboards.

In their simplest form, tables are a horizontal surface which provides space to support objects. In a boat, horizontal surfaces are in short supply, so the salon table becomes the main table for everything that goes on in the boat. Since this table is so important, bigger may seem better! Sailboat interiors have limited space, the larger the table the less residual space you will have for the remainder of the interior accommodations. Since interior space is limited, the struggle between size and usability has been churning on.

Small tables can provide space for one person to eat a small meal, and take up almost no space. This leaves the rest of the interior unobstructed! This may seem great until you have someone visit for dinner and you have to take turns on who gets to use the table.

Mid-sized tables offer more space for eating and working and only take up a bit more space. They offer enough space for two people to eat on the same table at the same time, or space for a small chart book. 

Large tables offer space for many people to sit at and eat at the same time and space for projects, all on the same table. These tables are also large enough to set out full size charts. This may seem great, but these tables also take up a lot of space! 

Since we all want the biggest table possible, we first need to evaluate what will fit in the boat. If you have a narrow boat, maybe a midsized table is all that will fit. If you have more beam and length in your salon, then a larger table might still fit. The big question with tables is: "What do you do with them when you are not using the table?" 

Space is a premium on a boat, and if you have a lot of space, why would you want to occupy all of that space with a table? Island Packet offers a large table that folds up on the wall in the salon. When you need the table, you can lower it down; when you are finished with the table, you can fold it up onto the bulkhead to open up the very spacious salon!

Source: http://ipy.com/wp-content/themes/ipy/yacht-gallery/360/4.jpg

Source: http://ipy.com/wp-content/themes/ipy/site-images/360-main.jpg

These tables offer plenty of space when they are lowered for projects and entertaining. When the tables are stowed and out of the way, the salon is opened up and the full beam of the boat is available for whatever you want!

The downside to these tables is they need to be completely cleared to be put away. If you have a long standing project, it can't live on the table when you go to stow the table. 

The other downside with these tables is they will always maintain themselves parallel to the floor. This means that as the boat heels over, the table will lean with it and everything sitting on the table will slide towards the low side. Table fiddle blocks will help keep plates from sliding off the side, but you will still have to deal with everything settling on one side of the table. 

A fixed mounted table can be gimbaled, allowing it to swing with the boats motion to keep the table top flat and level with the water. This is very useful on long tacks when you want a flat surface to eat on. Our table has a bolt that locks it in place (making it not gimbaled) which we keep installed while in port.

The alternative to a stowable table is a fixed table. Fixed tables will permanently occupy a section of the salon and can not be removed to free up space in the salon. This is a sacrifice, as the salon is a highly used area on the boat. 

The advantage that a fixed table has over a folding table is the fixed table can hold a lot of storage! The entire table base can be serve as a large storage area. On Wisdom, we keep all our bed linens and games in the table.

When deciding which table you want to have, you need to evaluate how you will be using the space in the salon. If you do a lot of projects, a fixed table is very handy. If you do yoga, a folding table is very handy.

If you already have a table in your boat, you know that you can learn to live with whatever type of table you have. Maddie has expressed interest in removing the fixed table and replacing it with a folding table on the bulkhead. After showing her how much storage we would loose and how little space we would gain, we quickly discovered that she could do her yoga in the area between the galley and the salon (a much easier alternative). 

Squaring the Walls

Now that the walls have been erected, it is time to square everything up. The wall frames contain notches at their corners where support boards will be placed to hold the tops of the walls steady as we build. By setting the upper width equal to the lower width, the wall becomes a rhombus, and slight adjustment will convert it into a square.

These support boards can be seen hanging out beyond the wall frame. They are nailed into place but need to be removed as construction progresses. Nailed boards can be reluctant to release, so the ends hang beyond the frames so we can bang them upwards to remove them at the appropriate time.

Now that the frames are all tied together, it is time to square the structure. The lateral slant was addressed first, then the fore/aft slant was taken care of later. To set the lateral slant, my mom stood at the corner of the structure with a square and measured as my dad and I pushed on the wooden stays to align the walls. The principle is simple, the stays inhibit the walls from falling towards them, and since they are all tied together, the structure is stable. If we needed to go in one direction, we would lift the stays out of the grass on the side we needed to come towards and push on the opposite side. This would pull the frame over and straighten the whole assembly. We oriented the short side first, then the taller side.

To set the fore/aft slant, I tied a bowline to the top of the front wall and led the line to a strong attachment point in the bed of the truck. I tied a bight in the line and formed a truckers hitch which gave me a purchase system to pull the assembly forward in a controlled manner. Once it was square, I tied off the truckers hitch and verified that the structure appears straight in respect to the trailer.

Once both axis were rectified and squared, we began sheathing the structure in 1/2 plywood. This locked the structure into place and prevents any wracking of the frames. As the plywood panels were installed, we began taking down the wooden stays.  

Our next step will be to fully secure the plywood sheathing to all the studs.