Saturday, September 24, 2011

Storage System

I've rigged a storage system on my porch with a couple wall hooks, a couple pulleys overhead, and a bit of rope.  I've managed to rig it so that there are three positions:
  1. for pure overhead storage, 
  2. hangs the hull at chest level (handy for stitching work), and 
  3. hangs the hull at knee level (handy for fillets and other work where you really need access to the interior).

The system works like this:

The rope is tied to the stem and stern post handles, then goes to the overhead pulleys.  From there, it goes to the wall hooks.  There are two loops between the pulley and the wall hook, each corresponding to one or more positions.  The inline loop, when attached to the wall hook, yields the storage position (#1).  The bowline at the end of the line yields position #2.  And if nothing's attached to the wall hook, the inline loop jams the pulley and holds the hull at position #3.

Overall, it works okay, I guess.  The "overhead" position isn't quite over my head, which means that I occasionally gouge my scalp on stitching wire if I forget to duck.  But I'm taller than everyone else in the family, so I'm only inconveniencing myself.

I can't hang it higher because I'm joining two lines together (to save money) and the join won't pass through the pulley.  So obviously, it would be better to have enough rope to hang it properly.  I might re-rig it when I purchase the line for the sheets, shrouds and forestay.

And I think it would be better to have cleats on the wall, so that the system would be infinitely variable rather than the three-position rig I ended up with. But again, cleats are expensive. So I'll tough it out with this setup for a while longer - hopefully, the stitches will be replaced by fillets soon and it won't matter so much whether I knock into it.

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