LASHING STRAKES

[Dave Vinni]

Just a thought I had the other day is that on the Tikis, certainly the 30 and 38 there are full length lashing strakes. Their first use is to assist in keeping the beam lashings in place. But to do this they do not need to run the full length of the hull.

Full length strakes are a nuisance in the sense that they interfere with the painting of the boat and add weight and building time.

As a benefit, should you go overboard they are something that you can hold onto and in a capsize somewhere to lash yourself and hopefully a life raft. They also offer stiffening to the upper panels.

I have seen in pics of some builds that the lashing strakes have been installed only at the beam lashing points and not carried full length.

What are other builders ideas on this issue?

Dave

[Budget Boater]

The Tiki 30 does not have lashing strakes along the side of the hull. The beams are lashed on the deck through chocks with webbing and a ratcheting mechanism. I really liked this system on my Tiki 30. It is too bad that it will not work on the larger Tikis.

Personally, I like the appearance of the longitudinal strake. I think it lends to the traditional look of the boat, especially when the the main piece is done with unvarnished teak. I do not like the expense nor the effort involved in creating and installing it. It is not a problem painting so long as you do not install the longitudinal before painting. The idea would be to epoxy the supports in place, then paint the hull. Once the hull is painted, install the teak strake (unfinished, of course) to the supports with a bedding compound so that it could later be removed if maintenance were required.

I agree with Nice Day that repainting could be a significant issue if the piece was "permanently" installed, along with the extra holes in the hull for the supports. I will install whatever my clients ask, but I will not install the entire strake on my own boat.

By the way: If you go overboard, the strakes would offer no assistance as the boat would be gone by the time your head was above water if you were underway. If you find yourself upside down, you have much bigger problems than whether or not you have an outside hull strake!

Shane

[Dave Vinni]

Thanks for the feed back.

When I built Dragon (T38) I didnt think twice about whether full length strakes were optional. What I mean is that you had to have a strake over the lashing block on the hull, but to continue it full length, I thought was for structural reasons, but perhaps in truth they are not. If they are not structural well then there are a couple of reasons why they should not be made full length! Cost, weight and effort being 3 of them.

I mounted the strakes after I had painted the boat but epoxied them on so they wont be coming off in a hurry I hope! The only holes are where the bolts either side of the lashing blocks have been inserted. I have realised that when it comes to repainting, they are going to be a nuisance.

I did all the finishing on my own and so my spray gun was my best friend. Hopefully I wont need to repaint for a couple of years yet. She was launched 4 years ago.

A couple of the T30's built in Durban have opted for the lashing system of the 38 and 46 and for this reason added lashing strakes. On one of the boats they were not taken full length tho and I think this is what got me thinking about it.

As for going over board, dont laugh, but I have had three MOB's from Dragon, all of them at moorings by guys who have sailed and ought to have known better. The lashing strakes gave them something to hold onto when waiting for the ramp to be lowered!!

BTW Hans I am going to be in New Zealand doing a bit of travelling next month. We arrive on the 26th of Sept and leave on the 9th of October. If you give us a phone number and an address if we are in your part of the world, we'll drop in and have a chat?

Regards,
Dave

[Björn]

Hi there,

I kept the lashing strakes on my 38 but only "holed" for the lashings aroung the beam, otherwise they are solid and a also glued a sacrifical stripr of wood onto them in case I bang aganst a jetty lock or something similar. The sacrifical strip alredy did his job quite few tomes wihout having to worry about scratches and dents in the paint work. The problem I am having is the laminate of the strakes started to crack, however this is owed to "master Wharram recommmend" so called boat builder who used not properly dried wood.

I kept the lashing strakes for the following reasons:
- stiffness
- they look beautiful, because on my boat the act as divider in the paint scheme
- they can take bang
I build them solid because it is easier to clean and repaint which otherwise would have been a pain in the neck.
It is more difficult to hold on them , however this could be solve by making the outer one a little higher and leave couple of drain holes.

Regards
Björn

[The Ethnic Catamaran Company]

I talked about this at length with Raoul Bianchetti who is building my strip-planked Tiki. He had a simple, convincing argument for the full length strake. If a lashing parted at sea, or the strake suffered damage in a section where a lashing passed through the strake, the rest of the strake would still be available to support a temporary lashing (albeit a rather loose one) until you were able to manage a repair. Given that the integrity of the whole boat depends on the lashings this belt-and-braces proposition seemed smart.

[Dave Vinni]

Thanks for the replies. TECC nice to see your reply. I visit your site to see the progress of your build and was a bit concerned that there had been no updates and wondered how you were feeling and whether you were over your illness. I hope you are and that Majid is making progress!!

Cheers,
Dave

The Ethnic Catamaran Company said:

I talked about this at length with Raoul Bianchetti who is building my strip-planked Tiki. He had a simple, convincing argument for the full length strake. If a lashing parted at sea, or the strake suffered damage in a section where a lashing passed through the strake, the rest of the strake would still be available to support a temporary lashing (albeit a rather loose one) until you were able to manage a repair. Given that the integrity of the whole boat depends on the lashings this belt-and-braces proposition seemed smart.

[The Ethnic Catamaran Company]

Yeah. All is good. I've been in Sydney for a couple of months, resting, recovering. It's all taken little longer than I'd have liked. The blog has been neglected but this will change soon as I'm returning to Thailand in 10 days to finish the build.

btw, I was going to ask, do you have sliding or lifting hatches on your main companionways? I want a simple sliding companionway hatch on my boat instead of Wharram's lifting design and I am looking for a Tiki to crib from!

[Dave Vinni]

For both the main cabins an the fore cabins I used Wharrams design of a "lift and slide" hatch, ie a hatch lid fitted to a sail track with sliders so that the hatch lifts off the coaming and slides across the deck.

I used a foam rubber gasket on the inside of the hatch and this gives a good enough seal and is water tight when I use a hose but not when I use a pressure cleaner. It is dry when it has rained and with spray and the odd wave over the top.

On the forecabin hatches I would add a wooden rail on the inboard side of the cabin below the hatch lid, running close to it so that when closed the hatch and rail would almost touch. The rail would deflect water that is squirted up on the inboard side of the hull and stop it going up the inside of the hatch with force. This is a mod that I will be adding to Dragon shortly.

Be sure that if you have sun hatches in the main cabins and that the forecabin hatches can be dogged down. You will not believe the effect of the low pressure on the lee side of the sails!! I have had my hatches sucked open with some force when beating to windward in a breeze. Those wing sails are very effective!

Cheers,
Dave

The Ethnic Catamaran Company said:

Yeah. All is good. I've been in Sydney for a couple of months, resting, recovering. It's all taken little longer than I'd have liked. The blog has been neglected but this will change soon as I'm returning to Thailand in 10 days to finish the build.

btw, I was going to ask, do you have sliding or lifting hatches on your main companionways? I want a simple sliding companionway hatch on my boat instead of Wharram's lifting design and I am looking for a Tiki to crib from!

[Tom]

Hey All,

I just have to say...I Love My Lashing Strakes!
And I'm not even in the water ;)

Sure, they took a long time to build. Taping them for painting was a pain, it took two days haha
But look, now I can tie off anything/anyone to anywhere! And swimming around in the water, if one wishes a rest, there'll she be, passing a hand with that sweet little strake of hers.

I made mine out of Zapote, which is a rather dense hardwood, as hardwoods go. It's such a strong hardwood that it can't help but add significant stiffness to the hulls. The strakes are through bolted to a light stringer which sits below the aforementioned bookshelfs. Structurally, the strakes do increase the lateral rigidity of the hulls. At the price of wieght, as noted above.

Anyway, I definately agree with Bjorn and ECC's points. Those strakes are highly functional, and if only for that functionality, very beautiful.

hehe now here's the fun part...
Since those strakes are such a pain to maintain, it's easy to use them as a perfect example of why the boat shouldn't have brightwork on deck. Given that, properly executed, they pay for themselves in overall maintenance time! haha

Cheers,
Tom

[Bertrand FERCOT]

On our Tiki30 I've made outside lashings fixations on the hull sides after to have read the report of a Tiki30 breaking one of its strap fixations. Bigger is the distance between the fixations less stress is in the lashing system and I'm more confident with this new fixations when sailing in bad weather offshore.

Concerning the Tiki46, I don't make strakes between the lashing fixation to don't have probleme of rot or difficulties to repaint the hulls latter. So I prefer to have strakes only to hold the beam's lashing and to avoid rot in the future I glassed all the faces of these wood parts.
To have a better protection along the piers , I plan to have a thick wood stringer on the outside top of each hull on the angle between the hull side and the roof side.

Bertrand