Cantilever bracket for Raymarine or other tiller pilot

It has been a very long time since I posted - our trip to Nepal was covered on Facebook posts, but I do plan to put up a Nepal video slide show and will link from this blog when that is done (hopefully this year!)

In the meantime, we have downsized our sailboat from 32 foot Swamp Angel to 24 foot Lion Passant. Lion is a Farr 727 that weighs about 1/5 of Swamp Angel but sails well and has served Rani and I for a couple of trips to the cottage and one short 6 day Gulf Island cruise. I also managed to persuade my 6' plus friend Ian to spend 6 days on her cruising locally! Next week I am off to Barclay Sound on my own for 2-3 weeks and figured I would need an autopilot to help with this trip, which entails sailing down to Victoria and up the outside of Vancouver Island alongside the West Coast and Juan de Fuca trails.

Lion Passant is a Farr 727 made by North Star boats in Ontario back in the 1970s. She is racy but also has minimal camp cruising facilities

Underway flying the very manageable spinnaker. Note the custom sail cover I made out of a piece of high quality tarp.

The problem with installing tiller pilots is that they require precise positioning in 3 dimensions to work properly and you either need to mount a special bracket on the tiller to raise or lower the pin position or one on the boat to move the autopilot up and down, out or in and fore and aft, to do this. On both our Coast 34 Ladybug II and now on Lion Passant I have built cantilever mounts to move the autopilot relative to the tiller and cockpit coaming.

Raymarine ST2000 tillerpilot mounted on custom cantilever mount

For $130 you can buy a lovely aluminum bracket from Raymarine. This one cost me about $10 and is made using a 3/4" galvanized flange found in the iron pipe section of our hardware store as well as a 3/4" PVC conduit male threaded and female socket fitting, a length of PVC conduit, and a female to female coupler for reinforcement and to make things thicker to receive the brass tillerpilot socket. There is also a wooden dowel fitted inside the conduit to make the outer end stronger where it is drilled for the socket. Ideally this dowel should run end to end so as to reinforce the threaded section too, which is a weak point. I had to sand down a piece of dowel I had that was a hair too large. I used epoxy to fasten the pvc pieces but it would be better to use the appropriate PVC primer and cement. The wood backing block was cut to an angle that makes the flange approximately 90 degrees to the tiller arm. I epoxied this to the coaming using 5 minute epoxy. It should also be screwed or through bolted because the forces on this bracket can be quite large. 

The version of this on our Coast 34 lasted for 4 years and many thousands of miles of sailing and motoring. You can unscrew the bracket from the base too if you are leaving the boat in outside storage and want to save the plastic from UV degradation.

Louisbourg

On our way to Newfoundland from Nova Scotia this August, we spent a day at the historic fortress of Louisbourg. This is a national historic site located near the top end of Cape Breton. During the summer, the fortress is alive with re-enactors or 'animators' who portray what it would have been like when the French occupied this part of, what was then Isle Royale, in the first half of the 18th century. Begun in the 1960's, the fortress is the largest historical reconstruction project in North America. The animators re-create a day in the year 1744. We spent a whole day there enjoying the 18th cetury ambience and watching the firing of canons, a public sentencing, and an apprentice working in a smithy.  We even ate lunch at an 18th century tavern.Thankfully the repast was from the current period, so no maggot-ridden bread on our plates, and the ale was very tasty!

See this link for a good description of the history of Fort Louisbourg.

The first person we met was a fisherman, living in a building outside the walls of the fortress. One of the reasons for the founding of Louisbourg was to protect French commercial interests - specifically the seasonal fishery here, which supplied enormous quantities of cod to France and its empire.

The recreation ranges from dozens of buildings down to the smallest items. Many items were reproduced but other pieces (some furniture, for example) were obtained by purchase at auctions.

There is a moat and ditches around much of the fortress

Canons are fired twice a day. This soldier is setting things up for the firing

Both within and outside the fortress were kitchen gardens and larger gardens to feed the troops 

This animator was working with livestock in the gardens

Visitors explore the herb and vegetable garden at the engineer's house

The French royal fleur de lis motif is found in dozens of items throughout the fortress

The gun firing is announced by fife and drums

We met this soldier returning to his barracks. He told us that his wages were a pittance - barely enough to subsist. See this link for details on soldier's pay

Rani takes a break along the defensive walls
 

Only a small fraction of the original fortress has been recreated, but what is there is a lovely mix of architecture.

King's Bastion barracks

Detail of barrack wall. Access to original French plans allowed for a faithful recreation

I loved the weathered wood roofs, which fit so well on this windswept rocky coast

A turkey preens itself. 

Rani examines a tumbril

View from a storehouse second story

Each animator is based on an actual person who would have lived at the fortress. I believe this gentleman acted as a judge amongst his other duties

We watched these women making lace

Soldiers lead a captured felon for sentencing

Reading of the sentence - deportation to France. Crowd was shouting for stiffer penalty!
 

Events such as this sentencing were public entertainment

An apprentice in a a smithy learns his art. Apparently apprenticeship could last for decades. This boy is the son of the fortress's blacksmith and will likely set up his own forge or replace his father when he retires.

Detail from a painting of the harbour.  Can you find the fleur de lis?

There are some walks outside the fortress that run along the harbour to its entrance

Soldiers off duty

Firing the last gun

We leave after a full day to head back to our campsite on the Mira river

Sunset over the nearby Mira river