Paul356

Swimboy's notes on the roster page said he capsized off Sarasota c. 7 p.m. Saturday evening, was able to get righted, then returned to DeSoto. And his spot track shows he made it back to the DeSoto ramp. That's a long haul back north in the dark. Winds apparently were relatively light at the time of his turnaround. I bet he has a tale to tell. Having capsized this summer, I'd be interested in hearing from Swimboy. I still owe you all my tale.

Pretty neat. Wear the hat with pride.

Off of Naples now, heading for check point 2, sailing at 6+ knots. 3d in class, maybe? Running neck and neck with 2d, with the speedster "spawn" pretty far out in front.

It seems like there are two schools of thought here: Back the end of the trailer into the water and roll the boat off, or back most of the trailer into the water and float the boat off. I guess I have defaulted into the second, but maybe I want to be into the first. I'll have to give it some thought. I see that others have taken the roll-on/roll-off approach. Pete, your walking plank seems like a good idea for either approach; thanks for the idea. I'd missed it before.

Well, "butt joint" has always stopped me for a second, so...

Plus mast tubes are a lot of fun to make.

Enjoyed the video. I always learn something from watching how you work. Thanks.

Based on earlier comments, I had made both sprits a little longer for my 17, and I am glad to have the extra length for flattening. In fact, I then had to in effect "shorten" the mizzen sprit a bit by adding a little line tag to the clew of the mizzen so the sprit would set further back and not interfere with the main. That is, it was so long it was poking too far in front. Make any sense? But it was much easier to do that than make it too short and have to scarf in something later. Ask me how much longer? Can't remember. If someone needs to know, say the word and I'll run out to the garage and measure.

Always fun to watch work by folks who know what they're doing.

I used the Chick method. That may be because I wasn't smart enough to know about Quick Fair at the time. Occasionally I had to go back and add another coat of epoxy (or, better, slightly thickened epoxy) after some initial sanding as the skin was getting too thin and the cloth tape was coming through. I was happy with the results and felt the structure stayed strong. But it was noisy, dusty, and tedious. You all know better than I do, but I'm assuming Quick Fair is suitably strong, not just a "skin"?

bouncy bouncy bouncy

Congratulations. I watched the video twice and still not sure how it all happened. But it did!

Best wishes, whenever that extraction may be.

vc17 is the way to go in fresh water. the progress looks great.

Or, as they say up north, Boink!

Great to see. Inspirational!

As always, thanks for sharing. Very enjoyable.

I'll defer to Graham, et al, but the edges of the bottom paint line and boot stripe lines all need to be parallel to the WL. The bottom paint line and boot top lines are *not* a constant thickness throughout. The boot stripe will likely be wider at bow and stern than in the middle of the boat.

Wow! That's stunning. Did I understand correctly that you used foam instead of plywood?

Enjoyed the trip and the boat. Cheers to you both.

That sure looks like fun. Thanks for sharing, and for getting the whole family involved.

I should pipe up. I won't make it this year. I *really* enjoyed it last year, but it is a heck of a long drive from Wisconsin, unfortunately. I'll be looking for pictures of all the fun you're having.

Hooray! Looks great. Many hours of fun and relaxation ahead, I'd say.

Lovely. Just lovely.

Oops, I should clarify. I was thinking mph, even though Amos said knots, since Great Lakes folks usually use mph for some reason and that's how I have my GPS set up. So, where I said 7 and 9 (mph), that would be 6.1 and 7.8 knots, or approximately what Randy sets out above. Except he does it more accurately. You can still feel for that "overdrive" oomph.