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Ken_Potts

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Ken_Potts last won the day on September 26 2020

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About Ken_Potts

  • Birthday January 1

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    Perth Australia
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    08/07/2018

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  1. The weakest link on all of my boats has always been the skipper.
  2. Thanks for the sentiment Mark. I took it as it was intended. Stay safe and delegate the sanding as appropriate.
  3. Don, I hate that you're the only one commenting on your post. I'll offer a suggestion that I haven't actually tried in the real world so take it with a grain of salt. Maybe you could make a saw cut between the knee and the transom (preferably not a powered saw) to cut out the gap to a uniform thickness. Then you could insert a shim of the same thickness as the saw kerf. This would still leave a joint that connected the end-grain of the knee to the long-grain of the transom, so the weak end-grain joint could be reinforced by a glass patch on the surfaces of the parts (maybe you could wrap one layer of glass around the knee to stabilize the opposing surfaces of the joint). If I haven't expressed myself well I can try to sketch the idea.
  4. I've never seen it this bad, but I haven't quite been here 10 years. It's not even the height of fire season yet and the other day a suburb of Sydney recorded a high temperature of 120F. It's strange watching this unfold from Perth, given that conditions here have been quite nice this summer. Most of my co-workers are in Sydney and Melbourne so I hear about the smoke, etc. in my regular teleconferences. It's hard to fathom how many people have been adversely affected by these fires, not to mention the toll this is taking on the flora and fauna.
  5. Looking good, Chick, but with the hatch behind you what are the chances you'll be able to reach the vienna sausages without having to dig around for an hour? You're going to have to wear a mirror on your hat to see what you're doing.
  6. On Southbound (CS17 Mk1 #121) I had loads of fun with the mizzen staysail. Maybe that's because I lived in central NC and went sailing on afternoons that had little to no detectable wind. Pretty much every time I set the mizzen staysail the boat speed doubled. I was a bit shy about setting it in higher winds, though, because I usually sailed alone.
  7. Hi Paul, I'm certain (and being an engineer, I never use that term) that the modification you've made to the keel will not have an adverse effect on the performance of your boat under sail. And given that, if it improves your boat ramp experience it's a very good mod. I don't remember having that big a step on Southbound, but it's been 15 years or so since I looked at that part of the plans and maybe the round-up to the hull was different on my boat. For launch and recovery I always put the tires in the water but not the rims and I never had a problem, but the trailer was set up so that the rear-most roller was right out at the end of the structure. I applaud any effort that makes launch and recovery easier or quicker because I think it increases the use of any given boat. Thanks for sharing the tip.
  8. Be careful about pine from the Southern hemisphere. It's quite different than what you're used to in the US. I'm a little alarmed to hear that Home Despot is carrying NZ pine, not just because it's likely to be entirely different than pine that is farmed in the US, but because they find it economical to ship it halfway around the world. I've seen pine here in Australia that has three rings per inch and as mentioned earlier, the trees are very different than Northern hemisphere conifers.
  9. The sprit-boom as-designed is loaded only in compression. Moving the sheet forward of the clew is going to introduce a lot of bending load when you're sailing close to the wind and sheeted in hard. In Southbound's original configuration the sheet fouled the Honda frequently but I just got used to flicking it free. Alan added a well so the motor is carried lower on the transom and he probably has an opinion on its effectiveness. You could probably try a Carlita-style boomkin by clamping/lashing a 2x4 in place temporarily before committing to real modifications.
  10. Woo! If I remember correctly, Graham, you're taller than my 5'8" so I'd probably be as happy as you with the 23'4" design. Does it have standing headroom for you? It's hard to believe you've managed to get that much headroom into an attractive boat of that length - That tumble-home really does the trick to keep things in proportion. My 20 foot keelboat barely has sitting headroom! And is that a dagger board or a centerboard? Either way, with the board up it would be easy to anchor in the shallows and walk ashore. What's the air draft? I've got to get under a ~7 meter bridge to get to the ocean.
  11. Regardless of how well you plan there will eventually be weather that is local enough to not show up no matter what app you're staring at. Many years ago I set off from the Vista Point boat ramp at Jordan Lake in North Carolina and turned the tiller over to my friend. There was a tall cloud somewhat to windward of us and I knew we'd have to keep an eye on it. We sailed close hauled on a port tack (with the suspect cloud hidden behind the sails to starboard) in a lovely 10-12 knot breeze for 10 minutes or so on this hot summer day and then tacked. Upon tacking, we saw a skinny, cylindrical tendril sticking out horizontally from our suspect cloud with a definite fast spin around its long axis and heading right for us. My friend immediately abdicated the tiller (cause it wasn't his boat ) and I tacked again and sheeted the sails out for a beam reach and turned the boat to accommodate the direction of coming blast (I hoped). When it hit I steered to balance the boat as we popped up on plane. The next several minutes were the fastest sailing I've ever done, including my windsurfing days. The boat was rock solid planing on a beam reach but we were taking spray over the rail that resembled a fire hose. Fortunately the event was short-lived and we were able to gather our wits and bail once it moved on. My point in telling this story is that it's fine to second-guess your choices of whether to sail or not in any given conditions, but you can't predict what's going to happen once you've made the decision to sail and you also can't necessarily rely on technology to tell you that fun weather is coming. Once you're sailing, you're sailing and if you've got a good boat and you're on your toes, you can hopefully sail your way through the local weather blip that pops up, the way Pete did. Sometimes you just get a downburst and you get to whoop and holler your way through. Once you've pushed off from the dock, keep your eyes on the sky instead of (or maybe as well as) the screen.
  12. Thanks for the story, Chick. It sounds like a good time was had by all.
  13. I used to dry launch Southbound with only three or four rollers, carpeted bunks under the hull and a manual winch - It worked quite well for me. I parked the trailer shallow enough to keep the rims dry.
  14. Maybe Paul shouldn't have sold his Thistle (He's the only one who's going to laugh at that comment).
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