JeffM

I don't know where else the idea may have come from, but I got it directly from Graham Byrnes in a phone conversation when I was building the cs20 he designed. I suggested I'd like to solo sail the boat in blue water, and wondered what I should be worried about. He suggested that the most important safety consideration if I were single-handing far from help, was whether I could right the boat alone. He guessed that 20ft was about the limit of boat size that could be righted by one person. That led me to test it (albeit in shallow water in calm conditions) where I found I could get my boat back on her feet if I got to the cb fairly quickly and hung on to it patiently for a minute.

Michael, your picture is a pretty little double balanced lug, which made me curious to check out your web page. Unfortunately my browser can't find it. I finished the boat (a Michalak Piccup Pram) in the spring, giving it the designed leeboard, but I moved it forward a bit and swept it aft to bring the center of lateral plane back to its original location (right below the center of effort). My idea was to be able to raise the board further in shoal waters without moving the clp much farther aft and goofing up the boat's balance. I can't say I've given the idea any rigorous test yet, since I mainly sailed my bigger boat this past season.

Aha... a track sail has a separate clew loop for reefing! I only have one, so for reefing it's really the forward end I need to keep control of while I turn the mast and tie in the reef through the grommet that is meant to be the reefed snotter connection. I suppose I need help with the flogging clew mainly during set-up.

Here's a question that applies to all the sprit-boomed rigs, both setting up and reefing: when it's blowing pretty well and the loose clew is alternating between beating you up and trying like mad to escape you , how do you get the end of the sprit into the loop on the clew? It would help a lot if there were a place to rest the forward end of the sprit so you didn't have to balance it. An alternative would be to have something to hook the snotter to so that the end of the sprit could go into the clew before the mast was rotated to unfurl the sail (sleeve luffs, here). Or is that not a problem with tracked sails?

I was talking just today to a colleague who kayaks to fish, and who found he could go farther and faster with his Hobie Mirage drive-powered kayak than with his typical double-paddle kayak. As I recall, the Mirage is a big-prop-accelerating-a-lot-of-water-a-little-bit design.

Dale, I'm surprised how fast that happened. I've had my ash rubrails get black streaks in them as water infiltrated the grain--an unsettling sight, but cosmetic and commonplace. They'd been epoxied, but rubbed and banged up some. How much epoxy did you use? In addition to previous advice, you might look at Bob Smalser's most recent thread on rot on the main forum.

Clear photos are hard to come by; the foredeck just doesn't usually make it into any pictures. Here are what I found. The first was taken before I shortened the masts to plan--putting the foot of the sleeve inside the pvc coupling, so I had to take a saw to the coupling and reduce it. The second is the main stepper in action right after paddling beneath a low bridge. The final photo shows the mizzen stepper with the new cabin erected. This one is a bit shorter than the main, and shaped to fit the funny space, with holes for the cb up- and downhauls. Both are secured to the boat by 1/4-20 hex head machine screws going into epoxy bushings. (Not the most secure system, but easy to do.) Although both steppers are slotted so they can be taken off the boat with the masts in place, I almost never take them off at all. (The original idea was to move the main stepper to the reefing step at need.)

Search on "help with mast stepping" to see my version of Terry's wonderful invention.

I'm going to have to look into this again. Thanks, Howard and Charlie! Sometimes my boat will self-steer with wind before the beam for varying periods with just a little sail balancing. Other times no. I can't yet always predict whether it will work under any given set of conditions. It would be nice to have a reliable method for the longest stretches. I'm going to study Charlie's link.

Wow! Congratulations on your progress and hopes, Alan. It looks as though we might have quite a little fleet competing in the EC over the next couple of years! Chief, look out!

Good thought. Some of Phil Bolger's boats feature just such a T-shaped rudder cross section, making rudder area more effective so that a rudder can be shallow enough for thin water without need for kicking up. But I think it would be difficult to make the end plate strong enough to support my weight, and of course I'd want it to go deep enough to be used conveniently--which means it would have to kick up! Oh, well...

Thanks, all! I'm beginning to catch on that cutting a hole in my rudder might not be the best idea...

I'm no expert, but have two years' experience with my cat ketch. The mainsail is the chief driving sail, so it is generally trimmed first, and the mizzen trimmed for balance. The sails are too far apart for the slot effect (which I've heard is somewhat over-stated anyway). I'll let the pros say more.

Thanks for the ideas. Actually, I already have a rope boarding ladder (Duckworks), that leaves me lying on my back half under the boat, so I am wanting something rigid that won't swing under the boat when I put my foot into it. Since the transom is already pretty busy (motor mount on port side, name and fixed boarding step on starboard), I'm hoping for something unobtrusive and foolproof.

Still fussing over boarding ladders. Current version is 2X2s bolted together; folds to a longish narrow bundle for storage. But is a heavy, clumsy thing that would not be quick to deploy in an emergency, and couldn't very well be deployed from the water (in a capsize situation, say). Reminded by a remark in a Duckworks article comment that people sometimes cut a boarding step in their rudder. This would solve all of above problems of storage and deployment, but would (I expect) spoil the rudder shape badly and introduce all kinds of turbulence and drag. (To heave my bulk aboard, its important the step be well below the waterline.) The colder the water gets, the more urgent the issue. Anybody have a nifty way of having such a cutout without the down side?

What a good time! I love to see folks having fun.

What an education!

This is beside the point, since you're not going to fill it with water, but-- The water pressure inside the hull might not be a problem, but the fact that that water-filled hull has to bear down on the ground would be. Filled with water, the boat would weigh many times its normal load, and all that weight--normally distributed over the entire submerged surface--would instead be concentrated at the point where the hull is resting on your lawn or whatever. I'd lay odds the hull would fail there.

I keep the masts in place with two bungees: one around the mast butts and secured to the mainmast stepper, the other at the mastheads and hooked to the gudgeons. (I know I shouldn't depend on bungees at 65mph, but I'm lazy.) Although I've never lost a mast ('cept of course by breaking it), I can't seem to keep aholt of boat cushions--lost two cushioning the mastheads on the aft deck, and others not well enough secured in the cockpit. Lost my favorite pfds the same way.

I keep 'em rolled in season, take off and fold them off. I'd leave them on the masts if I had indoor storage long enough. My first season I rode the masts in main and mizzen pvc crutches, then I worried that I was the sail at the mizzen crutch was taking a beating because the weight concentrates there. Now I use the main crutch for the butt ends, and let the mastheads ride on the aft deck on a boat cushion--much less stressful for all concerned.

Structurally stronger and perhaps even more useful might be a slot-top so you could walk upright all the way to the foredeck. It also increases sitting comfort in nice weather--I made my rough cabin addition a lift-top, but so far I find I don't want to bother with it when the slot can be open. The slot also improves ventilation. I wonder what Graham would say about either idea?

Very nice, David. Is it my imagination, or has the bow been narrowed from the original plans to have a finer entry?

Frank, your friend is a good guy, even if he is a Republican!

Now that you mention it, what should those of us with beards do about dust? I've about decided that its a choice between shaving, and risking respiratory problems!

Gorgeous job, Steve! I cut out a Birder 2 last fall, but it quickly got too cold to epoxy. Then once the weather warmed a bit, I let it gather dust while I went sailing! Oh, well...