JeffM

Just a little off-topic: what do folks think about sea anchors or drift anchors? I've wondered if they might come in handy in certain situations: say I slip and go overboard leaving my three boys on the boat. They know enough to heave-to by letting the main sheets fly and sheeting in the mizzen, but I bet the boat still drifts faster than I can swim! or say I need to do something in the middle of nowhere that requires I be head-to-wind, but without the help of the mizzen? Or maybe I just want to stop for lunch without losing too much ground in the meantime? Real sea anchors are expensive, but drift anchors are cheaper, and I bet I could make them myself anyway. A sort-of-related question: an anchor must do a real number on the bottom, and on the things that live there. I wonder what the overall effect is on sea life of anchors in crowded waterways? It might be good to have other options.

Wouldn't a bimini on a boat that small create tremendous wind drag? I've given up on a bimini for my Core Sound 20, partly over worries about excessive windage, and also the difficulty I had trimming a sail (the mizzen) that I couldn't see.

On my last daysail, I had the embarrassment of needing three tries to get away from the ramp on a beam reach! First time I backed smartly away from the dock and then began swing the stern crosswind, sails already trimmed for a quick getaway (as I congratulated myself on the neatness of the maneuver), when I suddenly ran aground, popped the cb, and lost all control. Two more tries pushing off of the beach before I made the channel. All this in front of my father (an old salt), who'd come to help.

Ballast doesn't care where the water line is--unless that ballast is sometimes displaces water and sometimes not, like the Sea Pearl's lee boards. The point of having ballast in the cb is that, with increasing angles of heel, that ballast provides increasing righting moment. And keeping that ballast amidship allows the boat to respond more quickly to waves, etc.

I love the red sails--can't see why they should be any other color. The wrinkles don't look too serious. Lake Pepin seems like a wonderful place to explore. I've only gotten my toes in it, but it seems there are coves and shallows perfect for a shallow-draft boat like the Weekender.

Larry, here're mine: You

Graham has said that the best place for ballast is the cb. I haven't tried to figure out weight of lead there's room for, but I'd worry about the strength of my cb, pin and trunk, the amount of tackle it would take to raise it, and the consequences of running aground (which I do a lot!). At the moment my board is unweighted and, if not cleated down, floats neatly up into the trunk. The downhaul has a releasing clam cleat (Duckworks) which I love. It has never popped without a good reason, but always pops if the board touches. I have thought about dynamic ballast (i.e. my 200+ pounds), and have installed toe straps on the keel batten and arranged extra mainsheet cleats where I would sit on the side deck. If you think about it, getting your center of gravity a foot or so farther from the centerline would have a significant affect on righting moment (think about levers). Additionally, I am considering killing two birds with one stone: an electric trolling motor with two 12v batteries (probably one beside the cb, the other just aft of it in the aft cockpit). In a way, I have created my own problem: my masts are a bit taller than spec, giving me more headroom and opportunity for a higher dodger. I may reduce the height, now that I've decided a high dodger is a mistake due to excessive windage. Water ballast is flexible, but rather low-density compared to lead. Would you put in a separate sole and use the space between bottom and sole for water tanks? How do you avoid "slosh"? I know the Sea Pearl has tanks, but no more than that.

Good idea, Joe! I've been thinking of lead, but cast iron will work if you hang 'em off the end of the cb! 'course--you couldn't get to 'em on the beach when you really needed to cook...

In Narragansett Bay where I sail there are practically no camping sites--so we sleep aboard. If I go for an imitation of canned sardines, I can sleep two adults and three kids. (But nobody better move!)

Congratulations on your first real excursion! Many adventures await you!

Adla, have you read Cadillac Dessert? An eye-opening look at water and politics and history in the west. I read it years ago before my first real trip out that way (El Paso to Grand Canyon). I remember well that magical 100th meridian.

The audiotape sounds like a good idea. My yarn telltales are fraying and will need replacement by season's end. I like information--lots of it--so I have three telltales on each sail aft of the luff, and then telltales on the leach, and finally one on the mainmast head. I find I forget to watch the leach telltales, but I do notice when airflow isn't right over the others. I was originally going to make something fancy for the masthead, but I ended up just taping a long piece of yarn to the end of a length of left-over brass rod and sliding the rod into a sort of pocket in the head of the sail. A kink in the rod keeps it from dropping too low, so the yarn floats about 18" above the masthead. It's pretty useful!

It's not called racing, Noel, its called comparing! As in, "I wonder how fast my boat is compared to that one? I wonder how high my rig can point compared to his?

The Beatrice Ann has luff sleeves and is equipped to reef around the masts as well as having the optional reefing step. So far, I haven't been too happy with sail shape with sails reefed around the mast, and I'm still looking for tips from Those Who Know. Meantime, I've been thinking about reefing step possibilities. The way I measure it, reefing around the masts brings my sail area down from about 135ft2 to about 90ft2. Although the two reefing methods are usually discussed as if they were equivalent, reefing by furling the main and moving the mizzen to the reefing step only gets me about 60ft2. On the other hand, if I put the main in the reefing step I'd have 75ft2, halfway between the two usual ways of reefing. (Of course its more difficult to manage, necessitating unstepping main, unstepping mizzen, stepping mizzen in main step, then stepping main in reefing step.) I tried the arrangement sitting on the trailer just to see how it would work. I find the main sprit swings across the cockpit just 2ft forward of the aft bulkhead, and its lower than the mizzen would be. That's just adequate for comfortable steering, but leaves little safety margin: the end of the sprit is right at eye level. The main snotter would need to be re-rigged, but that's not hard. The sheet would need to be tied to the sprit about 2ft forward of the end, putting the block a little aft of the thwart but not spoiling sail shape too much on a reach. Using the main in the reefing step has been discussed here before in passing. Has anyone actually tried it? What did you do with the snotter and sheet? How did the boat handle with the center of effort that much farther aft? Do you think it's worth doing?

Very pretty boat, Tom! I especially like the combination of green hull and bright deck. Great crew you have aboard. Congratulations!

Very pretty, Charlie! Also good pictures for comparing with the cs20. It looks as though the cockpits are nearly the same length, with a smaller foredeck. The cb appears to go further forward into the forward seat than in the 20.

Dave, are you telling me I want high res even for web postings? I'd assumed that I should take pictures not much bigger than the pixel limits so I wouldn't have to butcher them. I'll try to find Picasa and see what it can do. Thanks!

Chris, I grew up on a Sunfish: wonderful bathing suit boat for a young single, but not what I need now. Also too heavy to cartop--a major consideration. Ray, I guess my main issue is the trade-off between load-carrying and sailing performance. How much of a performance penalty will I pay if I go with a sprit-rigged Two-Paw? I expect to sail the boat on the bay as well as smaller water, most often with two pre-teen boys as crew. I don't want to be limited by need for trailer and paved ramps. It will be a sailing, or ocassionally rowing, boat rather than a tender. It may well be that the rig is a bigger potential limitation than the hull form. The issues of hull stiffness and cockpit layout didn't even occur to me, but I know I will often be putting her on top of the minivan single-handed, and would not want to do this in one 85lb piece.

I love my cs20, but the need to trailer it to a paved ramp with enough water already has me wondering... Which would be the better boat (and rig) for: EASY car-topping reasonable sailing performance young captains sea-worthiness load-carrying I realize there are some conflicts here--otherwise I wouldn't need the advice!

I'm a point-and-shoot guy from the era of film. Got a pretty nice electronic camera (thanks to a truly excellent mother-in-law), but have never been happy with my postings. I can set the camera for about the right number of pixels (800X600 I think is the limit), but can only guess at file size at the time I take a photo. It seems I only take two kinds of pictures: beautiful pictures that need to be butchered (i.e. cropped) to fit, or grainy pictures in which nothing can be seen clearly. Is there a cheap (better yet, free) user-friendly alternative?

That one's on my shelf, among other Heinleins. I read a lot of him in my youth. One of my favorite corrupting influences...

I've thought about twin boards, too. My cs20 can float on a "heavy dew," but not sail on one, and there are some pretty attractive shoals and river mouths I'd like to explore. I've wondered whether some sort of wide very-low-aspect fixed lee boards could be strapped on for work in very shallow water, then removed for deep water sailing. The idea went on the drawing board when the boat was still a-building, got left on the board when the boat got near the water for real.

I'll bet the gunwhales on my cs20 didn't have to bend as much as yours do, and I had the same sort of gap on an early dry fit. I ended up (for unrelated reasons) with gunwhales that were thinner and narrower than spec, and I found that I could fit them pretty easily.

Oh, I see. You mean "cool" not "Cool!"

It sure is Monday. I had to read it three times!