frowley

Yeah - I'm too new to all this to know for sure. We definitely got a pretty clear boost, and the boat just felt like it was on top of the water, and not so much plowing through it. The centerboard (or maybe rudder?) was humming like crazy also - which may mean I have some tuning to do? In any case, we had a pretty fun sail.

Alan and all - thank you so much for the update. We're really relieved to hear things went as well as they did. We watched the storm on Windy and radar make land fall and were glad it veered south, but it still looked like it could be pretty bad for you and the shop. Great job doing such good prep! All the best from Seattle.

Woops - bound to have had to do this I suppose. 17 mph, in fact, is wildly crazy. In fact, after more closely reviewing my GPS, top sailing speed was more like 8 mph - or 7 knots. Sorry about that.

Just a quick update now that we're back from the boat festival to say that there seemed to be quite a lot of interest in the boat and design. We were in the courtyard, and likely most people who went to the festival walked right by the boat. Several folks independently gushed about what a perfect design it was, and we couldn't stand by the boat for long before people wanted to talk about it with us. On another note, when I reviewed my GPS tracks from our first sail, I noticed that the top speed was 17mph. 'That's a laugh,' I thought - 'the GPS must have somehow gotten confused,' and blew it off. As I thought about it this morning, I realized we were in the middle of Lake Washington - a 20 mile long, 2 or more mile wide lake when, several times, we popped up on a plane. How could GPS get confused about that? So now I'm incredulous, but actually starting to believe it's true - 17 mph - nearly 15 knots!

Hi Alan, Just echoing everyone else's thoughts and concerns from the west side. It sure looks from the maps I've seen that it'll be a direct hit. We're hoping for the best, and will be watching closely from here. All the best to everyone. Fred

Thanks Paul and Kennneee!

Thanks everyone for the kind words and enthusiasm -- it's cool! Steve, I've been watching your build (and have Really appreciated both your workmanship and the discussions its drawn), so please let us know when you're coming out and perhaps we can do some exploring together. Thanks Alan, I'm thrilled you think it looks ok, but sorry neither you nor Graham can make it out. I chose to put the fridge (not yet built) in the lazarette which required a top hatch cover, which forced me into the laminated boomkin. All the cockpit and deck framing (and sprits) are made from beautiful, old growth, WR cedar salvaged from someone's residential deck. That's also what I laminated the boomkin from. Cool on the promo stuff - it'll be great if we can give people flyers or cards or something, with your web site on them. No, there's no strut on the fore hatch, so if you think of it and can send that along, that would be great. Thanks to you too, Amos - your boat is totally gorgeous, so I really appreciate your comments. I'm embarrassed about the toe rails though. Truth be told, the sheer coaming rails and stbd toe rail is fir. I broke the port toe rail bending it into place and to save time went to home depot to get another piece. HD is a bit casual about labeling their 'hardwoods' and I actually came home with a piece of hemlock. In one (of so many) failures of personal resolve, I figured it'd probably work ok, and there it is. Thanks Terry. That's a long ways to come for you! We'll look forward to your coming by.

Sorry, I'm not much for social media, so pretty much any excuse is good enough for me not to post something, but it turns out that Deluge did make it to the water the other day. I'd say she's been pretty impatient with her owner for quite a while now, and pretty much took off like a shot from the boat ramp. Being new to the boat, and new to sailing a ketch, it was a bit of work for us to keep things glued together as it were. We sailed right out into 15 to 18 knots, just minutes after I'd declared to Peg - 'Ahh, let's just skip those reefing lines - there's no way we'll need those today.' I was expecting 10 or less, but the boat managed it all without so much as a ruffled feather and sailed just beautifully. We had no bucket, so couldn't fill the ballast tank all the way full, but even at that, the ballast helped quite a lot. We had a compete blast - what a great boat! I was surprised how stressful the very first trailer trip was. Neither of us have ever trailered anything before, let alone a boat. We had a few mishaps -- best not to go into the details -- but in the end all made it home safe and sound. Here are a few flicks. We went out again the following day with only 5 knots of wind (reefing lines in) - a lot less excitement, but just a gorgeous day on the water. Lake Washington is around 73 degrees at the moment. We really had a lot of fun, returning to the ramp around 7 pm feeling all perky figuring we had The Coolest Boat this side of the Cascades, when a family comes sailing up in their red Amphicar. The only one of those I ever saw was in a Popular Mechanics magazine at least 55 years ago. Happens every freaking time I get feeling all perky and puffy. On another note, we're heading to the Port Townsend Wooden Boat festival soon, and I've been hoping, Graham, I'd see you there. I'm doubtful though, since I haven't seen that Carlita's registered. I just learned today that we'll be on display in the courtyard, which is pretty much the center of the festival. Either we won some sort of lottery or I'd say the festival administrators must be pretty interested in your boat Graham - I hope like hell there aren't too many glaring and embarrassing quirks in my build. If you're not going to make it out - please feel free to send us any promo or marketing materials you feel like, and we'll rave about B&B all we can. I'd love to put a couple of those B&B decals you have on Carlita on Deluge... If anyone else is in the PNW and can make it to the festival, please come find us!! Thanks Graham, Alan, and all the B&B gang for a really great boat. fred

Ok Graham! I was planning on it, but just hadn't quite gotten to it. I'll post some photos and stuff next. Fred

Woo hoo!! Congratulations Amos. Your boat is gorgeous. I just launched mine (CS17 MK3) the other day as well, and I appreciate the level of effort required to get where you are. So cool that it's such a great looking boat! Fred

Woohoo! Cheers to Michele and Richard for dunking their MK3!! Exciting to see how quickly it popped back up. That was really instructive to see. (Hope your outboard is ok.) Thank you - and thanks to Alan and everyone who made CC possible. Fred

Really great stuff! Thank you so much for posting the videos, and to Matt and crew for capsizing his boat! I thought it was interesting to get a sense for how much weight has to be on the tip of the centerboard to get the sails out of the water. Love the goldfish...Looking forward to any more posts, and some word on how well the latches work. Fred

Whewh!! Gorgeous boat - congratulations!! Fred

So glad to hear about your trip Graham. I was going to press for details the other day but thought better of it. I'm sure Carlita would be in her element offshore headed for the Bahamas, and can't wait to hear your telling of that story.

Loved seeing your methodology Alan - thanks for laying this out the way you did.

Steve, Your hollow back looks great - wish I'd thought of building up backing from the outside. I really wish I'd thought of putting backing in there after unfolding the hull! Woops!! Sorry Chick, I only just now noticed that was your post and not Steve's! It's the screws below the deck of the anchor locker that are especially troublesome. Were you able to get in there as well?

Steve, Here's an idea you might consider when installing your hollowback - I got the idea from someone else's post (where all my good ideas come from). Run the hollow back under the bow eye and skip the outboard mounting plate that would usually go there. I kind of like the look, because otherwise, the hollowback dead-ends at the edge of the bow eye and in my case, was going to look pretty clunky. I did find that I had no real wood to screw to between the bow eye blocking and my keel strip. I just bit my lip and figured the 3M 4200 I used to bed the hollowback would hold that section in place. The rest of the way to the stern, the SS is screwed to the keel strip - so it was just around 6 screw holes that have no screws. In the picture below, I'm just doing a dry fit, so there are no screws at all, but in the final, I got screws above and below the bow eye, then the next 6 or so were empty. Fred

Joe, Thanks so much for the great reply - really appreciate it. The key detail you mentioned was that you 'just jumped,' which is pretty much what I concluded. The local reps and I became mutually exasperated before I finally realized that I just need a basic trailer - subject to what folks have been advising above, then purchase and mount the center rollers and set it up to fit the boat. I'm picking up an EZ Hauler EZB 14-17 1250 trailer today with straight cross bars. The boat (CS17 MKIII) will sit above the fenders the way Graham's does, and I'll buy and fit a bunch of center rollers to make it work. Fred

Joe, I see you have a Karavan. I'm looking at them too - what model did you get, and did the center rollers come with it, or did you have to retrofit them? Your cross-bars are concave, but given our boats are pretty flat-bottomed, would the straight cross bars get the boat up too high, do you think, and/or make it harder to load?

Steve, Thanks for posting such a well laid out and thoughtful query. And thanks to Jay, PAR and Graham, for responding with such great detail and experience. I'm trying to figure out trailers myself, and this discussion has really helped shape my thinking about it. Fred

You're amazing Graham! Thanks.

Very cool Graham! Looks like your swivel works incredibly well. I've lately been installing hardware to the masts for Deluge. Could you send me a dwg or description of hardware and location for the running back stay and spinnaker? The drawings I've got only include the halyard block and cleat for the staysail. Thanks!

Wow! I agree with Thrillsbe (and everyone else) -- your boat Is gorgeous. Nice job, and congratulations! Fred

Fantastic! Can't wait to hear and see more of your travels!

Steve, For what it's worth, I left my combings open at the stern, but I've trimmed them w a 3/8" trim to cover the ply edge and framing. I wanted the cockpit openings to store the kind of stuff Hirolonde mentions, and likely my oars too. One thought I had was that if you were to broach or knockdown and the combing filled, you'd be in a bad way until they drained. Leaving the end open seemed to offer some prospect for quicker drainage than a weep hole.