Jknight611

My CS20.3 is getting a mini refit and paint…..would be a perfect time to do this mod. But…….I really haven’t had a circumstance that I felt lea helm that I couldn’t balance out. A longer board might help the windward abilities…. I am quite sure it would be worth it, that may be my next winter project. As you sea……Indecision may or may not my problem.

What is that thing following you? Our Core Sound can snuggle right up to the beach, hardly get our feet wet! As in our avatar. Are you delivering it to Kalos? We are using an inflatable kayak, ok but can’t see hauling water containers in it.

I agree that our CS20.3 sails hands off, if you move your board forward, I’ll take a wait and sea technique.

Started sanding the boat today, never was happy with the finish on the cabin sides, I am priming it with a nice coat of Awlgrip 545 primer, then practice building my chest muscles with everybody’s favorite longboard. Fresh plexiglass ports just to refresh the look. The bonding the plexiglass with VHB tape has been a success (except where I didn’t get the tape ends touching and we had minor port leaks till I figured it out. I am possibly not astute enough sailor to tell if the centerboard needs to move forward a bit, we have lots of time that the boat was balanced and we were hands off… can’t see it being any better. Don, initially when the boat was inverted we clamped tape coved 1X4s on both sides of the keel then added epoxy with graphite thicken epoxy to about 3/8 to 1/2 inch thick. I had problems with our 2 paws with the screws working on the keel strip and allowing water into the wood. Well as some can attest, we have beached the boat both intentionally (and unintentionally ) the keel is in almost perfect condition despite my abuse. I am going to open the centerboard slot slightly and reglass the slot, it always had a tendency to stick in the up position when I add mud to the board. When I added the solar panels the MPPT controller wasn’t readily available, and quite expensive. The plan is to replace the solar controller with a more efficient controller and a 50 amp hour lithium battery. We are totally impressed with the solar system on Kalos and going to build a miniature system on Southern Express. Carol has made it perfectly clear to me that Southern Express is our family boat….long term!

Well Southern Express, our beloved Core Sound 20.3 is almost 7 years old, and we calculated about 2000 nm in the water and a heck of a lot more on the trailer, Southern Express is getting some love. A repaint, and some electrical upgrades. Darn lifepo4 batteries are so light and relatively inexpensive, we will be upgrading to a 50 amp hr lithium battery. Might upgrade the cushions. Moving the centerboard and adding length to the board? Still thinking bout dat!

Since ya moved the board forward, and now the trunk is forward, going to lengthen the board?

Let’s all commit to spending more time afloat in our beautiful boats! We will!

Great Messabout, we sure had a good time, good to sea everyone! Thanks to everyone that shared photos with Carol an myself. Kalos had a meeting with Alan an Graham, few rather minor mods to be done, adding a bit to the leading edge of the rudder, increasing the pivot angle of the windvane, and added 15 lbs of lead to the tip of the centerboard. The centerboard didn’t want to extend when sailing, hopefully this bit of weight will encourage it to drop more positively.

Here and waiting! Perfect weather!

Hi Don, sorry for the late reply, we have been enjoying Kalos! Back home now and I would be glad to post a picture tomorrow of our Core Sound mast assembly. We can rig in less than 20 minutes with no rush. The cover just keeps the macramé to a minimum. Pics tomorrow! We are looking forward to seeing everyone at the Messabout!

Sorry if I wasn’t clear, the Baofeng 5R series radio transmits on marine VHF frequencies just as any marine VHF. It is capable of transmitting on VHF 136-174 MHz which includes the marine vhf frequencies which ranges from 156-161 MHz with 4 or 1 watts transmit power. In addition it can transmit and receive UHF frequencies ranging from 400 to 520 MHz which FRS operates from 462.5625 to 467.7125 MHz. GMRS frequencies range from 462.5625 - 467.7250, be mindful that access to GMRS does require a license. It can also receive only frequencies 65-108 MHz which is the range of FM commercial radio. Only reason I posted this is was because I figured out how to program the little sucker, inexpensive, works well, and license or no, it is a excellent safety feature to be able to communicate with other marine interests. YMMV

Mark, check into CHIRP, a free program with popular frequencies already programmed in. Maddening the cable that came with the radio wouldn’t work, I bought a cable for a few dollars from Amazon and it works like a champ. I very briefly tried to manually enter frequencies, nope…..way way too fiddly. So my total investment is about $30 bucks for a marine vhf radio, plus FRS and GMRS (basically walkie-talkie frequencies but with a bit more power. The walkie-talkie frequencies will be useful when someone is using the kayaks or dingy.

That’s the one, we called a bridgetender and his “response” indicated that he heard us. If you want public humiliation ask a bridgetender in south Louisiana if you radio transmissions are acceptable! It does seem to be at least equal to our Icom M72, for about $200 less! Plus has access to many other useful frequencies.

Hi all, this last weekend I had a opportunity to compare my Icom marine VHF radio with a Baofeng UV5R programmable handheld radio. I was absolutely blown away with their performance/price ratio! They are currently $22 apiece on Amazon! The cheap Baofeng radio is smaller, and works as well as the Icom. We called a bridgetender from 6-7 nm away and it worked great! Water resistant? Ziploc had a app for that! I have had the Baofeng radio (bought 2 ) for several months for another project but the programming is a PIA trying to type all the frequencies into it so I put it away with the thought I would get back to that project later. Well last week my rainy day project was to mess with the little radios. I bought a programming cord in addition to the Baofeng supplied (Baofeng cord doesn’t work). I downloaded a ham popular program called Chirp and loaded marine VHF, FRS, GMRS, plus several weather specific frequencies, this is a heck of a lot of performance from a $22 radio! Now…… whether the FCC is concerned…… I will have the cord and I can load frequencies and configure the cheap Baofeng radios at the Messabout this year if anyone is interested from the Raspberry Pi on Kalos.

Hi Paul….correct, 300 days and 27,000+ nm in my CS20.3 would be rather extreme! Although I did spend 300 days rubbing on it!