Jknight611

Amos, I REALLY wish you hadn’t mentioned that the board forward mod was that effective! I was lurking to see if either one of you intrepid sailors would mention it. Our Core Sound 20.3 was the first completely home built and ……. well you know. Carol said she loves the way it sails, I just put my new Fein Multimaster 500 back on the shelf. Our Core Sound has a little skeg. Both for pin striping the shallows, and though a little more lateral plane would be ok. I clamped some duct taped plywood strips on either side of my skeg and made my protective shoe with epoxy thickened with lots of woven roven scraps chopped into 1 or 3 inches. 10 years and still good.

I can answer some of your questions, some of my ideas have worked, some kinda and a few we don’t discuss! Nav lights, I have had excellent results with NASA nav lights (not the NASA everyone initially thinks of). 2 wires up the mast with switching diodes to select anchor or navigation lights. I now have 2 of their lights and they work well. My Flinders know to us as Kalos uses RPI4B with OpenCPN. Basically it works fantastic, with an inexpensive hockey puck GPS and a dAISy AIS. I have charts on the system that would tax and chart table on any small boat. Don’t scrimp on the monitor. Handheld GPS on our CC20.3 has largely been replaced by iPhone with Navionics. I have a mast head antenna on Kalos, on our CS20.3 just using a Icom handheld. Kalos has SSB/Ham etc so quite avionics intense. I use a Garmin InReach for longer range weather guesses and forecasts. It also is a good security blanket (I recently used the emergency mode, worked fine) ‘Once upon a time we had a Tripp designed Columbia 26 with the outboard in a well in the cockpit. That soured me on outboards in a cockpit well. Well it was an old 2 stroke Everrude. Our CS20.3 has a small outboard mounted on an easily removable socket type mount. Kalos is electric pod drive that has proven to be excellent. B&B’s preshaped hydrofoils are sooooo worth it. As you know any time you can have better or equal results with less work, a win! YMV We have a NASA brand (same brand as nav lights) depth sounder on Kalos, not found a particular need in our CS20.3. When it gets that shallow it’s obvious. No speed or wind speed instruments. The boat tells me the wind by its motion. Kalos has onboard refrigeration and our Core Sound uses a quality ice chest. Load it at home, clean it afterwards at home. We have stayed on our CS20.3 up to 3 weeks at a time (with frequent shore visits) and were quite comfortable. It is an excellent design for a 20 ft easily trailerable, Carol an I both sleep very comfortably aboard. Kalos is luxurious. Hope some this helps…

You guys are stepping right along! Thanks for the InReach link Steve. sailing from the sofa Jay

Amos an Steve, that will be a fantastic sail! A fleet of Core Sounds on a longer sail will be a lot fun. Unfortunate that I had a motorcycle “event”, I am dry docked for a while. We will be there next year and our Flinders and it will be sporting some very visible modifications!

Very nice, I have thought that may be my next project. Never occurred to me to install the trailer while still inverted! Very clever! We went “speck fishing “ recently with some friends and really enjoyed it and that is the perfect boat for that.

Graham in Oriental

I have tried with limited success on insurance on my 2 “homemade “ boats. I finally ask can you just insure it while on the trailer, in transit. I ask the agent to not think of it as a boat, just as cargo on a trailer or a rv. I am much more concerned with Buffy in her SUV torpedoing the boat while she is engaged on her cell phone than I am while sailing. They weren’t particularly interested, but did write a binder which was rejected by their mothership. I do have marginal insurance to satisfy the marina, kinda like feel good insurance, and almost only on certain phases of the moon. (Named storm, space junk not included ) Very frustrating…..

Naw, no AC on Southern Express, did add a spiffy Victron solar controller and a li-on battery. Boat gained capabilities and lost 25 lbs! But sometimes….. I wish!

Errrr, I just completed a 6 year refurbish on Southern Express, new electric system, paint, air conditioning , and some other items, . Don’t think I could attack it with my multisaw just now! If I did the “big cut” I would consider lengthening the centerboard. But not now!!!

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!

In my mind the most extreme sporting event, a solo, unsupported lap of the globe in the Southern oceans. Live coverage Sunday Sept 4 morning! Very specific set of rules with traditional type boats.