paul_stewart

Thanks for sharing !!! No worries, obviously that's the Australian orientation instead of portrait or landscape. Good on ya mate, she'll be right, and soon enough shrimp on the barbie.

SkinnyGenes and XL Genes: a photo of their classic Thistle (photo by Scott Taylor in Clubfoot Creek)

From NCC manager Britt Isaac Beda: The first finishers are in! SkinnyGenes and XL Genes finished in 19 hours 10 minutes HeavilyLaden finished in 21 hours 16 minutes. Chief and SOS finished at ~5:00AM but did not send the SPOT okay message until ~5:30AM (22 hours 27 minutes). MadMothist finished on the beach side at ~5:30AM (22 hours 25 minutes).

At the start ...

SOS and Chief are tacking up Core Sound (as of 8:33pm June 15 2022) as shown on the WaterTribe tracking map. The forecast for tonight is for more favorable wind (from the east).

The start of the NCC 2022

SOS and Chief in the Harlowe Waterway (2:30pm Wednesday June 15, 2022). Chief holding the oars.

Jason, Thanks for the photos! Dawn and I enjoyed meeting you and sailing and talking with you. Hope we see you at the next B&B Mess-About. --Paul

Graham, Carla and Beth, thanks for another great B&B Mess-About. Loved the bluegrass band. Randy and Bobby, thanks for the hospitality, grits and chili! Here is the YouTube video of the self-righting demonstration / test....

Photos from the Mess-About: https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/113865436285908252232/albums/5942099439537792657 A video from the Mess-About: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRKwfR_nN6c

Team B&B / Team Kruger arrived at the finish line, the boat ramp at Ft. DeSoto, at 12:12pm Monday 26th on a NW breeze of 8-10 kts. SandyBottom and SOS greatly appreciated seeing everyone who came out to meet them. As you can see in the photo below, they were very happy to finish the circumnavigation. Monday afternoon: celebrated, trailered boats, dinner, slept in real beds all night. Tuesday: drove 12 hrs back to Chapel Hill, NC. Wednesday: cleaning gear at home, and back to work. Photos below... 1. Arrival at Cedar Key from the river section (Suwannee Sound, Suwannee River, 40 mile portage, and St Marys River.) 2. Sailing out of Cedar Key towards Tampa Bay 3. Arrival at the finish line at Ft. DeSoto 4. Landing at the finish line. 5. Awards: 3 shark teeth for the first 3 stages, 1 gator tooth for the portage, 1 whale tail carving for finishing the Ultimate Florida Challenge. Details at sailnaway.blogspot.com and sandybottomkayaker.blogspot.com --Paul

Follow Team B&B and the "Mosquito" here... http://sailnaway.blogspot.com/ http://sandybottomkayaker.blogspot.com/ http://watertribe.org/forums/ http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=0m4AJnDnce1DRhnKfZ6B2vvmUvSfDsKzo --Paul

Team B&B (SandyBottom and SOS) left Ft. Desoto at 10am on Monday and have now reached Key Largo (finish line for the EC) at 8:00pm on Thursday. The "Mosquito" trimaran was fully reefed almost the entire way due to high winds this year in the EC. The EC is the first leg of their adventure race circumnavigating Florida. --Paul (DancesWithSandyBottom)

Take a ride on the Dawn Patrol. We have a special seat for you just aft of the transom on top of the tiller. Climb aboard.... http://cs20dawnpatro...-to-finish.html

Joe, She's a beauty! [remove drool from keyboard] Great work! Thanks for sharing those photos! I like following your blog posts too. Are there any small projects/parts you'll be taking with you to work on during the winter? You know; hand-carved cup holders for example? (kidding) --Paul

Here is a slide show, just for you Gordy, that features a few snapshots of the "Marissa" along with other boats, projects and friends gathered for the Mess-About. ...plus a few favorites snapshots shown below. (The final one of "Lapwing" is by Graham.) --Paul

From the B&B Mess-About, "A Sailing Conversation with Tom Lathrop"... --Paul

Video from the Mess-About: a ride on the "Marissa" to film Tom Lathrop and Alan Stewart sailing the "Lapwing". --Paul

Here are a few more detail images of Tom Lathrop's beautifully built wishbone sprit-booms. Tom noted that he finds it important to be able to separate the forward joint. The forward end of the boom has two bolts: only the bolt with the wing-nut presses the two sides together, the other bolt helps maintain alignment. Right Tom? I think these would ride well at anchor if kept up and level with topping lifts. --Paul

Maps

Bob, Rest assured we love following your innovations. The whole point of building your own boat is that you can customize it and re-customize it. That's a lovely CS17+3 boat you've got there. I like it. Do you prefer the single-sail rig because it is easier to manage when you sail alone? How do you heave to? Jib: I notice the yawl rig in the photos you attached has a stayed main mast. Stayed mast: This year on our CS20 Dawn Patrol we added an asymmetric spinnaker and removable bowsprit just in time for the Everglades Challenge adventure race. It tacks like a jib. We added tension-able backstays (dyneema single braid) that can, via blocks and nylon line, be cleated tight or released slack. We tension just the windward backstay. When not using the spinnaker, these backstays stay slack so that the range of rotation of the mainsail is not impeded. In the photo below the red lines are bungee cords that keep the backstays close to the mast when they are slack. ( BTW, the photo is on Florida Bay, which is an amazing place. The water was glass but the wind was blowing at 10 knots and we were flying downwind over a sea of grass just 1-2 feet below the clear surface. Beautiful! ) (Also BTW, during the EC the spinnaker gave use several extra knots of speed on several long runs; was definitely worthwhile. In regard to balance, the spinnaker is more of a downwind thing so balance was less of an issue. We also experimented during the EC with using the stays'l as a jib when reaching --and that worked ok.) I agree with Ken; the stays'l is a good thing! But......... (and forgive my cat-ketch blasphemy) ....you seem to be headed in a very different direction --toward converting to a yawl rig (or possibly a ketch rig) with a permanently stayed main mast. You probably could do that! The small mizzen sail behind the transom would be self-tending (you can leave it up all the time). You can reef down to just jib and mizzen. Check out logofspartina.blogspot.com. --Paul

Video There were some wonderful videos made this year on the water in the NCC; for example, by DogsLife, Macatawa, etc. Chief made an excellent video of the start ("The Launch..."). Scareman's video of the start is equally excellent ("The NCC2011"). All of those are loaded in the Challenge Videos page. There are other great videos on the WaterTribeAdventures channel of YouTube (select See All). Also some on the ScareManThe channel, the DogsLife23452 channel, and one by JarHead. Time-Lapse Here is a post about our experiment with 24-7 start-to-finish time-lapse photography aboard the CS20 Dawn Patrol during the 2011 NCC... http://cs20dawnpatro...hotography.html We obtained 5900 photos during our 27 hours on the water. The camera used an invisible near-infra-red flash for monochrome photos at night. Do any of you have experiences to share regarding the time-lapse approach? Please tell us about it. NCC Results BTW, it was a year for kayaks and multihulls in the 2011 NCC. Only two boats started in the monohull sailboat class, "Class 4": (1) The Dawn Patrol finished in about 27 hours. (2) Merman and Sqiddly left the CS17 at home (darn!) and instead brought a fast sloop-rigged racer which gave them a fast, wet, exciting ride to Beaufort where they wisely threw in the towel due to serious equipment problems; Merman said he'll probably bring his more comfortable CS17 next year. Where are the other B&B boats? The NCC is a lot of fun all in one long weekend: arrive Thursday, start sailing 7:30am Friday, ....., Sunday brunch and then head home at noon. Hurricane Irene's wrath kept them at home this year, but we hope the EC22 Southern Skimmer will return for the 2012 NCC. Jarhead (who teamed with Bigfoot to win Class4 last year) forsook his SeaPeal 21 Moon Shaddow this year in order to train for and finish the NCC in a sailing kayak. Afterward, I believe he said it was "too much paddling". I hope he returns next year with a Class4 boat. --Paul

Dawn and I are planning to bring our CS20 "Dawn Patrol". It's going to be great fun meeting and sailing with everyone. --Paul