Terry Dunn

I put a hole about like that in my boat on the sharp corner of a dock. Mine was a few inches higher. Easy fix. Gives it character.

I think I have recovered enough to post some comments regarding the Texas200. My plan from the beginning was that the Texas200 would be a one time adventure. My son Brian agreed to come along. I could not have done anything like this without him. Now I find myself thinking of the mistakes I made and what I would do if I was doing it again. Gotta resist that thought. This was a one time adventure. The first day out we were all whippng along and I did not eat or drink enough. Day two I was a bit dizzy in the boat and probably drank too much water. Day three and four I remembered to eat lunch so that was good. Day five I forgot to eat lunch again. Go figure. I shoulda been snacking all day. That is what I do at work. I either need to grow hair on the top of my head or learn to remember there is no hair there. When wearing a hat with mesh sides ... put sunblock on the top of the head. Duh! We were conservative and reefed fairly often. Sometimes when we probably shouldn't have. It was frustrating when we stopped to reef in the land cut on day one and all the boats we had passed went ripping by use. We put two reefs in both sails and we were still surfing. I think we hit 9.8 over the ground with the reefs in. The people in the Texas200 were all the nicest ever. Great bunch. Interesting boats. The boat worked great. I had a frayed line on my center board downhaul. I had the downhaul tight to keep my center board from creeping up. When we hit ground in Steamboat Pass (well not quite "in" the pass) I was too slow to release the downhaul and the line broke. Probably a good thing for the frayed downhaul to break rather than something else. Towards the end of the week my rudder was getting stickey. There is a bit more moisture in the air in South Texas than Colorado. All in all it was an amazing adventure. I highly recommend it. I think this is Tim and Pete on day one:

I put a bimini on our CS 20 this spring and we finally got out on the water yesterday to try it out. Works good. The mizzen just clears the top. I meant to take a picture but we forgot the camera. When I get a picture I will post it. This is what I got: Sharkskin 3-Bow Bimini Top, 5 Long, Width: 67 - 72, Height: 32 - 30 I was tempted to cut it down to be a little lower but it seems ok as is. Plenty of head room.

Hi Tim, I look forward to seeing the B&B boats at the 200. At least you have painted your boat. I don't like to fair and couldn't decide on a color scheme so my boat just has a few coats of urethane for some UV protection. You can see the patch for the hole I punched in her hitting a dock at a reservoir in ND. My center board trunk warped and it has an interesting look to it as well. Some people (me) just shouldn't be allowed to build boats. So far she still floats. I put a bimini on my CS 20 and hope to have her out this weekend to see how that works out on the water. Works ok in the driveway. My motor has not been started for two years. Guess I better do that this weekend as well.

I ordered the same size bimini as Scott for my CS 20. I will have a bit less headroom than Scott and lots less that Travis. Good thing I am not very tall. I was considering 36" height and 30 inch height. 5' long or 6' long. I look forward to seeing how it works out. The only stock color where I ordered mine was blue which would be good with my blue and white sails. Since the main purpose is heat from the sun I went with white thinking it would reflect more heat. Of course it adds a few weeks to the time table to get the bimini by ordering a non stock color. Well, It is snowing here anyway so I guess there is no hurry.

I have a 5hp 4 stroke tohatsu long shaft (20") on my CS 20. Way more motor than needed. I went for more HP because I was concerned about high altitude (9000') performance. I don't have the back deck so I mount the motor on the transom. A short shaft might put the motor a bit low for resonable access. Perhaps someone with a boat configured like yours will respond.

Doug, I am considering replacing the hatch covers I made, which are not water tight, with some commercial hatch covers. How do you like your hatch covers? What size and brand are they? Thanks,

Enjoyed the pictures. Brings back fond memories of building my boat.

Hi Doug, Love the boat. I hope to see you and your boat at the Texas 200. My boat is not named. The only name I could think of for my boat was "Opps!". That was the most common word out of my mouth during the building process. My wife did not think "Opps!" was appropriate so there is no name. Hmmn. I do have enough boats to name after my grand kids ... but with another on the way I will be one short. Have to think about that. Good luck in the EC. I enjoy following the Watertribe advetures.

PVC can be easily bent by heating. I heated sand, filled the PVC, placed the piece in a form and dumped the sand out. Works good for small diameters and small pieces. Larger diameters could probably be bent with carefull application of a heat gun. Something to think about although possibly not practical for you application.

I built my first boat (Spindrift 10) out of cheap fir plywood (not marine) and the cheapest epoxy I could find. I was going cheap since I did not want to spend a lot of money on my "practice" boat. I ended up encapsulating my s10 in fiberglass so it wouldn't check. What I learned was I could have built the boat in okume cheaper than what I spent on my fir boat with the extra fiberglass and epoxy and it would have been a lot lighter. And most important, it would be look better. One of the panels broke when I folded my s10 into shape. I did use 3/8" fir marine plywood for the 3/8" sheets on my CS 20. Okume for the rest. The okume is much easier to work with.

I have dowels in the aft end of my sprits. I think they go into the loops easier than with my poorly carved ends that I did have. I didn't think of putting the dowel in multiple loops when reefing. Gotta try that next year. My dowels should be long enough for two. Before I converted to sail track I got caught in a sudden 30 mph or so breeze with both sails iin place and could not get my 20 to heave to. Looking back I think I didn't have my center board all the way down. I had never had a problem getting her to heave to before. But I had not tried in that much wind before either. I haved heaved to and put the rudder hard over. The boat balanced out and didn't go backwards quite as fast. The GPS showed 1.5 mph.

I installed blocks on the deck at the foot of the main mast. The first turn is made of sheaves and then I went to the fairleads I posted. The sheaves don't turn so great the way I installed them so I think the fairlead method would be fine all the way. Not real heavy loads on the lines. I bought the blocks from Duckworths. So far I have some hardware store S hooks to attach my down hauls and halyard. Clips for the snotter. Clips to attach the sheet to eyes on the sprits. We have basically only played with the reefing a few timjes and it is not a fluid motion for us. I want to put whateveryocallems on the sprits so they don't come crashing down all of the way when the halyard is loosened. - Drop halyard - loosen snotter - Tighten appropriate down haul - tighten halyard - Move sprit - Tighten snotter - Tie bottom of sails Same for the mizzen except move the down haul. I did not rig anything special for the mizzen.

Hi Joe, Thanks for starting this thread. I had my boat out about 4 times since I added the reefing. The wind wasn't so strong that I had to reef but I played with it a bit. The last time Jane and I were out this year we had good wind with some gusts. We sailed with one reef in and found the boat sailed flatter and it seemed just as fast but perhaps somewhat less exciting with the reef in. Less excitment is good for us older folks. I look forward to some hints regarding reefing and shaking out reefs. I ran the downhauls, halyard and snotter back to the cockpit to try to make reefing a bit easier. Here are some photos of the cheap fairleads I made. Kinda makes a mess of lines to deal with. Left to right: DH 2 DH 1 DH 0 Halyard Snotter

Dale, I put separate downhauls in so I don't have to move the downhaul when I reef.

There are a few more pictures here: http://www.messing-about.com/forums/index.php?topic=2621.0 You can see the downhaul and snotter lines in one of the pictures. Since these pictures, I have converted to sail track and reefing with 3 downhauls, the halyard and snotter fed back to the cockpit.

Since the picture in the previous post, I replaced my main mast step helper with a taller one. Jeff made one that is a bit less ugly for his CS 20. I have a helper for the mizzen as well. Stepping the masts is much easier with the helpers. I look forward to watching your progress in the EG challange.

Joe, How are you fixing your main mast so it doesn't rotate?

Like Joe, I am about ready to attach mast track to the masts. My mast track has holes every 2 3/4 inches. Should every hole have a rivet?

How far apart should the sail slides be for the Core Sound 20 sails?

When I take friends sailing I always tell them about releasing the main sheet, partly to remind myself. I don't know why I did not have the sheet in my hand that evening. The conditions sure called for it. My main is cleated on the center seat. I find it to be very convenient. Parhaps too convenient since for some reason I cleated it when I shouldn't have.

I vote long shaft.

It isn

Congratulations Tim. Glad to hear you have your boat in the water. I really enjoyed our sail when you visited Denver. You and your kids brought good wind.

These guys used to have a regular truck that comes to Denver with a reasonable drop charge. http://www.macbeath.com/saltlc.html It might be worth a phone call.