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FLSailor

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FLSailor last won the day on March 19 2023

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  1. Thanks! I may have gone right by you on Sunday afternoon although I couldn't quite point high enough to make it through the west side of pine island sound so I wasn't that close to pelican bay where you guys were probably at. Glad it was worth your long trip! Here is a pic at CP1 coming into Cape Haze marina
  2. Hi again, its been a couple years since I posted in this original build thread but just thought that you might want to know that Summer Breeze is now an Everglades Challenge finishing boat. She took me down to Key Largo last week and we had a great time together!
  3. Yea, I was having some issues tacking too...partly because I was over-reefed/not reefed properly so I wasn't going fast enough when going into a tack, and partly because I think CB boats do tend to have this issue going upwind in heavy winds. What I did to succeed was pulled the mizzen sheet in before the tack and then as the mainsail is coming through the wind, you kind of hold it in a backwind position momentarily to help the bow come through the wind the rest of the way. I also see on this b&b page that the question about the sprits being on alternate sides is answered, although it doesn't say why that is and what can happen if you rig it wrong like I did on Saturday. I'm kind of wondering now if I was sailing better on one tack versus the other but I wasn't really paying attention to that since I was fighting high winds. https://bandbyachtdesigns.com/blog/why-a-cat-ketch/
  4. She's having fun down here Chick! Here's a couple pics of her sailing at Terra Ceia almost a year ago that I pulled off of the wctss site. I also had her out this weekend in pretty heavy conditions at Fort Desoto/Bunces Pass. Sailing her upwind in 15-25 SCA weather was the first time I reefed the sails and I think I did it wrong based on my pointing performance. I don't know if this 'build thread' is the right place on this forum to ask some cat ketch sailing questions (my first ketch) but in a nutshell, I think I got one of the sprits on the wrong side because they were both on the same side and you can see from the pics, they used to be on alternate sides. I don't know if there is any general wisdom on this? (my first boat with sprits too) The other thing regarding sail shape when beating upwind in heavy air is whether the reef ties are supposed to go around the sprit or be more loose footed. I had them tied on the sprit and I think that may have been wrong. And for a third question, I'm also still trying to figure out how best to trim the mizzen for best heavy wind pointing. I was having a lot of lee helm unless I pulled the mizzen pretty tight. But then it seemed like it was stalling and not driving as hard so this is a trade-off I'm trying to figure out. For reaching and downwind, its a lot more straight forward. If these questions should be in a different forum, I'm happy to start a new thread.
  5. Hi, just thought I would stop by and report what is new with Summer Breeze. As I suspect with a lot of us, C-19 has put a slowdown on a lot of plans. After building the oars for SB, I decided to go 'simple' (KISS) with the GPS mount and just drill some big holes into a piece of 2X6 (where a bungie can attach), varnish it, screwed in a garmin mount for my 546s and then just bungie it to the forward seat (with wiring running through companionway). This has turned out fine and in hindsight, I like it better than the 'swing-out from the companionway' type system a lot of people use because it allows me to position the GPS any way I want to when I'm sailing from any place in the boat (and I still use the same GPS on my other boat). The only other 'mod' I did was attaching some PVC pipes to the boom gallows to put a 100w flexible solar panel in. The panel acts as an ugly bimini (I can barely get under it and the mizzen sail does scrape the dust off of it during a tack) while generating plenty of power for all my gadgets. Oh, and I also added a staysail from b&b which I've used a couple times so far broad reaching in light winds. And if you follow the WCTSS in Florida, you can see that SB is featured prominently on all its title pages since I attended a 2019 Cayo Costa cruise with her.
  6. Thanks Pete, that is another interesting perspective. Hadn't thought about storing the sprits in the sail bags. I'm going to pull a hem out of one of my sausage bags (for the mast end to go through) so that I can wrap it around the sail, and then I will trailer it to see. So I can see what is faster, going to the trouble of leaving the sails attached to the masts, or the trouble of pulling them off and on each time. guess I will need a stopwatch to see which approach gets me in the water faster.
  7. Thanks for the great info Graham. I can see how once you have the furling spinnaker, its not so attractive to use the staysail cause maybe both will point about the same anyway (which is not as good as the working sails if you are beating upwind). Is the sail area about 2.4 times larger for the spin over the staysail (the price ratio:) out of curiosity? As you say, you may be able to deploy the staysail in higher winds than the spinnaker with sail size difference and lee helm you mentioned earlier so maybe it makes more sense to start with the less complicated sail since I'm not sure I'm ready to take on the job of adding bow sprit and running backstays yet anyways. I presume the staysail just needs a second halyard on the mizzen? Or is there additional hardware also needed for the sheets? One of the big advantages of this boat over my other ones is the unstayed masts on tabernacles so running a temporary backstay to a cleat is one thing, but permanently adding stays decreases the attractive simplicity too albeit a very slick setup with that snubbing furler. It would be helpful if there are any pics available either of the rigging and/or flying of the staysail, I can email if that is easier. Dimitri
  8. Hi Graham, I'm digging up some old threads here because I'm interested in adding some sail area to SB for light wind days and I see on the B&B web site there are some extra sails listed for the CS17mk3. Are the listed prices for the sails only or do they include any bits of hardware? And I can see that the Mizzen Staysail is most certainly easier to install and rig but if one has your furling asym spinnaker mod, is there any reason to also have the Staysail? Like are there any points of sail that the staysail will be better than the spinnaker on? Like can you point higher with it versus the spin?
  9. Those are nice crutches. I managed to leave my sails on the masts of the CS17Mk3 but I only have one bag long enough to cover what I need to cover so that they don't flog when trailering. I'm going to need to find a second 18 foot bag to try that experiment. But with the sails on, the hatch is a lot harder to open and close as well as putting in the companionway slats. So the jury is still out whether this procedure speeds up rigging time or not since there is some extra tying to be done and slipping the bags past the crutches, etc.
  10. Thanks for the welcome guys! I did take her out over the weekend and tested the new oars...those monsters are huge, that's for sure (about 11'1" long). I also did get my GPS connected and am pondering what type of installation I should do with it...most people do opt for the swing out of the companionway I suppose so they can use it in or out of the cabin..but I may need to look around at some other installations for inspiration before I commit to anything. Back to the oars, I contemplated cutting off 6 inches of the uppers because when I pulled them inboard more, they were much better balanced and still grabbed enough water, but that would also remove mass where its needed so maybe not such a good idea. They definitely rowed much easier when I pulled them in about 4 feet inboard each, but then there is about a 1 foot overlap so I have to do like a circular rowing motion one oar at a time which although somewhat of a restful rowing position, does not get the same power as pulling both at the same time and putting your back into it. I'll send a pic once I finish the uppers. The featherweight lowers sure do flex a lot but hopefully, they won't break...ferrules worked great on their maiden voyage and seem very solid.
  11. Hi folks, this is my first post here and I just wanted to introduce myself as the new owner of Summer Breeze! After being a fan of the CS17mk3 for a while (but not having the time to build one myself) I finally talked Dale into selling SB to me and I'm happy that I was also able to read her whole build history here on this thread so I hope its ok to resurrect it after a year. Having access to Chick should be an interesting experience and quite bi-lateral since I'm a pretty active Internet/Social Media kind of guy myself so you can hear all about how SB will live on through my adventures. And for those who don't know me, I already have a lot of boats and a lot of adventures all up and down the West Coast of Florida, the panhandle and including 6 cruises to the Keys in the last 7 years or so. So this should be fun! Chick certainly did a great job building SB and as a scientist type who respects great engineering, I can see all the quality and craftsmanship that went into the build (and the design too). I'm already working on enhancing her further and Dale helped me install some oar locks before I took delivery a couple weeks ago. We also went out for a nice intro sail on Lake Tarpon before I brought her home. Now I have my 'frankenstein' oars under construction which combine production oars and some custom extension pieces I'm building to create these 2-piece 11 foot oars. Thanks to Graham for giving me the idea to use the duckworks ferrules to split them so they can fit in the cabin berths when the boat is stored. Hopefully I'll be able to test them out in Tampa Bay this weekend! Once I make sure the length is good out on the water, I'll finish them up and also build a couple of oar hooks which will slide onto the boom gallows shafts at the stern of the coamings. That way they can be ready to deploy quickly if they are on the hooks and hanging back a few feet past the stern. I also want to see if there is any way to leave the sails up on the masts (with bags over them) with the masts in the down position because that would cut rigging time almost down to nothing. Its my first boat with tabernacles and already love that feature. The next mod I plan will be to connect up my Garmin 546s GPS (which is the same one I use on my Mac26X) which has all my routes and tracks etc. Seems like this RAM mount is a decent looking setup although I may have to add another ball and socket pair to get all the motion angles I would need to be able to swing this in and out of the companionway. I suppose if I were a good woodworker (which I'm not) then I might build my own swing arm and hinge but it just seems easier to buy this sort of production mount. Haven't found much opinion already written up on best ways to mount a GPS on a boat like this but I also don't want to block the use of the pretty shelves that Chick built. Luckily Chick also left me an extra breaker for it too. https://www.westmarine.com/buy/ram-mounts--1-5-ball-mount-with-round-base-and-mounting-hardware-for-garmin-displays--14497515?recordNum=4 After this, I may take SB out to Fort Desoto in a couple weeks to see the event she was designed for. Always fun to talk to the competitors right before the race. The next mod may be a solar panel to keep the battery charged. Not yet sure how I'll do that one but without the swing front hatch, it can't be done the same way Graham did it on Carlita. I'm toying with the idea of hanging something off of the boom gallows, but its not a developed thought yet. Further down the road I may want to add some more sails to her. That furling asym that Graham has at the end of a bowsprit looks super cool or maybe I'll consider the mizzen stay sail...or maybe even both if it seems like they don't overlap in function too much. So those are my initial plans and I'll need to do a few trips with her over the upcoming weeks to get acquainted better. Regards, Dimitri (from Tampa)
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