Core Sound 20 Hull #102

[Dale Niemann]

Wes,

You and your wife have done a great job on your boat. She is beautiful! 

Now get out there and enjoy her.

Dale

[Tom Lathrop]

I use beeswax as a lube only on stainless to stainless parts like turnbuckles and sailslides.  Its great advantage is that it does not melt in the sun nor wash off in the rain.  Stainless on stainless likes to gall and jam under friction and a heavy permanent lube is called for.  It's great on flexible stainless cable that runs over sheaves too.  It needs to be applied hot so it will melt and cover the part.  I use a hot air gun for that. 

I've tried the expensive dry lubes and they work but have to be reapplied often because they wear off or wash out.

[wkisting]

Had a chance to get back out sailing for a few hours today... winds were blowing at about 9-12 kts, kicking up choppy conditions. Probably could've gone full sail, but since we're still getting acquainted with the boat, we put in the first reef and found this to be plenty of sail. What a great ride! She pulls along beautifully and sails very well, but MAN is it a wet ride when you've got steep waves hitting you broadside! We got very wet from spray.   So I guess a dodger is the next item of business after we get the rub rails attached and the masts capped. Didn't have the GPS onboard yet, but I suspect we were making about 7 mph, as we were right on the verge of planing. When the wind slacked off a bit, we were still making 5 mph easily.

We were able to sail and hold a course about 45 degrees off of directly into the wind. Speed is noticeably better if you bear off a little further, say 55 degrees, without giving up too much windward progress. Tacking was surprisingly easy, though it took a few tries to get a feel for how to adjust the main and mizzen properly to avoid getting stalled in the process. Never quite got caught "in irons," but came close once or twice. After that, I figured out the procedure and found we could adjust course fairly quickly without losing much speed.

The split rig is very easy to head up into the wind to calm things down. Sheet in the mizzen, let the main go, and she points herself right into it and settles down. The same is true if the boat heels too violently... as Graham says, just let the main go and she settles right down and rolls back up again. We didn't come close to capsizing, but a few times a gust caught us and heeled us more than comfortable, so I let out the main a bit and she leveled off again instantly. We were able to sail completely flat with both of us on the windward side. As our confidence builds, we could sail much more aggressively and squeeze out more speed in these same conditions, but we were being very tender with her today.

We're very impressed with this boat. Great design, Graham!

[Ken_Potts]

  Sounds like a great day!

  When I started sailing my boat (having never sailed a CS17 before) I was real quick to dump the main sheet.  Over time I've gotten used to heeling a bit too much then recovering onto an exhilarating plane with rudder input only.  When you go to dump the main sheet try to look at the coaming on the downhill side to see how close you really are to going over.  It seems like there's a point where the boat just PAUSES on her way over, giving a lot of time to fine tune things instead of just recovering.  Lately I've gotten pretty lax about dumping the sheet and I haven't managed to roll my boat (but then again I'm an accident waiting to happen).  I find it quite remarkable that I can get the hull-deck joint wet pretty often in gusty weather but I haven't actually managed to take any water over the gunwhale yet (with 6" side decks and a low coaming).

  Next time you're out alone (or not, if your lady likes swimming) see how far you can get the boat heeled.  You won't go as fast as sailing flat but it does a great deal to inspire confidence in the hull form.

  And keep the updates coming!

  Oh yeah - Do you really need a dodger that far South? 

           

[wkisting]

Thanks for the input, Ken. We were definitely scrubbing off a lot of speed by dumping the Main, though we didn't dump it fully, just eased it out an extra 10 degrees or so to reduce the pressure. I'll definitely sail more aggressively in the future to see what she can do. For now, we weren't letting it get anywhere near wetting the hull-deck joint. In fact, I think we probably didn't heel more than 20 degrees off of level before I eased the main. The reason for sailing her so tender (besides the unfamiliarity of the rig) is that we don't have the hold-downs attached on our seat lockers yet, and it would be very foolish to risk capsize without a way to keep those compartments dry and buoyant. So we were very careful. We've got the hardware we need now, so we should have the seat locker hold-downs attached before we go out this weekend again. Then I'll feel much safer about feeling out the boat's limits and attempting to get up on plane.

Believe it or not, the water on the lake has already turned quite cold, though our days are still falling right around 80 degrees while the sun is up (but dropping into the 50s at night, and maybe down to the 40s this Saturday night). This is a great time of year in GA, though, because the really hot heat is gone and there are many pleasant days between now and next June. Last year we wore shorts and a T-shirt on Christmas day, which was a sunny 60-65 degrees, if I recall correctly.

[Charlie Jones]

You shoulda seen that Core Sound 17 blasting along the land cut on the ICW during the Tex 200, with full sail on a broad reach, in 28 knots of wind- He was FLYING!!! 

He sailed past us while we were beached for lunch- wish I had a video ;D

[Terry Dunn]

As Charlie said, Tim and Pete went flying by in the CS 17. Brian and I wathced them fly by as we stopped and put in two reefs in our CS 20. We had the main low scraping the deck. We hit 9.8 mph on the GPS double reefed in the land cut. I doubt we would have stayed upright had we not stopped to reef. A good time to be sure.

[Charlie Jones]

Yep- That's when Laura shot this video of Traveler sailing reefed. We hit 12.3 or 12.4 during that time period. Skimmer touched 18

[Guest wwbaginski]

Charlie, there's a flag (or a couple of them) on your video  last seconds. How did you fixed them ? To  sails directly, or to a separate rope? Own country flag use to be carry on a stern, and just visited country flag use to be carry somewhere high (but not on a mast top).  I wonder how to solve this question with free stannding sprit sharpie rig? Has been any system elaborated yet?

[Charlie Jones]

there's one flag- the US flag, and some tell-tales all sewn directly to the leach of the sail.

The US flag should be flown from a staff on the stern when under power, and 2/3 up the leech of the aftermost sail when under sail. On our bigger sloop, we fly it from the backstay to avoid it fraying on the backstay. On my large trimaran, a ketch rig, I flew it from the mizzen topping lift.

Since on Traveler we have no power  nor backstay nor topping lift, we just sewed it to the leech. If you added a topping lift, I'd think that would be an appropriate place also.

[wkisting]

When do most of you CS20 owners put in the first reef? (At what approximate wind speed?)

And when do you put in the second reef?

Just curious, as it will give me a rough idea what the rig can handle as I get accustomed to it.

I can't imagine 18 mph on Skimmer... that must've been awesome.

[wkisting]

Thanks Ray.

We're planning a full day on the lake tomorrow. Wind predictions are to be around 5 kts., which is fairly light but adequate to move us along as we learned last weekend. I've got the GPS jury-rigged to the boat (not permanently mounted yet) so I'll finally be able to turn in some speed figures and find out how fast we're actually going in light winds. Should be a nice day on the lake, with temps in the high 70s or low 80s. I'll snap some pics again and post them to help keep you other CS builders motivated. 

Finally got hold-downs attached to the seat lockers now too, so I'll feel more comfortable sailing aggressively if the wind pipes up.

[brigait1]

Yeah, that run up the land cut was a BLAST. At one point, Tim and I had the staysail up and managed to put a little bend in the mizzen mast. We were probably pushing it a little too hard, but it's hard to resist a chance to plane non-stop for miles in perfectly flat water! If we have anything like those conditions next year it has been suggested that everyone should stop for lunch at the mouth of the land cut. Then we can have one long drag race to the camp sight.

[wkisting]

Spent four hours on the lake this evening. Winds blowing at about 7-10 knots, gusting to 12 knots on occasion. The angle of the wind was so perfect that we could've sailed a broad reach all the way up the lake for 20 miles or more, but we stayed in a 3-mile area instead because we were experimenting with the sails and maneuvering.

Tried full sail this time... a little intimidating at the get-go until everything is up and running, but what a nice ride. GPS routinely clocked our speed at 5.5 - 6.5 knots, though we often reached into the 7 knot range and even touched 8.2 knots on one brief run. Not sure if we're technically planing yet, as it didn't quite feel like we were on top of the waves. On the other hand, those speeds have to be close to planing for a boat this size, so maybe she just has really nice manners while planing. Felt like a very soft ride and the heeling never got too out of line as long as I let out the main a bit in a gust. Several smaller boats (Sunfish, Puffers, etc.) were out that we kept pace with quite easily, and we also ran dead even with a 25' sloop flying a small spinnaker. Pretty neat. They could point a bit higher, but we could (apparently) squeeze out a bit more speed.

Here are a few pics. First three are from another relaxing outing last Saturday (6 hours of pleasant, light-wind sailing at about 1.5-2.0 knots). Fourth one is us going "wing-and-wing" this evening at about 6 knots. Really starting to feel very comfortable in this boat even though this was only our fourth sail. We've logged about 20 hours in her now... I can't say enough how impressed I am, as are all the members of the local sailing club who have flagged us down to find out what we're sailing.

[JeffM]

Beautiful, Wes!  -the boat, too!  Your choice of paint color is about perfect, I think.  The simplest (abeit crudest) definition of planing is, I believe, sailing at a speed over that of hull speed for a displacement hull of the same wl.  Hull speed for a displacement hull is 1.34 times the square root of the wl (water line length).  So you were definitely planing when you hit 6kt.  I agree it's almost anticlimatic: she behaves so docilely at such speeds.  I'll be curious to know how your gps works out in practice.  Following Ray's advice, I have a cheap hand-held (no chart), and am very happy with it.  I like that I can use it facing any direction, and pass it among my crew.  (Stephen loves to read off speed and heading changes, lat & long, etc.)  My one worry is losing it overboard, and I get a little testy if anyone holds it anywhere near the coaming!

[wkisting]

Thanks Jeff. I'm a fan of the handheld units, too, and probably wouldn't have installed the fancy unit we have now if my wife hadn't given it to me for my birthday. (I thought seriously about taking it back, but couldn't quite do it.) We both wished for a sonar transducer at times on our last boat just because we frequently wondered how deep the water was in certain places--whether because we were about to dive overboard, or because we were anchoring, or because we simply were curious. I think we'll like having that feature on this boat, although we have yet to mount the transducer for that.

We had a fairly bad car accident on Sunday, but neither of us was injured and the other car was at fault. Unfortunately, this may thwart our plans of coming to Graham's get-together, unless the insurance company (not ours, but the other driver's) is prompt in authorizing repairs and getting us back on the road. The body shop thinks there's about 5 days (not counting weekends) of work to do, but also has to order parts, etc. Hope we can still make it, as we would like to check out other Core Sounds and figure out how the Mizzen Staysail should be rigged.

Are you (Jeff) going to the B&B meet?

[Ken_Potts]

  Wes,

  I'm glad neither one of you were hurt.

  Ask the body shop if they've got a loaner you can use.  If so, maybe they've got one with a trailer hitch...

[wkisting]

Yeah, I thought of that Ken, but I'm reluctant to do that. Maybe the accident made me a bit gun shy now, but I hate the idea of pulling our boat in an unfamiliar vehicle to make the 6-hour trip. If we had another accident, I'd be sick if something happened to the CS20. Yes, it's insured, but I have no desire to build one all over again so soon after completing (actually, not yet completing) this one. 

It sounds like there's a very good chance we'll have our Jeep back by next Thursday or Friday morning, in which case we'll make the drive up to Graham's next Friday afternoon or possibly on Saturday morning (if delayed).

[wkisting]

Well, since we missed the B&B meet, we didn't get a chance to fulfill one hidden agenda: to figure out how the mizzen staysail should be rigged. I've read what others have posted about it, but I'm still a bit mystified as to how it sets up and how to be sure the attachment points are correctly placed on the boat.

Is anyone able to clarify how to rig the mizzen staysail? Pics would be appreciated. I've seen a few pics of CS20's flying a staysail, but usually from a distance that makes it difficult to determine hardware placement.

[Designer]

Wes,

We missed you last weekend.

Here is Brent with his staysail flying.