Sharpie/Tri coversion sea trials

[Charlie Jones]

Laura and I got the sharpie/tri wet today. I posted this on both TSBB and on the Tex200 sites, so some of you may have seen it already- but here's a cut and paste of the post, with pics-Oh, and for those of you used to cat ketches, this boat is a cat schooner so we call the forward sail the fore and the after sail the main.

We launched around 10 this morning, in winds in the 8 to 10 MPH range. No whitecaps, but a nice breeze.

The new amas will slide just off the water in lighter air, so they barely get wet, but as the boat heels a bit, the lee ama begins to work. At any rate, headed out sailing up wind just to see how it would do. Sailing as close hauled as possible we were seeing 4.5 to 5.5 on the GPS depending on whether we were in a gust or not. Moving really nicely, enough so that Laura had her "sailing face" on

She soon found out that by balancing the main and fore sails, she could make the boat sail herself quite nicely.

After while she let me onto the helm. By this time the winds had built to a roaring 9 to 11 and the boat was beginning to come to life, but by leaning out a bit we could keep the boat fairly flat.

After beating upwind for a good distance and trying various things, like heaving to ( like a duck she sits- just release the fore sail, harden the main and the boat parks. After a bit we decided to sail across the bay. By this time the wind was building a bit more and on the reach across we were watching 6, 6.5 mph on the gps, pretty steadily with the occasional 7 showing. As we progressed across, the winds continued to build and the boat got to be a very fun, but very wet ride. We had a bow wave rushing back and at times over the lee ama deck. Sorry- no pics from here on while sailing- way too much spray.

So we beached the boat on Sand Point, across the bay from us. By then the winds had built a good bit, as you can see from the sails in these next two pics. Also, note the wetness of Laura's clothes- she had been riding up front The smiles pretty much sum up the thoughts though.

We didn't stay beached for long since the sails were flogging and we didn't want to drop them. So pushed off and sailed back. Laura took the helm for the sail back and the winds had by now built to what they would end up- 15, gusting 22. The sail back was off the wind all the way and OH BOY is this boat a flyer. Broad reach til the channel, then wing and wing surfing on some 1 to 2 foot stuff. You could feel the boat surge as we'd slide off the waves- long surges. I suspect that during this time is when we did the 9.7 mph. I expect we were holding close to that for 3 and 4 minutes at a time during that sail.

Had intended for Laura to sail the boat back and forth near the beach so I could snap some pics of the boat under sail, but the winds were such that neither of us wanted to sail it single hand just yet- there are a couple of small things we need to correct in the way it's rigged before that.

At any rate, I'd say the conversion was a roaring success and we now have a MUCH better boat for our purposes.

And Laura was ecstatic with how it sails, which makes me very happy.

By the way-Graham did a great job drawing the amas for me and has the plans available

[Randy C.]

Looks like you had a GREAT day on the water! The boat looks nice.

[Steve Day]

Charlie,

Congrats on the successful conversion. Looks like you made a "right nice" boat for having fun. It's always good to see a smile on the better half whilst sailing.

I'll be interested to see how the Texas 200 turns out for y'all.

Steve

[wkisting]

Thanks for the report, Charlie. As always, you did beautiful work on the tri conversion. Looks great!

[Tom Lathrop]

Charlie,

Looking great.  Nice to see an experiment come out so well.  I know it's a bit more rigging trouble, but would a tramp dry things up a little?

[Charlie Jones]

Working on a tramp Tom- just don't have time twixt now and the 200. We'll have to sail wet for that. Besides, we haven't quite figured exactly what we want there.

Plus I gotta get back to real work ;D I have a customer job or two or three sitting waiting. Few things I HAVE to finish up and get shipped this next week before the 200.

[rlchenry]

Super Job!!!

That really looks GREAT!

You might be able to quickly fashion a spray diverter for the 200 - just a trianglular piece of cloth with 3 grommets for the forward inboard corner of the opening.  Kind of a smaller version of the one like the Windrider Rave has: