Weekender knockdown

[Harmsway]

There has been a lot of fuss in other forums about the weekender blowing over and not being able to right her. A post from a couple years ago from a fellow in a weekender got knock over and could not get it upright without help.

Mind you I have been sailing small boats all my life and have turned most of them over. I would expect that if I ever sailed a weekender I might capsize her, but I would also expect to be to able to right her again. So my question is...

How many of you fellows have turn your weekenders over?

How easily do they flip?

How hard is it to upright them by yourself?

Any techniques to righting these other then the usual walking out on the keel?

Gene

[Frank Hagan]

I never knocked mine over, but there have been others who have, and righted the boat pretty quickly.

It helps if you loosen the main sheet and get the sail out of the water as much as possible.  Then you stand on the keel and pull it over.  Not sure how hard it is, but I'm sure others will chime in here.

[Greg Luckett]

Gene,

Can you point us to those other forums and threads?  I would like to read them too.

Thanks,

Greg.

There has been a lot of fuss in other forums about the weekender blowing over and not being able to right her. A post from a couple years ago from a fellow in a weekender got knock over and could not get it upright without help.

......

Gene

[John Weigandt]

I have a Weekender launched in '98.  Been all over the place in little to lots of wind. 

I have "pushed the envelope" and sailed with water coming up to the splash combing.

Never took her over.

My take on it is that a beginner could indeed take one over.

Anyone who has sailed a sunfish or other unballasted small sailboat should be able to keep her on her feet.

If I recall over the years, the issue for getting back up isn't so much not being able to right the boat, but rather the ability to get her bailed out and "self rescue"

I have floatation behind the seat backs, and probably need more up front to make the swamped boat float well enough for a bailing out..   

I can see if you didn't have floatation behind the seat backs, it would be quite difficult to make her float high enough after a swamping to bail back out,  especially with wheel steering with the little transom hole cut out. 

You probably need to make the fore hatch have the ability to positively dog down both from the inside and the outside to keep a low floating bow from re swamping.

Re boarding a weekender with no swim ladder (unswamped) is no treat either (read near impossible)

Years ago, I could self rescue an aluminum canoe and re board..  they made us do it in the pool for lifesaving class.  But I'm not gonna get that done today either. 

John

[Harmsway]

The fellow who turned his weekender over was having a bad day. Who knows why a series of events cluster like this but they sometimes do. You can read this entertaining story in the following link.

http://www.woodenboat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=64308

Now you asked for this so here is the link to the weekender critics. But I must put a WARNING out before you read this. This thread practically sucked all the joy and excitement I had about starting the weekender project. The thread is not for the weak minded or emotionally unstable. Another words if you take people opinions personally stay away from reading this...

http://www.woodenboat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=88835

After giving this thread (posted above) a day to settle on I was able to glean the good insight presented from the rest of the stuff. My excitement in the weekender has returned.

Gene Harm

[Harmsway]

Oh, and a thread definitely informative and worth reading is this..

http://byyb.org/forum/index.php?topic=1989.0

[John Weigandt]

You will note that the most vocal Woodenboat critics have never seen one in person much less sailed one.

But then again.. at Kentucky lake,  we sailed with a core sound.... and performance wise he blew our doors off.. 

Different strokes for different folks. 

John