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Report on sailing with main mast in third step-what a Blast!


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All,

As promised I wanted to give you a quick report on our sail this weekend using only the main mast in the third step as Graham designed it in the CS. We had a blast. She did extremely well to all points especially to weather with the center board all the way down. With a small chop on the lake and a light but constant breeze we hit burst of speed around 7 mph using our GPS and we didn't have to reduce sail one time. Heeling was efficient and safe and easy to control. I rigged her using the typical main sheet location of the ketch rigging typical of our CS design. My son went with me and I couldn't get him to let go of the tiller. We didn't even use our fishing poles it was so fun to sail around the lake.

We were squealing like school boys--good thing we almost had the entire lake to ourselves--very embarrassing for two grown men. Setup took about 10 minutes and take down was even faster. Since we have a cuddy on our CS putting the main in the third step gave us more room in the cockpit.

In short she was very fun to sail and still very fast using only the one sail. Many thanks to you all for your wonderful advice and comments and especially to Graham for a wonderful and superior hull design.

Happy sailing to you all.

Bob

CS#199 First Attempt

Alaska

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Looks like a blast! That grin speaks volumes. You may want to reconsider sheeting to the normal main position though. That angle has the sheet pulling the aft end of the sprit forward which in strong winds will put a serious bending stress on it. I've sheeted this way on a CS17 in high winds and the first time we tried to go hard to weather, the sprit snapped like a toothpick. Better to sheet aft to the mizzen blocks. Or better yet, add new sheeting points for the reefed position. Looks like you are getting things dialed-in nicely. Well done!

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That's wonderful news. Glad to hear it worked well for you. I've never had the chance to try the third mast position since I didn't install one, but I've heard others praise the sailing qualities rigged that way. Sounds like you may have solved your reefing/space/comfort dilemmas.

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Thanks Wes. Yes indeed. You ought to try it. I think Gordy was right when he said I would be giving up less performance that I might think.

It was really fun and you are right Gordy I do need longer sprits...I built my to specs but I did increase the foot of the sail abit. That is because when I built the boat I bought used sails just a tad bigger than Graham's specs. My next project is to figure out how to build the step assist apparatus that I found on Graham's CD (see attached photos). I can't remember who did this but I remember seeing it long ago. I think this will be just the ticket for me when I go sailing solo. I am having a harder time all of the time trying to set the mast.

I must be getting older or something.

Thanks all for the support and comments.

Happy sailing.

Bob

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