Alternative rigging for spindrift 12 ?

[1blueheron]

I am not trying to take anything away from the Spindrift. The reason I ask this question is I currently have an old Alcort Sailfish.  It is the boat I had as a kid and learned to sail on.  My son is now 12 and I would like to teach him to sail but the sailfish is not good for 2 people and I have put on several pounds since I last sailed her.  I think she would look more like a sail powered submarine than boat if I got on her.  So I am wondering if I could use the sail, mast, spar, and some of the rudder hardware and adapt it to the spindrift which would make a great all purpose boat for him to learn boating and sailing.  The sail is roughly the same sq.ft. (75) but is a lateen rig.  I could build a sunfish but the sunfish would not accept an outboard motor unlike the spindrift so it would not be as versatile.  Any ideas or suggestions?  Would this work with some compromise or minor modification or am I foolish to think about it?

[Alan Stewart]

blueheron,

 

In the spirit of getting out on the water in any way possible I think it could be done however not without some modification and the boat will not sail as well as a properly rigged spindrift and will also be pretty much impossible to reef. In addition I believe that the sunfish rig will be heavier than a standard spindrift mast and sail. 

 

Using a snapshot from Joe's capsize recovery video on his Spindrift 12 and a profile of a sunfish sail it looks as though the center of area of the sunfish sail would be slightly behind that of the Spindrift. This will effect the balance of the boat. You would also at the very least have to build a spindirft rudder. I don't think any of the sunfish rudder parts could work because the sunfish has about a 6" high transom and the spindrift has a full transom of about 18" tall. Also the sunfish rudder is raked back for some reason I've never figured out which is undesirable. Also the sunfish mast would probably be too short to fit in a spindrift and have a reasonable amount of head clearance under the boom. You would have to extend the sunfish's mast to gain boom clearance. LOTS of issues now that I think about it.  

 

The spindrift is a great boat and deserves it's propper rig. Start building it and add the rig when you get there it's very easy to make. 

 

 

 

 

[Designer]

I do not always disagree with Alan but if you can build the boat you can make the adjustments to make the rig work.

 

If the boom turns out to be too low, you could add a wood plug to the top of the mast to raise the halyard.

 

If the rig causes too much weather helm you could move the halyard up the yard or move the swivel ring that Sunfish uses aft long the boom until the boat balances.

 

As for reefing, you will just have to give that up, I like having the ability to reef but most of my Spindrift sailing has been without a reef.

 

It may never be quite as good as a standard Spindrift but I bet it will sail pretty well.

[1blueheron]

Thanks to both of you.  This is exactly the info I was looking for and it will give me food for thought.