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Summer Breeze - Core Sound 17, Mk-3


Chick Ludwig

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In case you’re not aware, the Little River Band came out with a song in the late ‘70’s entitled ‘Cool Change”.  The last line of the refrain is “ I know that it’s time for a cool change”.

 

I agree with PAR- changing the name of a boat is “bad luck”.  But I did it once, and the gods were kind.  The name of the Catalina 27 I bought was Socialite II.  I changed it to Thrillsbe, which rhymes with my last name.  It provided us with many thrills.

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  • 11 months later...

Hi folks, this is my first post here and I just wanted to introduce myself as the new owner of Summer Breeze!  After being a fan of the CS17mk3 for a while (but not having the time to build one myself)  I finally talked Dale into selling SB to me and I'm happy that I was also able to read her whole build history here on this thread so I hope its ok to resurrect it after a year.  Having access to Chick should be an interesting experience and quite bi-lateral since I'm a pretty active Internet/Social Media kind of guy myself so you can hear all about how SB will live on through my adventures.  And for those who don't know me, I already have a lot of boats and a lot of adventures all up and down the West Coast of Florida, the panhandle and including 6 cruises to the Keys in the last 7 years or so.  So this should be fun!

 

Chick certainly did a great job building SB and as a scientist type who respects great engineering, I can see all the quality and craftsmanship that went into the build (and the design too).  I'm already working on enhancing her further and Dale helped me install some oar locks before I took delivery a couple weeks ago.  We also went out for a nice intro sail on Lake Tarpon before I brought her home.

 

Now I have my 'frankenstein' oars under construction which combine production oars and some custom extension pieces I'm building to create these 2-piece 11 foot oars.  Thanks to Graham for giving me the idea to use the duckworks ferrules to split them so they can fit in the cabin berths when the boat is stored.  Hopefully I'll be able to test them out in Tampa Bay this weekend!

 

IMG_8945c.thumb.png.93ba9c7544dc43a4cb7f991d765dcaed.png

 

Once I make sure the length is good out on the water, I'll finish them up and also build a couple of oar hooks which will slide onto the boom gallows shafts at the stern of the coamings.  That way they can be ready to deploy quickly if they are on the hooks and hanging back a few feet past the stern.  I also want to see if there is any way to leave the sails up on the masts (with bags over them) with the masts in the down position because that would cut rigging time almost down to nothing.  Its my first boat with tabernacles and already love that feature.

 

The next mod I plan will be to connect up my Garmin 546s GPS (which is the same one I use on my Mac26X) which has all my routes and tracks etc.  Seems like this RAM mount is a decent looking setup although I may have to add another ball and socket pair to get all the motion angles I would need to be able to swing this in and out of the companionway.  I suppose if I were a good woodworker (which I'm not) then I might build my own swing arm and hinge but it just seems easier to buy this sort of production mount.  Haven't found much opinion already written up on best ways to mount a GPS on a boat like this but I also don't want to block the use of the pretty shelves that Chick built.  Luckily Chick also left me an extra breaker for it too.

https://www.westmarine.com/buy/ram-mounts--1-5-ball-mount-with-round-base-and-mounting-hardware-for-garmin-displays--14497515?recordNum=4

 

After this, I may take SB out to Fort Desoto in a couple weeks to see the event she was designed for. ;)  Always fun to talk to the competitors right before the race.  The next mod may be a solar panel to keep the battery charged.  Not yet sure how I'll do that one but without the swing front hatch, it can't be done the same way Graham did it on Carlita.  I'm toying with the idea of hanging something off of the boom gallows, but its not a developed thought yet.

 

Further down the road I may want to add some more sails to her.   That furling asym that Graham has at the end of a bowsprit looks super cool or maybe I'll consider the mizzen stay sail...or maybe even both if it seems like they don't overlap in function too much.

 

So those are my initial plans and I'll need to do a few trips with her over the upcoming weeks to get acquainted better.

 

Regards, Dimitri (from Tampa)

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Hi Dimitri,

 

Welcome to the forum. I can't speak for Chick but I feel that I know him pretty well and I believe that he will be just as pleased as I will be to hear how you will use SB and follow your adventures together here and elsewhere on the forum.

 

Carlita has given me a lot of pleasure and I am sure that SB will do the same for you.

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Welcome Dimitri.  I see you are already in the adds and adornments portion of the program.  Many of us have been stuck there for years.  I made 10' oars for my Lapwing using those ferrels.  They are quite sturdy and lack the slop I thought they might have in the coupling.  Have fun!

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Thanks for the welcome guys!  I did take her out over the weekend and tested the new oars...those monsters are huge, that's for sure (about 11'1" long).  I also did get my GPS connected and am pondering what type of installation I should do with it...most people do opt for the swing out of the companionway I suppose so they can use it in or out of the cabin..but I may need to look around at some other installations for inspiration before I commit to anything.

 

Back to the oars, I contemplated cutting off 6 inches of the uppers because when I pulled them inboard more, they were much better balanced and still grabbed enough water, but that would also remove mass where its needed so maybe not such a good idea.  They definitely rowed much easier when I pulled them in about 4 feet inboard each, but then there is about a 1 foot overlap so I have to do like a circular rowing motion one oar at a time which although somewhat of a restful rowing position, does not get the same power as pulling both at the same time and putting your back into it.  I'll send a pic once I finish the uppers.  The featherweight lowers sure do flex a lot but hopefully, they won't break...ferrules worked great on their maiden voyage and seem very solid.

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  • 1 year later...

Hi, just thought I would stop by and report what is new with Summer Breeze.  As I suspect with a lot of us, C-19 has put a slowdown on a lot of plans.  After building the oars for SB, I decided to go 'simple' (KISS) with the GPS mount and just drill some big holes into a piece of 2X6 (where a bungie can attach), varnish it, screwed in a garmin mount for my 546s and then just bungie it to the forward seat (with wiring running through companionway).  This has turned out fine and in hindsight, I like it better than the 'swing-out from the companionway' type system a lot of people use because it allows me to position the GPS any way I want to when I'm sailing from any place in the boat (and I still use the same GPS on my other boat).  The only other 'mod' I did was attaching some PVC pipes to the boom gallows to put a 100w flexible solar panel in. The panel acts as an ugly bimini (I can barely get under it and the mizzen sail does scrape the dust off of it during a tack) while generating plenty of power for all my gadgets.  Oh, and I also added a staysail from b&b which I've used a couple times so far broad reaching in light winds.  And if you follow the WCTSS in Florida, you can see that SB is featured prominently on all its title pages since I attended a 2019 Cayo Costa cruise with her.

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She's having fun down here Chick!  Here's a couple pics of her sailing at Terra Ceia almost a year ago that I pulled off of the wctss site.   I also had her out this weekend in pretty heavy conditions at Fort Desoto/Bunces Pass. Sailing her upwind in 15-25 SCA weather was the first time I reefed the sails and I think I did it wrong based on my pointing performance.  I don't know if this 'build thread' is the right place on this forum to ask some cat ketch sailing questions (my first ketch) but in a nutshell, I think I got one of the sprits on the wrong side because they were both on the same side and you can see from the pics, they used to be on alternate sides.  I don't know if there is any general wisdom on this? (my first boat with sprits too) The other thing regarding sail shape when beating upwind in heavy air is whether the reef ties are supposed to go around the sprit or be more loose footed.  I had them tied on the sprit and I think that may have been wrong.  And for a third question, I'm also still trying to figure out how best to trim the mizzen for best heavy wind pointing.  I was having a lot of lee helm unless I pulled the mizzen pretty tight.  But then it seemed like it was stalling and not driving as hard so this is a trade-off I'm trying to figure out.  For reaching and downwind, its a lot more straight forward.  If these questions should be in a different forum, I'm happy to start a new thread.

 

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These are questions I wonder about as well. Adding to yours, in stronger wind it seemed like my CS15 would often get stuck in irons when tacking (maybe I was not using enough rudder and turning about too slowly.)  I welcome any pointers on effectively sailing the Core Sound boats. 

(I’ve sailed sloops a few times in previous years but I still feel new to sailing... and, I only had my CS15 sails a couple weeks last fall before putting the boat into winter storage.)

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Yea, I was having some issues tacking too...partly because I was over-reefed/not reefed properly so I wasn't going fast enough when going into a tack, and partly because I think CB boats do tend to have this issue going upwind in heavy winds.  What I did to succeed was pulled the mizzen sheet in before the tack and then as the mainsail is coming through the wind, you kind of hold it in a backwind position momentarily to help the bow come through the wind the rest of the way.

 

I also see on this b&b page that the question about the sprits being on alternate sides is answered, although it doesn't say why that is and what can happen if you rig it wrong like I did on Saturday.  I'm kind of wondering now if I was sailing better on one tack versus the other but I wasn't really paying attention to that since I was fighting high winds.

 

https://bandbyachtdesigns.com/blog/why-a-cat-ketch/

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I'll make a couple of comments.

 

Re the sprits. In theory each sail has a good and bad tack depending on whether the sprit is affecting sail shape or not, so it is usual to rig the sprits on alternate sides so one tack isn't all bad and the other all good. In truth there's not much difference. My brother used to race his Bolger Gypsy (which has a sprit rig) against another Gypsy identical except the sprit was rigged to the other side. The boats sailed similarly on each tack- he couldn't tell any difference.

 

When reefing the sail ties should be around the sail only, not the sprit. I suspect this was the major issue with pointing.

 

When tacking you want the mizzen in tight to drive the boat head to wind, then ease it a little on the new tack to allow the boat to fall off on the new tack (leaving it tight can act like a weather cock- which is how you heave to on a cat ketch) . Likewise pulling the main in tight (or even to windward as you discovered) after passing head to wind can help the bow fall off. 

 

Cheers

Peter HK

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I had some difficulty getting to wind in my 17.  Mine is a Mark I, meanings the original design with no cabin and no water ballast.  Wind was 20-25, estimated, with waves about 2 feet.  I try to estimate conservatively.  I asked Graham for some advice, and here is a summary of the Old Master's response, with my comments in (parens).  I'm trying to summarize accurately, but I invite Graham to jump in if I misstate or omit.

 

As the breeze freshens, first tighten the snotters to flatten and depower the sails.  Then "lower" (assume he means reef) the sails "as much as I can get away with to reduce the heeling force."  Then (and this was a surprise to me) "I raise the centerboard so that it rakes to about 45 degrees aft to raise the center of lateral resistance, also reducing the heeling force.  "You do need to keep up some speed to make up for the smaller centerboard area."

 

Then Graham adds that "the worst thing that you can do is to pinch, because the waves will stop you.  Sheet a little further out than normal but not too much and try to sail her flat and full.  I like a fair amount of weather helm in these conditions.  My first reef is just the main.  If I still cannot hold her up I will reef the mizzen.  If you take away too much power, you will be slow in the lulls.  Rather than feather too much in the puffs, you are better to ease the main for a few seconds and bring it back on quickly.  If you have speed you can come up for the bigger waves as long as you fall back on course right away."  He adds, finally, "sailing at large angles of heel is slow."

 

I am eager to try all this, but my breezy sail was the last of the season and the boat needed some repairs after that trip and is now put away.  That day, I had put in double reefs on both main and mizzen.  I'm wondering now if I would have been better off with just a single reef on the mizzen.

 

Finally, as others have noted:  tie the reef points around the sail only, not around the sprits.  And the sprits should be on alternate sides, just so that any effects of a "bad side" are balanced.

 

Note again that this is for the Mark I, not for the water-ballasted Mark III that you have, where results and techniques may vary.  But you certainly don't want to be out in a blow with lee helm.

 

It's interesting to read all the comments.  I'm confident the Core Sounds can go upwind in a blow because, among other things, Graham and Alan have done it.  I think it just turns out that the groove is a little narrower than on other points of sail.

 

 

 

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