A Rough Sail Home

Monday I tried combining daysailing with fishing.  The day started out with a pleasant 10 mph southerly wind.  After a couple hours of tacking I eventually arrived at my favorite fishing spot.  Just as I arrived the wind died, which was perfect timing.  I fished for an hour or so but didnt catch anything.  Then, rather suddenly, the wind came back, this time from the North.  Looks like Ill have to tack all the way home too!

So I put away my fishing gear and started sailing back.  I couldnt help but notice that the wind was increasing rather quickly.  Up ahead I could see whitecaps forming.  I hove to, put on my rain gear and tied in a double reef in the main.  I knew Id need it, and boy was I right.  I had to sail through the worst conditions Ive experienced yet for an hour and a half.  As you can see in the wind chart from SailFlow.com, the winds went from near zero to 25 mph gusting to 30 mph in two hours.  Heres some video:

Conditions got even worse so I had to put the camera away, drop the main, and sail under jib and mizzen.  The boat handled the conditions just fine.  Me, I was a little rattled.  But let me tell you, I am so glad I ran my halyards back to the cockpit.  It was so nice to be able to drop the main while remaining safely seated in the cockpit.  I would not have wanted to walk up forward to deal with the main under these rough conditions.
And once again, I continue to be more and more impressed with Navigators capabilities.

Reef early, my friends.

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Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding Sail In

Date:     Saturday, May 30, 2015        11:00 am to 5:00 pm
Location:
Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding
42 Water Street, Port Hadlock, Washington State

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Sail Repair

Diposting oleh gerry | 0 komentar | 16.09

In Webb Chiles excellent book, Storm Passage, he tells the tale of nearing the end of his first solo circumnavigation in a boat that is sinking. In addition to bailing, by hand, about four tons of water a day, the storms of the Southern Ocean have made a torn patchwork of his sails. Day after day is spent bailing and sewing. The water never stops and the sails are never completely repaired.


Sorry Webb, just the thought of all that hand sewing makes my wrists ache. In fact, spending the last few days reinforcing the seams on several old sails with a sewing machine has been slow, tedious, unglamorous work.
But on reflection, I would much rather reinforce the sails before they require it, though I have no immediate intention of rounding Cape Horn. Possibly, all of this will pay off with another season of use from an excellent old suit of tanbark cruising sails from Hasse and Petrich, the original sails designed for the Stone Horse, Belle Starr.

We have spent several years searching for a good used sewing machine that can handle sails, without having to spend big money. A lot of machines will do a decent job on the body of a sail - its when you have to work on the reinforced corners that you need some real power. The latest machine to tackle this job in the "Doryman sail loft" is a 45 year old Pfaff 230. I highly recommend it.

Please dont look too closely at the stitching, Im still learning.
Mary is much better at this and I recommend a visit to With Needle and Palm for her take on how this work is done.

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Barkley Sound by Sail and Oar

Diposting oleh gerry | 0 komentar | 14.57

For those of you who who are interested in gunkholing (and who isnt?), Id like to call your attention to a recent trip made by some purists at the sport.

Barkley Sound is on the southwest side of Vancouver Island, BC, Canada and a more wild and beautiful place would be hard to find.

The Sound falls within the traditional territory of the Nuu-chah-nulth people who have occupied most of the west coast of Vancouver Island for four thousand years, living a semi-nomadic existence. They spent part of the year in the protected islands and bays of the Sound, and the remainder of the year on the outer islands and shores exposed to the Pacific Ocean. Indigenous sites attest to their lifestyle before the arrival of Europeans, with stonewall fish traps, shell middens and terraced village sites remaining today.


Inside Barkley Sound is an archipelago called the Broken Island Group, which is where we find our intrepid sailors. The story of this trip unfolds in a series of postings on the Woodenboat Forum. You dont have to be a member of the forum to read and enjoy this tale.

The Cast:
Who are these happy sailors? Left to right:
Eric Hvalsoe (Bandwagon), Alex Zimmerman (Hornpipe), Tim Yeadon (Big Food) and James McMullen (Rowan).

The Scene.

Whats not to like about this?

...or this?

James filleting some fresh caught Ling Cod.

I hope these guys will let me tag along next year!






Thanks to James McMullen for the heads-up on this one, a truly exceptional trip!

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A very interesting sail

Diposting oleh gerry | 0 komentar | 05.52

Saturday was our second sail of the year, and it was, shall we say, very interesting.

The forecast was 5-10 mph winds with temperatures in the low 50s (12c).  Since the winds were forecast to be light, I decided to take Nina, our cocker spaniel, along.  Nina loves to sail, although its been  a few years since her last one. Turns out shes lost her sea legs, but more on that later.

We arrived at the Port of Everett ramp around noon.  The winds were light, just as forecasted, and the sun was warm in the gentle breeze. I parked a short distance away from a family that was rigging a Macgregor 26.  Maybe its just me, but I still have trouble embracing the concept of having a 60 HP outboard on a sailboat, towing a water skier. To each his own.  The owner gave me a thumbs up and a "Nice boat" on his way to the ramp, and I returned the compliment.

We launched Ellie about 45 minutes later, but struck up a long conversation with a very friendly fellow boatbuilder at the dock. He was genuinely impressed with Ellie and had quite a few questions.  There could be another Navigator plying the waters of Puget Sound someday soon.

By the time we finally departed I noticed that the wind had picked up.  A lot, in fact.  Flags were blowing horizontal so it had to be up to 10-15.

We raised all sail and headed south, inside the jetty, towards the sound with Nina on her leash in one hand and the tiller in the other.  Nina was excited to be at sea again.  Shes very curious so she had to explore every square inch of the boat.  A couple times she would put her paws on the side decks and I told her to get down.  The third time she did, the boat hit a wave, Nina lost her balance, and overboard she went!

Steve, over at Arwens Meanderings, has recently written several very interesting blogs about safety gear.  One of the many items he has written about are life lines. Fortunately for Nina, she essentially had a life line and I was able to use it to reel her back on board. It all happened so fast.  I dont think she was in the water more than 10 seconds, but it was frightening to see her being towed through the water at 6 knots until I could grab her.  It would have been more frightening had she not had a lifeline. Would I have been able to drop sail, fire up the outboard, and been able to find her?  How do lifelines work?  If I had one, would I clip myself up near the bow, so Id function like a sea anchor, or near the stern where Id probably get towed along like a giant crankbait?

Nina was fine.  She was cold and wet, but didnt appear to have inhaled any water. She shivered for a little while but dried out pretty quickly.

By the time we finally got out to Possession sound the wind had really picked up. Whitecaps everywhere and the water was like the inside of a washing machine.  This was not in the forecast!  I stopped and put in a double reef in the main.  We sailed around for a little while.  Ellie handled the conditions just fine, but it was too rough to get any videos, I was getting uncomfortable and I was worried about Nina falling in again so we headed back to safety inside jetty island.  Conditions there were great.  Calm water and loads of wind, so we had a blast sailing back and forth for a couple of hours.

A sailboat race had just finished and the boats were all returning to the Everett marina.  Several of them sailed up to us to give us compliments.  "Nice boat!" and "What kind of boat is that?".  One of the crew members was a fellow I work with, and another fellow invited me to join the dinghy races that they have on Fridays that I didnt know about.

The wind seemed to be calming down so we headed back toward Possession sound again, but kept the double reef in to be safe.  Conditions had improved enough so that I could get out the cameras.  I attached one to the mizzen mast and filmed a bit with the other.  Nina was completely warm and dry by now so we headed out towards Gedney island.


The wind dropped a bit more, and the sky cleared up so we shook out the reefs and sailed on.

By the time we got about halfway to Gedney, the wind completely died!  The GPS said we were moving 0.0 knots, occasionally 1.5 knots, with all sails up.

We waited for a while, but still no wind so we dropped all sail, fired up the outboard, and headed back.

It was a very interesting day, indeed.

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Sail and Oar

Diposting oleh gerry | 0 komentar | 10.46

First up is Myles Quicks Swampscott dory in Auckland New Zealand.

Miles has buildt a Swampscott dory, based on a design by Pete Culler, to enjoy the excellent sailing conditions in Auckland, which lies across a volcanic isthmus separating two harbours. Waitemata Harbour to the east opens on the Hauraki Gulf and the Pacific Ocean. Westward, Manukau Harbour opens to the Tasman Sea.
Miles recently launched his yet unnamed dory, in Waitemata Harbor, for a test sail.

From Miles:
 "Hi Michael,

"I have had a wonderful weekend of sailing, but still no pictures. The truth is that I don’t know how to take photographs when I am sailing alone - I am too busy trying to handle the ropes and tiller."

"The main thing is she sails very sweetly. I have only my current boat for comparison, and that is a Welsford Rogue but how different this boat is! She wallows not at all. I have become accustomed to sailing a snake-like path, with each gust of wind bringing the boat into wind, and me correcting with a great heave on the tiller. That doesn’t happen at all. She is incredibly good-natured and peaceful and just goes where she is pointed. You don’t even notice waves. The sea picked up a little bit on Sunday, but that just made it more enjoyable."

"My list of things I was testing:

1. Centreboard position and size (given that I moved both rear mast and centreboard back and changed the shape and size) seems perfect to me. There is never helm of any kind, and no leeway that I could notice.

2. Tippiness (sorry to use that word again) – none! This is a very stable and forgiving boat – perfect for what I want.

3. Size of rig – perfect for the conditions I experienced (10 knots)

4. Speed – nothing too exceptional, but very pleasing – similar to my current boat, but I think with room for improvement once I get the hang of things.

5. Windward ability – a bit disappointing – perhaps not as good as my current balanced lug. I think I am doing something wrong, because from what I have heard the sprit sail should be quite good. Maybe I am not flattening the sail enough (those ropes are quite heavy on the arm and hands!)

6. Going about – it takes a while, but seems pretty dependable.

7. Jibing – not a problem with the sprit sails, except getting caught up in ropes.

8. Raising and striking the rig at sea – no problem – I had to do this a couple of times because I went through a squally patch. Standing upright and walking about in a bit of sea was no problem at all. I just plucked the masts out, furled the sails and rowed 500m to shore. I am not sure a motor is necessary, because rowing is so easy, but I am sure I will be grateful for the motor-well some time or other.

9. Home-designed tip-up rudder (I copied Pete’s lines though) – this worked fine – after launching I tie a few knots to fix it in the down position. When I retrieve it I tie a knot to fix it in the up position - nothing fancy or complicated at all. The rudder can dismantle, but I leave it on the boat on the trailer.

10. Trailering – the completely flat bottom (with no fixed keel) works exceptionally well for retrieving from a rough sea. You just hitch and crank, and the boat very quickly gets centred by the bow guides (see picture below). There is no way for the paintwork/plywood to get damaged by a wave lifting and dropping the boat."

"All in all Pete Culler was spot on. This is a beautiful little beach-boat and quite different from the wonderful boats by Oughtred and Welsford, which tend to be wider and heavier with much more sail, but she does the job beautifully. For someone (like me) who wants the simplest, lightest, most canoe-like of rough-water boats I just can’t fault her."

"For the remainder of this beautiful New Zealand summer I will be trying to improve my skills, and also tweaking what I can to improve performance. At some stage I am sure I will figure out a way to get some pictures as well, and I will send them on with an update."

Thats Miles first mate, Izzy, getting in the way, as usual.

The winning combination of sails.

The test run.



Great job, Miles! And they say dories dont sail well.......

As a bonus we have progress reports on two Ken Basset Firefly designs nearing completion. Our second feature is Bayard Storys double Firefly under construction in California. His boat is identical to my Finesse, so weve had an extended conversation on the quality of these boats for some time.

Im pleased to see Bayard making good progress. Keep up the good work, my friend!

More photos of the build can be found here.

Weve recently heard from Lorenz Rutz and it seems he is just a few coats of varnish and paint from launching his single rowing station Firefly in Connecticut. This boat is built in the tape and glue method, as light as is practical. Lorenz has done a very commendable job and a few readers have requested his advise on building the Firefly without traditional framing.

Nice job, Lorenz.
I expect well see these boats on the water soon.

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