Sea trials

We launched last Saturday and spent the day taking many friends and family out for short sails. Sunday and Monday I had a chance to get a better feel for what kind of boat she will be.

I built the boat in hopes to have a comfortable day-sailer to gunkhole the inland waters around my home in the Tampa Bay area. I want to be able to take along an adult or two, or a child or two or three. I'll admit, having a pretty classic boat will add a lot to the pleasure. The actual building took a while, but I enjoyed every bit of it. The boat's designer was a famous naval architect, so I had a certain degree of confidence in what I would end up with, but now I can report what I learned the first few times I've sailed her.

Stability- I've never sailed a sharpie hull before. By reputation, sharpies are fast, at least under the right circumstances; what I did not know was whether the boat would have enough initial and reserve stability to be a comfortable, easy sailer. Now having sailed in a range of conditions from very light air to gusty 20 kts, I find that she does heel down to the rail easily, but the splashboard/deck keeps the boat dry. I keep the mainsheet in my hand, and slackening it in a gust brings the boat upright immediately. There is plenty of stability to move around the boat while rigging or docking. I can even stand on the deck at the bow with no one else aboard, to fiddle with the rigging, without the boat wanting to roll over. I'm going to fit a pin extending down from the center thwart, to snub the mainsheet. I don't think it will ever be necessary or desirable to cleat the sheet.

Carrying capacity- Though she's small, three heavy people do not seem to overload her. She could easily carry and adult and three or four children. There's room for them all, too, With the two thwarts and the sternsheets. Having said that, she is much livelier when singlehanding.

Speed- I don't really care about speed. It does not take much wind to drive her to hull speed. Sailing alone, my GPS showed speed of 4-5 kts in only 10 kts of breeze, on a close reach. The one time I sailed in about 20 kts of wind, she took off like a rocket; not quite planing, but I'm sure she would plane on a reach in that much wind. She does not seem to lose stability at higher speed, like a round-bottomed dinghy does.

Sail trim- The sprit rig with a club at the clew is as novel to sail as it is to look at. The sail does not behave like a mainsail- more like a jib, but not quite that, either. The sail is enough different from anything I've sailed before, it was initially a bit difficult to sense the direction of the wind. When I sheet it in, the leech seems to snug up more than the foot. At first I thought the sprit needs to be attached to the club lower, but as I think about it, perhaps the snotter, the line which secures the sprit to the mast, needs to be lower. In any case, it does not seem to be necessary to sheet in tightly going to windward. The top 2/3 of the sail is quite flat even when the foot looks slack. And keeping the sheet a bit looser seems to keep more power in the sail. She tacks through 90 degrees, so I have no complaints there.

Mast bending- The unstayed mast is 3 1/4" at the partners, and only 1 1/4" at the head, so I expected the mast to be very whippy. It turns out not to bend much at all.

Sailing trim- The weather helm is light. With the centerboard half way up, weather helm almost disappears and she does not seem to make leeway going to windward. As a bonus, the draft with the board part way up is only about 18". One oddity is that she will self steer downwind with the board all the way up and the tiller fixed. Not many boats will self steer on any point of sail, least of all downwind .

Tacking and tracking- The large skeg has the same effect as a long keel: the boat tracks well off the wind, and is not inclined to round up in puffs going to windward. The downside is that she does not turn on a dime. The first couple of times I tacked, I nearly missed stays. It's necessary to put the helm down gently, get some turning momentum, then go ahead and put the helm to lee and complete the tack.

Pounding- The knock on flat-bottomed boats is the tendency to pound, and indeed she does pound if, for example, I go over another boat's wake when the boat is upright. But when heeled down even a little, there is little or no pounding.

Handiness- I have not mastered the process of hoisting the sail yet. The lacing tends to bind because friction with the mast tightens it as the sail is hoisted, even when the lacing starts slack. Pete Culler's book Skiffs and Schooners recommends lacing alternatively around to the left and around to the right, instead of around and around. Supposedly the lacing does not jam that way. I'll have to try that. When raising or lowering the sail, it is also necessary to lift the laces over the snotter tackle. On another subject, the boat beaches easily even with the 13"-deep skeg. By the time that touches bottom, the stem is on the beach, at least on beaches in this area.

Rowing- She is no pure rowing boat like my Gloucester Light Dory, but she rows easily from either of the two rowing stations. The oars tuck inside the forward oarlocks so they can be left shipped and on deck. The ability to row when needed without any set-up makes it handy to move the boat around for whatever purpose, to keep moving in a calm, or to get under a bridge where winds inevitably fail.

Rotating mast- Because the mast is unstayed and rotates freely, the sail will swing straight downwind whent he sheet is released, on any point of sail. It will even swing around ahead of the boat when going downwind. That novel feature allows me to effectively put the boat in neutral whenever I want to attend to a chore away from the tiller. I believe that is the way crabbers used the rig to run down a trot line, with the boat drifting pretty much on her own.

So it turns out the boat is all I could expect of her, and then some. She's a pleasure to sail, row, and to look at. I've got a lot to learn to get the best out of her, but I can see that she'll be a good friend.

One more thing- I think this little boat is absolutely beautiful. Maybe I've just been looking at her so much as she came together that naturally she looks just how a boat should. Nevertheless, the hull's lines and the rig give her a balanced, graceful, capable appearance that makes me feel good every time I look at her. My hat's off to her designer, Howard I. Chappelle. I have many pictures from last Saturday's launch festivities, and I'll post some soon. You can judge for yourself.