sailing whisp

[Philip Maynard]

I'm thinking of building Stephen Redmond's Whisp and I've seen many favorable comments about how well she rows but almost nothing about sailing, can anybody who has sailed one please describe her sailing qualities?

[Tom Lathrop]

When I sailed one, I thought the rig a bit fragile for more than small lake sailing.

[Steve Lansdowne]

I built and still have a sailing version. I find her too tender when sailing, in contast to the joy of rowing her. I've actually only had her sailing a few times, given this problem and my interest in building more than sailing. To keep her stable I had to sit on the bottom just forward of the aft seat, which made steering with the tiller over my right shoulder quite difficult. If I sat to one side, the boat heeled over too much. Likely if I'd had her out in a stiffer breeze this would have been less of a problem, but I was not brave enough to try it given the hassle of righting her if capsized. The mast on this boat is, as I recall, 16 feet or so, which is longer that the boat itself and quite tall. The leeboard hardware, which I had made up by Springfield Fan Centerboard Co., cost me $150 five years ago. Sailrite provided the sail kit. Some shots are at http://www.imagestation.com/album/index.html?id=4291950 191.

Hey, aren't you the guy who built a plywood Melonseed of his own design? I"m now working on the Barto version of this boat. Looks like fun.

[ 08-18-2005, 10:26 PM: Message edited by: Steve Lansdowne ]

[Jack Heinlen]

I concur, as a sailboat Whisp rows really well. I've only had the rig in a few times, but the basic fabric of the boat, if built ultra-light, just doesn't feel up to the task. As mentioned, she's also tender, which is not helped by that towering spar. And hiking out involves sitting on that skinny gunwale.

The boat is potentially very fast off the wind, but if I were going to build it again I'd either leave out the rig or cut it down. Maybe a standing lug of 45 ft would be better fettle, though granted not as sharp looking as what Redmond drew. And not as fast.

She's a very fine rowing boat!

[Tom Lathrop]

Agree with all and I should have said that the rudder and leeboard also seem small. That dinky little peg on the clew and its boom connection also seems fragile. Altogether not a very good boat for sailing. Can't beat the looks or rowing style for a hard chine though.

[Jack Heinlen]

All that said, with a bit of beef beyond the 3/16 th planking in the skin, and maybe a different thwart/partners, and a tough butt, Whisp would be a hoot to sail, just as drawn. I don't see the weakness Tom mentioned in the club.

It is, however, an open boat. Dump it and you bail. Not for the faint of heart, or the old and crotchety.

It's more difficult to manage than a Laser or a Sunfish, for the same thrill.

I don't see the attraction as a sailboat, because of the limitations.

[Steve Lansdowne]

I forgot to mention what a fellow told me several years ago who had built several of these and sailed one of them. His complaint was that the mast's forces on the hull in the area of the mast thwart, which is also a seat, were so strong that he felt the area under this should be reinforced, perhaps to make the thwart more rigid with the rest of the hull. I envisioned some X braces leading from each side of the seat to the opposite chine log, or some plywood fixed beneath the seat to make the whole area more of a solid piece.

When I looked at it at the WB School several years ago, the end of their Whisp's boom was broken off at the smaller rounded end, just as you noted, and as has since happened to mine. I drilled out a hole into the boom and replaced the piece of boom that had broken off with a piece of oak dowel, which thus far has stood up OK.

[ 08-19-2005, 07:38 PM: Message edited by: Steve Lansdowne ]

[Bill Childs]

The first boat I built was a Whisp... 21 years ago. It was great fun to sail. Sailed it a bunch and nothing seemed weak or ever broke.
It is lively, but that's how a narrow little sharpie sails. If you are envisioning a nice dry comfortable sailboat then Whisp isn't the best choice. If you want to get out there and sail fast and cheap and don't mind getting a little wet now and then it's perfect.

[Steve Lansdowne]

Thanks for the positive take on this. Some of us are more adventurous sailers than others, and after your comment I feel more positive about a few more sailing trials before I decide that this boat is too much for me to handle with the sails up.

[Bill Perkins]

I had a great sail in a Wisp some years ago.Conditions were perfect : smooth water and a moderate , steady breeze .There were 3 adults aboard . Maybe the single handers would have a better experience with 50 lb. or more in sand bags aboard .The fully loaded boat didn't seem excessively tender ,for her size .

[ 08-20-2005, 01:52 PM: Message edited by: Bill Perkins ]

[Keith Wilson]

If it were my boat, I'd ditch the club and use a normal triangular sail. Aside from looking kind of cool, there's IMHO absolutely no justification for the club. There's a good reason they call it a "club", BTW. Don't ask how I know this.

[kevin brennan]

Phil, I built one 16 years ago and sold off the sail rig to one of your fellow Delaware TSCA members about 8-10 years ago and I don't think he ever put it into his whisp. You had to be an acrobat to sail it any kind of a breeze and my knees couldn't take it. Great rowing boat though

[Steve Lansdowne]

Darn, just when I've been working to lose weight you suggest I need more ballast. Perhaps I'll try some next time and see how she goes.

[Keith Wilson]

Whisp is very nice, but seems a better rowboat than sailboat. Phil Bolger's Gypsy is a design of similar size (a bit heavier) that both rows and sails very well, especially in a blow, and is IMHO at least as pretty. Plans from Dynamite Payson here.





[ 08-23-2005, 01:29 AM: Message edited by: Keith Wilson ]

[Jack Heinlen]

Gypsy is nice. But Whisp is a bit different. It's got planing in it off the wind. That's a part of her desire. I'm sure Gypsy will plane, but not as easily.

Sailing Whisp hard, the way designed, just isn't in the cards. I rowed the boat, long and hard, on a choppy lake. I didn't feel comfy with the flex in the skin when rowing, but she never broke. I sense she might break under a hard press of sail.

The thing to do is to build the boat out of 1/4 ply and put a more stout forward thwart in. And then be prepared to dump, and ask for help when it's time to put on the car. [img]smile.gif[/img]

It's an interesting, youthful, design. Maybe Steve, who used to post occasionally, will chime in and set us all straight. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Keith Wilson]

Well, Steve does discuss a wide variation in weight and strength of construction on the plans, and the lightest scantlings are very light indeed. I suspect if one were going to sail a Whisp hard, it should be built heavier and stronger.

And FWIW, the Gypsy planes very nicely even with my weight aboard, and really flies with a lighter crew.

[Philip Maynard]

I friend of mine has a gypsy and it seems to sail and row very well indeed. Kevin, I'll ask about the sailing rig, I really admired your sharpie's speed and simplicity at last year's Barnegat sail. I was looking at the whisp because I wanted a good light weight rowing boat that I could also sail. I built a merry wherry kit for my wife which she is very happy with but for myself I would like a rowing boat with a fixed seat. The whisp seemed like a possibility. Looking at the plans it seems the design favors rowing (which seems born out by that fact that rowing is what has made it's good reputation). Looking at the plans there are a number of items that maybe could be changed to
improve it's sailing qualities; the club rig, the leaboard, the light mast step and the lack of good seating while sailing it. Especially for such a light boat, being able to easily move to balance the wind is all the more important as even a solo crew weight is 2x as much as the empty boat. So my thought's were to put my new rig from my melon seed in the whisp, It's a 75 sf 16' hollow mast triangular sail with 3 reef points and a lightweight curved boom. "On paper" anyway it looks like it would work better than the designed rig and I could do it without modifing my present rig - I could use it in either boat. I thought the mast/thwart arangement could be made much stronger w/o adding much weight. A would fit a light high aspect ratio centerboard under the middle seat instead of the leaboard. While rowing, I'm sure the middle seat arrangement is idealy placed for weight balance. When sailing, you would still want to be somewhere close to that presumming the weight of the sailing rig and rudder roughly balanced, but you would not want to be in the stern (where you have to be to get your hand on the tiller - unless you use a tiller extension). My idea was to set up a rudder yoke with steering handles on each side of the boat at the middle seat location and make the middle seat continuous from side to side so that you could sit anywhere on it to balance the wind and also put in short seat extensions on each side just aft of the middle seat to "hike out" comfortably w/o having to sit on the rail - no more acrobatics. Ahh, well, it's starting to sound like maybe a misguided project if I'm taking a beautiful simple
light boat and turning it into a complicated, heavy, ugly monstrosity. It's certainly possible to "improve" it so much that it would be so
heavy as to be worse than it originally was, but I think I could do all that without adding much weight. But the real basic question is are the current very mixed reviews of it's sailing qualities suggesting that it just isn't that great a sailing platform, to narrow and light? or do they support the idea that there is room to improve it's sailing qualities? I do not know, I really appreciate everyone's feedback on either side. I am not very comfortable questioning Stephen Redmonds design decisions, (I myself could never design something from scratch, I am more of a modifier/tinkerer myself) but my natural curiosity and love of "what if" has served me fairly well over the years. My intention is not as to find fault but to see if some changes could broaden the utility of this lovely boat.

[Bill Perkins]

When I sailed Wisp I remember thinking that if I built her I'd install a daggerboard , the case being offset and landing just inboard of the chine .

[Steve Lansdowne]

My impression, and apparently that of others, is that what makes a good rowing boat and what makes a good sailing boat are certainly not the same -- and Whisp is primarily not a sailer. If you want something good to row and want to experiment with sailing a Whisp, fine -- you already have a Melonseed to keep you happy when sailing. You may even find that you like a more "daring" ride than I was looking for and thus love the Whisp. Once I briefly had mine up on plane, I suspect, and it was a real thrill. Too much tinkering around with the rig leaves you with a Whisp hull and a "something else" rig, which might work fine but it is not Redmond's boat.