Sail season begins... Got photos to share?

[lagspiller]

Yesterday...


...and sailed her home.

[gray duck]

Nice!

[lagspiller]

I agree... but I'm a little surprised there are no other photos being shared. There must be a lot of boats in the northern hemisphere on the water by now.

[Mike.Higgins.94301]

My boat normally lives on a trailer but I put her into a slip for a week of daily sails on the south end of San Francisco Bay. This first photo show her in the oversized slip I was assigned. Fortunately, the marina only charges by the foot.

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A long-time resident of the marina keeps a Beetle Cat in a nearby slip with his larger sailboat. He recently had recanvased the deck and replaced the oak quarter-round at the base of the coaming.

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We sailed together on several days which provided an opportunity for some nice photos.

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Unfortunately, I had not yet stowed my fenders when he took this one.

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My next sail will be in mid-June on the Delta with the TSCA.

[lagspiller]

I wanted a catboat long ago. Never got the chance. That looks like a nice one.
How does it sail? Pretty much the opposite sailplan to mine in every way.

[Mike.Higgins.94301]

Catboats are wonderful. My main reason for building a catboat was economics. I needed a boat that could live on a trailer. Catboats derive their stability from beam rather than ballast, which means a light, shallow hull that goes onto a trailer easily. The obvious disadvantage of a catboat is its two very stable orientations. However, my sailing is all done in protected coastal waters so that disadvantage is not important to me. My other reason for building a catboat is that the hull proportions made optimal use of my small shop space.

My catboat is surprisingly fast. The gaff means that I give up a point or two when beating upwind. Off the wind I reach hull speed quickly. I often sail with my brother who has a Bullseye. His boat is 16' compared to my catboat's 14'. The Bullseye also is Marconi rigged and has the same hull as the elegant Herreshoff 12 1/2. Not surprisingly, my brother, sailing his Bullseye, usually beats me, in my catboat, to the upwind mark. I more than match his speed off the wind.

In short, like any design that has endured, the traditional catboat is a good solution to a specific problem.

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What is that beautiful hull you are sailing?

[lagspiller]

My boat is an old 22 Square Meter Nordic, a skjærgårdskrysser. Tall, high aspect rig. Narrow, deep hull. Long overhangs to increase waterline when heeling. Designed and built by Johan Anker.
Pretty much the polar opposite of a catboat in every way.

[Mike.Higgins.94301]

What a beautiful hull, but it would never have fit in my shop.

My brother made two videos of our two boats sailing together. The first video (Sailing in Monterey Bay - YouTube) was filmed with a camera suspended from kite. We are sailing on Monterey Bay in light winds. It shows how much higher his Bullseye would point. The second video (Wild 'n Wet South Bay Day - YouTube) was filmed with hand held cameras on San Francisco Bay, in much stronger winds. In this second video we are sailing off the wind, which provides a good comparison of how the two boats handled this point of sail.

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[The Q]

I agree... but I'm a little surprised there are no other photos being shared. There must be a lot of boats in the northern hemisphere on the water by now.

I love a boat with long overhangs, they look Beautiful. But we are taxed on Block square meterage on the water and of course moorings are by the 1/2 metre length.. Also the class I'll be racing in has a maximum length so I had to go for a long waterline length..

We've only been allowed some sailing on the Norfolk Broads since the End of March Very limited under a lot of restrictions due to Covid.. Some more restrictions get dropped Next Monday 17th May , so from 22nd we'll be able to have near normal racing and use of the club facilities.
So our Big Race on 5th -6th Jun, of 100+ boats racing 50 miles including going under 3 bridges and back is able to go ahead.. I hope to get some picture of that as I'm on duty ...
The last of the Covid restrictions aren't due to go until 21st Jun..

I've not been to the club since last October, but I get my second jab on Thursday..

As for my sailing boat I'm hoping to launch before Regatta week the 1st of August.. but the keel isn't bolted on ... yet..

[WI-Tom]

I agree... but I'm a little surprised there are no other photos being shared. There must be a lot of boats in the northern hemisphere on the water by now.

On the water, yes. But I haven't hoisted a sail yet--maybe today!

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And:

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Tom

[amish rob]

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Give me a few weeks...

[npbarker]

Got our for the first sail of the season in Madison, WI a couple weeks ago. The day started with dead calm, so I rowed onto the lake for a mile or so, then it rained. Then a gentle breeze picked up and carried me over the the university. I cruised through the empty mooring field, past the raucous backyards of the frat row then steered for home. In the final two miles the wind picked up and the lake was all whitecaps, with the wind blowing right onto the ramp at the dock. Made landing and hauling out interesting.

This was also the first (waterborne) cruise for the new tow vehicle, after the 20 year old Ranger more or less had its fuel system fall out (or nearly). So far, so good.

Nathan

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[jpatrick]

Hey Mike. I throughly enjoyed seeing the videos of Lia and Jean Alden. Your brother may clip you on the windward legs but your boat takes style points every day. A couple of questions.... Your mainsail is not at all close hauled in that light wind whereas Lia's main is. Is this a fundamental difference between a cat and sloop? And, it appears that the club on Lia is curved and it's tack is a foot or so above the deck. If this is so, and not a distortion of the camera, what is this? I can't recall seeing such a thing.

Jeff

[Hugh MacD]

Thanks all for posting those! My sailing will be confined to my snot boat this year due to a remodel project so I have to vicariously enjoy other folks' adventures. If I'm really lucky I might be able to get the Mirror out, but...

[lagspiller]

Now we are getting somewhere.
Nice films, especially the second.
Good luck to the guy with the IKEA flat pack boat.
The 'whitehall' looks great.

[amish rob]

Now we are getting somewhere.
Nice films, especially the second.
Good luck to the guy with the IKEA flat pack boat.
The 'whitehall' looks great.

Cheers! Self designed and hand cut proa kit.

Of course, I’m hopeful we can even get on the lake this year. Last year was fire and pandemic...

[lagspiller]

Why aren't you in the shop?
(Just joking)

[Mike.Higgins.94301]

Hey Mike. I throughly enjoyed seeing the videos of Lia and Jean Alden. Your brother may clip you on the windward legs but your boat takes style points every day. A couple of questions.... Your mainsail is not at all close hauled in that light wind whereas Lia's main is. Is this a fundamental difference between a cat and sloop? And, it appears that the club on Lia is curved and it's tack is a foot or so above the deck. If this is so, and not a distortion of the camera, what is this? I can't recall seeing such a thing.

Jeff

This photo shows the curved club on Lia's jib. My brother also has a larger jib that is set without the club.

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As far as sheeting my boat is concerned, I follow the traditional practice with catboats of not over sheeting. Jean Alden seems to point highest when the boom is directly over the leeward corner of the transom. Most years I spend a weekend racing with similar sized boats on Monterey Bay. The other boats are all Marconi rigged sloops. However, I can more than hold my own on the windward leg with this practice.

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[Mike.Higgins.94301]

Island Stop.jpg

Tom

What a lovely hull.

[WI-Tom]

Thanks, Mike. Proof that even a (very) non-expert builder can end up with a boat that looks good (from a moderate distance, at least!). And there's a lot of my brother's work in that boat, too--I had plenty of help with all the tricky bits.

Tom

[gray duck]

Beautiful pics and cool videos! thanks
Mike - What design is your Cat?

[Mike.Higgins.94301]

Beautiful pics and cool videos! thanks
Mike - What design is your Cat?

I don't want to drag this thread too far off topic. My catboat's hull is based on Bolger's Bobcat, scaled from 12x6 to 14x7. I changed the forward hull sections so that I could have a tumble home profile on the bow. The sail is a copy of the sail on the Breck Marshall - the catboat in the Mystic Seaport collection. The rest is my own doing, including that seriously oversized rudder.

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[gray duck]

I don't think you're drifting this thread at all since the OP was asking for sailing pictures - and you have delivered. That 14 foot catboat sure looks like a bigger Little ship on the water and you did a great job increasing the size of a design while maintaining great performance.

[Etdbob]

So far my wife and I have had a canoe out on a local lake once and once we went "sailing" out of Hunters on the Roosevelt in my skiff. No wind at all that day, so we left mast and sail on the roof rack and went a-rowing. Had a nice picnic and maybe as much as a 10 mile row. We crossed over to the Indian side to beach comb, then back over to find shade for lunch. It was a hot, sunny and still day. Didn't go swimming though, the water is still ice cold!

I don't have photos of these trips handy, so I'll post old ones of the same boats on the same waters, which is hopefully close enough.

La Madalena under oars somewhere along the Roosevelt

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Our canoes Wanderer and Wayfarer. (I sold my whitewater boat Willful some years ago. For some reason, I like canoe names to begin with a W!).

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The falls on Horseshoe late at low water. It's higt water now and we worked the canoe to the base of the falls. But I didn't bring a camera.

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[Mike.Higgins.94301]

Beautiful photo. Is all of this water in Eastern Washington?

[Etdbob]

Uh, yes, my photos were.

Lake Roosevelt is the damned up Columbia river north of Grand Coulee damn. Endless miles of empty sandy beach, all federal land on one side and tribal land on the other.
Lined with camp grounds and almost always empty, it's the perfect place for a cruise.

Take a look at this map, the place is amazing -

https://www.lrf.org/recreation/lake-guide



The little Horseshoe lake is a few miles from my home in Stevens county WA.
Home to the infamous "Devils Well!"

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[Hugh MacD]

What are the winds like up there? We've thought about taking our plastic boat all the way upriver, through the locks, some summer. It'd be a month long trip (or more, but there's some amazing stuff to see on the way!

[lagspiller]

Not quite 'on the water' yet, but very, very close. Finished repairs, scraping and setting in with the usual pine-tar, linseed oil, turp and deck oil we mix together for our trad boats. The big boat (a gavlebåt) was almost dry when I checked it yeasterday, one day after oiling.

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The smaller is a seksæring from about 1880. It got an extra strake in 1924 when the 4.5 hp Rap two stroke semidiesel with a hot bulb top was put in and the boat was added to the Fishery Register. This is one of the very first motorized fishing boats from this area. I don't know of any other from that time still in use.

[Mike.Higgins.94301]

Lagspiller, those two look amazing.

[Etdbob]

Hugh MacD

What are the winds like up there? We've thought about taking our plastic boat all the way upriver, through the locks, some summer. It'd be a month long trip (or more, but there's some amazing stuff to see on the way!

Heh, from my perspective in a small skiff the winds are always either to much or not enough!

On the Roosevelt I'd say generally light in the summer, better in the fall. Once in a bigger skiff I sailed all day downwind to the south and camped for the night. The next day a strong wind blew up from the opposite direction and I roared downwind back north under three reefs!

The winds can be chaotic.

But, there are eight locks on the Columbia. "Lower Granite" lock is the highest lock, and there are a pile more dams without locks above that point before Lake Roosevelt, maybe six or seven more, so the only way to cruise Roosevelt is by trailer!

I've never been on the lower Columbia. From what I've seen by land the winds can be quite strong at times.

Here is a view of the river from Maryhill. Some interesting islands around here, and -

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We even got our own Stonehenge there, but i believe it's off a little astronomically speaking, probably not adjusted for daylight standard time or something...
Cool museum there too, if you like that kind of thing(which I do...).

I think a cruise of the lower river would be a blast, but you might be using the "iron wind" a bit.


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[Hugh MacD]

We're in St. Helens, and the winds can be fairly strong here. Nothing like Hood River/White Salmon, though. When Portland heats up in the summer we get some 20-30 knot thermals that'll keep ya busy Our boat draws 6'-6" so our lower river cruising is limited to main branch locations, but a small boat on the lower river can get you into some great spots! I'm rebuilding an old Mirror dinghy to tow behind us for gunkholing the thin waters, but we probably won't have time this summer. Maybe we ought to trailer it up to the upper lakes and bring the tent for shoreline cruising