MiniCup 2001

I launched without a hitch under light winds and then puddled around the lake for about 1 hour.  I had some problems with the daggerboard rising up when the wind died or when caught in irons, and my rudder wasn't fully down originally as well.  After an hour I came in to retrieve my refreshments and noticed my family still there, taking advantage of the small beach.  I went back out and the wind was even lighter so I got to practice my tacking a bit.  The boat is amazingly stable.  I was even able to stand up in it when the wind died completely.

After another hour, I headed back to shore and beach landed without much problem.   My rudder will need to be adjusted to kick up a bit farther though as it was dragging on the ground.  I received many nice comments from other people at the club about my new boat and the design.  My dolly worked well, not only for launching, but retrieval as well, so not to de-rig and load it on the Jeep for the return trip.

Now a chance to try those things that I figured out after my first launch.  I was alone this time, so I was only able to take pictures of the unloading.  I modified my roof rack to make a "car" that the boat would be strapped to to prevent it from sliding, especially when loading.  I built a mini dagger-board that slid into a hole in the car to prevent the boat from sliding forward on the car and tied it fore and aft.   The rails on the car slid between the bunks on the roof rack, and I moved the casters on the bunks to the aft end of the car.  That way when I lift the bow of the boat, it rolls back.  The bunks were also shortened from their original 14' so that the casters will fall off the end and the nose wheel will be just in front of front of the bunks.  Now I just have to paint them, and cover them with outdoor carpet.  This system worked quite well, even on a slope and while loading the slippery boat on recovery.

As far as the sailing went, I attached a wind indicator made from an old coat hanger and some cassette tape to the forward part of the gaff, and it helped a lot, especially with the very light winds that I had.  The wind died completely on me when it was time to get back in, so I paddled part of the way.  I did have a problem with stability going down-wind when I got caught in a motor-boat wake.  The boat started to rock from side to side and began doing it faster.  I pulled the mainsheet in and didn't pitch-pole fortunately.    I also used a suggestion I received to roll the sail up on itself and then lashed it to the boom and gaff using the mainsheet and halyard.  I cut the ties at the tack, clew and head to reduce the sail tension.  Hopefully this will make rigging much faster next time.  The only actual mistake I think I made was in putting my halyard up the halyard block backward.   It didn't work well, but was not a big problem.

Hopefully I'll get some of these fixes as well as some paint patching I had missed done and will get out again next week, preferably with some wind.  I'll probably not get out on the long weekend.  Perhaps this time I'll remember to take my life jacket.   I had forgotten it this time and had to stop at Canadian Tire on the way to pick one up.  I needed another one anyway for my mother who wants a ride.

Things to fix/change:

Things to fix/change:

For the original loading of the boat, I used a make-shift block and tackle which didn't help quite as much as I had hoped.  I think I will have to use a winch.  I also built an extension arm for the roof rack that allows me to hoist the stern of the boat up well forward of the front of the Jeep and that worked quite well.  My first beach launching went fairly well although I used the dagger-board as a paddle to get pointed out how I wanted.  Even with light winds, in practically no time, I was out in the middle of the bay.  There were lots of PWCs and power boats out which generated moderate swells that generally weren't too much trouble to deal with as long as I was able to point into them.  The only difficult ones were wakes that approached the sides of the boat, especially when I had the boom out which accentuated the effect.  Sheeting the boom in helped a lot.  The bay has lots of very deep holes in it that generate some strange currents and at times I found myself becalmed and literally spinning in circles which was quite frustrating.  I sailed up the bay to the shore where the festivities were on and along the shore.  As I was approaching a point with lots of rocks, the wind died and I almost ended up on them, but I turned the boat around and managed to get out although I almost collided with a moored houseboat because I had so little control in such light winds.
To get back to my launching site, I had to sail downwind for most of the way.  During this, I did 3 accidental gybes, but fortunately not serious ones as I was trying to keep the sail sheeted in fairly well.  Because the prevailing winds blow directly at the point, and had started picking up to 10 knots or better, I ended up going past the point and then sailing back upwind to it in order to land.  I'm not confident of my skills going exactly down-wind on a run.  While landing, my daggerboard grounded fairly solidly and took a slight bit of damage where it exits the daggerboard case, but fortunately there was no damage at all to the case.  Re-loading and loading the boat went fairly well although I tried to use just one pulley to lift the carriage and that ended up being more work than using two.  I've been lacing the sail onto the boom and spars using a very nice lacing knot that goes on and undoes easily, and I also find that it works well to keep the sail dry after dropping the halyard.

Things to fix/change:

Things to fix/change: