The forecast looked really unappealing all week but I bit the bullet and said stuff it we're sailing unless it's dangerous.
So we launched Charlene Saturday morning and crossed our fingers that today (Sunday) would be nice for a sail.
Crofty (our designer and a professional boat-builder by day) took the helm when we left Cabbage Tree creek around 10am with about 8-10knots. We debated the merits and problems associated with my building in excess rocker into the forward 4/5ft of the bow. The merits where pretty obvious as she didn't miss a beat getting through the chop and didn't try to steer from the bow. The occasional slamming of the bow area on a wave was really nothing more than a little irritating due to the noise and that was the only 'problem' so far.
This had Crofty smiling but not over-joyed at our creation....A couple of hours of windward sailing later the breeze had picked up to 12-15knots and it was time to head for home and a kite run............
Holy shit !!!!!!!!!!!!! Put the #2 kite up, put a rip in the luff getting the old fucker up so back down it came. Up went old faithful our smallest kite.
This kite start life as a skiff kite then went to Andrew Clauson on his i550 Tokyo Trash Baby (Brisbane), then came to us as a gift to put on our i550 Shazza (Brisbane Australia). It then went on holiday to Jon Raymond in Montana USA for use on his i550 Critical Twist. Jon then sent it back to us when we mentioned we needed gear for what was to become 'Charlene', cheers Jon!!!!
But back to the action on the water........
11knots+ boat speed as soon as we had the pink kite filled. The excess bow rocker was now in its element and the boat could be sent anywhere and be still absolutely under control. We maxed out with a top speed of 13.6knots in 15knots of breeze, we must have got a really good drive off one of the waves as we were doing steady 11's and 12's for well over half an hour from Redcliffe back over to Sandgate
Now did the designer have a smile? Bet he did !
There was no longer any talk of modifying the bow back to something more conservative he loved it.
So we launched Charlene Saturday morning and crossed our fingers that today (Sunday) would be nice for a sail.
Donna having a relaxing sail today
This had Crofty smiling but not over-joyed at our creation....A couple of hours of windward sailing later the breeze had picked up to 12-15knots and it was time to head for home and a kite run............
Holy shit !!!!!!!!!!!!! Put the #2 kite up, put a rip in the luff getting the old fucker up so back down it came. Up went old faithful our smallest kite.
This kite start life as a skiff kite then went to Andrew Clauson on his i550 Tokyo Trash Baby (Brisbane), then came to us as a gift to put on our i550 Shazza (Brisbane Australia). It then went on holiday to Jon Raymond in Montana USA for use on his i550 Critical Twist. Jon then sent it back to us when we mentioned we needed gear for what was to become 'Charlene', cheers Jon!!!!
Crofty having fun and leaving a trail of jelly fish with sore heads !
But back to the action on the water........
11knots+ boat speed as soon as we had the pink kite filled. The excess bow rocker was now in its element and the boat could be sent anywhere and be still absolutely under control. We maxed out with a top speed of 13.6knots in 15knots of breeze, we must have got a really good drive off one of the waves as we were doing steady 11's and 12's for well over half an hour from Redcliffe back over to Sandgate
Now did the designer have a smile? Bet he did !
There was no longer any talk of modifying the bow back to something more conservative he loved it.
The old pink kite looking well patch and still very much in use.
Again we had no issues with the boat but I do need to stiffen up my engine mount (it moved a bit too much and we don't have much clearance between the rudder and prop when motoring). An I want to stiffen up the hull around the keel case because of the amount of slamming in chop...just incase.
No comments:
Post a Comment