BYYB Forums

Well, the week proved to be very interesting, with weather far different than I've exposed the family to for camping in the past ... but we managed dispite five days four days of rain and a very strong wind day thrown into the mix. The final two days really made it worth it though.

Dawn's improved her nerve in recovering from the initial capsize way back on initial launch. After two days of insisting on reefing regardless of wind conditions, she finally let me take it out in very light winds, and keep it out for the remainder of the stay ... the boat sure flies when you have full sail in steady winds, even with a full crew and porta potty for ballast.

The trip was good, the sailing was great, and the company was fantastic. I'm just glad we stuck it out, or I may not have ever gotten Dawn out camping again.

On an aside, Jim's well into his new boat construction, and we stopped by to take a look on the way home. It looks absolutely beautiful. I really can't wait to see her on the water. Thanks to all who made the drive, it was good to see old friends once again, and really nice to meet new ones. Jim's CABBS group were there for the week, so there were lots of boat building nuts around, and a fair few boats to gawk at.

Lastly, we finally had an uneventful drive home. Hurray, the trailer still lives.

Unfortunately, we don't have a camera at the moment, so we don't have pictures, but hopefully, Jim, Stephen, or Scott will post some.

The only remaining dark cloud ... I left my computer on all week out of habit, and it's fried. Looks like a virus got in and destroyed both hard drives. Gotta love the Internet. Gotta go, Dawn wants her computer back.

We had a great time as well, I was very happy with the updates I made on my Vacationer and hope to spend more time on the water with it this year than last. Despite the rain we got in some great sailing, I hate to say it but the unstable weather made for some steady wind albeit a little too heavy at times. With Scott, Jeff and myself on the high side in a gust the Vacationer sails pretty flat, I guess for you ballast calculators 600 lbs (thats conservative as I do not want to offend Scott, he must be enjoying all of those GA pecan pies and grits hock on the rail is what you need in a 20 mph gust.

We took tons of pictures, I just need to find a place to host them so that I can share them here.

Thanks for the words of support on the Kingston I am very excited about it and hope to get it on the water someday sooner than later. It was fun to have you stop by and even more pleaseant not to hear from you later stuck on the road some where again.

It was good to sail with Scott again and a big thumbs up on his new design, I think we were all very impressed not only in the design but the execution of it. It was also nice to see Stephen and Sandy again, the NE Fleet didn't have a get together last year and we missed sailing with the New York folks.

Pictures soon,

Jim

Did Scott bring that little blue thing that sailed rings around me at Hartwell? That ship scoots!!!

Jim just upload them to the BYYB gallery. Then you can post them here in the forums.

Shawne

Craig, Scott had a new little purple job, it was very cool. I think the blue one must have been his C12 that is a great design too.

Thank Shawn, I did not know that that the galleries were back up after the big crash.

Jim

Two weekends in a row with wonderful sailing trips with some great folks!!! I am in Heaven hock: . Of course, this coming weekend will be at the inlaws house but that house is on a lake and I left my flying mouse at their house for just such an occasion... :twisted:

I had a wonderful time seeing Jim, Stuart, Joe, Jeff, and Steven along with their families again. I also want to thank Karen for taking pitty on Joe and I for our canned food dinners and feeding us home-cooked meals! In addition to three mirror dingies from the CABBS folks we had a vacationer, two weekenders, a canvas canoe, a pirogue (sp?), and my 12' dory.

The winds were present but light at times on Friday and Saturday but Sunday made up for that with some spirited sailing. Almost perfect sequence of weather to allow me to get fully comfortable with my cartop-dory with its higher initial tenderness than I am used to. I need to make a comfortable seat back, lengthen my push-pull tiller, move my snotter up the mast (my sail had a wrinkle in it), and rework my mainsheet arrangement making it all thumbs (tip Jim gave me for a sprit rig). Joe encouraged me to change sail rig but I like the lower CE of the sprit rig along with the ease (by use of a brailing line) of furling the sail.

Even without these mods, I was very comfortable in her in the higher breeze and wind-driven waves. I am very happy with the design and plan on sharing it with others who might want to build her. As for speed, I was faster in light airs mainly due to light displacement (take that Jim! :lol: ). However, when the wind picked up Jim's Vacationer made me feel like I was standing still and Steven almost ran me down in his weekender. Interesting hearing the bow wave splashing up behind you when you can't turn around to see hock: ! When I move the snotter up it should get the wrinkle and bag out of the sail and speed her up in winds. Also, the chaged mainsheet arrangement should reduce the problematic twist I was getting in the sail.

Anyway, here is a picture of the boat prior to painting the deck and I am hoping to get some of her on the water. I don't have any pictures of her as she looks now.



Here she is with Little Gem in the background:

Wow,
You can fit in alot of barny on a 6 HR drive.

We had a great time. It was good to see old friends and meet new ones.
I'ts kind of a good thing I didn't get my full vacation request, sandy says there is no way se would have stayed through the rain.

The trip back was relatively un-eventfull.

Stuart,
I won't have any pictures. Sandy wouldn't let me take the digital camera, and the one use camera I bought, was left behind.

I was fun to finally sail with other people. Hopefully I didn't scare Scott to much. Ben (soon to be three) finally took some interest in the whole sailing thing, although I think it was more that he wanted to see the "big yellow ball" that was one of the race course markers.

unfortunatly Sandy never got to go out in the boat this time.

Stephen

Well, computer's back up and running, and I've got two hard drive shaped paper weights now, so it's not all bad. Good to see everyone else made the trip home safely. I know that there were some long drives involved to get there.

I'm already making a list of minor improvements to the boat ... starting with a new jib. That one was intented to be a jib stay sail, and didn't have the size needed. I've got the numbers crunched, and I think I'll give a few darts a try to add some belly to her jib, and eventually main as well. I liked the look of those sails the rest of you were sporting ... though of course, Jim was sporting Dacron rather than tarp.

Ah, the work never ends on these boats, an improvement here, an experiment there. Good fun indeed.

At the moment, Devon's gained some sailing enthusiasm as well. I'm scaling down a D4 dinghy to 1/8th scale for him to build as a model, and gain an understand the boat building process a little better. Since the plans were free, and the cost not that outrageous, who knows, he may well build one over the winter, well, with a little help). I keep bouncing back and forth on what would be the best boat for him to learn on, with several contenders. I suppose we won't really know until the wood's ordered and the work begun.

Talk to you soon,

Here are a couple of shots I have more and will get to them

Jim

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jamesjstum.../my_photos

Thanks for posting Jim, sure does remind me of what the skies looked like, huh? Lots of clouds. Good sailing though. Do you have any with my weekender not reefed?