So here are a few thoughts/observations about my first sail on "TOY YOT" last Thursday. I loaded the boat onto my Harbor Freight folding trailer, threw all the gear into the back/on top of my Jeep and headed for the nearest fresh water boat ramp, Lake Samish, just south of Bellingham, WA.
Upon arrival, I was greeted by two college kids who were inspecting boats for zebra and quagga mussels, an invasive species. I assured them that since I had just finished building the boat this morning that she wasn't contaminated. I knew that when I specifically chose the gunter-sloop rig for better upwind performance, that the trade-off was a bit more time rigging her at the ramp. That's okay with me because it's a labor of love, especially when you've built the rig. It took about half an hour to slowly get everything put together (I'll get faster until passersby start asking me about the boat). I've got Dyneema shrouds and forestay spliced onto small snaps that clip into heavy duty padeyes installed on the wooden mast and bulkheads. When I spliced it all up, the rig was very tight as I have a tensioner built into the forestay, which attaches to the knee at the bow with a soft shackle.
The boom is pretty substantial and the yard is pre-laced onto the head of the sail to save time, but that makes the mainsail pretty difficult to manage. How are you guys transporting the sail? I have to remove the battens to even think about folding/rolling up the mainsail. Anyway, all of my connections are pinned with fast-release clevis pins so everything goes together pretty quickly. I've got temporary halyards until I make my own tapered/stripped halyards, but I have to determine where to make the transition from cover to core just above the cleats. The sliding hardware works great, so it's easy to set the mainsail. I'm still thinking about either roller furling or a downhaul.
I got the boat all rigged, backed down the ramp and slid her off the flatbed trailer into the water. She floated on her waterline perfectly. I pulled her over to the little beach area next to the ramp and parked the Jeep.
I said on another thread that the most difficult thing about sailing my EP was the act of stepping into the boat from the water, kicking off and getting under sail in one smooth motion before you get blown down back to the beach. Multiply this by about 10x for the PM. The heavier boat, higher freeboard and deeper draft made this a bit of a challenge. Luckily, I just emulated what I do on the EP and it worked just fine. I pushed out and sculled out into deeper water, dropped the rudder as soon as it was deep enough and dropped the daggerboard into the slot to make forward way (she was getting blown sideways into the trees before I remembered the daggerboard part).
I then sheeted in and she took off. It was only blowing 5-8 knots, so nothing spectacular, but just what I was looking for on my first outing. Then came time to figure out where to sit. I've had luck with sitting on the middle thwart on the EP, basically facing backwards. I found, much to my delight that I could sit on the aft thwart with the tiller tucked up against my side facing forward as is proper on a small tillerboat. I noticed she had just the right amount of weather helm, which was not only a nod to the designer, but also confirmation that I had the mast rake right.
I also noticed that even though I had rigged the shrouds pretty tight in the driveway, once they were loaded up underway, they slacked a bit. This actually turned out to be a huge advantage in two ways. First, the leeward shroud is slack which allows much better sheeting angle on the jib (parallel to the main). Also, with that amount of slack built in, I can now drop the mast without disconnecting any of the standing rigging. There was just enough slack to pop the mast out of it's hole in the base. Nice!
The next bit of awesomeness I discovered was the tacking angle. On the EP, I could only sail 60° to the wind, meaning I had to tack 120°. With the gunter-sloop rig, I was able to do proper 90° tacks, which means I can actually sail to an upwind destination (e.g. Sucia Island).
I will go more in depth into the rigging on "TOY YOT" but I originally had rigged her with a 3:1 mainsheet. On light wind days, I think I can definitely get by with a 1:1. Regardless, I swing the boom out to the shrouds and put a stop knot in the mainsheet where it fetched up to the fiddle block. That way, if I ever accidentally jibe, the boom can't take down the rig. I also really like Michael's (aka Gramps) idea of the halyard and downhaul being continuous. It also made me think of actually splicing the halyards to the cleats on the mast so they're permanently connected, which would make rigging/transport much easier.
It was time to head back in so I could de-rig and get home before my son's bedtime and of course that's when the evening breeze picked up. It was with some reluctance that I strapped everything back down and headed home, but I was satisfied with a very successful first outing. More importantly, it was great validation after 250 hours over 7 months and a few thousand dollars invested.
While at the ramp, I made some notes on my phone about things to tweak, but other than the purchase on the mainsheet, nothing huge. Even though the PM is only 4 feet longer than my EP, it feels like 3x the boat, which was the whole point. I've been dreaming of building the PM since even before I finished the EP.
Anyway, like I said, I'll delve a bit deeper into the rigging on a new thread, with some pics and possibly even some videos. It's my birthday, so I think we're going to load up the boat and head down to Greenlake for another sail.
- Captain Skully
Okay, so "TOY YOT" got her first taste of saltwater today. I was pretty apprehensive about the second time I was to take her out, it would be on saltwater. I live just around the point from Camano Island State Park that has a ramp on the Whidbey Island side.