Finally finished rigging the new flat deck F1 and did a little bit of studio sailing before heading out for some real world testing.
The Willamette at flood stage with a sewage warning is not exactly ideal but we get so little wind here that I’ve got to take advantage of every opportunity if I’m going to be able to finish the sail design this year.
Little bit sketchy out on the river with all the debris and weird currents, definitely stayed far away from the sides with all the logs straining through various industrial infrastructure. Had some smooth sailing which is nice but not terribly useful. I’m looking for the gusts to show me how the whole system performs when it’s suddenly overpowered.
I managed to get a little bit of that action and I was pretty happy with the results. Lots to tweak and modify but also some good progress in various bits of the system.
I’d say the big winner here is the flip down rear mounted skeg which changes the F1 from cranky to controllable in high wind.
I’m still not sold on the flat deck F1. It might be a necessary evil for the catamaran modification but I hate pretty much everything else about it, especially the fact that I can’t fit a full size spare paddle on the front deck (notice the canoe paddle as a spare). Even with the sail set up everything just works so much more cleanly on my standard version of this boat.
At the end of the day I ended up trying to help a guy who had piled his sailboat up on a logjam against the front of a ship in rising flood water. What should’ve been a painless 20 minute extraction turned into a four hour debacle where it gradually became apparent that I was dealing with someone who had owned a boat for 2 months but fancied themselves an 40 year veteran tall ship captain. I’ll spare you the details but let’s just say that next time someone clueless in a life-threatening situation tells me that they’re fine and they know what they’re doing, I’m just gonna take them at their word and leave…
Sick and sneezing this morning, no good deed goes unpunished.
I’ll throw up some kayak sailing video tomorrow.
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