I finally returned from my shakedown cruise last week, and had some fabulous sailing back from Cortes. While I was up there I managed to spot a few unique junks: a small sloop with bright yellow trim and a simple rig called
Sensimilla; a three-masted junk with a houseboat-like deckhouse; and a 37' Benford with a proper wood-burning pizza oven aboard. Fortunately I was there at the end of September and the weather was cool enough to fire up the oven. Grant's pizza was delicious.
I only had a 2-day window of Northwest winds to use in weeks worth expected SE, so I had to make those days count. My friend Dan's ketch left the day before I did during some variable winds, while I took the day to crack a rib while accidentally adjusting my engine mount (or was it the other way around?), and sample Grant's junk-rigged pizza and homebrew sake. When I left the next morning it was like standing under a garden hose of rain, but the wind was right and I was sailing for the sunshine ahead, and it was fine sailing indeed except for some occasional remnant SE swells. I don't know where Dan had gone with his ketch while I was snacking on the Benford, but I sighted him up ahead around sunset, and I do say I was gaining on him as it got dark.
Maybe I should have gone in while I still had some evening light, but I was pushing my wind and trying to catch Dan, so now it was dark and I was trying to find a tiny spit to drop an anchor behind. I tried to burn the image of the chart into my eyes before the light was gone, between the spit and the ferry terminal was my little anchorage, and the terminal was well lit. When I turned in for the terminal light, I thought I was past the spit, but too late I heard and saw the waves on the spit in the dark; too late I put the tiller down; and instantly there I was aground being blown onto Shingle Spit.
If you'll recall earlier in this cruise I broke a few battens trying to get out of Comox on a bad day, and extra 16' poles are a good thing to have, even if they are missing a few feet on the end. I was indeed thinking myself a clever gondolier as a grabbed a batten and poled myself off. If I wasn't so cold and tired from steering in the rain all day I'd have felt worse about my silly conning error. As it was I was just happy to find the anchorage was even more calm than I had hoped, and that my grounding had been so quick and painless.
I poked my head out the next morning to see that Dan's ketch was anchored just on the other side of the ferry landing. I had assumed, being so far ahead, he would make for Tribune, distant another 4 miles or so. Yet here he was, and I had a good chance on him now. Surely though, Dan with his Wharram-esque crew would make a leisurely morning of it, and I would have time for a quick trip ashore to pay my respects, claim the island and check out the site of my grounding. The shingle and shell beach confirmed it was a harmless grounding the night before, but as I walked the beach I saw Dan pulling his anchor and away, and I knew he'd have an hour on me by the time I myself was sailing.
I needn't have worried. There was lots of wind and it was getting stronger, and this fat little junk rigged boat had the advantage, I suspected, despite his 7' of extra waterline. By the time I could see the colour of his light orange genoa in my binoculars, it was the only sail he had up. Maybe he was taking it easy. I still had 5 panels up for the chase, and the boat was still easy enough to manage. I passed him around noon, surfing down waves and rolling a fair bit, and I finally took in another panel to ease the steering.
I could barely see Dan astern as I approached Horswell channel in the afternoon. I had cracked another batten as the wind picked up, so I came down to two panels and was still surfing along. What a pain the old rig would have been in a situation like this; I couldn't imagine sailing something else now. When I finally grabbed my mooring and got the sail tied down, I noticed I had somehow broken the boom-batten as well, making 4 out of 6 if anyone is counting. Leftover wood cuts indeed. The mast is the same stuff: construction grade douglas fir, knots and all, but it seemed the mast is glued up solid with 6 staves, and I never detected a crack, flick or a bend in it the whole time. The new battens will be clear grain though, and maybe laminated as well.
My question (finally), probably for Arne since it's mostly his sailplan. If I'm running with the sheet full out and I've reefed one or two panels down, the bundle doesn't really bundle. The sheetlets seem to pull back on the bundle so the sail leech twists and takes a J-shape with the lower 1 or 2 reefed panels holding out horizontally, so reefed allright and not really drawing, but not bundled nicely either. I'm wondering what the cause is, are my lazyjacks not adjusted right, is my sheeting not far enough aft for the sail, or something else?
I'm also having some trouble with sheetlets catching on battens when I gybe, I think that's due a combination of the sheet blocks not being very far aft of the sail with this rig, the battens extending just a little aft past the sail, and the sheetlet's bowline knots on the leech stick out enough to catch the higher sheetlets as they come past. Looking at the pictures of Froken Sorensen, or MingMing2, it doesn't look like there's any opportunity at the leech for something like that to happen. I'd love to have a closer look at some more sheetlet points.
Oh, and all my lines are braided polyester. Slippery and hard to splice, it was what was available here when I was rigging. I haven't had much chafe yet on the parrels.