Sailing unstayed Cat Ketches and Cat Yawls safely and efficiently downwind in strong winds

John Goodman and I sailed the immaculate Goat Island Skiff he built from my plan in the Texas 200. The boat showed itself to be one of the faster in the fleet despite loading up such a short boat with food, water and camping gear for six days with little outside support. We played with sailing the boat by the lee – a method used by racing boats to gain both speed and control. I document the method here including a video showing how the angle of heel can be controlled using the mainsheet.

Goat Island Skiff in Victoria – Dete Hasse and his boys (and the value of reefing

Dete Hasse and his family built a Goat Island Skiff in Geelong, Victoria a while ago. He has just written to me about his experiences trying to sail on Port Phillip Bay and more happily on the recently refilled (the drought is over!) Lake Eppalock. Also he makes some good comments about reefing and how it changes an overpowered boat into a much more rriendly beast in stronger winds.

WIKI for setting up and tuning Lug and Sprit Rigs

The conservative viewpoint is that traditional rigs are not very efficient. However allied to efficient hulls and set up correctly, lug and sprit rigs can be very efficient indeed – not too much slower than “modern” rigs, particularly when the same lessons are applied to trad sails and way cheaper. This is a WIKI drawn from the group on the Storerboats forum discussions on setting up lug and sprit rigs for best performance building on the information in my webpage.

Setting up for performance – Balance Lug – Goat Island Skiff

John Goodman who recently spent 5 days semi racing a Goat Island Skiff in the Texas200 event got back to me with some observations and even some pictures of aspects of the boat and the sailing. I have responded with suggestions to make some further improvements. Between John and me there are some useful tips about setting up a boat for more speed. However the standard setup of the Goat is fine for most – it is still pretty quick in standard form. There is advice for both lug and sprit traditional rigs here.

Podcast Online – Wooden Boat Design by Michael Storer – 1 of 3

This talk is the first hour of my exposition on boat building and design. There are two more parts to come. This covers some of the background and design issues. The second is more on the building side and the last is a bit more about why the Australian (and New Zealand) wooden boat tradition is different from the Northern Hemisphere. You can stream the talks over your internet connection or download them as a podcast.

New Beth Sailing Canoe Video

Howdy, Jan in Denmark found something interesting. Hi everyone After reading this forum for a couple of days, I realised I needed to register, fast. Lots of fantastic advice here, both from Boatmik and the rest of you. I am impressed. A few words about me:I have dubbed myself “the world’s slowest boatbuilder”. I have read more →

Interview on Net of Designer Michael Storer at furledsails.com

Furled Sails – They call themselves the “World’s First Sailing Podcast” based in North America. Anyway, last week Christy and Noel called me up chatted to me for a couple of hours. So they have an interview with me on their site followed by a part 2 next week. This looks like the permanent linkhttp://www.furledsails.com/article.php3?article=760 read more →
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