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.

Photos from Goolwa Wooden Boat Show 2011 – looking forward to 2013!

Photos and slideshow from the Goolwa Wooden Boatshow 2011. Over 250 boats – mostly in the water. Wooden hydroplanes, “restricted 21s”, riverboats, putt putt launches, classic sailing boats, kayaks, canoes and more. I had the quick canoe, the eureka canoe and the OzRacer on the stand that was shared with Duck Flat Wooden Boats and Boatcraft Pacific. Good time was had by all.

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.

Storer Boats FORUM

This is a list of the latest posts on the Storerboats Forum. It has information about building, discussions about design, photos of buildings and launchings and much more. A main interest is tweaking the best possible performance out of traditional looking boats.

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 →

Big Update to the Boatbuilding and Epoxy FAQ (includes some canoe stuff – design and construction)

Yep, Just spent a good three hours whipping up another 14 pages for my website. Mostly additions to my epoxy, boatbuilding and boat design FAQ Topics covered are: Efficient Restoration an older racing boat/sailing dinghy Are 1 to 1 (1:1) Epoxys any good for boatbuilding A lightbox to keep epoxy warm so it spreads easily read more →