Hello 'Saving Nada' team,
Apologies for the slow reply - I am somewhat overloaded with projects right now.
All the Ingrids were
tender, and unfortunately we compounded this problem on Nada by grossly overbuilding the
deck (a product of our lack of experience and concerns about structural integrity). As you will see, we have moderately substantial
deck beams overlaid by
marine plywood, and then overlaid with several layers of
fiberglass. The
plywood or
fiberglass would have been fine on their own! We then used double box section masts for the
ketch rig which were very heavy plus oversized
rigging. The ketch rig balanced beautifully but we rarely went to windward without the side decks underwater. In fact, when we bought the
Pacific Seacraft 40 the
children thought there was something wrong because the caprails never went under. At least it made her reasonably easy to drag off by the masthead on the several occasions we ran aground really hard - you can roll the portholes in the
cabin sides under!
The conversion to a
cutter with aluminum
mast helped the stability a great deal, but you will find compared to a modern boat she is still
tender (the round bilges and relatively narrow beam by today's standards don't help). If you can afford it, I would re-rig with Colligo 'Dynex Dux' fiber
rigging. This is not outrageously expensive and will get quite a bit more weight off aloft. And if you can find a rich
sponsor, how about a carbon mast! And I would put the
bowsprit back to 8 feet.
The Alajuelas, which have the same
hull, have quite a bit more ballast and are much stiffer, but this lowers the already low freeboard (makes it very easy for boarding from a dinghy!). At one point I caste some blocks of lead and bolted then to the outside of the
keel which helped some, but I never properly faired them (it was an experiment) so there must have been a lot of turbulence. I think I took them back off, but can't remember. Is there a naval architect on the forum who would like to design a couple of bolt on appendages (one for each side) with a nice NACA profile that would add
lift to windward? I'd think something on the order of 500-1,000 lbs per side would be great.
Regarding the spread out ballast issue. You can get into some kind of a resonant pitching frequency (hobby horsing) which will stop the boat just about dead in its tracks, and then speed builds up until it happens again. You basically have to bear away a bit. The best thing, of course, both in terms of the heeling and pitching is not to try to go too close to the wind! These boats just love anything from a close reach to a broad reach (don't we all?). On a run with following seas, the round bilges and tenderness can set up a slow roll which puts first one rail and then the other under. It is a smooth action, but does make
cooking and similar activities a little bit of a challenge.
Good luck with the project!
Nigel
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