small boat cruising?

[rtbates]

Originally Posted by Amgine

rtbates: My current main has an 8" clew reef which I've never had the chance to try out; I may have to try it during this next cruise. But, at the same time I'm planning to get a new main this winter, so I'd love to ask some questions about your loose-footed main:

• Did you add foot roach? How much? Does it affect reefing shape?
• Did you add some kind of outhaul car, or just go with a couple closely-spaced slugs?
  
• I was considering shortening the foot a wee bit since there seems to be a bit more twisting weather helm than heel-induced weather helm. Do you have any thoughts regarding this?
• What did you do about leech roach? lots or little? full battens?

I'm guessing you're using the quarterberth for storing extra water, which would certainly solve the battery/list problem in the short term. But since the passages I have planned are likely to be a couple thousand miles of stbd tack, I think I want to move a battery. Looking from the port cockpit locker across the transmission it looks like the inboard ply carlin/bulkhead structure is more than deep enough, but I'm not sure if that depth is carried wide enough to move a battery there.

I'm off to do a half-circ of Vancouver Island early next week, after getting moved. Which is good since otherwise I wouldn't have gotten my full 1k this year. I'm hoping to do Yuculta rapids this time; every other time I went north via Beasley Passage/Surge Narrows. New routes, new challenges!

I didn't have anything changed on the main other than lift the clew 8" and have a bolt rope sewn in the new foot for support. The two reef points are in the 'stock' location, so when I reef the boom ends up closer to level and my bimini. The outhaul 'car' is the stock slug on a 2:1 purchase. I never mess with it. Works great. The main has two full battens and two reg. The roach just barely touches the backstay when tacking in light air. I really like to have most if not all of the roach removed. I find the 25D just doesn't need much main. In 15kts I have one reef in and am contemplating putting in the second. Maybe IF I didn't have a 130 genoa I'd want more, but I find that I can sail almost as fast and point almost as well with just the headsail. And I've never never experienced any lee helm.

I store just about everything in the quarter berth BUT water. Water(in 1/2gal plastic bottles) is stored under the starboard settee. The stock water tank is , of course, under the quarter berth.

[alexblaze]

Originally Posted by Amgine

I also have a Cape Dory 25D, and I putter around the PNW. Next cruise starting sometime after Sept. 20th, up Georgia Strait and into the Jungles, eventually stopping at Port Hardy to haul out.

i also have a cape dory 25d it is nice

[dcstrng]

Interesting thread… our little semi-derelict Bristol 24 is near the opposite end of the food chain from the Cape Dory family; however, many of the “reality-sized” boat concepts are transferable almost directly… We’re in the middle of a winter-long refit (which I suspect will last several years <grin>) including changing out the fixed ports for opening ports, a new traveler for the mainsheet, etc., etc.... and of course buckets of sanding and varnishing as well as sanding down the horribly applied old hull paint and a fresh coat or two…

I’m a beef-fed sized guy and my wife is 5’8” so sometimes we have to plan for passing each other in the cabin, but we’re trying to make the little boat cozy without being claustrophobic and modestly well equipped with the basics, but being relatively heavy displacement the little Bristol allows a modicum of latitude in that regard… I’m a bit of an anti-techno-gizmo guy so our electrical load is small, but we’re upgrading the wiring just as well (actually tossing the whole previous set-up and doing it over). I started sailing on the other end of the spectrum, eventually living aboard a heavier center-cockpit 42’ and later having a powerboat or two around 50’ and I have to say it is a joy to putter around on all these wonderfully manageable projects – not to mention sailing is a piece of cake…

We’ve only had one reasonable distance sail on her so far, bring her down the Chesapeake, but she handled wonderfully and even bashing to windward for a day of 15-18kt winds, the comfort above my expectations was about on par with a lighter boat 6-10’ longer… we’re looking forward to some extended cruising as we get to know her better, but for now we need to apply a liberal coating of elbow grease, so the sailing will be catch as catch can…

[zephyr4]

The four of us (me, admiral, 2 powder monkeys 12 & 13 yrs old) cruise our C-27 70 days each summer and have done so for four years. Needless to say, we are a close family!

It is a tight squeeze and to retire, we are talking about a bigger boat. But for now, we are happy to cruise!

[sluissa]

I've got my little Kingfisher 20+ that I'm planning on doing a little bit of coastal cruising around my area. I don't know if I'll take it anywhere far away or not, yet. I'm thinking it might be fun to sail a few days down the coast, either eastwards towards Destin, or even Panama City. Maybe a sail westward towards New Orleans. I have family in South Florida, near Tampa, so I may eventually take it there once I manage to get it outfitted and get a few weeks off from classes. I kind of have a little bit of a dream that after college I'll take a few months and sail up the east coast(and points beyond?) but that's too far ahead to make any definite plans. For now, I'll just stick to local bays and just keep learning.

[rtbates]

Originally Posted by stevemac00

See Small boats, long distances... sailFar.net

After bing directed to this site I highly recommend it...

[44'cruisingcat]

The closer a boat gets to land, the bigger it gets. A 40 + footer is huge on the hard, but pretty small 100 miles out to sea. We have friends who circumnavigated in a Top Hat 25. For the latter half of the trip they had a baby with them too! (Born in South Africa) Other friends cruise in a Vertue 26 they built themselves. Beautiful boat, and it seems to suit them fine. They are all fairly small people though - they can actually stand up inside the boat. I have to stoop over (severely) whenever i am aboard - I wouldn't like to have to do that long term.

[dcstrng]

<I highly recommend it...>

Ditto... Was not familiar with it before, but there's a lot on info and the links are worth their weight...

[Amgine]

Originally Posted by dcstrng

Interesting thread… our little semi-derelict Bristol 24 is near the opposite end of the food chain from the Cape Dory family…

Oh, I quite disagree! I very much enjoyed sailing a Bristol Caravelle (I think that's the 24.) The boat was not, perhaps, as big below, but it sailed very well and was great on deck. In some respects I think it actually was more fun to handle under sail, although that may have been because it had newer sails than our Cape Dory has at the moment. We cruised one in the lower half of Puget Sound a dozen or more times for a couple days at a shot.

I'd guess the biggest upgrades you'll want to make are the stove and the head arrangements (the one we used had a portapotty, which imo does not work well for anything more than limited cruising.) New cushions which suit your actual cruising practices; don't waste time/money on the fold-down dinette double berth cushions if you never actually use it as a double berth.

The boat we used was heavily abused over a more-than 20 year career with a student yacht club, who got it as a donation. IIRC it was completely beached 3 or 4 times, as well as innumerable groundings, dock rammings, and worse. Its ability to survive all that was more a testament of Bristol's quality at the time than of any maintenance or support the boat received, which was minimal.

[Triton318]

Originally Posted by rtbates

Anybody cruising, or plan to, in a small boat?

I plan to! I have a 1962 28' Pearson Triton. I bought it in 1999 for $500.00, spent two years and probably close to $8,000 rebuilding/restoring her, and now sail on the York River and Chesapeake Bay in Virginia.

In three and a half years, all three kids will have graduated from high school. I plan to continue working full time for one year after that. I'm going to make some final modifications to the boat, put a new rig on, and then I'm taking off for some seriously long overdue cruising (i.e. Scandinavia, Mediterranean, Asia, New Zealand, etc.). I figure if James Baldwin was able to safely make two circumnavigations aboard his Triton, I can too!

As I won't have very much money saved up, I plan on working here and there as I go. On the other hand, I'm going really simple, and I don't plan on staying at marinas and eating at restuarants. In fact, I'm going to avoid the Caribbean entirely.

My reasons for going are numerous, but include: 1) I've always wanted to sail to faraway lands to experience firsthand other cultures and ways of life. Reading National Geographic magazines and accounts by Slocum and other early sailors as a child sparked this interest. Four years in the Navy and two Western Pacific deployments confirmed I like traveling and seeing other places. 2) I don't care too much for many aspects of culture in the U.S. (and other western nations) -- drivers in a hurry, talking on their cell phones, causing accidents; the crap on television; consumerism/keeping up with the Joneses; etc. I really want to get away from it all. 3) I enjoy being at sea.

[Lynx]

I have been living in my MacGregor 26M for over a month and about 80 days before that in the last 2 years. First, you must be willing to live on the boat, Any boat for that matter. People have done it in all sizes.

Don't pack to much. You only need 1 week of food and water and another week of emergancy reserves. This goes for the holding tanks as well.

I bought to much to take with me to the Bahamas and I am having to deal with it.

Start taking trips and work out what you will be needing under way. This is for you and YOUR boat, not a 38 footer or a 16 footer. This can take years and will not be ready until you have cruised for some months.

The main question is do you want to be cruising and give up the comforts of land life vrs the comforts of cruising life (you can change comforts to sufferings). Try it and see. To me it is to better to be cruising in a small boat than not to go at all. But this is me.

[Mike Banks]

I am not sure how your sails are attached, but if it is possible to use a Wharram Tiki wingsail you may gain a little space with no loss in performance. This might give you room to put up your bimini.

[Lostmt]

Hi,
I am think of buying a 1973 23' Clark San Jaun. It has main, jib, spinnicker swing keel. Would this be a good sailboat for an older person to learn to sail on the Texas coast. No major cruising just up and down the coast.

Thanks

[dcstrng]

<Oh, I quite disagree!...>

Mostly I was referring to the fit and finish differences between the little Bristol and a Cape Dory down the dock from us… If there is any bronze on our little Bristol 24 (Corsair) other than seacocks, I haven’t found it yet… <grin> But sailing wise she does quite nicely…

Ours was semi-abandoned at her mooring by her former owners for several years and when we rowed out for our first “survey,” she was quite a sight… the water in the cabin was about knee-deep and she had a wasp colony almost the size of Chicago… The paint looked like it had been applied on a dark, rainy night with a dishrag and there was enough smelly, fuzzy stuff growing to keep a lap-tech entertained for several lifetimes…

But so far, although the rigging needs a closer look here and there and we’ve found several loose or missing deck-fittings, the cabin balsa core seems 99% healthy and she cleaned up acceptably, if not spectacularly… A pleasant afternoon with needle and palm and the sails were good enough for the couple of days run to our marina and we did enjoy the steady sailing qualities... we had a fair amount of wind on our trip (and probably should have reefed, but for the reefing gear that came apart… oops) and even with bottom growth (pretty much its own eco-system) of about four years, she still nudged up against 6kts, hull speed plus a little running down the Bay rollers, on the GPS at slack tide… so she’ll carry more sail than I suspected (that 50% ballast ratio makes her firm up nicely even with her decidedly slack bilges…).

My wife loves to work with wood, and some guys are putting the finishing touches on her new wood-shop as we speak -- so with a rescued second-hand alcohol stove, some new ports (the Beckson online surplus store – best kept secret on the net I think), lots of new wood, etc., etc., and some elbow-grease, the cabin is in for a bit of a remake, and we just bought a bolt of cloth to redo the cushions… I’ll tackle the fiberglass, deck fittings and paint and we’re hoping to have her in much better, if not necessarily finished, shape by an April relaunching…

[Amgine]

Sounds like you've already had some great adventures on your boat, and are working toward some more! Maybe the fit and finish of the Bristol is not so flash as the CD, but I think you'll find the hull to be strong, a good sailor, and the views from deck are just as fine as any gold plater.

Post pics of your winter projects! and next year's launching! I'll look forward to hearing how things go for you... (I spent a spring looking for a Caravelle to buy once, because I so enjoyed my time on that boat.)