Trimaran - Especially Searunner - Owners

[Roy M]

Hopefully I'll stlll be cycling between the West Coast and Polynesia.

[silviris]

Man, I sure hope that's me and my wife someday!

[md7a]

Spinnaker Sunday
There was very little wind here today, so I finally took out the spinnaker that came with Pineapple`s sail inventory, and out is very impressive. I'll try to attach pictures to this message. It looks nearly unused and is from the same sail maker as the rest of the suit.

Questions for the group:
1 is this the "normal" spinnaker described in the manual, or the "sky-blotter-outer" also mentioned in the manual?

2 how and when do you other Searunner folks use your spinnaker? With pole or without? Where do your sheets attach and how do you manage them?

3. What is your favorite way to raise and lower a chute on a Searunner? Sock? Bucket? Breakable yarn sausage?

[magentawave]

Perhaps the foils were bad? I've been on a few multis with really funky shaped boards and rudders and they couldn't point well at all.

Originally Posted by Cadence

The 25 Piver only had fins on the amas. I see there is a 40 or 43' one for sale with an identical underwater profile. Pop Yachts or any no. of brokers. Good photos of the hull in lift slings. May have just been me with the Sunrunner. Both had came from the UK on there own bottoms. The South African I bought the Sunrunner from did extensive Island and South American sailing. I think 10yrs. If I weren't to old and feeble I'd probably buy the Piver on the market.

Just as a side note, berths can be hard to find with a tri's beam.

[Roy M]

md7a, The "sky blotter outer" was (is) a 2000 square foot monster. Jeff Allen had one on DINK'S SONG, a forty which was destroyed at its anchor by a hurricane in Gibralter, many years ago. He needed a pole to handle it, as I recall. I don't have any immediate plans for a spinny, other than an asymmetric that I already have, but you can never tell. For DDW (dead downwind) it's hard to beat, but I prefer tacking (actually jibing) downwind for the higher speed and ease of handling. Only the sheets ( the lazy one led forward of the headstay) the main, and the stuffer control line when I want to drop the asym. I'm thinking also of a code zero. All these light sails will probably come from Minney's in Newport, a popular spot for good, used spinnakers and other equipment. I suspect you will get a lot of use out of your sail in the Sound. Hopefully, I'll be up there this next summer to sample the waters around Anacortes. Mark Johnson has, probably, the most extensive experience with these chutes. Hopefully he has recovered a bit from his road rash to contribute to this discussion.

[Captryan23]

Need help! I own a 37 searunner #25 (Honeywind) and I discovered today that the mini keel is saturated with water. It very difficult to determine where the water is coming from so I'm thinking about cutting off the mini keel. The wood is pretty wet. Any thoughts on how to do this?


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[Roy M]

Chainsaw or battery powered Sawzall. Whack it off flush with the bottom of the hull. The centerboard trunk should be above the outer hull area, so, if not also saturated, then you have a fabulous opportunity to do what I would dearly love to perform: build a foam minikeel with a graphite/epoxy shoe. Suddenly your boat is lighter and more bouyant.

I thought of doing this when I was building, back in the seventies, but I hadn't the confidence to do something so radical against the scripture of the Construction Manual of the Searunners. Today I am much more of a heretic.

[blewett_john]

Survey - The worst Searunner repair you've encountered: What is your vote for the most miserable, painful, dirtiest, difficult, etc. repair you have ever made on your Searunner?

My vote is the rebuild of the centerboard trunk. In my case it started with laying on my back on the hard boatyard concrete while digging out the rotten wood, which of course fell into my face. Cutting back to solid wood wasn't too bed except that life inside the bilge of a Searunner is not fun. Making patterns and epoxying in the new wood wasn't too bad, but wait, I forgot about the chore it was to get the diesel tank and water tank out. The water tank is not light, and it did not fit through the bulkhead opening by 1". This took some clever rigging to get the tank out, and a small cutout in the bulkhead which will need repair. Putting on the fiberglass was an extreme challenge. With 3 1/2" of clearance coating the glass with epoxy was a painful shower in epoxy. Once the glass was in the sanding to get it somewhat smooth resulted in some very red and itchy arms. Finally, painting was not easy but one of the less painful acts. All I have left to do is hang the new centerboard. I sure hope I got the pivot pin holes in the right spot!!

Anyway, tell us your repair horror story.

[Captryan23]

I'm about to encounter my worst searunner repair job by taking out my mini-keel. Thanks for the info Roy M. Wish you were closer to show your rebuild idea. Sounds pretty interesting. Hopefully my trunk will be fine. If not, the mini-keel will be my second worst repair job!


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[Roy M]

Captryan23, It's not that awful a job. Chock the boat up, supporting the hull at the frames, the amas, likewise, AND ESPECIALLY AT THE MAINSTRENGTH BULKHEADS UNDER THE UNDERWINGS. Make enough room under the minikeel that you can work efficiently. Use a powerful chainsaw with a sharp chain. Think of it as chopping up a tree. Make vertical cuts, NOT QUITE ALL THE WAY TO THE HULL. Then make your horizontal cuts to clear away chunks of the minikeel in easy to remove pieces. Use a big chisel and mallet to clear the remaining bits away. Let it dry so you can examine if the water has penetrated into the boat. If so, fix that first. Then take measurements and fabricate a new foam minikeel on the workbench or sawhorses. Pre-glass it to minimize the work laying under the boat. Then glue in place, make final cosmetic corrections, and bottom paint. I've done this to old Pivers and Cross keels. It's all in the preparation and reducing whatever work happens under the boat. You can even prebuild the minikeel before hauling out to reduce costs of laydays.

[Mark Johnson]

ROY:
All good advice, and REALLY impressive innovations to Wilderness! Wish I could launch my dink and get going that quickly. I am considering "some day", buying an alternate much lighter weight RIB, and carrying my old 2 HP motor as well (< 20 lbs), for short trips ashore only. This would be easier to get under way in short order.

For our local NC cruises or up to the Chesapeake, the distances are short, and diving is very poor, so the high speed taxi that I prefer for tropical cruises is unnecessary.

HEALING UP:
The forearm is healing up nicely, with my shoulder issues probably being permanent. My wrist's rotation will unfortunately remain @ a 50% range of motion, so I will need to adapt and learn to be a better "lefty". For now, I do PT and work out for 2 hours a day... It beats having a hook, by a mile! Our friend Jeff Allen has shown how far a person with a "challenge" can go. (Around the world in his case)...


General issues...

SPINNAKERS:
MY choice of spinnaker is a medium sized asymmetrical with an ATN Snuffer sock. Like Roy, I Jibe it down wind, OR if on a long tack that is mostly DDW, I tack both sheets to the ama bows, rather than tack one corner to the main hull's bow.

Both the tack and clew have TWO sheets if rigged to the amas' bows DDW. "Tacking" downwind, however, it is only the clew that gets two sheets. One of these sheets goes down to a block on the ama bow, and the other one is the already rigged up "outboard sheet lead", which normally runs to the aft part of the ama's edge for both off the wind headsail and spinnaker sheet leads.

Used with the headsail, the outboard sheet lead allows us to go on a reach with a better sail shape, (takes the curl out), and with the spinnaker... the combination of two sheets on the clew (one forward & one aft), allows me to pull the clew aft as far as I'd like, with total control over it's position and the shape of the sail. I can sail all points from DDW to 20 or 30 degrees forward of the beam with this spinnaker.
Yep... it sails to windward too!

Given the money, I would get a slightly larger asymmetrical spinnaker like mine, but with better shape. Mine is a second hand "cut down from a symmetrical" cheepo, that was made asymmetrical. It works GREAT, it is just on the small side.

We have a whisker pole for use wing & wing with the headsail, but use no spinnaker pole with our spinnaker. I recommend using an asymmetrical, with no pole.

For you hotrod types, a screacher/drifter (= super lightweight LARGE genny... often on a code zero/sprit), is a nice addition, but overkill for a cruising boat, imo.

Md7a's spinnaker appears to be an average sized symmetrical, and certainly NOT the Sky-blotter-outter. I don't consider those HUGE sails as practical, on a short handed cruising boat. (Too much work and too much risk for the gain).


PERFORMANCE:
On Delphys, our SR34... With our spinnaker, we start sailing fine a in anything over 5 knots of apparent wind.

With the Lapper/Mainsail "working sails", she comes into her own with over 9 knots of wind, and from 16 to 28 knots of apparent wind is our best "performance to comfort" zone. We then seldom go less than 7 knots and often do 9 knots for hours at a time.

Our fastest passage was sailing on a reach with 13 to 15 waves in a gale... from Cat/Gun in the Bahamas to Biscayne Bay, Fl, at a steady 13 knots. Left in the morning, and had the hook down by noon!

We can easily sail her at 40 degrees off of the wind or even a tad tighter, but falling off to 45 degrees pays speed dividends. This angle is what we shoot for when going to windward.

At sea, on a rough week long passage, falling off to 55 degrees pays huge "comfort" dividends, given sea room. Having said that, we have sailed non-stop from Georgetown Exumas to PR in 5 days, with the first few days being HARD to windward, often in a gale. The monohull crowd said: "You did WHAAAT"?

For a couple of long hard daysails on the eastern side of Andros, we have even sailed hard to windward in close to 40 knots of wind with 13 to 15' waves, WITH A LEE SHORE of coral , 300' away. Yes... we were getting slapped around, but these boats REALLY go to windward!

IF others are getting poorer windward performance than described, either the hull is foul, the board incorrectly positioned, the sails are blown out, the sheets incorrectly located, or any of a dozen other ways to screw up a good boat design.

Btw... except when cruising and mostly on the move, I wipe the hull down every time we take her out. Just a 1/16" layer of slime will rob you of a knot or so. A 1/4" layer of carpet will cut your speed in half and then some!

Mark

[slowbat]

Originally Posted by md7a

Spinnaker Sunday
There was very little wind here today, so I finally took out the spinnaker that came with Pineapple`s sail inventory, and out is very impressive. I'll try to attach pictures to this message. It looks nearly unused and is from the same sail maker as the rest of the suit.

Questions for the group:
1 is this the "normal" spinnaker described in the manual, or the "sky-blotter-outer" also mentioned in the manual?

2 how and when do you other Searunner folks use your spinnaker? With pole or without? Where do your sheets attach and how do you manage them?

3. What is your favorite way to raise and lower a chute on a Searunner? Sock? Bucket? Breakable yarn sausage?

Looking good Will!!! I only flew the spinnaker a few times on my 31, but have done it several races on a J80.We still need to meet up sometime. I would love to check out your boat or maybe a cold one at the sloop in Ballard?

[Roy M]

Status report on WILDERNESS (mainly to remind myself that something productive is happening while money disappears and getting out of bed in the morning is sometimes more challenging than others):

The decks are clear of all hardware (except enough cleats to secure the boat to the dock), the stanchions and pulpits are sitting in the shop, half cleaned of oxidation, paint spatters and other crud from the years, all nonskid has been removed, all the wet lockers hatches have been removed, the windlass, chain and anchor are gone, the floats (amas) are completely stripped of everything, and the starboard float interior has been completely sanded, the port float happens today. I have started sanding the teak handrails, and I'm at the staring phase of pulling everything out of the bow, in prep for inspecting and rebedding the remaining bownet straps that fasten up there. Whew!

The shop is packed with gear, some of which may make it back aboard, and the mainhull just has tools, paint/epoxy supplies, and whatever gear that has still survived the purge. My neighbors are worried the boat might flip over if we have a strong wind since the waterline is way below the 'flat" of the stern bottom plank. I'm searching through my files for the fantasy lists I created years ago for storage of food, gear, and "stuff" that will be going aboard after the last parts of the boat have been repainted. I'm still in shock about the floats, though, as I only used white pigmented West System when I built the float interiors. I wanted to paint them before putting the deck on, but the rain was coming and it never got done. Now it's happening, at last, and I will be able to see inside much more clearly with the white paint reflecting daylight or flashlight. Now, if only I can find those stowage lists and actually adhere to them as stuff begins to flow back aboard. And did I mention how hard it sometimes is getting out of bed in the morning? It's been seven days a week, except for a couple of brief escapes, for the last three months, jamming on the boat. I appreciate reading that some of you are actually getting to sail your boats. It helps me to tie my shoes in the morning.

[wizard1_us]

Am looking for a 34' searunner if anyone happens to know of one. Might even consider a 37'

[Capt.Timbo]

Hi Roy,

I've enjoyed your post as I have been going through a complete redo on the exterior of our 40 Searunner. Thought you might want to look at some of the work. We hope to splash in about six weeks.