Posted by crwindy@…> (crwindy@…>)
Just came back from my first’real’ sail of the year since I had the 36-38
conversion done, and I wanted to put my thoughts out here.
First, I think the lines of the boat are much nicer now.
The swim transom is very convenient for boarding etc (especially with out 2 dogs
weighing 50 and 70#).
Lastly the sailing characteristics. Of course we always think that whatever we
do makes the boat go faster. I do believe that this is true with this
conversion, but I cannot say for absolute. What both my wife and I did notice
was that having the extra buoyancy back there seemed to make the boat have a
nicer motion especially with a following or quartering sea.
These are just the initial impressions, but people have asked, so I put them out
here. If anyone else has done the conversion, I would be curious about your
feelings.
Yesterday I went out in 5-10 knots for an easy, very pleasant sail.
As it happened the trip home was all running and by that time the
wind was down to about 5—the prospect was not bright. But I decided
to pull out my Wind Drifter (Winddrifter?) for the first time this
year, and that made what might have been a boring, long slog an
enjoyable breeze—literally.
For those who do not know what a Wind Drifter is; it is an unhanked,
light weight sail about the size of a Genoa (fuller, of course) that
is useful for off wind sailing. It is attached to the spinnaker
halyard and to the bow. (The British may call this a boomless
spinnaker, or it may be the same thing as a gennaker, but I do not
know exactly what either of these is.) It works very well with the
wind anywhere abaft abeam; though the closer one is to a beam reach
the more care has to be paid to the wind speed. I really do not know
what the recommended apparent maximum wind speed is, but yesterday at
the point when I turned and started a full beam reach, the wind was
back up to 10, and the force on the sail was apparent though not
alarming. (The sail is 17 years old.)
In the wind I had yesterday, I did not have to pole it out, though I
do have a whisker pole for really bad days. Incidentally, my sail was
made by UK, as were my other sails.
\