Bay Adventures by David Blaszka

Sailing is not only an excellent outdoors activity, but also a genuinely traditional way to develop hard sea tales. I remember one such story:

It was soon after receiving my first rating at the yacht club that I decided to take my girlfriend at the time for a relaxing sail. I coaxed her up with lavish high-speed, boat heeling, sails flapping (of course only during a tack) tales of being on the water. Although slightly hesitant, she nevertheless desired the romance of my rumors. 

“I’ll go, but we wont flip will we?” she asked with a worried look in her eyes. Despite the crisp blue skies, it was still early spring. 

“A very slight possibility, but I assure you I got this,” I told her. Now, being a rather selfish fellow I did not give her my wetsuit and instead gave her some of my other gear for keeping…well, sort of dry. 

Down to the docks, jib hoisted, bailers up, life-vests tightened, and finally up with the main. I look at my girlfriend all puffy from my waterproof clothing meant for mountaineering and the scared look in her eyes as we push off. The winds are strong. Right away we fall into a close haul coming around the outer dock. A gust blows in and I try to let out the sails, but something’s wrong. Some idiot left a fat knot in the mainsheet right before the cleat, and another idiot forgot to check the mainsheet before shoving off. Stuck in a close haul with a monstrous gust heeling the boat flat, I didn’t have time to turn up before water starts pouring in, so over we went. With a giant slash and an AHHH ending with swallowing water my girlfriend hits the water. Soon after water hits my face with its biting cold fangs and my wetsuit took the rest of the punch, but my girlfriend…she was cold to say the least. She clung to the boat like a wet cat and glared at me under her matted hair with the most venomous look I’d ever seen.

“The waters not bad, huh?” I tried to say. She didn’t give me a response. A whaler pulled up and the driver helped her out of the water, a difficult task due to her now very heavy clothing. They drove back to the WAC leaving me to right the boat alone. It was a while before I got her out again.

-David Blaszka, Summer 2012

Sailing video by club members Bryan & Anthony

http://youtu.be/t8tzZNTfI_4

What's it Take to Win a Black Duck?  Ken Howe asked.

Some come to Duck Dodge to race.  Most come to party.  A few get excited about the theme of the night.  WYC's Deception, skippered by Alexia Fischer, has made an effort to be both the fasted boat and the best dressed this summer.  Unlike other WYC boats, the crew of Deception tries to follow the theme of the night.  The crew are pirates on a pirate ship for pirate night, A dead celebrity on the Titanic (a dead celebrity too) for Dead Celebrity night.  The crew dress as kids in formals on Prom Night, and wear sheets for Toga night.  The competition for the black duck is fierce because it is awarded mostly to the biggest screw up of the night so it is sometimes hard to get noticed.  When Deception came to the race covered with card board pieces converting it to a pirate ship the boat was finally too hard to ignore.  The card board captain's cabin surrounding the cockpit made it hard to steer around the other boats and the cardboard cannons got in the way of the jib sheets.  Not only did we win the coveted black duck but later we were given a second for all the effort Alexia put into creating the look.

I found sailing in costume was a problem.  The leather boots of my pirate costume were too slick for the deck and the long Jack Sparrow wig was blown into my mouth the whole race.  Wearing a GoPro camera chest harness conflicted with the look but it did let me capture the action like the two boats almost hitting off our bow. Like my costume that I kept taking apart, Deception kept shedding her cardboard.  The bowsprit fell off by the first buoy.  The card board cannons had to be repaired  and a small round hole had to be cut in the stern cardboard about waist high.  A working window could have served the same purpose but that was not part of the design.

At the raft up after the race Duck Dodge virgins make the required walk of boat to boat to kiss the skipper or if the skipper allows it kiss the mast instead.  This is the time to compare costumes with the other crews.  Some Duck Dodge regulars get into dressing the part but most don't dress the boat.  Flying a pirate flag just didn't compare to making the boat one big cardboard pirate ship.

-Ken Howe, Summer 2012

Last chapter of Old Boats of the Club, Part 5:  the Keelboats

San Juan 21

This boat and the Penguin are the only two classes of boats that the club had gotten rid of before I joined.   I don't remember anyone telling me anything about this boat.  Pretty much the only thing I know about the San Juan 21 is that it has a swing keel.  http://sj21class.org/

Bristol Caravel 22

This is known as a sturdy cruiser with a lot of interior room.  While not a stellar sailor, it wasn't bad.  One thing that made it worse was when a know it all student who was keelboat fleet captain decided that the 110% lapper which was the biggest sail that came with the boat was too small and that the boat needed a 150% genoa.  A sail was purchased and a track installed.  Now we had some horsepower.  The problem now was that this was always the last boat to Blake Island if it was upwind.    Years later I, I mean the know it all, did some math.  I had finally noticed that at best with the genoa the boat tacked through 120 degrees.  When sailing with the lapper which sheeted in between the uppers and lowers to a block on a post at an inboard position the boat could tack through 90 degrees.   This means if I changed jibs from the genoa to the lapper I could point 30 degrrees higher, but would lose some speed.  I would have to lose more than 30% of my speed or about a knot if I were doing hull speed under genoa to make it to my destination later with the lapper.    Since sailing that much slower under the lapper would be a rare circumstance the lapper would have been the sail of choice for most any upwind work.  By the time I had figured this out the club had bought a used replacement lapper that no longer sheeted to the post, but instead had to be sheeted outboard to the  genoa track, so it didn't point very well either.

The blue boat in the middle is Caravel, the boat on the left is Excalibur.

Caravel with its original lapper.

http://www.bristol22.com/A_Website_Devoted_to_Bristol_22s/A_Website_Devoted_to_Bristol_22s.html

http://www.bristolowners.org/22/bristol22.html

Islander Excalibur 26 

This felt like a fast boat, and it handled well.   My first cruising adventure was as crew to rescue the boat from Skyline Marina in Flounder Bay near Anacortes.  Keelboat users will trade off in the Islands to save having to take the boat back to the club.  Apparently one user left the boat at the marina and the next person didn't show up.  The first person made no arrangements with the marina.  A week later the marina called us and asked us about a boat that had been left in the marina with no payment. 

I was taught a lesson on this boat.  I was sailing along rail almost in the water and the boat had almost no weather helm.  I commented to the more experienced sailor how well balanced the boat was with no helm.  He looked at me funny and said look at the tiller.  I then noticed that I had the tiller in my lap, at least 20 degrees from straight.  That's when I learned that a well balanced spade rudder makes it so you don't have to pull hard on the tiller even when there is massive weather helm causing you to drag the rudder through the water like a big brake.  http://www.toyecorp.com/aquaries.html

Columbia 26

The Columbia 26 was not a well liked boat.  Maybe it was the nearly flush deck that made it look funny, maybe it was that some felt that it was a poor sailor.  http://www.columbia-yachts.com/c-26mk2.html

Cal 25

A donation that needed a fair amount of work.  Deception, a Catalina 27 was donated before it was put in service and the Cal 25 was subsequently sold.

Neptune 24

People complained about the transom being weak.  I discovered that the transom wasn't attached to the deck anymore, so when you pressed on it you could move it in to create a gap at the hull deck join.  The importance of a bridle on the spinnaker pole was demonstrated when the foreguy connected to an eyestrap in the middle of the pole caused the pole to snap.  The shock to the mast caused the tang for the lower shroud/spreader base made of pot metal to fail, now that there was no lower the mast bent.  http://cruisingresources.com/Neptune_24

Stone boat

I forget why we took a donation of a 20 foot ferrocement hull with a wood deck.  If you see any mention of stone boat fleet captain in old club documents, you now know what it refers to.

 A Concise History of WYC Boats – Part 4 

Sol cat 15

The Sol cat 15 and 18 were part of the club in 1976 when I joined.  There were only Novice and Skipper ratings at the time, and you had to get a rating in each boat.  You had to have your C-Lark skipper rating before you could even think about getting a rating in the mysterious, scary, fragile catamarans.  Well that was over the top, but not much for some people.  The 15 was cat rigged, (mainsail only) and was designed to be single-handed.  The Sol Cat 15 had centerboards whereas the 18 had daggerboards.

Sol cat 18

The 18 was sloop rigged and designed to be double handed.  Having the tiller crossbar in front of the mainsheet block was normal for me at the time since this is the catamaran that I first sailed, but it seems odd now since this is the only cat that I have seen this way since then.  Most cats the tillers are behind the traveller, so you must throw the hiking stick behind the boat to tack or jibe.  This frustrates many people that I teach.  The 18 allows you to bring the hiking stick forward, but you must have an extendable stick as it would be too short to trapeze with or too long to pass through on the tramp.  The Sol Cat poster in the sail locker at the time claimed that the Sol Cats didn't pitchpole like the Hobie  16s.  I'd never sailed a 16, but either the advertising was wrong or it would have been scary to see me sail a 16 based on the number of times I pitchpoled the Sol Cat.  http://sailboatdata.com/VIEWRECORD_METRIC.ASP?CLASS_ID=4399

Sol cat 20

Sol Cat's high performance boat that was 10 feet wide.  It's the only beach cat that I've sailed without a watertight sealed mast, which means not self rescuing.  I was sailing this boat to Mercer Island on a club lake cruise when I noticed the lee bow was a foot or so above the water. This is not normal cat behavior, the bows normally go deeper and deeper as you apply more power.  I started looking around and finally noticed the crease in the deck where it had folded in and let the hull bend up just in front of the crossbeam. I carefully nursed the boat back to the club with very little mainsheet tension.  When I repaired it,  I drilled a 5” hole in the deck, glassed in some stringers and put a port in.  First time it went sailing the port popped up into the air and the hull bent again.  This made me realize that the curved deck needed to be completely glassed back together for strength which the port did not supply.  So back to square one, and no port this time.  When the tramp shredded completely a spider's web of line to recreate a tramp was made.  It was a bit interesting to maneuver across.

Shark

This 20 foot long, 10 foot wide wooden boat was designed in 62.  There was no trampoline, there was solid wood where a trampoline would be found.  The center of the tramp area had a piano hinge so the boat would fold up in the center to make it 8 feet wide to trailer.  This boat was considered fragile and wood boats tend to not last a long time in the club, so this donation wasn't sailed except by a few chiefs just to test it to make sure there was nothing wrong with it.  http://sharkcatamaranclass.org/WHAT.HTML 

Supercat 20

The Supercat was 12 feet wide.  Most cats are 8 feet wide so they can be trailered without dis-assembling them or buying an expensive tilt trailer. Each of he Supercat's crossbeams are of two different diameters such that one half slips inside the other to make the boat 8 feet wide to trailer.  The hull and deck is an elliptical shape.  This is to minimize drag when the front of the boat is underwater and reduce the chance of pitchpoling. It was 450 pounds with 275 ft^2 of sail area.  There was a tall rig version made with 300 ft^2.  http://www.thebeachcats.com/index.php?module=pictures&g2_itemId=2637   

A Concise History of WYC Boats - Part 3

A Concise History of WYC Boats - Part 3

This post is the third in a series of five articles by John Courter documenting boats and boat types owned by the WYC.  New the club?  See how times have changed! 

Tanzer 16

A little like an underpowered smaller Flying Scot with a rounder bottom.  I felt that it didn't steer very responsively, and it didn't feel very fast.  It was a 500 lb boat, and since we probably had the genoa, it had 145 ft^2 of sail area.  With the standard jib it had 130 ft^2 of sail area.  In contrast the Flying Scot has 190 ft^2 of sail area.

http://www.clal.ca/tanzer16/

Left to right:  Excalibur Islander 26, Caravel Bristol 22, Tanzer 16

From 1980 Daysailor

E-scow

The E-scow was 28 feet long with a boom that sticks out over the transom.  It had bilge boards, twin rudders and was designed to be sailed heeled over.  The boat planes offwind. It's a very different feel than a 505 planing.  Sailing upwind you heeled the boat so when the deck was almost touching the water the lee bilge board would be vertical in the water.  The boards had toe in to reduce leeway.  The weather board needed to be raised because it would cause drag being at an angle to its opposite.   This boat had small rudders and sail trim was important.  I had the jib halyard break once.  I couldn't get the boat to bear off, it stayed in irons without the jib.  I tried raising the jib on the spinnaker halyard and promptly pulled the screws for the block out of the wooden mast.  I then ran the foot up as if it were the luff using the spinnaker pole topping lift, tied a knot in the sail near the head to hold onto and sailed home.   When I got my rating on it, the chief who went out with me and also had an E-scow of his own said, “I'm not sure that only two people can right it.” He then proceeded with the capsize part of the test.  It turns out you can right one with only two people.  There were 4 E-Scows at the club at one point.  I believe two or three of them were affiliate boats.  I have  several fond memories of cruising Lake Washington summer evenings on this boat.  It had 323 ft^2 of sail area and the hull weighed 965 lbs.

  

C-scow

20 foot cat rigged version of the E-scow.  I pretty much ignored this boat since I considered the E-scow so much cooler.  It wasn't a long term boat in the club. It had 216 ft^2 of sail area and weighs 650 lbs.  http://www.melges.com/boat.php?p=pages/boats/C-scow

Husky

Huskies were the first boats that the club owned. In the fifties a design contest was held and a cabinet maker won with a scow design. The boat was constructed of a few sheets of plywood.   The first version was under rigged and consequently more sail area was added.  I believe originally there were 6 Huskies, at the time I joined there were the Brad, Deb, and the Increadaboat left.  Two of the Huskies were stored in the Canoe House and the masts had to be tipped back at an angle to clear the door leading to the ramp that is in the Montlake cut.  There was also another Husky left that had been converted into a race committee boat, the mast had been replaced with a course board and an outboard bracket had been fitted.  I got stuck using this 6 HP powered thing more than once teaching classes.  The original boats had a centrally mounted rudder and centerboard.  The Incredaboat had been modified to something similar to an E-Scow with twin rudders and bilge boards angled out.  Additional sail area had been added including a deck sweeper 180 % genoa.  Dual trapezes were also added.    I believe on my first Snooze and Cruise that the Increadaboat hit a log and tore a rudder off with part of the transom.  That evening there was a group of  people fiberglassing it back together on the island.

Victory 21

I would say that the Ensign was a nice replacement of the Victory 21. Ours is famous for winding up floating stern up after taking on water.  We added more foam in the cabin so that it was self rescuing after that, and we tested it at the dock.   You can read more about its sinking and see pictures at:  http://www.victory21.org/  Select the floatation button on the left to see a report of its sinking and re-floating written by the club member that was involved.  We sold it when some rudder and rudder post repairs became more work than we wanted to deal with.   This boat had 185 ft^2 of sail area and weighs 1350 lbs.

Star

This was a powered up two man keelboat.  It had no trapezes or spinnaker.  It was also an Olympic class.  The mast had double running backs which were critical to set correctly to keep the mast from coming down. You have to loosen the leeward set and tighten the windward set on every tack or jibe.   The Star class has been around since about 1911 and has had a variety of rigs including a Gunter rig in the past, which is basically a gaff rig where the gaff goes up nearly vertically.  The boat that was donated to us was made of wood.  We kept for 3 years then sold it.  This boat is a little short of 23 feet, weighs 1500 lbs, and has 285 ft^2 of sail area. http://www.starclass.org/index.shtml

http://www.starclass.org/index.shtml

Tempest

Another two man keelboat that is 22 feet long, but this one had a trapeze and spinnaker.  It weighs about 1000 lbs, 500 of that was a bulb keel. This keel could be lifted with a purchase until the bulb was touching the hull making it easier to trailer.  It has 247 ft^2 of sail area.  http://www.tempestclass.com/

Minute Man

15 foot catboat styled boat with a gaff rig.  It has a U.S. Flag as its insignia on the sail.  If you don't raise the peak and throat halyards together you break the gaff jaw, so the gaff  was in the shop on a regular basis.  A wide shallow draft boat with a short rudder is perfect for sailing in shallow waters but it  resulted in compromises in sailing ability in my opinion.  This boat draws  8” with the board up.  You couldn't really hike in the boat, but if you let it heel it would round up when the rudder came most of the way out of the water.   This boat was  15 feet long, had 145 ft^2 of sail area, and weighed 800 lbs.  http://www.sailingtexas.com/sminutemancatboat15100.html

A Concise History of WYC Boats - Part 2

A Concise History of WYC Boats - Part 2

This post is the second in a series of five articles by John Courter documenting boats and boat types owned by the WYC.  New the club?  See how times have changed! 

Old boats of the club, part two: the double handers.

C-Lark

We had a maximum of 16 C-Larks at some point. We used to also have the area on the far side of the boat ramp to the first pedestrian ramp to store boats.  The C-Larks were the double hand training fleet.  They were a fat version of an I-14,  much more stable with less sail area.  It was a self rescuing boat, but the tanks were small and low in the boat, so when you righted the boat it came up half full of water.  There were two small holes in the transom to drain the water.  For a long time after righting it you had to be very careful with weight placement.  If you moved too far forward, the water would rush to the bow, the bow would go underwater, and water would fill up the cockpit again.  Any direction you let the water in the boat roll to would result filling the boat again.  The boat would eventually drain completely dry without having suction bailers because  the cockpit sole was above the water due to the tanks, except for a small well at the back where the drain holes were in the transom.  If you sat too far aft the back of the cockpit would always have water in it.  The solution for most people was to keep plugs in the drain holes unless the boat capsized.   The boat would plane, but the bow goes up in the air due to the amount of rocker.  I'm sure that my views on how the boat planes had a lot to do with my level of experience at the time, but I thought the boat was very difficult to handle while on a plane.  I remember sawing the tiller back and forth trying to keep the boat from capsizing and quite often not succeeding.  These boats were advertised as being able to take 4 people.  At times there were 4 people on C-Larks with all their camping gear stowed in the bow to go on Snooze and Crooze.   The C-Lark had a fairly large sail area of 130 sq. ft. for a 14 foot boat.  It weighed 275 lbs.  I've been told that they originally came without mast partners.  Apparently we bent enough masts that we built mast partners.  It is believed that Clark eventually added a partner to the boat.  Another modification that we apparently caused to be added was a small triangular shaped tank under the side decks to try to slow turtling of the boat.  Photos from 1980 Daysailor.

C-Lark on a dolly in the snow.  Notice any difference in geography?

420

We acquired the 420s as the double hand teaching fleet when the Laser 2s died.  We had both a Flying Junior and a 420 as demo boats.  One reason I remember hearing for selecting the 420 was that it was slightly bigger.  420s were the popular inter-collegiate fleet at the time.  Some east coast schools still use 420s, but most of the west coast now uses Flying Juniors.   I find the 420s and Flying Juniors to be very similar.  A sailing article from years ago comparing the FJ and 420 had the opinion from some college sailors that the Flying Junior was a better boat than the 420 because you could hardly get it to plane, thus keeping the racing tighter and better.  The 420 is 420 centimeters long,  had 110 sq. ft. of sail area and weighed 260 lbs.

Pictures at:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/420_(dinghy)

Alpha One

The designer of the Alpha had us sail his prototypes, presumably with an eye to selling us a fleet eventually.  Turns out we discovered the mast needed spreaders when we bent the mast, and the daggerboard well needed a LOT more reinforcement.  We found a couple of other issues, all of which he fixed, but we were never happy enough with its sailing qualities to buy a fleet.  Laurelhurst Beach club and Western Washington had fleets. One day I was going out to try the club's new Alpha and noticed a girl that was about to go out on a Kite, I asked her if she would like to try out the club's new boat with me. She said yes to going out sailing and yes to marrying me 2 years later.    

Pictures:  http://picasaweb.google.com/WSUSAILINGTEAM/JeffMixdorf2009?feat=embedwebsite#

Taser

This was a donation.  It was a high performance, no spinnaker, no trapeze boat.  It had a rotating mast like the Hobies and a fully battened main.  It was 14' 10” long, weighed 150 lbs, and had 123 sq. ft of sail.  It wasn't in the club for very long.  I don't remember much about it, I'm not sure I even got to sail it.  I believe that it was considered to fragile to keep.

Pictures and more info:  http://www.tasar.org/