Other People's Teals.....

So, today I went out to Frenchtown Pond with the Pica and met up with James with the Blue Flower.  You don't really see much mention of Teal's really showing up in groups, but sometimes they do.

This time around we were looking at a lot of wind, with gusts up to 19 knots.  Not much in the grander scheme of things, but for Missoula it is an exceptional amount of air on the move.  James was already in the water with his gaff rig with jib(somewhere in the neighborhood of 65 sq ft); myself, I tied my reef in on my balanced lug (45 sq ft).  If a good gust presented itself, I could boogey quite well.  I might have run up the whole sail (67 sq. ft.) but I wasn't feeling too ambitious--not to mention that I still need to deal with the fact that my mast is a "hair" to short for the sail I have (bought on closeout from Polysail) http://www.polysail.com/

An excellent comparison of sail plans of the Pica (left) and Blue Flower (former Annas Discors) on the right.  Don't let that gaff rig fool you.

So, my sailing was rather lackluster, but it was fun, and I may well dropped the reef and gone all out, but my tiller extension gave up the ghost (broken screw eye), leaving me to drop the rig and row to the dock.  Phooey!

James came in at this point and suggested lunch, which struck me as a good idea. At lunch he complained about a problem his rig has always given him in heavy winds.  To wit: the problem would be that the boom would furl up against the mast in heavy wind.  He had such an event before I arrived, and had the hole in his main sail to prove it.   He knew he wanted a downhaul but, rather like me, hadn't gotten around to mounting it yet.  Still, he has fun with his boats and you can read about that here:  http://inlandpacket.blogspot.com/

Well, that's what rope is for.  Happily there was an eyelet in one location and sufficient projections on the mast in the other.  Not much later a boom vang in born.  Now oddly enough, James was generous enough (?) to suggest that I take the boat out.   He said the Blue Flower is touchy and edgy with the wind--well he was right.

I guess the first harbinger that this would be interesting was after I had cast off the dock  "You know, I always put up the sail at the dock........"  In all honesty, I found that rather lame, I always thought a person should be able to raise and strike a rig on the water.  I did get the sail up, but a person does need two ropes (throat and peak halyards) and the parrel beads merrily hung up on the bolts on the tabernacle.  With sail up, twas time to sail.

Now, a balanced lugsail is simple:  one sheet, one halyard, one sheet line.  The Blue Flower is not:  Two halyards for the Gaff.  A line for the boomed gaff, a halyard for the gaff and a downhaul for the jib.  Yeah, five lines to sail a boat... egad.  Now in light airs this would be a non-issue, as very little of it would require fiddling, not so today.

Once I got away from the dock, which typically has weak winds, I was moving along nicely.  I did not raise the jib but the wind was moving the Blue Flower along nicely.  I decided to test out the boom vang by trying the one maneuver that gave James such trouble--a straight downwind run.  I was not able to get the boom to pop up, though I knew it was going to rise up some, simply because I had no way to really apply tension to the vang.  The gaff sail pulled well enough, and I soon had the boat up to hull speed and a wake that looked like I had a motor.

It took a while to master how to tack with the rig, and in the process of doing that I had to "go around" on a tack, which brought me too close to shore, in a tight turn and with the wind on my stern quarter, over she went and well, blub blub.  Happily I was close to shore and able to get the boat ashore.  Also the air boxes on the Blue Flower seem to work better than mine on the Pica, so the boat took on less water.  After much happy bailing (with James watching after dealing with the Pica as a rowboat) I set out again, this time with the jib up, but the gaff scandalized.

I would not scandalize the rig next time as it did not seem to provide a great advantage and it hampered performance later on.   I  spent about another half hour tooling around the lake, crashing through shoals (fallen trees) and pushing the heeling limits of the Blue Flower without actually sinking it again.  Finally I made it back to the dock and gleaned a few things:

A stiff rudder is kind of handy.  Since the Blue Flower has cockpit coaming, tacks are easy (1) put the tiller over the coaming and let the boat come around (2) when the boat is almost through the tack, shift yourself across the seat thwart (3) take in the sheet to keep loose lines from causing trouble (4) pick up the tiller and let out the sheet once on the new heading.  After practicing, it get a whole lot easier.

The Blue Flower is a very sensitive boat.  Part of this is because you are seated on a thwart that is 6 inches off the floor.  The coaming also makes it hard to get out on the rail.  being 240 pounds is a benefit for that, but not everybody comes with built in ballast.

A great example of the "barn door" rudder on the Pica.  Contrast this to the low aspect rudder on the Blue Flower below.

 The rudder on the Blue Flower is light years different from the catboat style barn door on the Pica.  It certainly helps the Blue Flower have a healthy weather helm, but gaining steerage way is a bit of a challenge and between that and the wind direction (no wind pennant) led to a number of gybing turns to make a tack.  I did get better at it and that gives me reason to think that I might be wise to try a different rudder blade setup on the Pica.

So, all in all, a very rewarding day on the water.