I put her in the water for the first time the morning of Saturday, Feb 18 in New Bern North Carolina. I just paddled her and was impressed at how well the boat paddled. I never came close to nicking the wing. There was plenty of room for a full paddle stroke.
Then later in the day we drove on to Beaufort NC and tried launching her off my in-laws floating dock. I carried the parts down to the floating dock and assembled her there.
Then pushed her in.
Inserted the mast, paddled over to the nearest beach and ran the lines.
Didn’t rig the spinnaker yet. I’ll save that for the next time out.
The furling and unfurling worked OK but I think my unfurling line may be a bit too short. I may need to replace it with a new line a few additional feet long. [Correction. The unfurling line is fine as is.] The wind was very light that first day so I mainly paddled.
While paddling up and down Taylor Creek, I saw one idea for lifting small craft in and out of the water.
I may just put some rollers or something on the dock to help me get the hull down and back up from the floating dock.
As it turns out, I wasn’t the only thing in the water that weekend.
Then finally it was time to head on home.
One of our days in Beaufort was rained out but that didn’t deter the neighbor in the next house over (water-tribe’s LensCap). He just put on his cold-weather gear and went out for a paddle in the cold rain. He was also kind enough to give me some good advice for preparing for a watertribe event. I’ll need to start collecting my own gear so I can go out in less-than-fair weather as well. Hopefully the next time I’m back in Beaufort, I’ll be geared up and ready to tackle the elements.
Awesome boat! Triak is a cool rig!
In regard to the rudder not dropping into proper sailing position. . . I had that problem when I first sailed my Triak. I found keeping the bolt very loose and also spraying the pivot point with some WD40 before setting out each time solved the problem. Since I sail over numerous sandbars, at lower tides my rudder gets bounced up and down quite a bit, so I don’t want it too firmly secured in the down position. (Since I have the lube spray in hand, I also spray the six hand bolts before and after each sail. Until I started doing that the bolts were becoming corroded to the extent that the plastic caps sheared off a few of them (I reattached them with marine epoxy.) Of course, I sail in the ocean and keep my boat stored right on the beach near the water’s edge so the potential for corrosion is high.
Frank,
Thanks for the tips on keeping the bolts loose and using some lubricant. I’ll try that. I think I was tightening that bolt too tight.