I am posting videos taken today on my youtube channel. rogermannorg. I will try and post a link to the first one. I am down loading 7 or 8 so it will take a while.

This is my first sailing in light winds.

http://www.youtube.com/user/rogermannorg?blend=16&ob=0

JollyRoger

XRC canoe update 1/27/12 The boat has been completed and in the water undergoing testing. Overall it seems like a good boat. One strange thing is that it seems not to need a dager board. It points just fine and does not side slip (with no board) in 10-15 mph wind. Installing the dager board does not improve anything. I find it hard to believe that it does not need one so I am installing a lee board about twice the daggers size and see what happens. If the angle into the wind improves it will be great but if not I can live with the way it points  now without a board which is about as good as the Hobie TI. Not great but certainly ok. The other reason that I am going with a lee board is that I have found that when the dager is removed from the well and the Hobie Drive is installed that I can pedal through the tacks and not get stuck in Irons. And in light air I can pedal and double the boats speed. Lastly in support of the Leeboard over the dager is that the dager is stored in my cockpit and it takes up room. The lee board will stay in place and out of the way. It is also kickup. The leeboard is being installed now and testing soon. If it changes nothing it will be removed and sailed without any sort of board device to save the weight. I have anti vortex panels installed (similar to wizards chine logs) so just maybe they are working and no boards will be needed. Time should tell.

 Pedaling the boat is working very well. Using the Hobie drive I can maintain 4 mph at an easy pace that I could do for several hours. I have seen 3.5 mph into a 10 mph head wind and 5 downwind. Rowing did not work out at all so I will be removing that system and keeping one oar as a paddle, pole, and backup steering in case I lose a rudder. Paddling I can make 3 mph. When rowing, the oars were too short. They were 6 foot oars in order to stay inside the ama’s.

The folding is working really well and is very strong and quick. It can go from 14’ to 4’  as quickly as a Hobie TI.

Lowering the ama’s down is working really well. This helps stability while folded and also reduces the main hull draft.

I am having to replace the tube supports running the length of the ama’s. They were not strong enough and one got bent. (Collapsed in on itself) They are being replaced with sq. tubing instead of round which will make them much easier to install since no alum Welding will be required. Square tube should take the torque load better than the round tubing.

The rudder is heavy and stiff with the rope steering run around the cockpit and horns hooked to the rudder. I will be adding a temp tiller to see if it is still heavy. If the tiller is not heavy I will then add a tiller and then attach the rope steering to it as I have done before and it works well.  If the tiller does not  lighten it up the rudder may be too large. I could use a smaller river rudder anyway so I will set up something smaller for testing.

So I am having a few setbacks but overall it is going to be a good boat I think. It has good speed so hopefully everything else can be worked out.

JollyRoger

The Islander Catamaran is a long term project being worked on during the other much quicker boat projects. I expect it to take 1-2 years to build depending on how many other projects are started during its construction. It is very nice to have something to work over a longer term since most others can be completed in just a couple of months.

It is a 20+ foot Cruiser, 8.5 wide in order to be road legal. It will have everything needed for a couple to go on short trips including a head and shower. It will have stand up headroom in the hulls and sitting headroom in the bridgedeck. It will be a standard sloop rig with screecher for improved pointing. Top speed is not a concern but I do want it to be reasonability fast so that trips to the Bahamas’ will be possible.

Uses Hobie TI and AI carbon mast and stock sails.

No time to fully rig before dark, will do after Christmas.

Rear of boat to left. Tribal Trimaran in the background currently awaiting new mast and sails. (design is Triplaner- planing trimaran)

Big classic 16 ama’s will be tested.

Model name – TriPlaner, Boat name Tribal Trimaran

Description- The TriPlaner is a Planning Trimaran built for speed. It uses the same concept of the Triad Trimaran from the 60’s which was a incredibly fast boat but built in very few numbers with the main reason being unknown but the consensus being that the plans were very complex and not for beginners. The concept is to build hull and floats that will drive forward  and over the water and waves instead of being driven down into the water. 

The ama’s are wave piercing in the forward section to reduce hobby horsing  when hitting waves but very wide and flat bottomed to help them stay on top of the water when planning. They have a tremendous amount of buoyancy, 800 lbs loaded on one ama will sink it into the water only 6 inches. This boat has been in the testing phase since Sept. 2011. Longest sail to date was a practice and scouting  run on the North Carolina Challenge course aprox. 50 miles. It is currently being upgraded with a newer, larger rig from a Tornado.

Wyvern,

 Here are a couple of photos of the cockpit that you asked about. There is storage in the seats front and back. If there is access panels there is storage. Currently I only have the large round panels, I need to add some seat panels so that larger items will fit.

Below is more storage in the back and also a view of the plug in pedal paddle drive that I used in the Harlow canal.

Shot of the ama. 60 lbs. Bulkheads go all the way to the bottom.