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The Julia L.
A
customized Jim Michalak Fatcat2 gaff-rigged catboat |
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PROJECT
PAGE 18,
June 20, 2009 |
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| SHE
SAILS!!
Truth be told, there were times when I doubted I would
actually have her ready in time to leave for Rend Lake, I had nightmares about getting
down there Thursday afternoon with a bunch of tools and materials, and working through the
night to make her seaworthy.
BUT WE MADE
IT!
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| There really
weren’t that many things that were absolutely essential to getting her on the water,
other than doing the leeboard guard and assembling the sail. For some reason, I just couldn’t seem to get
the upper leeboard guard right, and I think I went through about five iterations before I
had something that fit. Here it is.
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The sail went much
better than that, thanks to what I learned from Dave Gray, owner of PolySail
International. I bought one of Dave’s kits to do the sail for my first boat (a
Michalak Vector). From the time I laid out the tarp until I hammered down the last seam
took about five hours. Here are two pics, one of the tarp laid out and ready to cut, and
then a shot of the finished sail. |
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| The foot and the
head both have a 3-inch round to them, and the leach has a 3-inch hollow, all per the
instructions on Jim’s plans. The dart was calculated and placed per the Excel
spreadsheet designed for this purpose by Tom Hamernik. You can download a copy of this
spreadsheet from the Duckworks Yahoo forum. |
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After
that, the only other major item was doing a cover for the anchor well. That only took a little time. The cover is intended
to prevent shipping large amounts of water into the well. This is a temporary piece, as I
intend to do a raised floor for the anchor well later
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Here
is a shot I took at a rest area on the way down. Note the far-rearward position of the
wheels on the trailer. This made the tongue
weight excessive, and I moved the wheels forward after getting the boat off the trailer at
Rend Lake |
| So, finally, after
being beached for far too long, I arrived at Rend Lake… |
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Got the rigging up…
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| And got her on the
water!! The wind gods were pretty much absent during the messabout, but I we still got out
on the water every day. The “Julia L.” sails very smoothly (at least in calm
conditions), tacks briskly, and is generally a joy to sail. The polytarp sail was
beautifully smooth, and required only a bit of tuning to hold a near-perfect shape. Visibility over the cabin was restricted a bit by
the raised cabin hatch, but this only blocks your view to 11 o’clock or 1 o’clock,
depending upon which tack you are on. |
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| Other than that, I
have only good things to say about her. The cockpit is so comfy that on one occasion I
nearly fell asleep at the helm! She does have
a wee bit of lee helm, but I think that adjusting the slot in the leeboard guard to allow
a more vertical position for the board may cure this. Anyhow, I need to test her out in a
wider variety of wind conditions to have a good feel for that aspect of her sailing
qualities. |
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