All is not howitzers and roses on the boat design front. My little cartop cat, Slipper, is proving a tough nut to crack.
When last I talked about Slipper’s deficiencies, I was planning a couple of “improvements.” Over the last few days, I cut back the length of the rudders by four inches, and put fences [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Slipper’
Slipping into Depression
Slipper again
My first time sailing Slipper, I was somewhat discouraged by her reluctance to tack, or at least, her reluctance compared to Slider, my 16 foot open beachcruiser. So, my first attempt at making her a snappier tacker was to cut a lot of area from the big skegs I installed to support the barn door [...]
Slipper Goes Sailing!
I’d been waiting for over a week to take Slipper on her first sail, but the weather hadn’t cooperated at all. Yesterday afternoon, the winds dropped unexpectedly, and as soon as Nancy got home from work, I hooked up the trailer and away we went to our neighborhood launch ramp. Our sons were both away [...]
Avoiding First Launch Disasters
I’ve been desperate to try out my new little 14 foot cartop catamaran, but not desperate enough to tempt fate. For a first sail in a new sailboat (and particularly in a new design) winds should be fairly light. If you take a new boat out into even moderately heavy air, you’re asking for [...]
Slipper, Real Soon Now!
Slipper proceeds toward completion in fits and starts. I must admit that my second attempt to design an original kind of boat has been a bumpier road than the design of Slider. With Slider, everything was very conventional, except for the in-hull seating on a boat that small. Even the unusual sprit-sloop rig was [...]
Slipper’s lashings, after a trip back to the drawing board
Slipper has made a bit of progress toward completion lately. The scraps of cheap lauan underlayment I used are falling apart where they lie on the dirt, so I thought I’d better get some paint on the hulls before they fall apart too.
I think the hulls are modestly graceful, and I might even leave [...]
