A small short boat (all other things being equal) is slower than a big long boat. We’re the shortest, smallest boat in the “fleet”. About this I give not one fuck. This is my canoe replacement mini-expedition craft and it travels faster than canoe, in bigger water than canoe, and carries more shit than a canoe.
SUCCESS!
Waddling to and fro amid boats large and small (all bigger than mine) I’m super happy. The craft works! Everything seems under control and I’m not completely left in the dust by the big boys either. Moreover it’s handling “big water” that would eat a canoe. It’s doing exactly everything all the voices on the internet promised and more. I didn’t expect the pipsqueak design to live up to the hype, but it did.
If we really wanted to push it, the buoyancy tanks are designed so you can sit on them and hike your mass outward to counterbalance the sail. (The design had “hiking straps” but I didn’t build them.) The Curmudgeon doesn’t roll that way.
I park my ass low, sitting right on the hull; center bottom. You can’t erase a lifetime of “canoe” experience and sitting on the edge of a canoe will flip it faster than you can say “dumbass”. It just feels odd to sit outside a perfectly good boat. First Mate stays low in the hull too, likely because it’s a small space and we’re crammed in there like sardines.
Even so, we bounce through the waves like a champ and everyone takes photos of everyone’s boat. Lots of blurry cell phone snapshots are made and hearty waves are exchanged. I get to say “ahoy”, which is worth the price of admission. No motors needed for all this fun. (A few bigger boats have motors but most of the small ones don’t. I think that’s pretty bad ass.)
There’s a 12’ variant of the 8’ Puddle Duck Racer called the OZ Goose. The OZ Goose seems to have hit a hydrodynamic sweet spot but I’d never seen one in real life. Then a guy zooms by in a Goose build so fresh and new you’d swear the paint was still drying. It’s a clean and gorgeous construction. Very sparse and nicely done. He slows down and cruises a few feet away and we chat. I’m nervous handling the rudder. It would be uncool to crash. The other guy has it totally in hand. After a while he waves and leans into a turn. The thing pirouettes like a Lipizzaner stallion, whips the sail around, and rockets off like an improbably square falcon. It does shit no boat that simple ought to manage; some of this is due to the excellent operator but also the 12’ hull matters.
We’re sailing more aggressively than I’d dare alone. Each wave throws up a little splash and a few drops hit the deck each time. They roll from bow toward stern and wind up in the cockpit. The plans had mention of a ¾” coaming for this purpose but I never installed one. Strictly speaking it’s not necessary. (A coaming is like a little gutter that routes splash water back into the sea instead of into your boat.) Whoops.
I’ve got my ass perched on a drybag stuffed with a sweatshirt and emergency gear. It keeps me vaguely elevated but it’s only a half measure. My bailing sponge isn’t adequate to stem the accumulation. Eventually it’s a couple inches deep and it gets to me.
“Wet ass! Break time?”
First Mate concurs and we head for the beach. The boat is not even remotely swamped and my whining about a few quarts sloshing in the hull doesn’t mean we had to stop. However, everyone is either beached or heading there. Pulling in to the shallows I flub the daggerboard retraction and land like a turkey dropped from the WKRP helicopter. Actually, that’s probably all in my mind. Nobody seems to notice my flailing about.
We’ve been on the water several hours. Both First Mate and I are pretzeled from the sitting arrangement. Everyone is happy with their sailing and comments about boatbuilding are bandied about. My little boat is simple but appears somewhere in the middle of the bell curve for build quality. Not bad for my first (or third) try! One boat pulls up that’s a wooden masterpiece. Others have haphazard paint because who gives a shit about paint? I scope out every build looking for hints and tips.
Several people head for camp to cook hotdogs but I deserve a treat. I hitch a ride from car jail to the ramp where I abandoned my Dodge. From there I sneak off to town.
At town I order a huge burger and it’s a mistake. Goes down like a brick. Oh well.
Sailing is hard. It looks like you’re just sitting there but it’s really aerobic yoga with the potential to drown. I can feel my joints seizing up. So, I drink a couple beers; not because it loosens joints but because I have the righteous tough guy aches and pains that go well with a beer.
After a few hours of this I’ll get stupid. Stay tuned.