I had a last minute business trip to attend to and a couple other things to sort out. I’m sailing with Tad from Velocity Sailing this weekend in the Bare What You Dare regatta on Lake Keowee, SC on the F18 and should have a post or two here. As far as the boat work goes, we should be back up to full bore next week. We’re slated to go to the paint booth weekend after next to spray the bottoms and after that it’s all downhill.

Sorry for the late post - I drove the 8.5 hours back from Pensacola last night and got in a little before 1am.

There’s certainly some starting practice drills in our future. On the second day of the Performance Mid-Winter Championship hosted by Key Sailing in Pensacola Beach, FL, we needed to defend our one point lead in order to remain in first place. On Saturday we had great boat speed and were able to come back from several slow starts to high finish positions. We lined up for the first start of the first race on Sunday and immediately were in trouble. The wind shifted nearly 20 degrees and fortunately the race committee abandoned the sequence and put up the AP (postpone) flag. For the second start attempt, I put us too close to the line in an undefendable position and Mark Murray pushed us up and over the line before the start gun. We had to stop the boat, let the boats pass us, and return to dip the line. It’s hard to stay positive when something like that happens but we seemed to have a lot of “come-back juju” on Saturday so we tried to keep a positive outlook and kept pushing. We ran on the right side of the course toward the middle and tacked on several large shifts and before we knew it, we were in 3rd at the first A mark with McDonald in first just ahead. We barely edged out the 2nd place boat by the time we got to A and McDonald maintained his lead for the run back downwind. We were getting better height back up to Amark and John tacked to cover. The shift continued and he found himself on the wrong side of a direction change. We passed him by the next A mark rounding and held the lead for the finish. Unfortuantely, for the next several races, we had bad starts again and our “come back juju” was starting to run out as the wind continued to become spottier and shiftier. John beat us in the next two races both times with Tom Paoli between us leaving us now in second behind John seperated by two points going into the 9th and last race. We had to beat John and put two boats between us in order to tie our score with him. I believe we would have won the tie breaker because we had more first place finishes. David called the start this time and for the first time all day, we started near the front of the pack and in clean air. However, we found ourselves on the wrong side of several shifts and struggling to maintain contact with McDonald who was sailing a brilliant race. John beat us squarely again and deservedly took the regatta. 2nd place is still a stellar result and David and I are very pleased to have performed so well. I’ve got some photos from the racing on Sunday and will post them tonight.

We’re in first place by only 1 point at the moment. John McDonald trails us with 9 points and third place has 13 points. They’ve been very consistent where we have tended to have highs and lows. Tommorow, they intend to run three races (starting at 10am) and we need try to stay with McDonald to get ahead and cover. The sea breeze kicked in today at 12:30 - we’ll need to keep a close eye on the forecast tomorrow because we have a better idea now about what happens when the wind reverses here. I hope we can hang on as this is a fairly prestigious event.

David Mosley and I are sailing this weekend in the Performance Catamaran Mid-Winter event. Because the F18 fleet evaporated when the previous week’s Alter Cup boat changed from the new Nacra F18 to the Nacra 20, we decided to charter one of the Alter Cup boats used in the previous week. Racing started this morning with 12 Nacra 20s and 3 Nacra F17s in a moderate 10knot northerly breeze that eventually died as the sea breeze started to circulate (the sea breeze is a southerly breeze and they cancelled each other out). We got caught at the start line unprepared for the wind shadow provided by the large trawler in use for the committee boat. We came back from last to a 4th place finish as the wind died, then started to build from the south. The race committee moved the course for the new breeze and started a race. We saw that the line was a little slanted leaving the ‘pin end’ favored and went for a pin end start on starboard. We shot up the course and tacked to port in a very fresh 12knot breeze. We crossed underneath one Nacra 20 while the rest of the fleet was climbing up to us. We rounded A mark, David set the kite, and we shot down the course with David manhandling the kite from the trapeze. We managed to cross the boat in front of us on starboard and never looked back. The next race went the same except that we reached A mark behind two Nacra 20s. We were again able to maintain excellent speed downhill and pass both of them to take our 2nd bullet. For the next start, it was obvious that a few boats were hoping to put us back and we did suffer a little by not defending a good start position. But, again, we fought back hard and after two laps we finished in 2nd. The last race got terribly fluky as the sea breeze died. I had lost my wrist watch GPS somewhere when the pins broke out of it (I found both pins and they are not bent). That left us without a starting watch and I had to guess at the countdown. I had hoped to put us near the committee boat so we might have a chance to overhear a countdown….but that didn’t work and John McDonald skillfully slammed the door on us at the committee boat leaving us stuck again in that giant wind shadow. The wind continued to die and we were the last boat to A mark by almost 5 minutes. We took a flyer and the gamble paid off as we had pressure while most did not. We had caught the back of the fleet by the time we got back down the the c-mark gate. Going back uphill, the wind proved to be very shifty and we set the spinnaker at least twice but we managed to out-luck several boats and climb up to a 6th place finish. We’ve got to head back to the regatta site for dinner…but we did see enough of the results to see that we are in first place! We’re going to be pretty nervous setting out tomorrow and I think we’ll have to really reconsider our light air strategy as we’ll be racing sometime when the sea breeze switches on.

I’ve been operating this week as the U.S. SAILING Multihull Vice-Chair and will be taking over as Chair next year filling some pretty big shoes! This year’s event was spectacular - the racers were supplied with 10 new Nacra 20 catamarans and experienced many different weather conditions. I was able to acquire a series of movies from Patrick Pettengill and have linked to them here. I’ll have some more to link here soon.  More information about the event can be found at the U.S. SAILING site HERE.

We’re going to be a bit out of pocket here through next week but will be competing in the Performance Catamaran Midwinter Championship in the Formula 18 class in about a week and we’ll have some reporting here.

We are pleased to report that we are on track to break a new record for Team Seacats to receive in excess of 40,000 hits on the website this month! Thank you for visiting! We promise to do our best to keep it interesting. For comparison sake, we received 24,000 hits during the 2004 Tybee 500 so we can only imagine the traffic coming for this year’s race May 14-19. The bandwith and servers have been upped and are braced for it.

Please remember to support us and support our sport by supporting our sponsors! Team Seacats is graced to be supported by outstanding companies who have great customer service and products. Please click their links to the right and look around at the products and services they have to offer. When you undoubtedly find something that interstests you, let them know where you found them.

I had hoped to be able to use the paint booth at work during a couple of weeknights in order to get the hulls gelcoated. However, the company requested that I use it only on a weekend instead. Because I have several weekend obligations coming up, I had to initiate plan B…which is; go ahead with reassembly of the boat, rigging, etc. in the evenings until I get the free weekend to take the hulls to the booth. After finish sanding the orange peel I had in my test spot (so it’s ready to spray after some minor cleaning) Tim Owens dropped by to help me move things around. Tim traveled with us as part of our indispensable ground crew last year and will be returning with us again this year.

After we positioned the hulls on flat ground and in general position, I ran a tap through the bolt holes that secure the beams to the boat. Over time, these tend to get gummed up with lithium grease and sealant and it can be hard on the threads to drive in a bolt on dirty threads. Once that was done, we snugged up the beams and took several crossing measurements. The hulls appeared to be racked only by about 1/2″. With a ratchet strap just snugged up, we were able to easily tweak the cross measurement spot on. We will look at it, but there is not much we can do with the toe-in of the hulls because that has a tendancy to change slighly when the boat has rigging tension on it. However, we’ll make sure the hulls are ever so slightly toed out before we actually set the beams.

Once that was done, Tim helped me finish up the rear latching pins for the trailer box. The rear of the box is held in place by two tapered stainless pins that line up with holes in the lip of the lid. The idea is to lift the front of the lid clear and slide it forward to engage the pins at the back of the box. Then the front is dropped in place and there is a flip catch to put a pad lock on. In order to make a firm attachment of the pins, I attached a 1/2″ bar across the inside rear of the box (its overkill - but all that was in the scrap bin today). We then drilled holes sized to be tapped for the 3/8 bolt and then drilled four holes for rivets high enough that they would be covered by the lip on the lid when in the closed position (so they can’t be drilled out). We then tapped the tapered pin holes, removed the bar, and counterbored the rivet holes (the rivets would not grab well if they couldn’t balloon out on the inside when being set). Some 5200 was placed on the bar and it was riveted in place on the box. I then took two 3/8 stainless bolts, cut off the head, and chucked them up in a drill and worked them to a nice taper on a bench grinder with the drill rotating them. It’s no lathe - but it worked admirably. I then put a jam nut on one end, applied locktite, and threaded the pins in place. Then I put the lid on and slid it right up to the pins. With a hammer, I tapped on the lid until the pins left an indentation in the lid and I drilled gradually enlarging holes until the lid closed firmly and the tapered pins put a slight pressure on the top. Pictures are up at the flickr site. This is one high end box!

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

We are finalizing an additional sponsorship arrangement with a company that puts together some high quality items of personal sailing gear. These folks have put a lot of thought and effort into designs with some really “out of the box” thinking and are just breaking into the sailing industry. I can’t wait to tell you more about it! More soon.

I took a couple of days to tidy up some household things and we’re pretty much out of parts and/or waiting to get an opportunity to spray the gelcoat before reassembly of the boat can begin. I’ve flopped yet again on my paint-booth decision and have decided to use the paintbooth again. It will be nice to simply take out the weather variables and get the gelcoat overwith. Based on the test performed last weekend, we determined exactly what we need and an order was placed for 1 gallon of gelcoal (we wanted 1/2 gallon - but it was the same price as a gallon), 1 qt of styrene (to use as a thinner), and 1 qt of air dry (styrene and parafin wax mix - used to both thin the gelcoat and provide an air barrier for a full cure). These items are coming from the west coast so they won’t be here until next week. Then I will pre-mix as much as possible in multiple mason jars (without catalyst) and enlist the aid of several friends to help me get the hulls transported back and forth.
Once that’s complete, the hulls will be sanded again and polished with a buffer. Then they will be setup on flat ground, leveled, and squared. Then the beams will be waxed where they meet the beam sockets in the hulls and I’ll mate the two perfectly with an epoxy resin, milled glass fibers, and microballoon slurry. Once that sets up, the beams will be tightened in place and we can start putting the boat back together - that should go quickly and will only take a couple of evenings. Then we need to sort out the sail control rigging and mount some cleats and other hardware. Then we’ll probably make an order for additional control lines, high-tech chordage, and do some tapering and eye splicing. However, I’ll probably keep the splicing to a minimum since we aren’t going to have a whole lot of time to debug the boat. Knots aren’t very pretty but you can see when they’re approaching failure. A splice doesn’t let you know it’s failing until you’re staring at the bitter end in your hand.

I took a picture of the new SailMax.biz kevlar center traveler mount. Sometimes rigging is as much about personal preference as functionality. Originally, the cleat for the control of the traveler is mounted to the traveler itself and slides up and down as the mainsail traveler moves. Personally, I feel that it makes the line slightly more prone to tangles but mostly I don’t like it because I don’t ever really know at what angle the traveler line is going to be. If the cleat is mounted in the center of the rear beam, I can count on it being in the same spot and usually grab it without looking. Obviously a lot of folks feel the same way and SailMax.biz came up with a great solution. This mount will mount to all Nacra / Inter catamarans with an extruded “D” shaped beam.

I covered the new hatch/port in the port hull last night to keep the dew from getting into the sealant. I uncovered it this morning and it looks great. I like these Beckson ports because they have a nib on the inside for attaching a screw for a lanyard (so you don’t drop the thing overboard when open). They also have a larger thread that is less likely to jam and a tapered O-ring seal that seals better than the other ports I’ve used in the past.

The Self tacker installation went anything but smoothly. What should have taken about an hour took nearly three. I first discovered that the end of the mount was bent and probably happened somewhere during shipping (it was wrapped in bubble wrap so it wasn’t evident until I had unwrapped it). I needed to remove the Harken traveler track so I could straighten the base unit using a vice. It’s not that it’s hard to bend - it’s aluminum - it’s just that it was bent in a funny place and I needed to support it properly to get it back to shape. I had about 4 of the 12 screws retaining the track that were galled and difficult to get out. I had to retap those holes and run the screws through a die to clean up the threads and it went back together very well. I also noticed, like my F18 did, that the self tacker had four sharp points on the traveler stop - and we don’t like sharp things on a sailboat. I ground and polished these points and applied a little “Georgia” anodizing (spray paint). I then had to lay out the positions for the mounts on the front beam. Since my F18 has the same beam, spinnaker pole, and mast base position, I used it as a guide. I first measured and drew a straight line on the beam that matched the upper edge of the “T” shapped tabs that the tacker pivots on. I then marked the position for the first two inner tabs measureing them from the tacker and from center of the mast post. Then, because the self tacker still wasn’t perfectly symmetrical, I held the tacker up to the front beam and marked the location for each tab. The 3/16″ holes were drilled, 5200 applied copiously, and each tab was riveted in place. I elected to set the stainless rivets by hand since it could be viewed as a good hand strength excersize - it really wasn’t that bad (those weights at the gym are paying off!). I then pinned the tacker in place but found that I had several interferences with the tabs that resulted in the tacker only having about 5 degrees of freedom - it should have more like 110 degrees of freedom. Comparing again with My F18, it appears that a couple of the stainless tabs are shorter letting a couple of legs hit rivet heads and weld fillets, and that the one rivet I had to replace from my stock (I lost one of the supplied rivets) has a larger dome. With my frustration level peaked, I decided to move on to some other projects for the time being.

I then sprayed gelcoat as a test on a 3′ section of the hull. Remember the spot where I overheated the core and had to repair the same area twice? I was almost as interested to see how my fairing job came out as I was to see how difficult the gelcoat was going to be to work with. I was pleased on both aspects. There are tons of conflicting advice with regard to dealing with gelcoat and it’s difficult to sort through it all. However, I now have a plan. I was limited with the materials I had available for this test and thinned the gelcoat with acetone instead of, what I intend to use, styrene. I also top coated it with PVA mold release to seal the gelcoat from the air (for a full cure) instead of using the wax additive to the gelcoat as I intend to do in the final run. I made a quick trip to a pharmacy to get a baby medicine dropper so I could accurately measure the MEKP hardner. I first thinned the gelcoat and then and mixed in about 1.25% hardner to gelcoat. I found that, as I was advised, the acetone evaporates too quickly and was probably mostly gone from the time the gelcoat left the gun and hit the hull. This resulted in substantial orange peel (surface that looks like the outer peel of an orange). Some organge peel is expected - but I could certainly tell that it was too thick to lay down well. I then cleared the spray gun with acetone (twice) and poured in PVA mold release and applied. It went down smoothly and after a few hours the gelcoat had kicked and cured. If you’ve never worked with gel coat, it is a polyester based resin and will not “dry” like paint - it has to form molecular bonds in order to become hardened just like fiberglass polyester resin. It also has the risk of hardening in the spray gun if you take too long or get your hardener ratio wrong…and THEN if you don’t get the hardener ratio correct or seal the surface from air, you end up with tons of goo to remove from the object you just sprayed it on. While the risks are higher than working with paint, gelcoat does give you a thick repairable surface that can take a good bit of abuse but still look great after a few minutes with a buffer. We’ll need this feature for the multiple full-speed beach landings we expect in the Tybee 500.

I then went back to examine the self tacker and decided that I was still too frustrated to work with it. So I started on the trailer box. It needed to be mounted to the trailer and have hardware installed to secure the lid. I made a trip to the hardware store to pick up some materials and decided to go ahead and carpet the inside of the box. I mounted the box to the trailer by first placing some scrap pieces of marine carpet between the box and the trailer, then placing three 1/8″ aluminum reinforcing strips along the bottom inside of the box. I drilled a tap-sized hole through the strip, the box, the carpet, and into the trailer cross members. Then I came back and drilled through holes through the strips and the bottom of the box. I then ran a tap into the trailer cross member so it will directly receive the bolt. I countersunk the reinforcing strips so the flathead screws would sit flush, smathered 5200 between the strip and the bottom of the box (to adhere it firmly), put locktight on the screws, and bolted it down. I then vacuumed out the box, and used contact cement to work in the capet - first gluing it up one side, then gluing it in the corner, then down the center strips, then the other corner, and finally up the other side - trimming it to fit. I then cut several small strips and glued them to the top lip of the box to form a gasket for the lid (keep down on the rubbing and the noise). In between rounds of letting the contact cement cure, I cleaned up the enormous quantity of tools and equipment I had unleashed on the backyard today. I’m quite happy with the progress made this weekend - if nothing else it served as a really good endurance workout!

I accomplished a good deal again today. It’s pretty late and although I’m going to skip the visit to the gym in the morning (to recover from today!), I’m headed to bed soon. I’ll make a post with more detail tomorrow - but the port for the port hull is installed and only lacking drilling through and installing the final screws. I got a 4′ section of the hull sprayed with gelcoat as a test that went pretty well. I had a lot of orange peel because I didn’t thin it with the correct medium (more on that tomorrow). I test sprayed over the area where I melted the foam core and repaired - it came out exceptionally - I can’t wait to get both hulls sprayed! I also mounted the self tacker track on the front beam and that turned into a fiasco. First, somewhere between there and here, it was bent (fixed it), several screws were galled and I had to retap everything and clean up the screw threads, and now I have several interference points that limit the motion of the self tacker to about 5 degrees (should be almost 90 degrees). I also got the trailer box mounted to the trailer, mounted latch hardware on the front, and carpeted the box bottom and sides. It looks spectacular too. YAaaawwn. More in the morning (all the photos are already loaded if you want to see more).

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

I lied - I am going to be here this week…long story. I was a little unprepared to have a full weekend to work on the boat and I hadn’t made the arrangements to get the boat into the paintbooth at work. I also measured the booth and the hulls would barely fit but I would have to carry them individually across the plant because of work stuff in the way. I’ve kinda flopped on my decision again and am back to spraying them in the backyard. I’ll have to sand the sprayed gel coat regardless of where I spray it - so a bug or two probably won’t be a big deal.

I stopped by Chris Zander’s this morning - he’s doing a nearly identical project on another I20. We split the cost of a good spray gun since we are both going to be shooting hulls soon. Chris had also picked up another box of Team Seacats parts from SailMax.biz since he had been visiting them last week (thankyou!). Among some rigging items, we got the hardware for the self-tacking jib and an ultra-cool Kevlar traveler cleat mount for the rear beam that I installed yesterday. He then came by my place to borrow my grinder and help me move some stuff around.

I got in a pretty good day yesterday. With Chris’ help, we cut holes in both decks for the ports behind the daggerboards. Then we removed the starboard hull from the trailer to the backyard where I intend to test spray some gelcoat on a small area to see how it comes out. I also feel the need to get a better idea for how much gelcoat we really need. Chris then went back home to work on his boat. I then reinforced the port daggerboard well from the inside with three layers of 17oz Knytex. It was quite difficult to get the glass positioned and wetted out through this 4.5″ hole because the repair is over two feet below the hole and I can’t see what I’m doing when my arm is in the hole. I did get some good results however, and it looks really good. Because the deck is a little rounded on top and the port lid is flat it has to be bedded in order for the lid to seal properly. After lathering the joint with 3M 5200, I then temporarily mounted the deck port with wood screws on the high spot of the hull (only 2 screws). I then made the joint look pretty and cleaned up any spots of 5200 with mineral spirits. I have to get some screws to make the final mounting but it will take a day or so for the 5200 to setup enough anyway.

I then set in on the traveler. I first removed the cleat hardware since we’re installing a SailMax.biz kevlar center cleat mount. The traveler bearings were in sad shape and I had to shake the car in order to move it up and down the rear beam. I like this old-style Harken traveler because they work very well and the bearings are pretty easy to replace after removing one endcap. I have a new-style traveler on my F18 with a springwire that keeps the bearings captivated when you remove the car, but the return track for the bearings jams far to easily easily and I’m having to rebuild it about every 6 months (once a bearing jams in there, the others can’t move and get flat spots - which then jam more easily). Anyway, I already had the torlon bearings from previously rebuilding my F18 traveler…but I only had 61 and needed 62. I sorted through the bearings I had just removed and found one in decent shape and used it. The traveler now is back to perfect shape and zips up and down the beam with only the slightest level difference - sometimes slamming your finger when moving the beam around >:-(. From the advice of Mike Krantz at SailMax.Biz, I drilled and tapped two 1/4-20 holes in the rear beam and mounted the cleat mount in the center of the rear beam. I then bolted the traveler in place using trusty 5200 to bed it in place. Now that it’s set up enough to move around, I’ll take some pictures of it today.

It was a nice break to not have to ’sand’ on anything yesterday and move forward on several other items on the list. I’ll likely drill and mount the self tacker hardware today - but I may wait to take the beam into work to borrow a pneumatic rivet gun since I have to set 12 stainless rivets for this thing. So today hopefully I’ll get a little gelcoat applied for my test, mount the trailer box permanently to the trailer, maybe carpet the inside of it (after a trip to hardware store), and whatever else I have time for. I’ll keep you posted.

I’m sure this will probably count as a milestone - the hulls are wetsanded, washed, and ready for gelcoat. With the assistance of a friend, Mark Hale, I loaded the hulls on the trailer and snugged up the beams for transport to the paintbooth at work soon. I’m going to be out of pocket next week so there won’t be much happening to the boat or here on the website…sorry about that! You can bet I’ll be back getting things going hardcore as soon as possible.

On another note, I have to brag a little. Let me apologize in advance for the ensuing mental image…but without a stitch of clothing, I weigh 165lbs! That matches the lightest I have been in about 10 years. My personal goal is 160 (and that’s still plenty healthy - I’m 5′7″) and Frank, who is a bit taller, is working to 180. Minimum class legal crew weight on the Nacra 20 is 325lbs but that’s generally accepted as very light. At 340lbs we’re going to be pretty well suited for a wide range of wind conditions from weak to strong. Weight is such a critical thing on lightweight high-performance beach catamarans and I believe that 340 is ideal for this powerful boat.

Originally uploaded by Team Seacats.

I just received word that, as it stands now, Powerade is back on board supporting the Tybee500 by putting C&H production group on site filming the race. Last year, they filmed and assembled a 30 minute special that aired on OLN (the Outdoor Life Network) twice. I wasn’t sure about what kind of exposure that really is but I had three people at work (a 350 person company at the time) say they saw us on TV! Only one of them was interested in sailing. The C&H crew indicated to me last year that they would come back with equipment to put cameras onboard the boats with hard disk recorders capable of capturing a whole leg but that they were concerned that some of the teams would shy away from adding the extra few pounds of gear to the boats. They were assured that our team would be at the front of the line to carry the gear!

Please help us support our sponsors - they help us by supporting and publicizing our incredible sport. Click the links, buy the products, use the services (and tell them where you found them!). We are sponsored by companies that not only are supportive of our sport but that we stand behind 100%!

I have a top coat of filler curing on the repair area from last night.  It looks like that will do it.  I wetsanded the port hull once more and gave it a full wash so it’s ready to be cleaned with acetone and sprayed.  The starboard hull needs a little more sanding but it’s close to being ready for gelcoat as well.  I can’t wait to start reassembling this boat!  I didn’t upload any pictures because they pretty much show the same thing as before.  I have a friend from work stopping by tomorrow to help me move the hulls and saw horses into the backyard so I can take an early day off work and spray gelcoat when the temperature gets right.