UTMC

Well, I've been looking for a small sailboat. In fact a really small sailboat, something I can afford to keep as a student, and preferably tow with my bicycle. This means things like Lasers (kind of spendy for me), Sunfish (haven't found one close enough yet, and they seem a little neutered), and Hobie cats (I'd prefer a monohull though).
I found this yesterday: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/scz/boa/3002301634.html. I'm going to go check it out this afternoon.

It's a "Butterfly" racing scow. It seems like a really cool little boat, racing scows are supposed to be rocketship fast which is good with me. The problem is that they're not popular in my area at all so I've never seen one, or even any of it's racing scow cousins in person. They're popular inshore racing boats meant to be rallied around on lakes. I live on the coast with a nice big bay. Once you get about a mile out it's ocean conditions, you might as well be right out in the pacific. We definitely have waves as well as solid (read-pants destroying) wind. These scows are supposed to be less capable pounding into the wind, which is something I'll need to do at least occasionally, but I don't have anyone to ask how they perform locally.

So here goes. I know it's a little off the wall, but do any of you have scow experience?

Oh here are some pictures of some Butterflys:

Not sure what the differences are, but there are Sunfish, and Sailfish. One may be more to your liking than the other, may also help your search.
Little sailboats are lots of fun, in my limited experience.

Probably goes like hell, that appears to be a planing hull over a certain speed.
Let us know what happens!

IME, scows are used to carry heavy stones and livestock. So your little scow there is probably a LOT faster.

Now then,

Here's a SCOW for ya!

http://www.nps.gov/maritime/nhl/alma.htm

I don't think you could tow it behind a bike, though.

Scroll down for another picture!

Oh you guys are waaaaaayyy behind on scows. Check this shit out:

A Scow


Some old school E scow


MC Scow


You're absolutely right Sisyphus it's a full on planing hull. They are supposed to be able to go surprisingly close to wind speed on runs and reaches. Around here that can be scary fast. I'm going to start checking around at the local sail shops to see how much it's going to cost to install some sort of reefing system. Yes that's right, for the princely sum of $350 I now have a ridiculously clean little race boat. The hull is almost spotless, and the foils and lines have all been stored indoors forever. The sail was left out unfortunately. It's in usable shape, but not nearly perfect like the rest. I also got brand new standing rigging and a new mast step on the side.

It just occurred to me that I built the rig for an Idem-class scow a couple years ago. The Idems are 100+ years old and sail on Lake St. George, I think there're only a handful left.

If you're looking for something just to get out in, a scow will be a handful. If you're looking for something a little more stable, less twitchy you might hold out for a displacement hull. Especially if you expect to have to work into a head sea.

One of these? That's the pointiest, roundest bottomed thing I've seen that was called a scow.

Yeah we'll see how it goes. I know this thing wasn't really built for my conditions. I've had a couple of bigger boats, and I'm a pretty athletic guy so I don't mind a handful. Worst case scenario if it doesn't work for the bay I can take it up to Tahoe sail it around and maybe even turn it around for a little profit.

I've got the Butterfly all rigged up in my back yard right now. It's got the lines of a '70s Lambo.

^Yup. What you can't see from that photo is that they're something like 9 feet wide.
They're referred to as sloops but the drawings all say, "scow." Go figure.

I feel like I should give a motorcycle analogy for anyone who might be semi-curious but without a sailing frame of reference.
I live in fairly rugged sailing country, let's call it the wide open desert. I should be riding one of these:



or in boat terms this:


Instead I got this:




It's going to be kind of rough through the whoops and ruts, and the tank is probably too small. It'll be a fun ride though.

All right! I finally got out there yesterday. I got so sick of trying to hitch the boat up to something that I just walked it the mile and a half to the beach. I won't be doing that again, but it was totally worth it.
I was a little bit worried about the beach launch, but it went very smoothly.



Time to point it!






The butterfly sailed really well actually. She does pound a little in the chop, but I think any 12' boat will.
Conditions were really mellow when I first went out, but as usual things started picking up after about 12:30. The weather radio claimed: Water Temp. 54, Seas 6ft every 6 seconds, Winds 22 knots gusting to 27.
As usual with sailing I stopped taking pictures when things got hectic.
I definitely flipped that thing a couple of times. It's really very easy to right by yourself. I was concerned about that. I've flipped Hobie Cats a couple of times and I don't think I can right one of those by myself. The butterfly was a no brainer though. Just swim around to the other side, and climb up on the daggerboard. She rolls right back up.
I ended up having to come back in after about 4.5 hours just because I didn't bring any food or water with me. Lessons learned.

Looking at the world through salt-tinted glasses:




I'm also sore all over my body. I knew this was going to be a fairly athletic endeavor, and it was! One thing I knew but didn't really understand about sailing these little dinghys is that you don't cleat down the main sheet. You sit there holding it the entire time. If you want to go fast or faster you have to pull harder and hold it there while still trying to control the tiller. If I start doing this all the time I'm going to get all buffed.

The cardinal rule of small boat sailing is you never make off the sheet. You know why now!

I think that's way more fun than is legaly acceptable!

I hope you get to do it as often as you want!

I got a slip in the harbor for the month of June. I figure it's money well spent if I get to take the Butterfly out pretty much every day. So I got my roommate to load her on his old ford, and drive her on down there for me. I figured I would just take her out for a quikie and then slide her into her new slip.

Well it didn't go that way.

While I appreciate Roomie's help, it meant waiting until much later in the day than I would have liked. By the time I got going it was well after noon, which means that the wind was already pumping. I got out there and cruised around for a little bit. There was some sort of dinghy sailing class happening just a little ways away. At one point I watched a boat capsize and some coach got on the bullhorn with a, "what did you do to flip it?", just like an MSF course. A little while later I pulled a slow, clumsy tack that was poorly timed with the waves, and flipped it. "No problem." I think, and swim around to the daggerboard, climb on up there and flip her back up. This time though the boat doesn't stop when she gets upright. It just keeps right on going and capsizes again! Total pain in the ass. So I swim around, again, climb up on the daggerboard, again, and again the boat just spins all the way around and back upside down. It turns out that if the mast fills with water it gets to be quite a bit longer and heavier than the daggerboard. Also my boat is flatter and wider on the top than it is on the bottom. All this means that I am on a craft that is quite a bit more stable if it's upside down. I flipped that boat around at least five times before I got too tired to keep it up. So I just climbed up on top (previously known as the bottom) to relax for a minute. By this time some of the other boaters in the area had noticed my flailing and started to wander on over. The guy that made it first was in a fairly nondescript work boat and was nice enough to grab the dry bag with all of my stuff that was drifting off before he came back to see what he could do. We tied my craft off to his and after a couple of attempts to right her, we decided to just tow her on in.

This is all well and good. The guy that grabbed me works with the UCSC sailing club. He gave me a few pointers and generally knew what he was about. I gave him some crap about their not have a community college outreach program. Then we ran out of gas. So we threw out the anchor and waited for gas to come from shore...and waited...and waited. Eventually gas comes. When it's time to get the outboard going it isn't working very well. For some reason it won't prime. Out come the tools. After dicking with this thing for at least another 45 minutes it's time to make the call. I'm going to get a tow in from harbor patrol, he's going to get a tow in from one of his colleagues.

I was a little bit worried about this. What if it costs money? I've heard all sorts of weird stories about people being removed from their vessels, charged to be rescued, and then charged clean up fees for their beached boat. Luckily I had nothing to be worried about. The harbor patrol guys were totally cool. They got my boat righted, gave me a tow all the way to my slip, and were generally cool. One of them was a sailing geek who was stoked on my boat, and wanted to chat about ways to depower it. The other guy was just there so he could carry a gun on the water and check out girls. It really helped that I was wearing a wetsuit, a PFD, and a radio. Despite the fact that I was a complete shit show I was smart enough to use proper safety gear which got me into the "still learning" category instead of the "shit-for-brains" one.

Collateral damage? Not too bad. I lost an awesome hat, and my sail got a little bit torn. This got me my first experience with a sail loft. Once again the guy in there was super cool. I'm getting the fresh damage repaired as well as adding a "Cunningham" which is a device to help flatten the sail and depower in heavy wind. All for a very reasonable price as far as esoteric skills with specialized equipment goes.

So there you go. Basically every step of the way sailing has been more expensive, more difficult, and more physically challenging than I ever expected, and I didn't think it was going to be easy.

Congratulations on your new hole in the water! Now you'll have a much nicer place to throw all of your money!

Seriously though... Congrats. Enjoy!

Well I thought I'd give you guys the end of the season summary. Freakin' jangleplatz! If any of you have ever been interested in sailing I can highly recommend picking up a cheap little 12'-13'er in reasonable shape and getting right out there. I've learned so much about how all of this stuff works that it's ridiculous. I went from shitting my pants every time I went out at the beginning of the summer to actually going pretty fast and being in control by the end. In fact my little scow, which used to feel so fast, now seems kind of pedestrian.

You know what that means...

Bring on the faster boat!

Unfortunately the next step up in performance from the little single handers is a pretty big one.What this means is that finding a boat as clean as my butterfly in my budget is pretty much impossible. On the other hand I do have a boat to sail, and I do need to learn how to work with fiberglass...

Bring on the project!

Craigslist provides.


Like motorcycles boat names are usually pretty descriptive. My first boat was Butterfly, this one is a Fireball. Fuck yeah. It's %30 longer, but slightly narrower and carries something like four times as much sail. Fuck yeah! It's also a boat that was designed to be sailed in the kind of conditions that I actually sail in.

The Fireball was designed by the toughest looking englishman that ever lived: To do this:
Pretty bad-assed. Looks like it's going to be a long winter playing with fiberglass.

wear a dust mask at the least (when glassin' not sailing) Welcom to the other brotherhood