Jeff Morris wrote:
Jim Cate wrote:

Interesting. A while back I was being criticised for not taking the
boat out often enough. Now that I have the time to take it out, I'm
criticised for reporting on two recent outings.


Maybe because all you said about the "sailing" was how nice it was that
you could power back in before dark. I'm sure almost all of us have
powered back, but we usually don't consider that the highlite of the
sailing day. In fact, If I were not such an unsuspecting soul, I might
think you were ridiculing us for having such underpowered sailboats.

However, I'm curious Jim, how fast do you go when you power in? Planing
speed for you could be anything over 7 knots. Also, do you leave it in
the water, or trailer it? Do you keep the ballast tank filled all the
time? Have you taken it out into the ocean?

Unfortunately, the winds have been erratic and variable in Galveston Bay
during the past two weeks, so we didn't get a lot of great sailing
weather. In answer to your note, the point I was making was that the
capabilities of the boat to power back at planing speeds enabled us to
get back to shore quickly and in time to get the boat out of the water
and safely put to bed in its slot before dark. We were easily making 14
knots with normal load and with the water ballast filled, (I haven't
really had time to adjust the trim and check the boat for maximum speed
yet.) which got us back to the marina much faster than any other sailing
vessel on the Bay. In other words, the boat does attain planing speeds,
and it does pass almost any other sailboat on the bay, and its speed
under power does indeed provide significant advantages in our
particular sailing environment. (In a conventional keel boat with diesel
engine, it takes almost an hour to get the boat out to the sailing area,
and another hour getting it back to the dock.)

Jim