Jim Cate wrote:


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.

That's nice. I guess I was doing something wrong when I use to sail
back all the time because my first cruising boat didn't have and engine.

We were easily making 14 knots

Are your sure? Does that mean you finally got your GPS? Is that really
knots or MPH? Actually, on a flat, without loading the boat too much,
you should be able to get up to 14 knots.

with normal load and with the water ballast filled, (I haven't
really had time to adjust the trim

How much trim is there? Doesn't the dealer know what angle to set the
engine at - so what else would you 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.

Most powerboats are.

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.)

Just how far is this "sailing area" that you had to power out to but had
no wind?