Unlike keyboard cruisers like Boobsprit, I actually sail a lot and do a
lot of cruising. As far as I am concerned, I live in a cruising
paradise with over 130 miles of wilderness shoreline to explore in the
North Florida Big Bend area. I have my choice of deserted barrier
islands, crystal clear springs bubbling up into the salt water,
anchorages where I can simultaneously see bald eagles, alligators and
swarms of Monarch Butterflies flying across the Gulf to Mexico, flats
where I can snorkel for scallops and tiny fishing communities with
great redneck bars. When unfortunates like Boobs are hauling their
boats for the winter, cruising season is starting for me. When they
are FINALLY putting their boats in the water, I am anchoring near the
cold springs and swimming cuz there's no wind in the summer. In
short, I can sail far more than unfortunates like Cap'n Boobs so I
don't need a garish Cheap French Whore of a boat to have fun.
Our coastline is unusual in that for much of it, if you can see the
shore, any boat with more than 4' draft would be aground. For over
100 miles to the east of here, there are only two places accessible to
a draft over 4', thus Boobs boat with a draft of nearly 5' would be
useful only as a fixed navigational marker. With a coastline like
this, what is needed is a shoal draft boat that can also sail well.
Since such a boat exploring the tiny creeks and bayous will run aground
many times in a cruise, it must be able to take it. For this reason I
also decided my boat must also have encapsulated ballast and NOT
external ballast. With external ballast, the large number of
groundings would eventually loosen the keel-hull joint whereas the soft
groundings on sand and oyster bars will not harm a hull with
encapsulated ballast. The 28' S2 with 3'10" draft and
encapsulated ballast seemed perfect.. Even better, S2 obviously
intended for her to be sailed single handed (which I do a lot) way
back in 1981 when she was built because all sail controls lead right to
where they can be reached by the helmsman. Something Boobs could not
find out by reading the PS review of the S2 8.5M is that she has
rigging considerably more robust than other boats her size giving her a
very strong rig, a necessity for all those groundings. Last year I
replaced ALL of her standing rigging and running rigging and lifelines
and her old 6.5 hp Yanmar diesel (got me a 13 hp 2GM) and bought new
sails and a CDI furler to turn her into the perfect coastal cruising
machine.
Of course, you ask, "How can anyone run aground that much".
Around here the charts are simply wrong due to rearrangements of the
coast by hurricanes, furthermore, the rare aids to navigation seem to
have been placed with malicious intent as they are pure fantasy. Even
worse, I boldly go where no sailboat is supposed to go giving a
probability over 75% we will go aground on any outing.
But you ask "Can a boat with shoal draft cross big water" and the
answer is how you define big. I have gone back and forth across the
Gulf from here to Sarasota many times which puts us an average of 50
miles off shore in the middle of the trip (a 160 mile trip). She seems
to handle this quite well. Is she fast? On a recent trip from
Clearwater to Shell Pt, a distance of 130 miles straight across, it
took only 28 hours, pretty good for a 28' sailboat. This afternoon,
on a beam reach in 18 kts of wind, the GPS said 7.0-7.1 kts for over 20
minutes. Is she comfortable? I am unable to assess this as I have
spent so much of my life camping on the ground or sleeping under
bizarre conditions on caving trips ANYTHING with a dry bunk is nice.
When I consider her qualities further in light of my plans, she is the
perfect Bahamas boat with a 3'10" draft and is even better for the
Keys. She can transit the Okeechobee Waterway without dropping her
mast because she just fits under the fixed railroad bridge. Planning
to sail to the very shallow coastline of Belize and that area, she is
even better suited than almost anything else.
In short, I now have the perfect cruising machine while poor Boobs can
only sit at the dock bragging about his boat and doing virtual
cruising.
Decided to take "Ragtime" (28' S2) out today to test my new
single line reefing on reef #2. Wind in town was light from NW, at the
coast was maybe 15 kts from NW, 4 miles out the anemometer said 18-22.
Being single handed, I took it easy and used mostly a single reefed
main with the furler with maybe a 75% jib. Set out on a course of 125
going nearly dead downwind for awhile, then SW on a long beam reach
where the GPS read 7.0-7.1 kts for nearly 20 minutes, amazing for a
28' boat with fixed 3 bladed prop. My prop was spinning like crazy
in neutral. Finally, a long close hauled slog back home. At first it
was a little wet but smoothed out as I got closer to shore where the
wind was from. I even had to let out more jib to balance her. It was
a nice short sail
When I got back in I realized I had not changed my oil in a long time
so I did it. This is another good point about the S2 because there
such good engine access that I can change the oil in 15 minutes. In
fact, I took out the old 1GM and put in the 2GM almost by myself last
year.
The only real drawback to the single line reefing is that I have to
pull in a LOT of reef line to get her reefed. My first reef is a two
line system which is really easier.