My 26th day sailing so far this year.

Had a blast sailing today. It rained like hell in the morning
and quit just before we went out and was dry until well after
I was done for the day this evening, although it looked
threatening all day, the wind was decent at 8 to 15 knots
and we never say the predicted gusts of 20 knots.

The tide was seriously low at -.7 feet at 8 am today. I saw
Roger's Reef break the surface--1st time I've seen it,
and got a little too close to another one. It was a great
training exercise. We had the boat aground and our
normal 3'3" draft was reduced to about one foot.

Check out these pictures. This reef is supposed to be
exposed at extreme lows. This is the last remaining
reef in Norwalk harbor that I have not seen break the
surface at extreme low tide. I guess that even after
sailing this area for 6 or 7 years now, I've not quite seen
the lowest of the lows--yet!

Here you can see the water was over the gunwale and
nearly over the coaming. Looking aft. Water depth here
was about 1 foot! My right knee on bottom left in photo.
This one took about 12 minutes to get off of. I thought
it would take longer. It is one of my more interesting
groundings.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...round_0728.jpg

There I am on the extreme left.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...round_0729.jpg

We spent about 1.5 to 2 hours sailing with the helm lashed.
We tacked and gybed many times and sailed by sail trim and
body weight. We successfully sailed out the channel, gybing
twice, and sailed back in the channel tacking many times, all
with the helm lashed.

My students got pretty at good dancing around the boat, moving
from side to side and fore and aft steering the boat. We could
steer an pretty much any direction with one combination of
sail trim or another. Compensating for gusts was not difficult
either on this boat.

I wanted a picture of the way I tied off the helm. My student
got me, but not what I wanted in the picture. You can barely
see the lashing on the helm. I tied a spare piece of line to
the seat supports on each side and used a clove hitch to
secure the tiller. It works well and you can still move
around the boat easily.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ashed_0739.jpg

After that I got a chance to give a check out on a Hansa 400.
This was set up with a self tending jib. I gave the guy some
docking practice, tested the prop walk in reverse (to starboard!)
and we did about 6 man-overboards.

I went out on it a 2nd time after the checkout. It was the
easiest 40 footer I've ever sailed. Tacking up a narrow channel
was simply a matter of turning the wheel and steering through
the tack well, keeping the speed up. It particularly narrow
areas, an S-turn--back to back tack was a snap. This would
have been such a hassle in a similar sized boat without a
self-tending jib. This is only the third boat I've sailed with a
self tending jib. The first being a 38' Swedish boat back in
1988, the other being an Ideal 18 more recently.

I decided the Hansa was a great boat for a Figure-8 man over
board drill as the jib was not an issue. I suspect it will be
hard to do a Quick Stop MOB in windy conditions without a
backed jib. I'd like to try the boat in more serious conditions.

The self tending jib means heaving to will require a trip forward
to lash the jib car to one side. Without a jib to push the bow
down, I'm not sure if it will be possible to bear was in heavy
air with the main trimmed in.

On the other hand the 6'6" draft made the boat handle like a
J. The boat pointed well. It had four winches. Two deck
top Harken 40s and two Harken 46's for a genoa, but we used
the starboard side for the main and the port for the self tending
jib. The other Hansa in the fleet had four Lewmar 46's.

Lines lead under the deck, leaving the cabin top clean and
easy to walk around. The interior is pretty well built, nicely
tabbed together. The accumulator was too small and cycled
too often, and the battery compartment, while big enough for
extra batteries, had only one 4D house battery and a small
starter battery for the 3 cyl Yanmar. It would be easy to
upgrade these items. All in all, a decent coastal boat for
someone who wants a better boat than the typical Beneteau
but not something I'd take on an ocean passage without
some modifications.

Here is a picture of a self-tending jib rig on a HANSA 370 or
perhaps it is an older 37. This is an older and smaller Hansa,
than the one I sailed. I took these pictures because I wanted
to copy this arrangement for my Ericson's staysail. The
HANSA 400 has a track built into the fiberglass deck and
eliminated the need for this sort of exposed track.

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ending0740.jpg

http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...ending0741.jpg

Note the jib sheet is lead up the mast so as to be out
of the way and not pull the sheet to one side or the other.
Another method is the take the sheet forward to the sail's
tack and then to one side.

Bart