svShearwater
Shearwater & Spadefoot
Hi Chris. Unfortunately, I don't know without looking at it and the boat is a bit far away at the moment. Also, I have the old Gyropilot Graphic, not the new Multi-graphic, so it may not even be the same.
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Autopilot Angst
- Thread starter tboussie
- Start date
Jim
Starting out thinking your boat or you MIGHT not be up to the SHTP is inadvisable. You'll never know unless.....
You have all my best wishes, but you must be the one to try! And the fancy APs might well be the answer for you, but many,many competitors have done well with lesser equipment.
Ken
Starting out thinking your boat or you MIGHT not be up to the SHTP is inadvisable. You'll never know unless.....
You have all my best wishes, but you must be the one to try! And the fancy APs might well be the answer for you, but many,many competitors have done well with lesser equipment.
Ken
Jim
Starting out thinking your boat or you MIGHT not be up to the SHTP is inadvisable. You'll never know unless.....
You have all my best wishes, but you must be the one to try! And the fancy APs might well be the answer for you, but many,many competitors have done well with lesser equipment.
Ken
Ken,
I appreciate your advice, but believe me the reason for my qualifications about whether or not I will be able to enter the race are pretty well considered. I want very much to do it, and frankly my wife would have a heart attack if she knew just how much money and time I have spent since May on rebuilding the boat with an intention of entering. I am not slowing down on getting it ready. But, Here are the things I have to think about.
1. Everyone knows the hardest part of the race is getting to the starting line, which incidentally is about 2400 miles from where I am in South Louisiana. I thought I could get the boat to a 600 mile race to Havana from Pensacola that started this past saturday, and was not even close to getting it ready. After that race I was going to single-hand it back to New Orleans, and that would have been my qualifier, and frankly my personal evaluation of myself to see if I still had the fire in me to do it again. Physically I am in pretty good shape. That total experience would have been the test that the boat and myself would have had to pass. I did not get to that starting line, and all the money in the world will not make a clock go slower so you can get more done. And if it did, I didnt have that much money anyway. Now I am thinking of doing a 210 mile race from Miami to Havana, that starts Feb. 10, 2016, which will be followed by a singlehanded sail to St. Petersburg, Fl, for the April 22, 2016 race to Isla Mujeres, followed by a singlehanded sail back to New Orleans.
2. After the Miami to Havana race, I will know what I need to know about the boat and me and will enter the SHTP.
Or Not.
3. My boat is very much an unknown quantity, being an old (and dated) 36 foot LOA, 25 ft Beam, trimaran design which has been modified to be much more powerful. I have opinions, but no data, as to whether it is fast, slow, safe, or seaworthy. The last time I sailed it, it flipped and sank. The water was over my head. My Chinese wife, who was swimming with me, was seriously wondering why she traveled 14,000 miles to marry a crazy man. It will make you think about such things. The cause of the sinking was equipment failure, compounded by pilot error (me) not recognizing what was happening fast enough. It took about a minute.
4. With regard to the gross-overkill autopilot, it just seems like it would help me go faster then a not so gross-overkill. I know I could have gotten by with a much cheaper autopilot, and was advised of that by a shtp veteran before I bought it, but I knew that if I didnt like the final product on the trimaran, I could take it off and put it on another boat I own that is a known quantity.
In any case, I appreciate your thoughts and advice, and if you are at the power management seminar on Nov. 12th, I hpe to meet you in person.
Jim
Jim
You make some very good points. I didn't realize that you AND the boat were in Louisiana. I live in South Carolina, myself, but "Harrier" lives in Los Angeles. So it's a lot closer to the start line than yours...still the hardest part of the race is to get to the start line, even when the boat is ready to go. All I can say is your plans for a possible 2016 SHTP look very iffy from a time standpoint. But I'll be pulling for you. The race needs more multihulls, altho they're very rare and can't really be handicapped properly against the other competitors. One year we had 3 tri's in the race, so they had a good competition.
Sorry, but I won't be at the seminar...never have been to any of them as they are too far away. Power management is pretty basic...just remember that if you are relying on solar, I have seen Hawaii passages where the sun didn't appear until the last day or so. All the best....
Ken
You make some very good points. I didn't realize that you AND the boat were in Louisiana. I live in South Carolina, myself, but "Harrier" lives in Los Angeles. So it's a lot closer to the start line than yours...still the hardest part of the race is to get to the start line, even when the boat is ready to go. All I can say is your plans for a possible 2016 SHTP look very iffy from a time standpoint. But I'll be pulling for you. The race needs more multihulls, altho they're very rare and can't really be handicapped properly against the other competitors. One year we had 3 tri's in the race, so they had a good competition.
Sorry, but I won't be at the seminar...never have been to any of them as they are too far away. Power management is pretty basic...just remember that if you are relying on solar, I have seen Hawaii passages where the sun didn't appear until the last day or so. All the best....
Ken
My boat is very much an unknown quantity, being an old (and dated) 36 foot LOA, 25 ft Beam, trimaran design which has been modified to be much more powerful. I have opinions, but no data, as to whether it is fast, slow, safe, or seaworthy. The last time I sailed it, it flipped and sank. The water was over my head.
This confuses me. With six trimaran races to Bermuda, I'm concerned. What boat is it, age, material, salvage issues....?
This confuses me. With six trimaran races to Bermuda, I'm concerned. What boat is it, age, material, salvage issues....?
It was designed by Andrew simpson in early 70's wo partnered with bruce wild in sea-brook, Texas, as a 32 foot X 25 foot cruiser-racer, called a shifter 32. (Actually 31 ft, 6 inches) About 9 were built between 73-79. It was put together by previous owner from parts, who made a longer mast, and added 4 feet to the stern and moved the rudder back to the new transom. I added a 6 foot bowsprit, masthead kite, took almost every metal fitting out of thr mast and boom and re-rigged the boat. BIG square-top main, screacher and huge kite plus fractional kite. By January I hope to have a handle on it with extensive sea-trials for de-bugging. I should have bought a farrier 31R. Less money and twice the speed.
Sea trials plan sounds good. In Newick tris of the era we encountered extreme forces on underwater foils at high speeds, leading to rudder area reduction. However in several gales we lay to a parachute sea anchor very well, with no tendency to skate like a fin keel monohull. Best of luck with the project.