the continuing adventures of CARBON OFFSET....

[micah202]

hi folks,,,,3rd outing on the new-t-me,Carbon offset,,,,first without Bendoo,,,,and first GOOD breeze,,,puffing a bit over 20 at times...

...had a good sail upwind,,,couldn't get those with me t'HIKE!!....thilly kiteboarders
had a great time with the chute,,though oversize(stock melges 20) is a bit oversize,,,and makes things rather touchy especially in side-on puffs.........was having a great downwind ride against river current,,,,,,and then got a glimpse of water sloshing below.....

........water sloshing ~8'' down the whole boat,,,,water gushing through the out-of-place keel gasket,,,one of them thillykiteboarders had seen it,,didn't know it was a problem!!!
............soooo with that much 'ballast',,and speeding along nicely,,,CAN'T WAIT for the next ride without the extra ~600 -800lbs

,,,,,I'd say this possibility of gasket fail would NOT be a problem with a short cabin version,with the keel behind the cabin,,,,something to consider....
....and -limber-holes- would very much ease drainage from haveing to spoon out each compartment,,,worth the effort!
...another thought in build would be to leave the bunks enclosed,,and have a drainplug or inspection port for drying.

.by NO means is any of this a criticism of Ben's work,,,but since he did a rigorous 'build to plan',,there might be others who can consider some of this feedback useful!

...so tomorrow it's portland,,,new keelgasket,,,and another adventure with Eric and venerable sailmaker Kerry,,tuning tips,mehopes!!

[Tim Ford]

Hah, excellent report, man. Still chuckling.
Duly noted and thanks for the advice!

[Kevin]

Phil,
On the limbers, I'd recommend you add them. I added some after the fact and it was easier post fillet/taping then doing them the other way. 1/2" or larger drill bit, lay it tight to the bottom and drill the hole where you want it. Take a dremel with a little drum sander bit to flatten the bottom of the hole to match the contour and let the water flow the way you want. You can also round the edges so nothing and no one gets caught, cut or otherwise miffed. Then coat the wholes with 2 coats of neat epoxy.

On the keel gasket, I'm planning on using pourable urethane for my new rudder cassette. The cassette is oversized for the rudder and once the 2 parts are finished then you use this stuff to make the gasket. This is what spar tite is. You can get the same type of material from mcmaster and it's a little cheaper and there are lots of choices. You have to lube up your keel with mold release and the petroleum jelly to ensure a permanent bond is not made. If it works for my rudder I'm probably going to try the same stuff to improve my keel joint as well. I get water when the boat gets moving myself. This is what I bought...
8644K11 Urethane Casting Compound, 1 Pound Liquid, Shore (80a), Black.

Good luck. Kevin.

p.s. did you figure out how to get some pre-bend in that mast? Or are you just working with what you've got for now?

[Kevin]

oh, p.p.s. - very glad to hear that Carbon Offset has a new owner and is getting out. That's excellent.

[micah202]

there'd be ~40(!!) or so limberholes to cut ...definetely easier during the build.
....when placing a bulkhead,,cut a limber 'notch',,,put some plastic tubing through,,do your glassing,pull the tube out when cured,,,done!

[Kevin]

Fine, don't believe me. But it's a lot easier to drill after you tape. I've don't it both ways.

Now in your case with a completed boat it might be a pain to squirrel under the cockpit. But adding limbers would only take 2 trips under there if you wanted to add them now.

Kevin.

[micah202]

...another day,,another town,,,another outing,,onother good breeze!!...wish I could just keep road-tripping

...portland this time ,sailing with kerry the sailmaker guy,,,and the peg-leg 'Gladiator" and a few other PDXmafia guys covering his back....wind was in the mid-teens,,,and the portland fleet was out for their beercan races

..with 2 of us,,and rather short hiking straps for the widedeck,,upwind sailing was gruesome compared to other boats,,'the price we pay for downwind',,and hopefully not so bad with 3 people hiking,,,,but downwind was 'payback-time'',,,,the i550 did pretty well,in relation to flying tiger and melges24's!!!,,,but around the course,,I'm pretty sure they'd have it!
...Downwind sailing,,noticed the bow dig in a puff,and tendancy for the bow to 'catch' and boat steer to windward--this seems to be rectified by keeping the boat flatter,ie bearoff before a puff hits.

,,,,got decent feedback from kerry on Ben's spar set-up,,,like the rest of the boat,,only minor tweeks!,,,,and NO LEAKS,with a new keel- gasket (cut from part of my mattress)

[Tim Ford]

rename the thing Sealy-Posturepedic?

[micah202]

rename the thing Sealy-Posturepedic?

...ferry 'punny'.,actually that stern extension for phrf looks like I could build a little armchair on

[micah202]

...another fine adventure for CarbonOffset,this time on home waters in vancouver...had my son and a 'thinking-about-building' fellow from vancouver.
...upwind in low-teen winds with lumpy water,,it was great to see how nicely the stern-wave separates readily,,,and the boat responds well to helm adjustments between healing/powering and pointing/feathering,,these boats REALLY respond when you find a groove!

...downwind ,,had some chute trouble,,,looking forward to using a chute that isn't 3-4'loooong on th'luff,,,,and knowing how t'run the lines so they don't clusterfuck..

...it's great getting out lots to see what details t'sort next.

....I REALLY recommend that prospective builders get out on a boat BEFORE deciding the long cabin/narrow cockpit is the way to go!
....it's tough to get the weight forward enough upwind..
.....it's damn difficult to hike off the front end of the cockpit,the deck's sooo wide-I'm 6'3'' and it makes me feel short!!
.....and when the keel's up,,it is IMPOSSIBLE to get inside the cabin!!!

[micah202]

It sounds like a bit of sawing and more ply, epoxy and glass is in store for Carbon Offset over the Winter?

...manadged to strike one off the list and widened the companionway today,,forgot how nice it is to work with wood.

[jerome]

Carbon Offset model year 2012 already ? Pictures ?

[micah202]

Carbon Offset model year 2012 already ? Pictures ?

..not worth pictures,,,simply widened the width at the upper aft,,kept the forward and bottom widths the same,,and added trim on the edges.

[micah202]

...had a little lightwind sail t'day,,2 sailors....was somewhat impressed t'see the boat's abilities in VERY light winds,ghosting from puff t'puff
...weighed the trailer when the boat was off,,,,so my weights are....1550lbs gross,,,,trailer=687lbs,,,,boatweight=~863lbs with sails and all sailing equiptment...from looking at the boat's build,I'm not sure where the build weight would be reduced much,,but there's some weight to be reduced with a lighter rudder and boom... .....................if I cared

[micah202]

You are one of the few to have weighed their boats - or at least to have admitted it. 863 pounds with sails and other personal stuff on board? It is probably closer to the 800 minimum than you think.

The rules for this class for weighing in are:

Minimum weight in dry condition with all water removed shall be 800 lbs (363 kg). The
hull, keel, rudder, rig, shrouds, stays, and required running rigging shall be included. All
unsecured equipment, and sails, motors, tow rope, anchor and rode, safety gear, and
personal gear shall be removed.

The rules for weighing in for both US based classes are essentially the same.

Depending upon what you actually had on the boat, you could end up a bit under! To see, you could certainly pull off everything that should not be on the boat for an official weigh in and weigh it all separately. I hope you do as we need that information as a class. Or rather all the classes and builders need to know where the boats are really ending up weight wise.

..I'll post a response under 'boat-weights' in the 'build' section

[Kevin]

On a different topic then weight, do you have any pictures of carbon offset in it's new home? We'd love to see them.

Kevin.

[micah202]

aw,usually busy setting up and sailing so-far....hopefully there'll be a fleet photographer in portland next weekend,for the PDX/big-cabin showdown

[Kevin]

I hear you on being busy while out. I frankly haven't taken a picture myself while sailing on my boat. Hand are usually busy and the brain is spinning on what could, should or might be done next. Good luck next weekend.
Kevin.

[micah202]

...had a fun weekend in portland,,,winds were rather light,with a pretty decent rivercurrent extending the upwinds like a treadmill.
In this condition at least,,the two i550's caused the fleet quite a wait for subsequent races--hopefully we'll get to one design races before we get a reputation for this!
.....racing between the 2 550's was like 'snakes and ladders'..spotty winds,,back-currents ....a lull and you're being dragged down current,,,,definitely nothing concrete to compare boats,,in fact we rarely were sailing in close proximity!

........fans of full cabin/aluminum mast/scavenged sails will be happy t'hear that 'Carbon' came out over PDX1 in the racing...
I was thrilled with the portland guys I sailed with,,it was soo nice to have two sailors who -knew what to do- without having to discuss much!

[slowpoke]

Congratulations on having a good time out there Micah, it's good to hear you held your own against the carbon flatdeck guys!

[jray]

Sounds like it was a great time. I understand the uphill against bigger boats, windward leeward races are tough even when there's no current. For most of the conditions and racing we do I believe the phrf ratings were dealing with are way low. I'm looking for that mostly reaching downhill distance race where the i550 shines. Congratulations on your match up. Might be big cabin boats aren't going to be as bad as thought. Go The Offset!

[micah202]

Sounds like it was a great time. I understand the uphill against bigger boats, windward leeward races are tough even when there's no current. For most of the conditions and racing we do I believe the phrf ratings were dealing with are way low. I'm looking for that mostly reaching downhill distance race where the i550 shines. Congratulations on your match up. Might be big cabin boats aren't going to be as bad as thought. Go The Offset!

....methinks the portland guys are all atwixt!!....renovations are in the works,,,and they're scrambling t'find some old alloy spars and used sails

[Tim Ford]

Screwpile a couple years back there was an Open 6.5 in one of the fleets. Twin rudders and fat stern sections made the thing sticky as hell in the light stuff. Plus, they were the shortest LWL boat by far in that fleet, and in the medium stuff they just got waterlined to death. There were a lot of people waiting for them to finish, but in all honesty, I don't think anyone really minded that much. Gave us a chance to chow down and do a quick PRB (pre-race beer). Plus the boat looked so cool, it was hard to harbor ill feelings against the little effer.

So I wouldn't worry about that. Now, a Catalina 30, poorly sailed and waddling down to finish 8-10 minutes late, that's another story!

[bendoo]

nice work Micah.....congrats!
bd

[micah202]

....MAY2012 UPDATE EDIT......
..... HERE'S A LINK TO CARBON'S RENOVATIONS IN THE EARLY PART OF 2012.... viewtopic.php?f=3&t=177

Columbia Crossings-Portland,sept 11.
....Congrats to Steve Moran and dad from Camas ,washington....not only are they the most recent boat completed in the NW,but also the winners of the event,,some call it the first NA's,,,at least it's the biggest turnout of i550's EVER,,,in the world!
....steve looked good in the boat-young ,agile,organized--was seen to be using a rig-tension guage while rigging ,,there aughta be a law ,,,here's the story of that build..... http://www.columbian.com/news/2012/jun/ ... -the-boat/
...I'm not entirely clear about the results otherwise,,'cept for Carbon's--late for 1st start,,,didn't note course for 2nd-ended up starboarding a pack of 3 boats only to find that they were on a new and different leg(sorry guys )
.......actually started with the others in race 3&4 but was disappointed to see that the others progressively walked away from my boat-was thinking I might need to consider investing in one of those carbon rig-a-majigs,,,,,,,,until I realized we had significant water weight sloshing around inside ...........it seems after designing a layout that's virtually watertight,that something the size of a 3/16'' drillhole was leaking water,causing 2 1/2'' drain-holes to be in active drainage for ~10 minutes back on the ramp,,,ironic,,embarrassing,,oh well
....winds were ~5-7 knots against that nasty Portland river-current.
....hopefully there'll be a 'rubber-match soon,,me's got an ego t'salvage.

...th'boats bone dry now after the drive,,so I'll launch 'er and go crawl around the inside with a flashlight
...EDIT,,,yup,as I thought,there was a drillhole in the trunk,,must have escaped from the to-do list when transferring pages--rather embarrassing,,,all fixed now

.EDIT-results..nice to see that overall the fleet's pretty balanced,,with top place being shared around race to race..
1st i550 410 It's Whatever USA Stephen Moran Willamette Sailing Club (2.0) 2.0 1.0 1.0 2.0 6.0
2nd i550 269 Poker Face USA eric rimkus RCYC/CYC ...............3.0 1.0 (4.0) 3.0 1.0 --8.0
3rd i550 263 LICK-E-TY-SPLIT USA David Hickman RCYC,VLSC. 1.0 4.0 2.0 2.0 (6.0 DNS) 15.0 ------9.0
4th i550 214 Cheap Date USA Nicholas Stahl None .....4.0 3.0 (5.0) 4.0 3.0 --------- -----14.0
5th i550 13 rumblefish CAN michael france jericho sailing 5.0 (6.0 RAF) 3.0 5.0 6.0 DNS ------------25.0