JUNK RIGGED CATS ROCK: personal evidence….

Summer of 2006:  it’s 3 am and we’re drifting about 60 miles off Cape San Blas in the northwest gulf of mexico. Bob is up sitting in the cockpit marvelling that Dan can sleep below since we are firmly in the trough wallowing in a 6 foot swell. All that lead in the Pearsons keel is doing some jolly swinging to and fro and there’s basically nothing I can do about it. It’s windless and glassy so no way to put up any kind of riding rig and if I did, hoping for a breeze, the junk sails yard would be banging to and fro also. It’s one of those classic panhandle nights that swelter and it’s just more humane to be up here instead of wringing what relief a little DC fan can bring below.

Down about 60 feet the white sand expanse stretches for miles in a flat plain. Too deep to really anchor out with any kind of efficiency and with the 1/2 knot current we’d probably wander around the anchor endlessly anyway. So we’re basically hove –to for the night.

Engineless blues, baby!!!!!! We’re sailing from Apalachicola around to Panama City to address the jack up diesel in PC. A little sample of what it must be like to sweat out a horse latitudes night in the doldrums way out at sea in a keel boat.

And a strong case for a catamaran!!!

I love the idea of cats: awesome ride for one. And in this case it would mean no wallowing and much better sleeping: probably on deck to boot in that eminently usable space between the hulls. No need to go off on the cats ride as it is well documented. We’d probably be better rested too since the days sailing would have been much kinder on our bodies and, possibly, we’d be in freakin port already, anchored up, since our speed would have been a shitpot better all day too.

Wah, wah, wah….. crybaby blues boy….. tough it out. Man-o-the-sea and all that. But hey, isn’t it seamanlike to maximize crew comfort and efficiency?

OK…… second bit of evidence.

Winter 2000:  Bob has signed on with a guy who needs to deliver his 36 foot lead keel sloop from Mazatlan to San Diego. It’s been pretty peachy across the sea of cortez mouth but once around and up the western baja side it gets just plain cold and gnarly with consistent headwinds. Known as the “baja bash” this is no milk run. The skipper is on the green side, as am I at the time (sail vessel wise anyway and this ain’t no deep sea tug now, bub), and he wants to do all the sail shortening, which he is reluctant to do at night because he is generally clumsy at it, so we sail a lot with the wrong canvas up.

Wish we had a junk rig!!! Watching that guy go forward and do a near chaotic ballet, in a 8 foot wind chop, on the treacherously textured deck and cabin top was pretty instructive. I know the junk rig well now, years later, after using it on two different boats we have owned, and that green skipper could have mightily benefitted from doing everything from the safety of the cockpit. He would have reefed far earlier and on his slightest whim (actually he’d have slept through it because it’s so easy he would have let me do it). We’d have sailed a bit more off the wind but so what?

So…… a strong case for a junk rigged cat. Safe and secure platform for crew efficiency and rest. And reefing easy as can be. Toss in the speed, unsinkability, that awesome center area in port for great breezes and a ton of kayaks and such, the ultra shoal draft and beaching ability, and the fun factor and it’s a virtual no brainer. Cats rigged with the junk sails in each hull have been proven to go to windward. Even a traditional marconi rigged cat is easy to reef given the more even ride and flat center space to work in a reef.

This is Dave Zeigers cat concept, loosely based on his flat section sail barges. 40 feet long and made of full 4X8 plywood sheets. Daves hulls come out at a respectable 10:1 WL beam to length ratio for speed. This one is a coaster given that exposed house but the concept is workable with a bit of tweaking and well suited to the bi-plane rigged lugsail configuration. The hulls could actually be done Oregon dory style to give a bit more interior room and presents a open center deck for all manner of in port luxury. Tacking might be a bitch with all that straight run and hard chines but the concept was proven with this boat below:

This was designed to fold up for trailering and is also about 40 feet long. Can’t say there is much room for living aboard for any length of time though! This one was fast though, as I recall. Gary Lepaks cat, pictured again below, had 8:1 volumous hulls in a 37 foot length overall and traded speed (down to traditional hull speed formulas) for load carrying ability and living room in the hulls. It had the same fine open center deck though and the same great cat ride and made a run from alaska to baja with no problems.

So…. there we go. Idle speculation at 4 am on a windy, dark alaska night. Makes a lot of sense to me though and the quick to build plywood sheet construction of Daves trilo-cat design kinda itches my building bone anew. Oh well…. time to go to bed. Boatbuilders know this nocturnal ruminating well! Can’t help but dream about this boat in the islands and cayes of Panama, Cuba, and whatnot. Hmmm, hmmmm, hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Hey…. where did my ballasted boat go???????

BAHIA MAT GO-OUT IN 4 FOOT SURF

 

Surf’s coming up here at the very end of the 80 day south of the equator sojourn. It’s not surf season but there has been SOME surf anyway. Any go-out is fun. And best ride so far today: drop in, bottom carve, and a bit down the line. Here’s the point:

Looking maybe ESE. Not a great point due to being man made but it breaks off the right side of this rock jetty.

Curious stares from the local surfers as I wade out with a mat and fins. T’s shots remind me just how old I am. But surfing is a essential truth from my 20s when I spent many summers and some winters surfing. Once a surfer, always a surfer, in mind if anything else.

At this point in my mat surfing education I still paddle out but it’s becoming apparent that kicking with the fins is the way to go.

Rode a nice one a good ways in right off: even as the tide was destroying the break it had me hooked enough to keep going out. Snagged a few good waves but, overall, just fun to be out bobbing around in the ocean. Learning to handle the mat is way more difficult than I would have thought. Long enough rides to consciously try to “unweight” my legs and at one point I think it really took of, as mats will do. Tough in basically windblown chop though.

The Landlord, the Man in the Grey Suit, Mr. Fun……. the nicknames abound. One never knows if he will be around. Usually a benevolent landlord though, thank the great maker.

This is the way it’s supposed to go….. a actually well formed wave with a nice face to work. This guy’s in a wetsuit…. unnecessary here. I’ve gotten enough of a taste that now I WANT IT. It’s really reawakened me for surfing….. it IS a essential truth…. at least for me.

And this is epic surf….. the stuff of dreams. Chicama, Peru…. just south of here. A point break that continues on along a sandbar for almost two kilometers, breaking with near this perfection of form almost all the way. Not ethe surfer about to duckdive on the right hand side. This is a good 8 to 10 footer.

Once a surfista……. always a surfista.

Maybe this will be the “before” pic, if I am lucky. Give me a few months surfing and I think I can whip a 57 year old, Alaska reticent body back into form. Drying off at the hostal and classic end of session beverage quaffing. Note the UDT divers fins I have finally whittled down to almost nothing with a jigsaw….. finally can handle them and they work well now.

Me, Henry, and Wayne heading out in the back of a pick-up truck yesterday to check out some country farm property for a friend of ours. Life is good here.

REMOTE FISHING VILLAGE EL MATAL: DAYTRIP TO DELIGHT

Yet another lovely satellite trajectory out onto the surrounding coastal area from our base here in Bahia de Caraquez.

OK….. here’s where we went. T, me, Suzy, Brad, and Mes. Two yanks and three aussies. A remote fishing village of maybe 1000 folks on a little country side road off the main coastal road. I shot a 360 video spin there while we ate lunch:

CocoBongo owner Suzy, a 7 year expat here, from Australia, took T and I along with her son and daughter-in-law to check out here investment property in the little village. That was the official reason…. really just a fun outing for all. It’s a big lot right off the little dirt road main drag with a small house on it.

Hanging out the back of a farmers truck going about 45 on a one lane country road to the beach from tiny logging town Jama. Cost to the beach? 35 cents apiece.

Brad and Mes hangin out in the breezeway of the farmers truck. Maybe a 4 mile run from the main road out to the coast and the little fishing hamlet.

T and Suzy windblown. That’s a hard wooden bench we’re all sitting on. Caught this little truck in Jama after a bus ride of maybe 90 minutes north from Bahia to Jama on this bus below:

Air conditioned bus, for a change, with smooth jazz on the sound system….. go figure. T braved a bus hawkers empanadas for 50 cents. Filled with chicken and papaya. Cost per person for 90 minutes of bus travel? Three bucks apiece.

Grey day and initially checked out the north end of El Matal beach.

Main drag, El Matal….. lovely ambience. No tourists AT ALL. Fishing pangas pulled right up to the road. We stopped for a “first” lunch at a mom & pop restaurante. Looking north up the beach. Maybe a 1/2 mile of dirt road along the beach. That’s it… tiny and quiet.

Looking south from same vantage point. Coast curves around down there to a rocky headland and cliffs on the south side.

19 bucks all in: 3 big beers, 5 platters of fish nuggets, fried shrimp, plantains, and spicy slaw. Immense fun to hang with some australians. And just great folks overall. Brad and Mes are visiting for a few months on a 2 year global trip after Brads two tours in Afghanistan.

Fishermen with a big pail of skate like catch.

Looking to the headland that enfolds the bay at El Matal. Gotta love a dirt main road town. Simple, yeah, and maybe intellectually arid, but ambience out the ying-yang. Relatively clear water here offshore. Green and blue on sunny days.

Caught another farmers truck out to the main road. Got off a bit early hoping to catch a through bus on the main road. No luck so hoofed it towards town and had to cross the river.

Stopped by Canoa on the way home to relax and Bob got to surf his mat in gnarly beach break. The surf was forecasted to be peaking on Wednesday at 5 feet and so it was….. but beach break in Canoa. Actually got some good waves, one excellent. Also got trashed but…. a good workout overall. I LOVE to be in the ocean. Brad went out with me on the other mat. T and Suzy and Mes got a great table at El Bambu.

Suzy has a fav lady on the beach who makes killer fried corvina, lusciously breaded plaintains, and other delights. Grey day meant few folks on the beach.

Our cocinero finished and kept vigil on us from afar. What goes through such a mujeres head? Wish I spoke better spanish. Actually a very dignified and cool lady.

The cocinero goes essential……..

Gotta go back to Alaska in two weeks. 80 days here total by then. 60 right now. Gotta say….. we REALLY  like it here.

Brad and Mes…….

Nice black and white of Mes……

Temp maybe 82 in the pic above. Statistically the coldest month in this area. No sweating and a cool breeze off the ocean. Maybe a 4 foot swell rolling in at El Matal. Life’s good on the Ecuador coast with T.