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Date Posted: 17:35:12 10/20/08 Mon
Author: Dan Bickford
Subject: Re: Membership Story
In reply to: Dan Bickford 's message, "Membership Story" on 18:49:47 10/19/08 Sun

Jay - I do like the Sea Pearl. For me, it's the perfect blend of portability and seaworthiness. It only weighs 600 lbs, so you don't need a large vehicle to tow it. It has a split rig so it heaves to very well by just sheeting in the mizzen hard and letting go the main. I also like the canoe stern in a following sea.

Despite her small size, she is pretty robust even in stiff wind and seas. One time I had some 8 ft following seas off Cape Sable, FL and she did fine. I hove to in order to reduce sail and she rode very steady and level the whole time; it gave me 10 minutes or so to rest and eat something before continuing on. I ended up sailing & rowing a 40 hour stretch that day and the next. I may have doubted myself, but I never doubted the boat.

She has a neat folding canvas cabin that covers the middle cockpit. It makes for some pretty comfortable sleeping, and can double as a sort of dodger or spray hood while sailing.

One thing that surprises most people is her speed, which is due to her long waterline length and narrow beam at the waterline. She looks very traditional and harmless until people see her under sail. This past weekend on a local lake I passed a Hunter 23 soundly and crept up on an S2 7.9 in about 15 - 20 kt winds. I sailed beside the S2 on a beat for about 15 minutes before he finally inched ahead. She has a couple of water ballast tanks that can be filled to make her stand up to a stiff breeze and punch through waves. She does 6 - 7 kts routinely on a reach. I have hit 11 kts on more than one occasion, and hit 14.5 kts coming down the face of a wave one time near Marco Island, which unnerved me a bit because I was by myself out of sight of land.

People have done some pretty impressive passages in Sea Pearls. George Van Sickle sailed one along the west coast of Chile for 6 weeks. Shane St. Clair did the 5,000 mile great loop in one back in the late eighties. Both of these guys stories will show up if you Google their names.

My 14 yr old son, Andy, is going to do the Everglades Challenge with me this coming March. We plan to configure the boat for tandem rowing so we will stand a better chance rowing against wind and current. You can follow the racers throughout that week on the Watertribe.com website.

Thanks,

Dan

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