Friday 20 December 2013

Camp cruising on the Windrider 17 trimaran article on smalltrimarans.com of Mac and Paul's adventures sailing the North Channel

From the following article on the excellent small trimarans blog:

http://smalltrimarans.com/blog/?p=10766

White Waterman and Blue Waterman – An adventure in the North Channel – July 2013
Mac MacDevitt – Windrider 17 Trimaran

The Odd Couple
No predicting a how a beach cruising adventure is going to turn out. Paul and I both have Windrider 17 trimarans. But we were certainly the odd couple. Found him on the Windrider forum. Paul is a white water canoe trekking adventurer. He gloried in incredibly challenging long trips, far from support, dealing with ice, overturned canoes, lost gear and paddles and rugged wilderness camping. His Windrider 17 was his first sailboat and he was learning to sail by the seat of his pants. Couldn’t name many of the lines or the stays or the fittings. Before this trip he had never sailed alone. Not sure how he was going to manage hoisting the main without someone to steer into the wind. Had no idea why anyone might want to make the mainsail smaller – never reefed.

Blue Waterman (Lite)
Compared to Paul I was Blue Waterman. Well, not really – not compared to other sailors who have made serious off-shore passages – maybe Lite-Blue Waterman. I started sailing with bigger trimarans on Lake Champlain, a Jim Brown 27 and a 31, finishing up with a Corsair 27. And I’ve gotten in lots of tight spots: cracked an ama on a dock piling on the Chesapeake, ran seriously aground and had to wade out with an anchor and kedge off before the situation would require a dredger and a tow (and that was with the whole family aboard), even once sailed for quite a while in high winds off Valcour Island before realizing that my sluggish performance had to do with the new Honda 8 outboard I was trolling behind the boat connected only by the control cables.

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