Flotsam & Jetsam
Your letters and such...
Regarding columnist Joshua Wheeler’s recent video post of his sailing canoe, Hugh Horton writes:
I disagree with Joshua Wheeler’s concern about capsizing in a sailing canoe. Our canoes with fore and aft rigs and leeboards aren’t encumbered by a bag of windage aloft as shown by his square sail experiment. And we can sail to weather.
I’d be happy to see him here, at the opposite corner of the country, and put him in Bufflehead for a demonstration. The rustic guest trailer’s open to him.
Attached are a few photos of sailing canoes.
Contributor, Gary Sack, sent this little postcard from the U.K.:
Most of you have been getting these since we joined the Peace Corps in 2013. Karen usually does a blog, I do my postcards. One of our assigned goals was to spread awareness of our host country back home.
I try to send out three photos and a hundred words each week. This one will be longer, but then it’s been several years since the last one.
We are in England, with the goal of spending six months before returning to California for Christmas.
Over the winter I bought YENDOR, a Westerly Centaur in Swale, England (east of London on the Thames estuary) via photos and a broker. I choose a Centaur because they are small, shallow draft, and seaworthy, with a cabin big enough for both of us to live in. In 1977 they were the best boat around and they sold lots of them. They are still around, mostly run down.
YENDOR wasn’t run down. She had been owned by a couple who loved her, maintained her and replaced her engine, fuel tank, water system, wiring, galley, instruments, sails and rigging... pretty much everything.
Our current plan is to sail up the Thames, through London, west across England on the Kennet & Avon canal (we love canals), across the Irish sea to Waterford, up the Barrow Canal to Dublin. West across Ireland on the Royal Canal to the Atlantic (if it is August twentieth and the weather is good we will go offshore to view the eclipse but we ought to be farther along by then) back via the Grand canal to Dublin. Up the Irish sea to Scotland and the Caledonian canal (including Loch Ness). North through the Shetland Islands and across the north sea to the fjords of Norway. Then south as fast as we can before winter hits. We would like to be somewhere south of Paris by December 15 when our visas expire. What we do with YENDOR remains to be seen.
Always we will go with the flow... never to windward, and enjoy ourselves as much as possible.—Gary
Reader Nick Welford read Larry Rumbol’s article When Two is a Crowd and wrote:
Fabulous. And so so true!
Back in stock: Optimizing The Trailerable Sailboat
Seven Yrvind’s Cruising Rig
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This is a particularly good Flotsam! If a good Westerly had been available to me it's possible I might not have Conscript. The advanced canoes and comments were all fun. Thanks, Josh!
Hugh,
Touche. To each their own. Those are fine-looking boats and sailing rigs. High style. Thanks for sharing.