I started building a John Welsford Pathfinder in July 2008. The boat was completed in Oct, 2010.

This blog now records our use of the boat, but documentation of building the boat can be found in the archives.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Mom and Dad

We had both of my parents out on the boat this weekend for a short sail.  The wind was nice and they got to feel the boat really move along in the breeze.




And video to prove it:



With 4 adults and 2 kids on the boat, the Pathfinder behaves pretty much the same as when I'm sailing alone.  Probably a little more stable with all the people aboard, but it is really hard to tell much difference.  I had one reef in the mainsail and we moved along at 4 to 6 mph in 10-15 mph winds.  I have found that I like to reef the main starting in that area (10-15), since the boat still gets up to hull speed pretty easily like that.  My feeling is the full mainsail is good for light winds, I reef somewhere above 10, add a 2nd reef above 15, and take the mainsail down altogether at around 20mph.  The only thing I notice is that without the mainsail, the boat won't point quite a well into the wind.





Canyon Lake is variable level, so as Texas dries up, new little islands appear.  We stopped on this one for the first time....the beach is a little rough and rocky.




And another little video of getting back to the dock:



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