Change Coming To Sugar Bee Fall 2012?Is this the answer?

I love my Ketch sailboat. I really do.



Except, I dislike the jib sail arrangement I now have.



I want the Roller Furling.



Is this the answer?







1: shows the bow pulpit on my Aft cockpit 32

2: shows the bow pulpit on Sugar Bee

3: is a blow up of 4: showing another make of sailboat, and how they use an existing design to get a little more sail area out of the front sail.

By extending the bow pulpit on Sugar Bee, I will increase the length I need to use my existing Roller Furling and sail, without modifying them.

So, a Clipper Marine 36?

Interesting idea. Depending on what the change might do to your overall balance you may be able to add footage to your aft mast and really up your power while maintaining balance.

The way she sails now, it seems the Mizzen over powers the process anyway, I figure more sail out front might help.



Given I have no schooling in sailboat design, I just hope I do not mess it all up. Everything will be saved, with ZERO holes drilled, as a test of the new rigging. If it fails, it goes back to as it was, with new bolts, and new seals.



If it works, and I like the way it handles, and the way it looks, I will add the 1" bow pulpit from the other 32. That would mean some drilling, hate drilling.

Gary sounds like a good plan that your going to be able to put her back to original if the new idea wont work. I always wondered if a ketch would be difficult to single hand. How is it with a mizzen does it keep the boat steady at higher speeds?

Take some pics of this if its not a hassle, id like to check it out.

Don't know about Gary, but when I single hand the Turtle ( CM-32 ) I don't use the Mizzen. It tends to over power the stern and slows me down when tacking.

When the wife and I are heading up wind and trying to make as much speed as we can, I give the mizzen about 2 feet of play on either side of the center line and just let it flop to the leeward side as we tack.

We have so much wind here that most of the time we sail with out the mizzen.

So to use a mizzen you simply treat it the same as the main? Can you reef a mizzen? Probably a stupid question but...

I notice if I am not using a jib, the mizzen does over power the boat and turning, or steering is difficult. Seems a straight sloop is a little easier to sail, maybe that is why so few double masted sailboats are offered anymore?

Even with the jib she is like a drunken sailor on the dance floor.
All over the place.

Personally I think 32 feet is to short for a mizzen, for a longer boat it may help balance the boat and if big enough it may actually add to the speed. It may also help if the mizzen were behind the rudder ( yawl rigged ) to help with the balance. Again, I think it's to close on a shorter boat.

There are no reefing points on my mizzen, most of the time we leave it down. The Turtle sails wonderfully with the jib and main so we are thinking about taking the mizzen off and making extra seating behind the cockpit. When we do that, we will replace the jib with a 100% one. The previous owners had a furling 85% jib and we want faster response coming out of our tacks.

On these ketch boats, more goes into the slide rule aspect of balance than on a sloop. There is a thread on crusers forum called is the ketch dead (or something close) and the storehouse of knowledge in the heads of those ketch owners is amazing.

As an example, I have been a student pilot in the past, half my hours on a low wing and half my hours on a high wing.

The high wing was forgiving and grandparent like. The low wing was quick, and like a jack rabit near the dog pound. Always ready to move, and sometimes, move when you did not want it to.

My ketch came with one main, three foresails and three mizzen sails. Do you know how many combinations that can equate to? I am sure I could switch them around all summer and never try them all.

I am guessing you are under powered in your foresail and not so much an error with your mizzen sail. I know if I sail with my main, and my mizzen only, I feel like I am sailing on ball bearings and my boat is not hardly even in the water.

I may possibly agree with you about the 32 being a bit short for two masts. While I have no vast expirence in sailing, my reading shows these rigs seldom come in the 32 ish size. This fall, I am redoing my bowsprit to add about four feet to her. My thinking is, I want more pressure in the front half of the sailboat. Just a feeling I have, hunch. I could easily be all wet. If my expirentment goes well, I will again experiment with adding cutter rigging to her for an additional foresail.

In 75, 76, the aft cabin was sold two ways, as a sloop, and as a ketch. The ketch was an option. How many of these boats came out as a ketch seems to be about half. No real data is published.

One version was advertised with wheel steering from the middle of the cockpit rather than from the aft of the cockpit. Now, if any sailboats were sold that way, I do not know, but seating was along the cabins, and not along the sides of the boat in the adverts.

I agree, I am definitely under powered up front. We will probably get a new jib early next year. Were having the boat repainted this fall and will be making some other cosmetic changes over the winter. Getting ready for the Americas Cup next year.

Jess

This is a pretty good example of what I am thinking about, in the change to the foresail arrangement on Sugar Bee.

One thing to note, and I am painfully aware of this, my current slip is on one of the planets smaller lakes, and I have a 32' ketch sailboat, that I am suggesting changing to a multiple foresail ketch. That is a little like a rural firehouse getting a 20 story ladder truck.

Sailing is not all cut and dry business. It is also a song and a dance. It is birds on the wing, and the hearts of young couples everywhere.

Will I ever use all that extra sails on my tiny lake? Most I can hope for is a Kodak moment.

Should also be adding one of these! lol



Great place to send my wife on those times she gets lippy.