The Trailer Sailing Challenge
Born Michigan, at the time the "Winter, Water, Wonderland" it is perhaps natural that I would develop a love of the water and boats. With relatives in Charlevoix, some of my earliest memories were walking the waterfront marina at Round Lake; the docks, the boats, the water, the gulls. It was the sixties. Most everyone we knew had a ski-boat or a fishing boat and many lived on lakes. Some had small sailboats, Sailfish, Sunfish, and before I knew anything about sailing, I was doing it. Then there was the National Geographic book dad brought home: "Men, Ships and the Sea" and I wore out those pages, fascinated and unable to get enough. I still have that book, tired and somewhat 'loose-bound' now, it was one of the things I most valued in the stuff mom and dad left. Also grandpa's linesman's pliers, closing in on 100 years old and still working perfectly but that's another story.
We never lived on the water and never owned a boat. Dad was an Oldsmobile engineer, a 'gear-head' and he built hot-rods and go-karts. He did leave me that 'busted knuckle' streak and I have my share of gasoline projects, mostly motorcycles but my love for boats came from somewhere else. Even moving the family to the Bush veld of South Africa did nothing to root out the boat bug and I would go to all the libraries and find books on boats, not stories of people on boats, but anything about boats themselves. I soaked it up, fascinated. There was just something about a boat, especially a sailboat. The rig, with all those lines. The wooden hull and the odd, cozy shapes it enclosed for its humans. I was smitten but living far from water, so the love of boats just smoldered, never dying however. By all means, it should have simply starved.
Fast forward, college produces a BA in Business, an incredible wife and a move to Arizona. Water and boats are just not a priority but the embers were inevitably fanned by a budget with a little wiggle-room and I bought plans for a Windmill from Clark Craft and began to assemble the mahogany, marine plywood and resorcinol glue. Ten months later my first sailboat was splashed on a stormy April day at Scorpion Cove on Bartlett Lake. Of course there are funny photos of us pointing into the water as we lost the trailer in the lake after hand-launching. The Windmill, named "Firewood" by my wife, was a sweet boat. A little narrow, she pointed well and planed out in moderate breezes. We'd camp at "Horse pasture" on Roosevelt Lake where the afternoon breeze always comes up strong from Tonto Creek and sail till our aching abs could take no more and capsize, laughing like fools. It would be over 100-degrees and the green Roosevelt water felt great. A few barley pops and a steak on the beach and we'd fall asleep listening to the coyotes howl. Those were the days.
But the Windmill had no porta-potty and was soon sold to buy wood for a Young 6-Metre. Designed by Jim Young out of new Zealand, it featured a huge-roached main, tiny jib and no back stay, she slept four inside and sometimes one in the cockpit. A great Little boat that would also plane if you had enough rail meat and 20-knots of wind at just the right angle. My Young 6M did have a potty but it was not private and required entry-level Yoga moves to use. So......
I had all the boat plans books I could find; Glen-L, Roberts, Payson, Jones, Gerr, all of them and no one offered the kind of trailerable boat I really wanted. So, what's a person to do but design their own "perfect trailerable boat". It has to rig fast to cut down on the wife's foot-taping while preparing to launch. It has to be fast; we all suffer this to some degree, admit it! It doesn't have to be big but must sleep all your close friends, have an enclosed head, full galley, settee,... Well, OK, boats just get bigger, seemingly without reason. To add some rigor to the exercise, I enrolled in Westlawn and the "perfect trailerable boat" was developed a little further with each class completed.
The business career takes off, I'm promoted to Detroit, yes, I know, and my realtor hooks me up with a NA40 crew and I race every summer weekend on Lake St Clair and two Bayview Mackinac races. Some of the most fun ever I am completely hooked on keel boats. The 'perfect trailerable boat' development continues and I am in love with a J105, sure that I will own one someday. Its hard to know exactly when I realized that at 7,750-LB, a J105 could be towed by a conventional 3/4-ton pickup or SUV but that realization changed everything. The 'perfect trailerable boat' (PTB) suddenly went from about 27ft LOA to 36ft, 38ft, 42ft...
Then the business career ends after 3-years in Detroit and another 5 years in Chicago, a total of more than 18 years selling baby food after 5 years selling crusher parts. I'm half-way through Westlawn. We're tired of Midwest winters and decide to move back to Arizona and at about the same time we choose to finish Westlawn and make a career of designing large trailerable boats. What the hell... The PTB is my final exam for Westlawn, it has moderated to 40ft LOA and with some sage advice and help from Dave Gerr the Sail Area to Displacement has moderated from 30 to 22 and the drop-keel engineering is validated. The Rio Hondo 40 is born, a truly trailerable, 40-ft keel boat.
The keel and rudder systems are not unique but have been instrumental in the learning required to engineer convenient system for future designs. Its the rig that's really challenging. Getting a Catalina 26 rig up and down is a significantly challenging operation and you see a variety of engineering approaches to achieving this. But these masts may weigh 50-lb or so. The RH40 rig, mast, shrouds, spreaders, halyards, wiring together weigh about 200-lb. Stepping this rig is a seriously different challenge and I set about designing and patenting a system that is safe and quick. There were a significant number of doubters from the beginning. Some saying the rig would have to be completely re-tensioned every time it was stepped, some dismissing the concept altogether. But I wanted a trailerable keel boat, similar to a J105 that could be rigged easily and safely and launched at any boat ramp where one could launch a 40-ft Cigarette boat. Oh, and it must tow without permits; I don't like 'big brother' having a say in where and when I go, but that's another blog...
Well, the short of it is that it has been a resounding success. "Heat Wave" our RH40 prototype can be rigged and launched in 20-minutes. Ask the McGregor 26 sailor we passed in the parking lot at the Newport Beach ramp in the Back Bay. His stick was up and sails on as we drove by, just arriving from Arizona for the Ensenada Race. We pulled-up a 100-yds away, the four of us jumped-out, two on the ground removing all the highway tie-downs, two on deck stepped the mast and we launched and motored away, lowering the keel as we went, while the McGregor was just backing down. Of course the Back Bay ramp is behind the Pacific Coast Highway, a bridge with 24 ft of vertical clearance but its no problem for one to drive and another to dip the stick for the low bridge and then hoist again on the other side. The other two crew drove the truck and trailer to San Diego so we could pull the boat there after the return from Ensenada avoiding the additional sail back to Newport Beach.
Since that time, we have towed "Heat Wave" more than 6,000 miles without ever having to get a highway permit and never even being questioned in the matter. We have launched at ordinary boat ramps in Phoenix (Lake Pleasant), Newport Beach (Back Bay), San Diego (Shelter Island), Chicago (Burnham Harbor), Port Huron (Black River), and Mackinac City. These are all ordinary boat ramps and we launched next to bass boats, small sailboats and ski boats and always attracted a lot of attention. For the Mackinac races we launched and retrieved several times with the trimaran crowd who routinely took several hours to rig and launch their boats. At Mackinac City we pulled out, dropped the rig and drove away during the time it took a Tartan 10 owner to negotiate with the marina operator, the process of getting his boat on a trailer and the mast down. The Wednesday after the Chicago - Mackinac race, we woke up still tied-up with the J120's at Mackinac Island, dropped our lines at 6am, motored to Mackinac City, pulled the boat and were in Chicago before dark. Thursday night was spent west of Oklahoma City and Friday night I parked "Heat Wave" in my driveway in Phoenix, Arizona. Even at $5/gallon for diesel, the cost for this return trip was only $1,100.
Did we get a J105-type boat on the water? Well not quite, its much faster up wind and down and has standing headroom. We owe the J120 fleet time. On the water "Heat Wave" is roughly level with 1D35, J122, J44, Benneteau 44.7, etc. We have an inventory of 4 cruising sails and a truly amateur crew and placed accordingly in our racing during 2008; in the bottom third consistently. In the Chicago race we corrected ahead of most of the GL70 fleet and Turbo fleet and these guys have the best of everything. But we did not set out to build a race boat and the success is more about solving the challenges of towing, rigging and launching a true keel boat. "Heat Wave" proves this concept dramatically.
However, "Heat Wave" is a ULDB with a raised deck saloon, a reaching machine and not every one's "cup of tea". That much is clear. So as Rio Hondo Yachts moves forward the next design, the RH37 is a moderate displacement cruiser-racer comparable to a J109, or C&C 110, or Benneteau 36.7. Displacement is moderate at D/L of 162, there is standing headroom throughout, including in the head and shower, berths for 7, settee for 5, 15-inch wide side decks and much more. Details will soon be posted to the website, www.riohondoyachts.com. The key thing is this, the RH37 is still completely and practically trailerable, without the need for permits and still can be launched at ordinary boats ramps anywhere. Even better, the rig and keel systems have been improved and will be even easier and faster and more convenient that ever.
Such is the pursuit of the PTB, "the perfect trailerable boat", as this is written. Some obviously contend that 'large' is precluded from the very idea of the PTB and prefer something in the 20-ft LOA range. Bob Perry seems to hold that view, and I understand. Clearly we are talking about something different here with completely different sailing objectives. This is for those who want the on-the-water benefits that come with size: Speed, safety, capability, accommodation. If you want a J109 but would like the benefit and savings associated with dry-sailing it or if you are interested in taking your keel boat to distant sailing grounds (at more than 7 knots) and you still want a capable roomy vessel, then you will be interested in what we are doing at Rio Hondo Yachts.
Maximum Trailerable Sailing, Minimum Hassle.
Stay tuned.
Scott
We never lived on the water and never owned a boat. Dad was an Oldsmobile engineer, a 'gear-head' and he built hot-rods and go-karts. He did leave me that 'busted knuckle' streak and I have my share of gasoline projects, mostly motorcycles but my love for boats came from somewhere else. Even moving the family to the Bush veld of South Africa did nothing to root out the boat bug and I would go to all the libraries and find books on boats, not stories of people on boats, but anything about boats themselves. I soaked it up, fascinated. There was just something about a boat, especially a sailboat. The rig, with all those lines. The wooden hull and the odd, cozy shapes it enclosed for its humans. I was smitten but living far from water, so the love of boats just smoldered, never dying however. By all means, it should have simply starved.
Fast forward, college produces a BA in Business, an incredible wife and a move to Arizona. Water and boats are just not a priority but the embers were inevitably fanned by a budget with a little wiggle-room and I bought plans for a Windmill from Clark Craft and began to assemble the mahogany, marine plywood and resorcinol glue. Ten months later my first sailboat was splashed on a stormy April day at Scorpion Cove on Bartlett Lake. Of course there are funny photos of us pointing into the water as we lost the trailer in the lake after hand-launching. The Windmill, named "Firewood" by my wife, was a sweet boat. A little narrow, she pointed well and planed out in moderate breezes. We'd camp at "Horse pasture" on Roosevelt Lake where the afternoon breeze always comes up strong from Tonto Creek and sail till our aching abs could take no more and capsize, laughing like fools. It would be over 100-degrees and the green Roosevelt water felt great. A few barley pops and a steak on the beach and we'd fall asleep listening to the coyotes howl. Those were the days.
But the Windmill had no porta-potty and was soon sold to buy wood for a Young 6-Metre. Designed by Jim Young out of new Zealand, it featured a huge-roached main, tiny jib and no back stay, she slept four inside and sometimes one in the cockpit. A great Little boat that would also plane if you had enough rail meat and 20-knots of wind at just the right angle. My Young 6M did have a potty but it was not private and required entry-level Yoga moves to use. So......
I had all the boat plans books I could find; Glen-L, Roberts, Payson, Jones, Gerr, all of them and no one offered the kind of trailerable boat I really wanted. So, what's a person to do but design their own "perfect trailerable boat". It has to rig fast to cut down on the wife's foot-taping while preparing to launch. It has to be fast; we all suffer this to some degree, admit it! It doesn't have to be big but must sleep all your close friends, have an enclosed head, full galley, settee,... Well, OK, boats just get bigger, seemingly without reason. To add some rigor to the exercise, I enrolled in Westlawn and the "perfect trailerable boat" was developed a little further with each class completed.
The business career takes off, I'm promoted to Detroit, yes, I know, and my realtor hooks me up with a NA40 crew and I race every summer weekend on Lake St Clair and two Bayview Mackinac races. Some of the most fun ever I am completely hooked on keel boats. The 'perfect trailerable boat' development continues and I am in love with a J105, sure that I will own one someday. Its hard to know exactly when I realized that at 7,750-LB, a J105 could be towed by a conventional 3/4-ton pickup or SUV but that realization changed everything. The 'perfect trailerable boat' (PTB) suddenly went from about 27ft LOA to 36ft, 38ft, 42ft...
Then the business career ends after 3-years in Detroit and another 5 years in Chicago, a total of more than 18 years selling baby food after 5 years selling crusher parts. I'm half-way through Westlawn. We're tired of Midwest winters and decide to move back to Arizona and at about the same time we choose to finish Westlawn and make a career of designing large trailerable boats. What the hell... The PTB is my final exam for Westlawn, it has moderated to 40ft LOA and with some sage advice and help from Dave Gerr the Sail Area to Displacement has moderated from 30 to 22 and the drop-keel engineering is validated. The Rio Hondo 40 is born, a truly trailerable, 40-ft keel boat.
The keel and rudder systems are not unique but have been instrumental in the learning required to engineer convenient system for future designs. Its the rig that's really challenging. Getting a Catalina 26 rig up and down is a significantly challenging operation and you see a variety of engineering approaches to achieving this. But these masts may weigh 50-lb or so. The RH40 rig, mast, shrouds, spreaders, halyards, wiring together weigh about 200-lb. Stepping this rig is a seriously different challenge and I set about designing and patenting a system that is safe and quick. There were a significant number of doubters from the beginning. Some saying the rig would have to be completely re-tensioned every time it was stepped, some dismissing the concept altogether. But I wanted a trailerable keel boat, similar to a J105 that could be rigged easily and safely and launched at any boat ramp where one could launch a 40-ft Cigarette boat. Oh, and it must tow without permits; I don't like 'big brother' having a say in where and when I go, but that's another blog...
Well, the short of it is that it has been a resounding success. "Heat Wave" our RH40 prototype can be rigged and launched in 20-minutes. Ask the McGregor 26 sailor we passed in the parking lot at the Newport Beach ramp in the Back Bay. His stick was up and sails on as we drove by, just arriving from Arizona for the Ensenada Race. We pulled-up a 100-yds away, the four of us jumped-out, two on the ground removing all the highway tie-downs, two on deck stepped the mast and we launched and motored away, lowering the keel as we went, while the McGregor was just backing down. Of course the Back Bay ramp is behind the Pacific Coast Highway, a bridge with 24 ft of vertical clearance but its no problem for one to drive and another to dip the stick for the low bridge and then hoist again on the other side. The other two crew drove the truck and trailer to San Diego so we could pull the boat there after the return from Ensenada avoiding the additional sail back to Newport Beach.
Since that time, we have towed "Heat Wave" more than 6,000 miles without ever having to get a highway permit and never even being questioned in the matter. We have launched at ordinary boat ramps in Phoenix (Lake Pleasant), Newport Beach (Back Bay), San Diego (Shelter Island), Chicago (Burnham Harbor), Port Huron (Black River), and Mackinac City. These are all ordinary boat ramps and we launched next to bass boats, small sailboats and ski boats and always attracted a lot of attention. For the Mackinac races we launched and retrieved several times with the trimaran crowd who routinely took several hours to rig and launch their boats. At Mackinac City we pulled out, dropped the rig and drove away during the time it took a Tartan 10 owner to negotiate with the marina operator, the process of getting his boat on a trailer and the mast down. The Wednesday after the Chicago - Mackinac race, we woke up still tied-up with the J120's at Mackinac Island, dropped our lines at 6am, motored to Mackinac City, pulled the boat and were in Chicago before dark. Thursday night was spent west of Oklahoma City and Friday night I parked "Heat Wave" in my driveway in Phoenix, Arizona. Even at $5/gallon for diesel, the cost for this return trip was only $1,100.
Did we get a J105-type boat on the water? Well not quite, its much faster up wind and down and has standing headroom. We owe the J120 fleet time. On the water "Heat Wave" is roughly level with 1D35, J122, J44, Benneteau 44.7, etc. We have an inventory of 4 cruising sails and a truly amateur crew and placed accordingly in our racing during 2008; in the bottom third consistently. In the Chicago race we corrected ahead of most of the GL70 fleet and Turbo fleet and these guys have the best of everything. But we did not set out to build a race boat and the success is more about solving the challenges of towing, rigging and launching a true keel boat. "Heat Wave" proves this concept dramatically.
However, "Heat Wave" is a ULDB with a raised deck saloon, a reaching machine and not every one's "cup of tea". That much is clear. So as Rio Hondo Yachts moves forward the next design, the RH37 is a moderate displacement cruiser-racer comparable to a J109, or C&C 110, or Benneteau 36.7. Displacement is moderate at D/L of 162, there is standing headroom throughout, including in the head and shower, berths for 7, settee for 5, 15-inch wide side decks and much more. Details will soon be posted to the website, www.riohondoyachts.com. The key thing is this, the RH37 is still completely and practically trailerable, without the need for permits and still can be launched at ordinary boats ramps anywhere. Even better, the rig and keel systems have been improved and will be even easier and faster and more convenient that ever.
Such is the pursuit of the PTB, "the perfect trailerable boat", as this is written. Some obviously contend that 'large' is precluded from the very idea of the PTB and prefer something in the 20-ft LOA range. Bob Perry seems to hold that view, and I understand. Clearly we are talking about something different here with completely different sailing objectives. This is for those who want the on-the-water benefits that come with size: Speed, safety, capability, accommodation. If you want a J109 but would like the benefit and savings associated with dry-sailing it or if you are interested in taking your keel boat to distant sailing grounds (at more than 7 knots) and you still want a capable roomy vessel, then you will be interested in what we are doing at Rio Hondo Yachts.
Maximum Trailerable Sailing, Minimum Hassle.
Stay tuned.
Scott
posted by Scott McClintock | 8:29 AM
1 Comments:
Well done. Nicely composed. I would hope you anticipate a brisk response as this is a very attractive boat in terms of features and amenities.
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