For all who followed and/or contributed to the repair saga of my F16 Stealth, she came home from the painter this weekend, and I threw her togther in the yard to make sure I had all the bits after complete disassembly. As you may recall, there was some major surgery to repair a daggerbd well, a re-engineering of the way the tramp attaches to the hull, holes cut in both transoms to extract frozen gudgeon bolts, and a bunch of fairing of a lifetime's worth of dings. It all came together well, I gained a lot of composite and fairing experience, and I'm thrilled with the outcome! Next weekend she'll travel to the Flathead Valley for an appointment with the sailmaker for another round of tramp modifications to adapt to the new C channels, and if weather permits, get wet! Thanks to all who contibuted advice and support. I'll try to be kinder to her this season.
I ran into a friend yesterday that had some video of a recent incident. I thought is was hysterical! He said that the guy's name is Dave Farmer. When I said "I know that guy!" He wondered if it as the same guy. How many Dave Farmers split their time between WA and ID? After watching it a couple of times I hope you are all right?
You do not mention in your profile that you are land sailor.
I snipped your part of the video he showed me to present to you.
Hey Dan! That was Duncan, who pestered me to mount the camera to my Fed 5 landsailer, knowing I was the guy most likely to produce dramatic(read crash) footage. It was a blustery day, most of the dirt boaters were wisely preserving their craft for racing, but I'm always looking for the edge, so I rigged up a 2.5 meter windsurf sail that I had cut for just these conditions. I was just getting up to speed when I was slammed by a 35 kt gust that I didn't see coming. Blew the front wheel out of the fork, an it rolled a couple hundred yards across the playa, into camp where it was picked up by another sailor before it hit the ground. I drug the remains back to camp, the boys rallied around, thanked me for the entertainment, and fell in to help throw her back together. I got her up to 61 mph earlier in the week in similar winds, and it's like a leaf blowing across a parking lot, on the edge of control, making lightning corrections trying to keep her on her feet. Top speed is downwind, and when overpowered, you have to bear away, just like cats. But the speed's so great that it's way easy to go by the lee and jibe violently. Which requires another instantaneous correction to recover before rounding up too far and going over. Hard! And at 50 or 60 mph, it's fairly easy to run out of playa, forcing one to head back upwind. Which if skillfully executed, requires blowing the mainsheet, leaning forward to put enough weight on the front wheel to get it to bite, turn at just the right rate, and then furiously sheeting back in, and stabilize your course, pinching to control the excess power. Huge fun, and I've far from mastered it! I was just exposed to this fine sport a year ago, at the last America's Cup of Landsailing, held each March on Ivanpah Dry Lake Bed, an hour south of Las Vegas. Since that breif taste, I've scored the Fed 5, run it for a week in the Alvord Desert in SE Oregon last Oct, and another 4 days back at Ivanpah last Thanksgiving. Still not a lot of seat time. I outfitted it with runners this winter, and got a few short but thrilling rides on ice. So I returned to Ivanpah this last March ready for more. Bought another, bigger boat, and a van big enough to drag 2 boats and all the gear necessary to keep 'em running. It blew every day, hard a couple of them. Hobiegary showed up in his new WRX, dropped into the Fed and looked like a pro. We all had a grand time, great guys, a fine community, much like catsailors. I'm as enamored with the social life as with the big adrenaline rush of zipping across the desert floor at warp speed, lying 2" off the ground. And like catsailing, there's always more to be learned, mastery refined. And it fits in nicely between backcountry skiing and catsailing, I've a gloriously full life! So you're all invited to join us next March. You've already got 90% of the required skills, and I've got a boat to lend you. If it can stand up to the abuse I give it, it'll serve you well!
Hey Dan! That was Duncan, who pestered me to mount the camera to my Fed 5 landsailer, knowing I was the guy most likely to produce dramatic(read crash) footage.
So you're all invited to join us next March. You've already got 90% of the required skills, and I've got a boat to lend you. If it can stand up to the abuse I give it, it'll serve you well! Dave
Dave:
Yes it was Duncan I talked with.
I will seriously consider you kind invitation to attend. Sounds like fun. Duncan has been trying to get me out there for years and it is always good to sail OPBs.
Wow! I went land yachting once in California it was a blast! It was not as nice as a machine as the ones in the picture but we were going 47 mph in a brisk wind. Nothing like flying a wheel in the desert! If you get a rush from cat sailing you will like one of these machines!
Last edited by TheManShed; 04/12/1012:45 AM.
Mike Shappell www.themanshed.com TMS-20 Builder G-Cat 5.7 - Current Boat NACRA 5.2 - early 70's
