It's
been 12 years since I last attended the annual Cedar Key small boat
gathering, but the 10 hour drive from North Carolina was well worth the
effort as there were many interesting watercraft to look over and
plenty of like minded sailors to swap sea stories. In the
past Mindy and I towed one of our micro-cruisers along, but on
this trip I chose to bring only a folding
dinghy.This worked out fine in the end because my wife had to stay home
for work reasons and I only needed to paddle the half mile
stretch of water in
between Cedar Key and Atsena Otie Key to reach the beach where
most of the boaters congregated throughout the day.
Over
that first weekend in May, I was fortunate enough to go aboard several nice
boats like Simon Lew's beautifully crafted Goat Island Skiff. At around
140 pounds rigged, this 15 1/2 footer has to be one of the fastest
lug rigged sail boats that I have ever had the pleasure to crew
on. Compared to our heavy sharpies, the GIS is so much more
agile and quick to maneuver, but you do need to be alert in gusts to shift
your weight promptly to windward and ease out the mainsheet to avoid shipping
water.
(Goat Island Skiff in the foreground)
I also got to try out Matt Layden's 8' cruising pram, Sand Flea,
which he guided to a 1st place finish in the 2012 Watertribe Ultra
Marathon. I had never sailed this boat before, and I found it performed similarly to our own
sharpies eventhough it has a leeboard and it is
proportionally wider. With it's
simple lug rig, handy roller furling boom, and familiar wrap around
rope-to-tiller steering, I was right at home!
(Getting some advice from Matt on how to set up the leeboard)
(Matt (yellow shirt) answering questions about his pram)
After
sailing the pram,
I then climbed into Matt's 12' plywood expedition kayak in which he
scored a second place finish in Class 1 of the 300 mile 2005
Everglades Challenge. I found the boat weatherly and
dry in the 10 knot breeze and 2 foot chop that I encountered on
my paddle down wind of Atsena Otie key. When I got back to shore, I was
curious to see if it was possible to sleep inside since I heard it
had been done. As I am only 5'5" tall and of slim build, I
managed to lay flat inside the 24" wide kayak, but I'm not sure I could
remain comfortable there for a whole night. Nonetheless, I think this
feature could be helpful in an emergency when no dry land is
available for some rest.
(Expedition kayak and folding dinghy)
Of course, the highlight of the
event for me was Matt Layden's talk about his boats and how he arrived at
his latest design, a 9 foot micro-cruiser called Elusion.
To a packed dinner crowd, Matt began the presentation by showing a
picture of him
sailing aboard his father's keel boat as a youngster.
However, he was quick to note
that the boat had shortfalls which made it slow in club races; and
despite their continued efforts to make it more competitive, these
changes only made it more complicated and not any quicker.
Then he moved on to show off his
very first cruising boat, a Zip
class keel boat that drew 2 feet. Unfortunately, after sailing
this boat for a while it soon became apparent that this craft also was
not optimal for his needs. Therefore, he made the decision to
design his own first micro-cruiser, a 16 foot catboat with leeboards
and a fully battened
mainsail. This turned out to be a definite improvement over the one
design class before it. Drawing less than a foot of
water, it was fast and weatherly, and the mast lowered easily
on a tabernacle. However, while cruising the waters off of Maine,
the leeboards
tended to catch lobster pots along the way which proved annoying.
So the next boat came along and she became known as Swamp Thing. He showed a picture of this 13' sailboat whichappeared in the book, Beach Cruising and Coastal Camping,
by Ida Little, who by the way was in attendance. It was with this
micro-cruiser that Matt first used a tapered chine log that
later became known as a "chine runner". He then proceeded to show
several
pictures of some lifting body aircraft which inspired him to
apply some of their aerodynamic properties
to his own sharpy boats with their flat bottoms
and narrow beams. At this point an audience member
requested a more technical explaination of how the chine
runners functioned and how the boat worked as a whole. Things
got a bit advanced for me over the next few minutes with Matt
showing pictures of hull cross-sections and how water flowed across the
bottom. But
from what I understood, the chine runner acts as a hydrodynamic
fence with
low pressure on one side and high pressure on the other which enables
his sharpies to sort of "fly" upwind through the water with the
aid of a big rudder to reduce leeway.
Then he went on to talk about Paradox inwhich he won the 300 mile Everglades Challenge in 2003. A few years later, his needs changed again- this time for a lighter boat and the 12'sharpie Enigma was born.
In this craft he successfully completed the 1200 mile 2006
Ultimate Florida Challenge, which included a 40 mile overland portage.
Eventually, Matt required an even lighter
micro-cruiser that could more easily be carried on the
roof of a car. The 9' Elusion was designed and built and then triumphantly raced in the 2010 Ultimate Florida Challenge.
Now
one of the things Matt repeated throughout his speech was that he
felt that the sailboat was one of man's most perfect inventions because
it converted wind into motion with a minimum of moving
parts. The other thing he mentioned was that a boat needs to be
designed for a specific purpose. In his case he required a
simple to operate vessle that could sail in shallow water and that
could easily pass under the
many bridges along the East Coast of the U.S.A. Therefore,
he conceived his micro-cruisers to have short masts that could be
lowered quickly along with a rig that was easy to manage. He also
suggested a few times that people should try to design and build their
own boats or they should find someone
to do it for them if they were not up to the task.
In
the end, I had a great time in Cedar Key looking at a myriad of small
watercraft, a few of which I got to try out. I also enjoyed
exchanging ideas with alot of boaters that I look
forward to seeing in the years to come. Hopefully, a bunch
of you readers who didn't go will join us next time!