New BC26 and Launching Sites

[Peter K]

Hi All,

Now that the Beast from the East has gone ... I'm finally getting ready to pick up my Baycruiser 26 from Swallow Yachts.

Does the association have a list of good launching sites for BC26's, e.g. with good slipway and pontoon?  I am particulalry interested in starting out on the East Coast / South Coast.   

I have only launched 16' daysailers from the East Coast places I am familiar with (Woodbridge, Orford etc) , which  don't have adjacent pontoons, and where I could manhandle the trailer when I had problems ...

Would also be very keen to hear from other BC26 owners on gear advice, jib furling etc.

Many thanks,

Peter

[Jonathan Stuart]

Peter,

I'm don't know of a list of recommended launch sites but I use www.boatlaunch.co.uk to find potential slipways and then check them via the satellite view in Google maps. Unless you have at least 1 (and preferably more) helpers then you definitely want an adjacent pontoon. With a pontoon launch/recovery is fairly easy but it gets more stressful trying to drive the boat on/off the trailer without a pontoon and esp. if there's a cross-wind.

The main bit of advice I'd give is with regard to jib furling. I've never been able to make this particularly easy and I may change the setup this year so that we can use the port-side winch to furl the jib. I think this should be easy. But jib furling can be acceptable if you make sure there's high tension on the forestay and little jib haliard tension. We loosen the jib haliard before unfurling and furling the jib. If there's too much haliard tension (or too little forestay tension) then the pull of the jib haliard distorts the jib's alloy "tube" aftward and then that tube and the jib luff don't spin nicely when (un)furling the jib.

That's the best advice I can think of.

If you don't have Pontos winches then buy a 10" Harken winch handle and use that when raising the mast and tensioning the forestay otherwise it's hard to get enough forestay tension using the supplier 8" winch handle.

Don't overfill the water tank otherwise the v-berth is lifted up by the "inflated" tank. Worse, don't leave the waste tank to be full before emptying otherwise a bit of waste is blown out of the breather tube in to your anchor locker when the waste pump primes!

The 26 is really easy to sail and very maneuverable. There is a lot of sail area so we've never sailed without ballast and last summer spent more time sailing with a single reef than any other sail setup. She sails surprisingly well under jib alone too.

[Peter K]

Hi  Jonathan,

Many thanks - that's really helpful.

Peter

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BC23 #13 Betty Blue

[Nicky R]

We sail our BRE on the East Coast, but I don't know of anywhere with adjacent pontoons. Most have pontoons a short motor away and they're happy for you to leave the boat on them whilst you sort out the car. Titchmarsh on the Walton backwaters has piling alongside, but you can't easily reach the pontoon from the slip.

We like Wolverstone on the River Orwell as the slip is wide and hasn't been too busy, although it can be very slippery underfoot. Levington's slip (also on the Orwell) is very steep and you have to use a steel cable to launch. There can also be long waits for the slip. Robertson's boatyard in Woodbridge is also good, assuming their slip is available and you can get a 26 around their 90 degree tight bends.

Hope that helps.

Nicky

[Peter K]

Many thanks Nicky. 

Woolverstone sounds promising.

(I used to live in and sail out of Woodbridge using Robertson's slipway to launch and recover a Laser 16.    But  I am not confident driving  a BC26 with trailer for the first time  down the unmade access road and (as you say) sharp bends.)

Peter

[Nick Orchard]

Hi Peter and Jonathan - welcome to the BC26 club! The Torbay and Topsham branch would be pleased to see you down in the West Country any time.
Re good slipways for launching, I can only comment on Torquay harbour, which has a wide slip (good for those of us not good at going backwards in a straight line), and access at all states of tide, but it doesn't have a pontoon along side, just a very high wall. In the season there's a long visitors pontoon a little further along the pier, but it's not near enough to be much help with launching. It's more useful for recovery as you can stop there temporarily while you get the trailer sorted. What is good is that you can get there entirely on main roads and without serious hills (give or take Haldon Hill on the A380 west of Exeter), and there's plenty of space for rigging the boat and parking the trailer (temporarily).

Brixham across the bay has 3 slipways but all of them involve negotiating some fairly steep and narrow roads with tight bends and a lot of traffic in summer. Paignton might be better but the harbour dries.

Useful tip on launching - don't forget to put the keel down asap, otherwise it's like trying to steer an inner tube on an ice rink. Useful tip on recovery - don't forget to lift the keel, it's quite hard work getting it on the trailer!

Picking up on Jonathan's point about jib furling, I have also had problems with this. I must admit that I haven't tried easing the halyard tension a bit before furling, so I'll give it a go, but be careful not to slacken off too much or you risk getting the halyard wound round the furler and jamming it. I spent a bit of time adjusting the line guide position on the furler drum and the stanchion leads to minimise changes of angle and hence friction and this helped. Also I wound some more spare turns of line onto the drum before furling the sail as this gives the line a bigger pull radius, hence more torque. It's still not easy but a good technique for furling without using the winch is to kneel on the seat, take the furling line in both hands between the cleat on the left and the fairlead on the right, then pull upwards. This should be enough to get the roll going, and you can quickly take in the spare line through the cleat and repeat. It's the same as sweating a halyard down.

I fixed the water tank/bed board interference problem by using a router to remove a 15mm section from the centre of the two stiffening ribs. It's obviously made the base board weaker but it still looks strong enough to me. I'll let you know if it breaks!

I have sailed without ballast when the wind is less than 10kts and it definitely makes a difference. On a beam reach with the kite up I've had 6kts SOG in 8kts of wind. I know that's not exactly foiling territory but it was twice as fast as anything else around at the time.

I agree with the reefing, at between 15-20kts of wind it starts to want to round up so that's when the first reef goes in, and generally you'll find that you go faster.

Anyway, I hope you have as much fun as we had last year, and looking forward to lots more hours on the water this year.

Nick

[Peter K]

Many thanks for all the helpful advice!  Launched at Woolverstone last month and will be there for a few weeks.

Woolverstone: slip accessible +-3ish hours either side of high tide.  I was on the limit, late, launched on a falling tide so  the end of the slipway was extremely slippy/lethal!  At normal times slipway is perfect.

Jib furling:   like Jonathan, have found that slackening off jib tension is necessary for getting the furling to function.

The only thing I haven't sorted out is fully disengaging the motor when lifted and sailing: some of the multitudinous cables are stopping the outboard body lying and remaining on the starboard side, hence turning on one tack turns the outboard!

Happy sailing,

Peter

[Nicky R]

We may see you there. We're hoping to launch our BRe there tomorrow for a day sail, and will no doubt be back again before too long.

The slip there definitely lives up to its name. I've fallen over on it a couple of times and got very wet on the seaweed. Luckily I've not continued my slide into the water, but I now take spare clothes just in case!