Aquarius Sail Owners

A couple of weeks ago a local NACRA guy showed me what he'd done on his boat - it's simple and low-risk and I think it's worth a try. He strung a section of tubular webbing (a climbing thing) between the ends of his fore and aft crossbeams, one on each side of the boat, on the outside of the hull. T...

Figured it's time for an update. I mounted an electric winch on a chunk of 4"x4" so it was outboard of the trailer (to port) on the (expanded) boat's centerline and just behind the mast stand. I would have liked to put it further forward - to increase the pull angle on the gin pole, becaus...

Yeah, I understand all that - I have it worked out on my 19, understand the importance of the trapeze wire sway control, etc. I was sloppy with it once and it cost me a mast base. I get the advantages of using the cat trax to anchor it, but that assumes a number of luxuries unavailable to me, like a...

I really do need some guidance here, because I'm a pathetic sissyboy who's never had to deal with the realities of a boat this big (i.e. too wide to trailer). How do I step the mast? This wasn't much of a challenge with the SC19; I built a gin pole that holds the (hand) winch, and winch to a lifting...

Jonathan, It has been a long, long time since I put together a telescoping 20 but we always did the telescoping in the water. Floated the boat off the trailer in the collapsed configuration and then once it was floating we pulled it apart, and put the beam bolts and dolphin striker sleeve in the fr...

After I fetched this monster last July from Toronto I dropped by Aquarius on the return trip, and Tom told me that there were very few - 50 or 60, I think - of the telescoping boats built. George (the PO) kept it at his club and didn't routinely telescope it, so he just sleeved the gap with sections...

I'm having the very same problem as I prepare the (very old telescoping) 20 that I got last summer to get wet out here for the first time. I initially made a very strange discovery - that the locking rollers were on a 1/4" SS pin, and not the 3/8" that all other boats use (I can say this w...

Could try - but you'll probably be doing the lower one while the boat's still on its side - not the kind of thing you'd want to be struggling with from the water after the boat's upright again.

Yeah, I can see the risk in having the rudders out of control, even for a short time. In my first years cat sailing (>40 ago), I once had the boat come up with the sheets snarled and it quickly left me, heading for the nearest rocky shore. There was little risk to me - that reservoir is small and us...

Cool, thanks for the tip - it's a little counterintuitive to be taking more things apart when you're trying to get it (and yourself) back together, but I'll give it a shot. Plus, that just reminded me that I need to inventory my Avibank pin needs across various boats and get the required parts en ro...

But how do you climb back up onto one of these things after righting it? I (finally) turned the 19 over last summer - I wrote about it on beachcats, and I think it's a pretty funny story, especially if you're Jewish. The bottom line is that I was staggered by how well the righting system works - you...

Had a few exchanges with Tom. He quoted me a conversion kit, but it's just the traveler/track/hardware (I think - he didn't supply a BOM) and none of the other stuff needed, particularly the tramp extrusion, since he said he hasn't done this in 27 (?) years. So I checked with my local shop, Glenmore...

Recommendation for bolt rope track would be welcome. The fasteners seizing is an avoidable problem. I'm thinking that the recutting of the tramp and stitching in the bolt rope involves noncritical dimensions, as it'll still be tensioned up with the forward crossbeam lacing. I'm sure there are some g...

To say I'm not a fan of the wire traveler (well, more specifically, the car and its cleat) would be an understatement. I'd like to make the switch to a conventional track, so can someone fill me in on how the tramp is modified for attachment to the aft crossbeam? I'm about to pack the boat up for th...

5B56E83F-1B94-40CB-AF85-AE560680694B_1_201_a.jpeg I have a Nicro/Fico 792 block on the lock, which I assume is factory. I cracked my old catalog hoping to find a two-sheave version on the same narrow little swivel so I don't have to hack the rollers, but it doesn't look like they made one. Looks li...