Aquarius Sail Owners

Hi Mac, It is true that the new spins for beach cats are flatter than they used to be or at least what they were for me, 1980s. Note that flatter also means much narrower because wide and flat doesn't work. Wide and flat has large radial wrinkles coming out of each corner of the spin. The fix for th...

Hello gahamby, Back when sailmakers and sailors were experimenting with spinnakers on beach cats, early 1980s, there were no rules, no specifications. A sailmaker simply measured the three sides of the spinnaker triangle on the boat and then made a sail to fit. This is the way sails are made for non...

I have been looking at the Ronde Texel Race results/pictures etc lately and the size of the beach cat spinnakers jumped out at me, They are so small! Why? Why aren't beach cat spinnakers trimmed to the rear beam? They would be much wider and larger in area. They could sail deeper and faster than the...

Hi Kevin, The mast on the 22 was fixed a few weeks after it was broken. We sailed the Miami to Key Largo and Mug Races 2012 and were first to finish in both, RC30. We missed the Steeplechase race 2012 because of a sea wall structural problem emergency at home. Again 2013, RC30, we were first to fini...

The Round Texel Race In Holland, North Sea Bill Robets Experience Sailing a SC20 Hello Tom/Matt, I tried to log on to the forum but it did not work. Since the Round Texel Race is coming soon, I thought I would write about my experience sailing that Race. The year was either 1980 or 1981, the year I ...

Hi Eric, I'm glad the problem is solved! That's great! Somewhere along the thread I thought I read about a Skip Elliot sail, a new sail. When I looked at the picture you included, I saw an old well worn luff rope end so that did not fit the comments too well. But, on the Aquarius Halyard and Ring th...

Eric, What happened to the halyard tension problem? Has it gone away? What happened to the 150 pound pull required to raise the mainsail? What you are showing pictures of and talking about now is a halyard lock problem. You have a Skip Elliot mainsail, luff curve and bolt rope made for a NACRA, and ...

Eric. Step number one is to find the source of the problem. Step 1. Hang a known weight on the halyard and raise it by pulling on the end of the halyard as if you were raising the mainsail. A gallon of water weighs about 8.3 pounds. Step 2. If the pull to raise the gallon of water or known weight is...

Well, from what is going on in the Tybee 500 this year, there are some sailors who do not have much experience in how to sail the surf with an onshore wind. These are tough conditions and the SE coast of Florida is known as the "beach cat graveyard of the US". +++Let's first talk about how...

Eric,
It would be the same as an ARC22 for a 12ft beam. Get the parts at the factory and all beam problems/questions are solved.
Bill

You have to be careful about wings. Wings directly increase righting moment as the sailor's weight moves further outboard. Righting moment is directly related to rig loads/stresses. A boat designed without wings can easily be overstressed when wings are added. The Tornado class added the skipped to ...

Hello Bob, You have just hit upon the reason the SC rudder system has 1/2" diameter rudder pins. Also the rudder pivot system aluminum castings are thick where the rudder pins pass through to increase the bearing area. When I was a kid sailing Snipes, the rudder pins were 1/4" in diameter ...

Eric, Your boat at 12ft wide will become a rocketship in winds of 15 knots or more. In 15 to 20knot winds your boat will do a horrizon job on any and all 20ft beach cats. Boat width is righting moment and righting moment is sail thrust and sail thrust is boatspeed. The #1 place to get tubes, beams, ...

Hi Eric, You only have part of the story. Step #1 is to turn the boat into the wind, bows pointing into the wind. This takes a drag chute depolyed off the bow. This will pull the bows into the wind. Now the mast is perpendicular to the wind. Step #2, at this pull the mainsheet in firm, leech relativ...

Windward sheeting of the mainsail is a correction for a boat that has a basic design flaw in it. I first saw windward sheeting on an J24 many years ago, like 20+ years ago. I sailed this J24 to windward with the traveller centered and the helm was was dead neutral with the boat heeled slightly to a ...