Sailing trials. S*P*L*A*S*H.

This morning Tillikum slid up onto her new trailer, trundled down the road for a short distance, and, using a set of small wheels to roll her down the hill to the water, was launched into Weston Lake.

Finishing the trailer and completing the wiring for the lights took up a long time because there is a lot of other things happening at this time of year(I`m back to work on the folkboat). The set of wheels that slip under the end of the canoe were borrowed from my dory Edith. They enable me to walk Tillikum around by holding up just one end while the wheels support the other.

Before launching, the masts were stepped, sails rigged, and rudder mounted on the stern. What a lot of pieces of string! With sails hoisted, Tillikum slid into the water, was spun around to face out into the lake, and I stepped aboard after remembering to lower the centerboard and lifting rudder.

The breeze was light and fluky, so my first sailing act was to grab an oar and paddle Tillikum away from the water lilies. The breeze filled in lightly and off we went with me learning to use the push/pull tiller, adjust the mainsheet and release and haul the jib sheets (actually, the sheets to the overlapping foresail). Oh yeah, and steer! I left the missen sheeted in and looking after itself.

When my wife Heather had enough photos I picked her up and we went for a sail around the lake. A gust soon had us running fast before it and the long narrow hull moved ahead with a rush. She was fast before the wind but the true test began as we began to beat back toward our launch site. Reaching in the gusty breeze was a test of stability and we found that with two of us instinctively adjusting our weight she was stable; not rock solid, but for people used to tippy small boats and canoes, quite OK. An extra strong gust called for the main to be eased so the two smaller sails alone carried us along. As we tacked it was difficult to bring her through the winds eye and a couple of times we backed up with a reversed rudder to bring her around. The wind was very fluky and this may not be a problem in the future. We did sail back up the lake successfully however so on the whole I`m quite happy. There were so many unknown variables in my home design of hull and sail plan .

I did work out how to manage all those pieces of string eventually. The tiller was the solution that saved my having to manage two more strings as tiller lines. That would have been too much! Next launch will be in the ocean.