Sailing the i11s

Hi, here is a short video of the i11s under sail last summer. It seemed to sail well, if a bit wet.https://youtu.be/-zFFX6uKCXE

Cool, thanks, and I see you have more videos; nice!

I wonder if you really need a lee board; I am keeping my old supersize GT turbo fins for an iTrek 11 due to forming more daggerboard area than newfangled 180 turbo fins. Might be camera distortion, but appears you had rudder cranked into wind due to forward placement of sail blowing bow off the wind? Nice you can furl, but how well does it do reaching and downwind without boom? The heeling looks a little awkward in that seat, and yeah the waves over the bow are annoying. But it's kind of like the new sailboat style of a reverse slope submarine bow which reduces hobby horse pitching of the sail in waves.

I have the below Spirit sail for a future iTrek 11, which is is much cruder than your setup. But the low aspect ratio may cure lee helm and the boom will help reaching and downwind. I think I can rig reverse lazyjacks which cradle the sail & boom up against the mast for crude furling.



P.S. I wonder if an inflatable seatpad would make a comfy way to counter heeling? Hobie may make one, and I know Seaeagle makes one. It is so comfy to use an inflatable seat on my old i12s on a heel due to it's convex rather than concave seat surface. On a sling seat maybe even a mostly deflated beach ball might prove the concept.

Yes, many of your comments are correct regarding the weather helm and need or not of a lee-board.

It certainly sailed well enough without one, using just the fins as a centre board. My impression was that using the fixed Hobie skeg and a lee board relieved a lot of pressure on the rudder. However I really haven’t begun sorting out how the various parts interact with each other to optimise anything or even what is needed and what is not!

Roller reefing is very handy, in this case I decided it was an essential part of the design. Knowing it works now, the next challenge is to integrate the roller and control loop into the frame as much as possible.

Me leaning into the wind is more out of habit than of necessity, I just found it difficult to stop doing it, I was anticipating something that never happened. I would have liked a flatter wider seat to move about on as mobile ballast, but again I hardly started learning to use what I already had.

The blunt bow generates a lot of slop and spray. It also can also produce an annoying rhythmic thud thud thud moving through a surface chop. Another impression was that the added weight of the sail & frame on the bow hindered the boats ability to ride over waves that it might otherwise have managed. There were times when the deck was more or less continuously awash, which I hadn’t expected.

My impression was that the i11s sailed quite well but has the potential to sail much better.

Sounds like a weight shift to rear would help, and with my long legs I can install an inflatable seat 6 inches rearward and still reach the pedals. My rolly poley inflato seat from Seaeagle is convex and will lean to the side. Also I normally have rear cargo. It's too bad the iTrek11 lacks a skeg mount but there is a chance they will put a sail socket inside. Ah yes, there is much to be learned