Back from todays fishing trip, a great day out with winds around 10 knots and some gust up to 18 knots, exiting!!
I must say the TI is a great little sailing craft. Maybe it cant really be compared with a real sailboat but its simply so much fun.
With the 5hp 4-stroke mounted + full 3 gallon tank of gas, spline boards, (and the regular fishing gear, anchors etc) I also added a 25 kg bag of cement under the front hatch. It sure can handle the extra weight no problems at all.
I was a bit concerned about sailing with the wind hard from starboard side as the motor is placed on the port side. It was leaning a bit more but the amas still had no problems handling this. Sitting out on the haka benches was fun but I have to get a tiller extension for the rudder.
With the extra 50lbs in the front I lost a about a knot in speed using the outboard. The TI still makes 9 knots but now on 3/4 trottle and about 7-8 knots on half trottle so I am still very happy with this.
It still rides very well over the entire speedrange but a little more water is being pushed up thru the front MD well at speeds over 7 knots as the bow rides a little deeper. I got to make a very well sealed MD-plug with scupper valves.
A good and probably very economical cruising speed is to run on 1/4 trottle with speeds around 5 knots when going on longer runs if there is no haste (or wind if course).
By accident I forgot to put the mirage drive in the forward position and ran with the outboard. Took a few second to realise why I suddely lost so much speed. Thankfully there dont seem to be any damage to the drive or the drive well. The stress must been very big from the water drag pressing on the fins with the motor on full trottle. Was only getting about 7 knots. Of course I stopped emedialtely when I realised the problem, checked the drive, phew hairy moment!! All was ok.
One positive result of this misshap is that I noticed that I can troll 1/2-1 knots with the outboard on idle speed if I reverse the MD using it as a water brake!
(With the MD in forward position the speed is about 2 knots on idle and that is a bit to fast for zander trolling)
(Dont worry I will still use the pedals more then the outboard when trolling but its good fun to test the new gear!)
I also tested the anchor trolley and the anchor roller today.
The anchor trolley works much better then I thought. The trolley line stays in place just fine. I am still a bit concerned about the quality of the plastic YakAttack D-ring.
I will try to get a copy with the same design/dimensions fabricated in stainless steel instead. CNC-machined or cut with a water jet, that would do the job and look muck better then what I can make.
The anchor roller will be very useful but I must add a pin to push down the anchor line so it goes thru the clam-cleat.
And my new diving-reel is just awsome!
It was a weird feeling to abandon an expensive piece of gear floating in the surface and just drift away.
I went back to the anchor point after an hour and hooked up again. All was good!
So a great day and even cought a few fish... cant ask for more!!
Sail safe!
/Gustav
PS.
I will upload some videos from the day but the video format from my action cam (SJCam SJ6 Legend) shooting 1080 60 fps is giving me some problems. For some reason this wont upload to YouTube so I guess I have to convert the files first?