Further Sailing Notes

(Updated 11-25-2023)

This page covers commentary and developments since the Final Sea Trials page of September 2021.

In March 2022, we launched Minimus II in San Diego and sailed 250 miles down the Baja coast.

In March 2023, we trailered her to San Carlos, Mexico and spent a couple weeks sailing in that area. For descriptions of those two trips, see our blog at: https://voyageofminimusii.wordpress.com/

She's ideally a warm water boat since sailing on her is exposed. We've finally learned our lesson about not launching in the spring. Next time we'll wait until fall, when the summer has warmed the water. We're hoping to launch her again in San Carlos, Mexico in fall of 2024.

Videos:

Here are a links to a couple videos showing Minimus II self steering near San Carlos, Mexico.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAUfwZ3phoA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ym0R2tbh4Bg

Minimus II's strong points:

--Self steering ability: This is primarily due to the rig, as explained here and here. During the 100+ mile sail from Oceanside to Ensenada in March 2022, where we had light but steady winds, she self steered most of the way, generally broad reaching and downwind.

--Motion: On the second leg, from Ensenada to San Quintin Bay, the wind varied from light and variable to calm. Despite often not having wind, the motion was easy and absent the usual slatting of sails I've too often experienced in similar conditions on a ballasted monohull. When we got to San Martin Island the next day, a monohull came in and anchored. He'd had a tiring and fairly sleepless time offshore with the boat rolling and sails slatting during the night and much of the day.

--Large deck space: We were happy with the deck boards as they provided much more solid footing than trampolines or nets I've experienced on other multihulls. The relatively large deck space allowed us to easily deploy our inflatable kayak, a task that had been much more cumbersome and time consuming in the cockpit of our original Minimus, a Cape Dory 25. At night we could easily store the kayak on deck.

Our 2 person inflatable kayak pulled up on deck for the night.

Construction: Her 1/2" ply construction gave a sense of solidity and security as compared with the 1/4" ply typical of most multihulls her size, including the Wharram Hinemoa I once had.

Rig: The most notable feature of her 4 masted rig is its self steering ability. That's not the only advantage though. Because she has 4 masts, each one is small, making stepping them an easy process. A related advantage is the ease of handling her small junk sails. Pearl was completely comfortable with raising and lowering sails, something she never was with the Bermudan rig on the original Minimus.

Anchoring: In contrast with most modern sailboats, which tend to sail back and forth at anchor unless burdened with all chain rodes, Minimus II has very good manners at anchor. She lies quietly facing the wind with little or no tendency to sail back and forth.

Minimus II, Lessons Learned: As can be expected on an experimental boat, there were also a few issues, described below. Fortunately, all of them except the first one were easy to solve.

--Assembly and disassembly: Full assembly, including stowage of gear and provisions for extended sailing, requires a couple days. That includes removing the beams and deck boards from the trailer, raising the hulls up, positioning the temporary mounting beams on the trailer, lowering the hulls onto them, spreading the hulls and aligning them, setting the main beams in place and lashing them, putting on the deck beams, rudders and boomkins, stepping the masts, hooking up the electrical harness, rigging the sails and finally loading gear and provisions. She's best suited for extended sailing in which assembly and disassembly are only occasional tasks. We're always pretty tired by the end of assembly and will be working on ways to streamline the process. Disassembly is quicker, but still takes half a day or more.

--Exposure: Her small cabins and lack of covered bridge deck mean that her crew are mostly on deck and exposed to the weather, so she's a warm weather boat, at least for extended sailing. The cabins are fine for sleeping and sitting, but being confined to them for extended periods led us to refer to them as "coffin cabins". For Pearl, who is 5'4" tall, they're comfortable either sitting or sleeping, but for me at 6' 2", sleeping is fine, but sitting up I often bang my head where the end of the cabin meets the deck. We've installed foam padding on those parts of the cabins which should help quite a bit.

--Lashings: On the San Diego to Baja run, the lashings between the hulls and the fore and aft beams loosened up somewhat. We weren't sure why and that was a concern, as we weren't sure whether it would continue. Partly, it may have been due to the pressure of the lashings denting the wood on top of the beams.

Upper corner of a main beam showing dents where lashings went over it.
All three beams had similar denting.
Beams were Douglas fir with 3 coats of epoxy.

See below for two solutions to the beam denting.

--Centerboard support lines: On each side of the centerboard are two dyneema supporting lines that keep the centerboard vertical. These lines were knotted at each end and, as happens with dyneema under load, the knots slipped, allowing the board to angle to the side. See below for our solution to the dyneema knot slipping.

Cross beam denting:

Cross beam dented from pressure on lashings that secure
cross beams to hull.

We put a larger radius on the cross beams where the lashings went over them,
then reinforced the area with two layers of 6 ounce fiberglass cloth and epoxy.
It worked well, with no further beam denting.
.

Ratchet straps:

As a backup system for the lashings, we ordered these stainless steel
ratchet straps from Ratchet Straps USA. They have an 1100 pound working
strength and are much faster to put on and tighten than lashings.

During the two weeks of sailing near San Carlos, Mexico, the straps worked well.
We'll probably continue to use the lashings, but it's good insurance to
have the ratchet straps as a backup. They can easily be rigged at sea if the
lashings come loose.

Dyneema stop knot:

The 1/4" Dyneema lines that hold the centerboard in place are under quite a bit of strain, especially when going to windward. As a result, the double overhand stop knots that hold the board in place eventually slipped, allowing the board to lean off-center. We came up with a dyneema stop knot described below that has worked well.

To test the knot, after tying it, we passed the Dyneema through a 1/4" fender washer which was on top of a plank suspended between two saw horses. We then tied the tail of the line to another board close to the ground and two of us, weighing a total of 300 pounds, jumped up and down on the board simultaneously. Once the knot was tight, it didn't slip further regardless of how much we jumped on the board. A repeated dynamic load of 300 pounds suggests it's unlikely to slip under the intended load.

Dyneema stop knot, Step 1. Tie a double overhand knot, then pas a fid through the dyneema, just above the knot.	Dyneema stop knot, Step 2. Put the end of the dyneema into the fid and pull through.
Dyneema stop knot, Step 3. Secure the tail by passing it through the loop as shown in Step 4.	Dyneema stop knot, Step 4. Tighten the knot. The double overhand knot was originally at the black mark on the dyneema. After repeated 300 pound dynamic loading, it slipped up to where the line was passed through itself, then wouldn't slip any further.