Sunfish máxima velocidad!

saw this clip posted on the Sunfish Forum today: Jonathan Martinetti of Ecuador flying across the water on his Sunfish.

Jonathan is no stranger to sailing fast – he was the winner (as a junior!) of the 2010 Sunfish Worlds in Italy.

 

h/t: Weston on the Sunfish Forum

today’s tunes: tunes for the Tillerman

tunes for the Tillerman?

or maybe tea for the Tillerman instead?

the future of Sunfish sailing (part 3)?

I blogged about a year ago about these newly developed/developing Sunfish sails, and now have found video of them sailing.

a bit from my previous post: the local group of sailors worked with a local sailmaker, Farrar Sails, in New London, Connecticut, to develop and create these new sails.

Nothing else was altered about the rigging and the new sail was designed to fit onto the existing lateen-style spars of the traditional Sunfish design.

The end results? The sailboat points higher and moves with more zip. The boat accelerates noticeably faster after a tack. On the flip side, the sails require quicker response to puffs and wind shifts, so boat handling skills need to keep up. By switching out the sail, it’s like having two different boats: one that is great to learn on and another that sails faster and requires faster response time.

I’ll follow the sun[fish]

Sir Paul of The Beatles has been spotted out sailing a Sunfish again.

Paul appeared confident in his abilities judging by his casual attire, which he chose instead of opting for protective clothing such as a wet suit.

I’ve blogged about Paul’s sailing fondness for the Sunfish before here and here.

red fish, blue fish, Sunfish, Moonfish

saw this beautiful wooden sailboat posted on Wooden Boat Magazine’s Instagram the other day.

Looking at Michael Shenker’s new boat, you may think you’re seeing a ubiquitous Alcort Sunfish, but this boat is a Moonfish 14 designed by Jacques Mertens-Gooddens (https://bateau.com) and built by Michael over the winter of 2018-19. The marine plywood hull is sheathed in fiberglass set in epoxy. Michael sails on the lakes near his new jersey home.⠀

a little googling found a little more information about this wooden boat:

https://www.boatbuildercentral.com/proddetail.php?prod=MF14

https://bateau.com/studyplans/MF14_study.php?prod=MF14#list

and the inspiration for the blog post title is of course from Dr. Seuss!

sailing log 2020-06-21: Father’s Day at Ford Lake

for Father’s Day afternoon, my oldest son and I drove down to Ford Lake near Ypsilanti for an afternoon sail.  I’ve sailed at this lake a couple times before (here and here).  when we pulled into the parking lot, there was quite a bit of fishing boats being pulled out at the ramp – I think they maybe had a small fishing tournament that morning (it reeked of fish guts in the parking lot).  but we used my sunfish PVC dolly to just roll our Sunfish and Minifish hulls down through the park grass to the water’s edge and just avoided the busy ramp.  by the time we got out sailing, the boat traffic on the lake was light again – there was one large sailboat off to the west/northwest.  winds were okay, but a bit lighter than I prefer to sail in.

my son T2 was on the Minifish and I sailed the Sunfish.

he’s likely getting too big for the Minifish, but in light winds, he likes to just plop down comfortably in the shallow cockpit of the Minifish and relax.  he might be in a bit of trouble if hit by a big gust of wind, but that never happened this afternoon… at least not enough to flip him over!

after a while of drifting along, I followed suit and sat down in the cockpit of my Sunfish.  I then worked on the top-secret toe grip for mainsheet control.  all the best Sunfish racers are using this grip. 🙂

we sailed for an hour or two – it was a lot of fun despite the light winds.

one thing I regret not getting a picture of was an older gentlemen out in his kayak – it was set up with 2 outriggers and a square-rigged pirate sail, complete with a stuffed parrot sitting up on the upper boom.  and he was dressed appropriately, with pirate clothing and even a hat – that guy took the swash-buckling lifestyle pretty serious!