Kaimusailing

The internet is a great tool for finding obscure sailing information. I've been able to acquire out of print books from the golden age of sailing, the time between the world wars. That was when Joshua Slocum's exploits were about 20 years old and a new generation of sailors ventured out to create a new kind of adventure, small boat voyaging. The sailors who wrote about their adventures became heroes while many others went about their business with no fanfare. One larger than life character was William Albert Robinson, who doesn't even have a wikipedia page. Although he wrote several books on his sailing adventures and others wrote about him in magazine articles, he is largely forgotten these days.
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Robinson had a shipyard and built vessels for the navy during WWII. He also produced sailing yachts and one in particular, Varua. Varua was about 70 feet long with a hull designed by Starling Burgess, one of the greatest yacht designers who ever lived. He had also designed a gaff ketch rig for it, but Herreshoff designed a brigantine rig for it. The hull was tank tested at Stephens Institute and perfected for handling storm seas. In Robinson's books are accounts of how successful this hull design was. Some called it the most beautiful sailing yacht ever created. I am happy to have three of Robinson's books on the way, to read when not wrestling with epoxy.
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I ran out of colloidal silica, my favorite epoxy additive, so I had a day off from the beam job. It was a good excuse to take the Hobie cat out on the bay, but I had torn the sail with a piece of lumber with a sharp scarf bevel. If I could repair the sail quickly, I could go sailing. I didn't have a sewing machine handy and my alternate method of using a urethane adhesive to bond sailcloth would take too long to cure, plus I didn't have the particular adhesive on hand. Then I remembered a product called “Heat and Bond”, which is an adhesive familiar to us as the active ingredient of iron on patches. It is a paper tape with a layer of the adhesive bonded to the paper. The cloth patch is placed under the tape which is paper side up and it is lightly ironed with a dry iron set to “wool”. When the edges of the patch have had the adhesive ironed on, the paper is removed and the patch is placed over the repair and ironed on just like any other iron on patch. In this case I had a tear about 7 inches long and ironed on patches to both sides of the sail. It was ready to go sailing as soon as it cooled, only a few moments. It was small craft warning weather and a good test of the patch. It held together well. This might be a useful technique for repair of a sail at sea, as long as it is dry. It is quick and easy and strong.
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The picture is from the internet and it is the yacht Varua. Once the most wonderful yacht, now apparently languishing in storage in Anacortes, Washington. It is like old architecture, old cars, and most other old things. Nostalgia and respect for tradition fuel an interest, but we must admit that modern design has surpassed these old things. The new cars are way better than the old, old houses have old paint and old problems, old sailboats do not work as well as modern. Sailing records are broken continually as new designs surpass what had been the cutting edge not that long ago.
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An old yacht has just won the Transpacific Race from California to Hawaii. The name of the yacht is Dorade, and you might know it from the dorade vents that were invented for this yacht. The designer was Olin Stephens and it was his first boat. He later became a principal in Sparkman & Stephens, the renowned designers of great America's Cup yachts, and many other great yachts. Stephens was 21 when he designed this boat. It did not win this year's Transpac competing against fluff, it defeated Pyewacket, a 70 foot carbon fiber state of the art design. Some old things really are timeless and unsurpassed.
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