[Paddlewise] Sailing a Klepper

Today we, my wife and I, sailed our Klepper Aerius II Expedition.

Nothing special you say, but for my wife it was her very first trip
in any kind of sailing vessel, big or small, and for me it was a
return to what I did in my late teens, even if the boats then were
twice as long and possibly 100 times heavier!

Pretty early we decided that an outrigger of some kind would
be helpful, and having read Dal Stanley's account of experiments
with various rigs and floats we knew we wanted a single float of
some kind, sticking out to the starboard side, as we also have bought
a tiny four-stroke outboard that prefer that side (so we'll keep the float on
for powered trips).

By the way, here's Dal's URL: http://dalstanley.tripod.com/folbot.htm

Having studied various types of inflatable things, that possibly could be 
used as an outrigger, I suddenly came to think of a dormant model
project of mine: A flying boat made out of EPP (the wings would come
from a Dave's Aircraft Works sailplane, as they already are made of
EPP, this wonder material that can stand almost any mishandling and 
then just bounces back to original shape).

Deep down in the cellar I found the flying boat hull, a little dusty and 
devoid of any covering or other nice details, but it would do for a test. A 
20 x 20 mm aluminium tube (6063) would do as the arm that the outrigger 
attches to and the arm itself I clamped to the leeboard crossbar with 
Klepper-style J-clamps. The flying boat hull I attached to the tube with a 
piece of string - that's pretty much it!

Took a while to rig the Klepper, but eventually we were ready - my wife in the
rear as helmsman and me up front pulling all the ropes :-)!

We had slept late - I arrived home after midnight Friday evening after a 10 
hour day driving a non-airconditioned bus - so we were eventually ready to
sail about 2 pm. Can't say the Klepper mast impressed me much - very wobbly
unless you really tighten the stays, and the stays get in the way when you 
sail down-wind - not really the best design I've seen. I had replaced the 
original stays with kevlar lines - dyneema is probably even better - and 
added a kicking block to stretch the sail better. I also added lines so I 
could lower both the jib and the main while under way, from both the rear and 
the front seat.

My wife used the pedals to steer and I managed the sails - and until we
started to make good speed my wife wasn't that impressed, but she
quickly got bitten by the sailing bug! So now she awaits next chance
to battle with the wind.

Sadly I forgot to turn the GPS on, but I'm pretty certain that we went
supersonic at times :-)! 

After a really rewarding afternoon at our favourite lake,

Tord S Eriksson

PS Photos can more comments can be seen here:

http://foldingkayaks.org/gallery/Sailing
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