Practice makes perfect

It’s amazing to see the improvements we have made compared to our first trip. The Seascape 27 is probably somewhat easy to sail but we’ve had our hands full anyways – we still have but it feels a lot less stressful.

• The stress started already when casting off from the pier. The Seascape has no rubbing strake and we surely do not want to leave permanent markers of a failed maneuver in the brand-new gelcoat.
• Driving backwards with the twin rudders is an additional challenge towards the usual issues with that direction. My Tohatsu pulls the back of the boat hard to port in reverse gear. It takes quite some speed until the boat actually starts to react to the rudders. The drift from the outboard literally vanishes between them without any effect.
• Hoisting the main without sliders at the luff needs practicing. 28m² of sail can be quite a lot, especially with only 2 people on-board. One trying to keep the boat in the wind by steering with the legs and pulling the halyard at the same time, the other one making sure the luff cleanly goes up the mast. It’s still simple with little wind and waves. With 5-6 Bft and 1.5 Meters waves this was quite a challenge. Part of the sail was even blown overboard during the maneuver in a gust once. Not a pleasant experience.
• Lowering the main and fixing it to the boom in a way that the cockpit is clean for the stressful berthing maneuver. Again 28m² of the sail area without sliders or lazy jacks is quite something.

The sailing part is relatively easy though and the boat is fast even with improper trim. Anyways, after 200 miles the stress factors above have decreased tremendously. We have found our ways to handle the boat – far from efficient yet but at least it works safely. A trick with the battens helps to secure the luff against being blown overboard and almost folds the main so it can be rolled up when lowering it.

you can easily pull or push it to compensate for a bad maneuver

Driving backwards is just a matter of practice and I have given up to turn over starboard… well well. The Seascape 27 is light weighted, you can easily pull or push it to compensate for a bad maneuver at the pier. Good for the rudders, they are quite exposed at the back. A good way to practice is with 4 people on board. You can place a set of hands at each critical spot to push or drag or do whatever when necessary without hard to the crew or boat.

Seascape 27 with 2nd reef

We still didn’t get the hang of safely putting a reef into the main while rolling in 1.5 meters of waves. So we take it slow, if the forecast says 15 knots of wind or more, we’ll prepare the reef while still tied up and live with it, in case the wind is lighter and the reef becomes unnecessary.

This regime of safety led to a complete underpowered boat last week. She’s still beautiful though and could sail closer to the wind and even faster than most of the other boats at our course to port.

Practice makes perfect. Less stress = more fun and it’s getting prettier with every mile!