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I haven't sailed for quite a few years and I took my PMD out sailing for the first time a couple of days ago. Sailing the Passagemaker was super easy and fun, but I do have two dumb questions.
1) Where's the best place to sit while sailing her?
My son and I both took turns sitting on the stern bench, but the that complicates moving the tiller. So I'm curious if people are sitting on the floor or the middle bench, maybe with a tiller extender.
2) It there a trick to rowing with the sails down?
With the boom and the yard down, I could comfortable sit in the middle, with the sails to one side, but... my oars keep scraping against the yardarm, making it awkward to row easily. That said, I was doing this with the yardarm still tied to the mast, so that once we rowed away from the dock (or out of trouble), we could quickly raise the sails again.
I appreciate any advice and experience you all may have.
1 reply:
RE: Sailing the Passagemaker
» Submitted by Gramps - Thu, 6/24/21 » 1:11 PM
I knocked together a pair of "portable" side seats for my Passagemaker out of some bits of "dimensioned" wood from Home Depot with little rubber feet. Sitting on the bottom is probably better, but I'm getting old and slow and find it more difficult to spring about like a nimble deck ape these days. Having the feet below the hips helps to compensate. The seats can be positioned in or out as needed for trim. See photos here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/z2bmcxkorovln3k/AABWkWDoMrEcAn0nSsyDQFExa?dl=0
I think I've described this before on this forum. I can ferret that out if you need more description.
Yes, you need to get the upper yard and boom (lower yard, technically) loose from the mast so they can lay down flat off to one side for rowing. I can usually muzzle the sail to where it will lie still and behave, but some times a couple of ties or shock cords help to keep the wind from trying to turn it into a kite if its really windy. Thus positioned, it does not interfere with the recovery stroke.
Hope that helps....
.....Michael