2012 Sail Oklahoma Messabout
Friday morning, October 5, I got up bright and early, packed my gear for the road, kissed the wife and kiddo goodbye and headed out for Oklahoma and the 2012 Sail Oklahoma Messabout. SailOK has been held the past three years on Lake Eufaula and hosted by Mike and Jackie Monies at their home, boathouse and the lake a couple hundred yards down the road. I made it to the first event, but had too much going on in 2011 to make it. I was very excited to be there this year.
I got there about 1pm, the weather had completely gone to crap. Cold, heavy winds and rain. Miserable for a sailing event. Luckily, with boat designers Jim Michalak, Dave Gentry, Richard Woods and Michael Storer, all scheduled to make presentations, there was no shortage of interesting things going on, in spite of the bitter weather.
In this photo: A cat-ketch trimaran of unknown design, a Welsford Sherpa, a Crawford Melonseed, a Michalak Family Skiff, a Welsford SCAMP and a kayak by Tom Yost, maybe?
Gene Berry's junk rigged PDGoose
Paul Helbert's skin-on-frame sailing dinghy, designed by Dave Gentry.
Dave Gentry's skin-on-frame Ruth Wherry and his prototype skin-on-frame outrigger canoe. Luckily, before I left, I got to help test paddle it. Dave is also the guy that designed the Chuckanut 12 kayaks that my buddy Brian and I built last winter.
Here, Dave builds a Boardyak, his version of a skin-on-frame sit-on-top kayak/stand-up-paddle board. I'd really like to build one of these. It might happen the next time I want to make a mess of my garage. Provided my wife is OK with that.
It was really cool that Howard Rice, the first person to solo around Cape Horn, also gave several presentations. Here, he talks with Dave Gentry about sailboat racing. He later gave a presentation on his Cape Horn rounding in a Klepper folding sailing kayak and canoe voyaging in Micronesia, where he currently works and resides. This guy was really impressive. I'd read a few articles in Small Craft Advisor by him and about him. Never thought I'd actually meet the man.
Back to the boats, here's Frank Baedke's 24' Wa'apa outrigger. It's eight feet longer than mine, shown below.
A Storer Goat Island Skiff
A very cool cat-ketch trimaran of unknown design and a Welsford SCAMP in the background.
The Welsford SCAMP about to be taken out. The SCAMP is an incredibly capable boat for it's size and looks. It's getting a lot of good press these days. It was faster than my outrigger, even though it has a shorter waterline. Of course, it was much better built, had a professionally made sail onboard and Howard Rice at the helm. So, I really stood no chance of keeping up. :)
A nice looking sailing canoe trimaran, possibly a Storer Eureka Canoe with a drop-in outrigger sailing setup.
A Crawford Melonseed
Misc. boats
Richard Woods does a capsize and recovery test of a Michalak Family Skiff. It looked miserably cold.
Michael Storer gives a talk on lug sails. Jim Michalak on leeboards and Richard Woods on sail efficiency.
I met a lot of great people on this trip. Learned a lot and will probably forget just as much. There was a lot to take in, between general conversation and scheduled presentations and seminars over three days. I wish I hadn't missed David Nichols' presentation on sail making, but that happened shortly before I got there. I've got his book on traditional small boat sails and it's very informative.
Looking forward to next year, already. Again, sorry this is a very rambling post. Still trying to mentally sort it all out. Thanks again to Mike and Jackie Monies, if either of you happen to see this.
If you've read this far, here's some links that might interest you:
UPDATE: The unknown trimaran is a CLC John's Sharpie with amas added for stability. And see HERE for sailing pics.
Comments
I see you chose to go with the Pundt instead, can you tell me why?
The Wa'apa is a completely different animal than the Cinderella setup for sail. It was designed for sailing from the beginning and can't function without the outrigger ama (float). It's fast, stable and breaks down easily for transport and storage. It was the most sailboat I could build and still fit on my car roof.