The Sharpie/Tri and the Texas 200

[CharlieJ]

Several of you have asked about the Texas 200 and us doing the tri conversion for that trip.

The Texas 200 is a dream that Chuck Leinweber of Duckworks , has nurtured for several years now. Since competing twice in the EC Challenge, Chuck decided to  do something similar on the Texas coast. Hence the Texas 200. This first time event will not really be a race, since we really don't know where exactly we can stop each night. But it will be a roughly 200 mile, five day"raid" along the Texas coast, inside the barrier islands, from Port Mansfield down in South Texas, to here where we live on Magnolia Beach. We are due to arrive at Magnolia Beach on Friday, 13 June, to kick off the annual Duckworks Small boat Messabout, to be held here on Jun 14th and 15th. We sail on 9 June.

Laura had hinted to Graham Burns that she'd LOVE to crew for him in the Everglades Challenge aboard Southern Skimmer, but he already had crew, and she was working by that time anyway.

So, she decided she wanted to do this Tex 200. And since she had been after me for some time to convert the sharpie into a trimaran for us to use as a camp cruiser, I decided ( yeah right- SHE decided) that now was the time. So I had Graham design the amas, I designed the crossarms and connections and built the thing

I began building 4 weeks ago last Friday. Last Thursday we took the boat out for a shake down sail. It preformed totally up to ( and surpassed some) expectations. On a reach we saw 9.7 mph on the GPS, in 15 mph winds.

I had posted a write up and pictures on TSBB and since this board won't allow as many pics, here's the link-

http://bbs.trailersailor.com/forums/trailersailor/index.cgi/read/636329

But for those who don't care to read the whole thing, here's a couple of pics-





We'll be underway for 5 days, camping on the beach each night, and sleeping in the boat if we can't find a beach. So as someone said- I suppose it qualifies as a long distance, small boat- Traveler is 18 feet and has no cabin.

Graham is pulling Southern Skimmer from NC to sail the event, Travis Votaw is pulling Pilgrim, the Princess 22 I built for him, down from Edmond Ok, a Shearwater 28 is pulling from Illinois, we have one sailor flying in from the west coast to crew. Looks like it's shaping up to be a well attended event.

[Tim]

Charlie make sure you get some pics of how you pack for the trip, I'd be curious. We had a Sag boat for the Bahamas trip  in Sea Pearls and only had to carry our personal gear not any of the galley or food.

One thing we used on kayak trips for water bags were reused wine in the box bags, they only carried  a gallon each but were very easy to stow.

[Captain Smollett]

Hey, CJ, cool.

In addition to pics of YOUR BOAT sailing like a bat out of you know where, how 'bout snappin a few pics of the Skimmer as you pass her?   ;D ;D

Man, I'd love to be down there to watch this.

[AdriftAtSea]

Is that a Sea Pearl trimaran conversion??

[CharlieJ]

Nope- CLC John's Sharpie I built about 6 years ago. 18 foot.

The Sea Pearl is what gave us the idea though.

[macdiver]

Thats a nice looking tri :)

Its funny though.  Over the winter a read a book on multihulls, where the author talks about zero recidivism.  I thought you were maybe the exception.

Have fun on your raid.