Got on the water yesterday

[Christian Mitchell]

I took my Bahia Sport on her maiden voyage yesterday on Lake
Michigan. It was gusting up to 20 knots so I was able to really push
the boat. She performed beautifully and was an absolute blast. For
what its worth, here are a few of my observations.

Rigging - Not too bad but the rigging manual leaves something to be
desired. With a little thought I was able to figure everything out
except the cunningham. I jury rigged something for the cunningham,
but I need to figure out the right configuration. I may call my
dealer this week.

Launching - I beach-launched the boat using the dolly. It went very
smoothly with three people but would be really tough alone. Getting
the loaded dolly back on the trailer absolutely requires two people
with three being ideal.

Under Sail - The boat is a blast. The rig is powerful and the helm is
responsive. At times the boat exhibits noticeable weather helm, but
its not too bad (20 knot gusts are obviously going to accentuate
weather helm). It wasn't difficult to achieve a nice sail shape, it
just took some playing around. One problem I couldn't readily fix was
the top batten getting inverted in the wrong direction. This only
happened when the wind got light. A few jerks to main sheet sometimes
worked, sometimes didn't. Another observation I had under sail was
the extent to which the spreaders touch the mainsail when you are
sailing off the wind. The sail has large protective patches at these
points but it was still somewhat concerning. I have the spreaders at
the position indicated in the rigging manual but I may position them
more forward.

I would love to hear about other people's first experiences on their
boats. If someone could take a pic of how the cunningham is rigged, I
would great appreciate that as well. Let me know if you have any
questions.

- Christian

[Jeff Fedor]

another maiden voyage as well today. We sailed our sport in very light winds and experienced the batten inversion.

We also flew the kite and it was awesome. Huge acceleration even in the flukey winds we were sailing. And even with the light winds we almost dumped it. This boat can move in a gust surprisingly :-)

A couple of issues...

1) the cunningham was pre-tied but too long and we couldn't get great sail shape.
2) the kite halyard keeps getting tangled and furled into the jib... not sure what we were doing wrong but would love to hear other's feedback on that.
3) not much detail on tuning the shrouds. How have people set their's up? IE how much tension are you loading up on the rig?

on the cunningham, I can take a picture and post it to the group on how we have our's configured.

totally agree on the rigging manual, but if it wasn't for Dave finding it, we would've been completely screwed so definitely better than nothing!
j