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Sailing Events Page, 20 January 2012
People from the northeast have been retiring down south for years. They like the warm weather and our friendly people. They also bring their boats when they come and the little boats are really well built and good sailors. The only problem is they are not built for our area. Up north, small sailboats are built without a trailer eye because they are not launched from ramps. They may have lots of wood because the owner needs to do something during the wintertime when the boat is stored inside. Everyone loves a good varnish job. Small boats are moored out during the summer months and they need bottom paint and a good cover to keep the rain water out. Down here we trailer and launch from ramps. Complicated rigging and a transportation only trailer are not made for the southeast. We think a $3500 Com-Pac Picnic Cat rig would really improve most small boats built in the northeast. Of course you wouldn't have to do all that varnish work every winter.
We have a new way to furl our headsail. Our older furling systems were really designed for larger boats that stayed in the water. If your Com-Pac 16 or Legacy stays in the water all the time, the Flex-Furl CDI or some other brand will work just fine. The problem with those systems if you trailer sail is the sail doesn't drain if the furling system is lying on top of a boat that's on a trailer. If you only trailer sail, the rigid or semi-rigid furlers really doesn’t work that well. Your jib will die of mildew and water rot in about 2 years. The new Harken small boat furler uses a wire in the luff of the jib and the sail can be tensioned with the halyard. We are going to have an article on jib sail shape soon and you need a halyard to adjust sail shape. To make the system work for our boats, we attach the forestay to the bow pulpit and a higher point on the mast. That gets the forestay out of the way, but gives us an extra safety feature. You lower the furled jib with the halyard and store it inside the boat. A Harken furler can be purchased from West Marine and your current sail needs to be modified with a wire luff. A Com-Pac 16 Mark I may need another forestay solution. It has an aluminum pulpit. Using an extra halyard to the pulpit will work and you can leave the forestay at home.
2011 has been a Com-Pac 16 restoration year. People really like the looks, quality and price of a used 16 when they can find one. Finding one may be the problem. The price of a restored boat is currently about half the price of a new boat. Some times a little more with additional options. Trailers fall into the same price range when restored.
Back in the early 70s we didn't have a used boat market. The only used boats were kits boats and they were few and far between. New sailboats started selling to the public in the late 70s and lots of new boats were sold in the 80s. These boats are still around today and most of them are in need of restoration. A big problem with some of the old boats built in the 70s was the core material. A wood cored deck can have moisture problems. Most 80 boats avoided this problem with a resin core. Sailboat builders today are not producing the quantities of sailboats needed to re-supply our used sailboat market. We are going to have and maybe already have a shortage of inexpensive sailboats. I think restoration and modification will continue to drive our business in 2012.
Something that's going to be interesting in 2012 is sailing our modified boats. We plan on sailing a Pilothouse 16 and the Sun Cat Trawler when we get some warm weather. Maybe we could race both boats at the same time (with pictures)?
Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
The little 16 has bunks for 2 and a place for a toilet. It hard to take pictures of those features. The table folds up and down with storage inside.
All 16 boats on the yard did fine. We had wind and rain for a long period of time because it was a big storm. The wind started in the middle of the night and I was hoping it would be over by the following morning. I was only half right. The eye arrived at Cape Lookout that morning and then we had the other half of the hurricane to deal with. It was about 36 hours from start to finish. The Sun is forecast for tomorrow.
We had a good show even if it was a little smaller than normal. Nice people that are interested in boats. We had a dog and cat agency next to us. They were trying to find homes for some good-looking dogs and cats. The dogs were well mannered and didn't make too much noise. I was interviewed by the local newspaper and I told them that a new Com-Pac 16 sold for $3,800 in 1982 and they sell for almost $13,000 today. We only paid about $1 for gas in those days and we pay about $3.65 today. I think that's about the same ratio. Boats are really made from oil. I was the only sailboat dealer at the show and maybe, I'm the only small sailboat dealer in North Carolina. I would like to see the business improve like it was back in 1982. We had 8 sailboat dealers in Raleigh at that time. Times were good.
The Com-Pac 16 Pilothouse was a big hit. People wanted to know who made it and I told them it was a 1977 model that Com-Pac made a long time ago and that we modified it for the current market. Everyone liked the furling gear and the inside table. The table folds down and has inside storage. The boat still sleeps 2 and has room for a head. We are still looking for someone to trade-in a standard 16 on the pilothouse.
