Different 22

Sailing 1 | Sailing 2 | Hydrofoil | On the Trailer | Slatts Review/Specs | Home
Crossing the Stream | Our F-27

My wife was not happy with the boat as designed. She likes to participate in the actual sailing and she likes to have nice conversations. As designed, everything on the Slatts 22--mainsheet, jib sheets, rudder pedals, foil control, boom vang, outhaul, foil raising and lowering, center board raising/lowering, rudder raising/lowering--are all controlled from the front cockpit seat. Perfect for single-handing but that leaves absolutely nothing for the crew to do but sit there. And they can only talk to the back of the skipper's head. My wife insisted on changes or get a different boat. Well, the boat's too cool and too much fun so selling it was out of the question. I made modifications.

I mounted two aluminum beams (good sections cut out of a damaged mast) athwartships on top of the gunwales. I then built aluminum benches on the ends of the beams.

I added a tiller, tiller extensions, one more trampoline, put the foil control athwartships and added a handle extension and tiller extension to that.

Now the seating and controls are more like a "normal" sailboat. And I must say, I like the feel of the water through the tiller (no feel at all with rudder pedals) and the crew gets to use the jib sheets and foil control, so it's more fun that way. And you can actually see each other's face when you talk.

It's a bit harder to single-hand, but not impossibly so. It's also harder to paddle, but I haven't been pushed back into the dock yet.

I also put bottom paint on the hulls because I keep it in the water. I like to be able to zip out to the lake after work and get in a few hours of sailing before dark.

At this point, the boat has become almost 2 Boats in One. The benches and beams can come off in about 20 minutes and the boat is back to being the way it was designed.

Results? The modifications were a big success. Everything held together and worked as well as I had hoped. In fact, I'm going to tweak it some more this winter. I plan to extend the benches further out to port and starboard, raise the boom a foot for better visibility, swap the outrigger hull for a Hobie 16 starboard hull, and move the rear connecting beam further aft for more room on the tramp. It will be even more different.

charlie@signaldesign.net