Florida Offshore Multihull Association
Cruising
by F28R
By Ron Butler
Well, the leading question is; can you cruise on an F28R? Jeez Louise … people cruise on kayaks don't they? Of course, you can cruise on an F28R and you can get there before your friends to boot. Now I'm not saying that the F28R is the most livable cruiser that I've ever sailed but it ain't bad either.
My wife had a week off during spring break at the end of March so we begged our friend to let us use Tricycle, his F28R for a few days. Of course, we were racing the boat in the Michelob Cup on Saturday, so we spent Sunday and part of Monday converting Tricycle from racer to cruiser. The conversion is important because there are a few things you can do to make the F28R a bit more cruisey and comfortable.
For one thing, we topped off the water tank (a rare event on a racer), filled a sun shower, and charged the porta-potti with deodorant. Now that leads me to the biggest drawbacks to cruising the F28R, at least as far as the crew is concerned. It lacks an enclosed head and indoor shower. Personally, I don't mind showering on the tramp and peeing over the side but it is bit harder on the gals. Even with the sun shower getting nice and warm, it was quite chilly showering in the breeze outside. But even that has plusses and minuses … for guys it means certain amount of shrinkage but for the gals it definitely perks things up…. Everything's a trade off. The other negative is the porta-potti has to be emptied every other day or so and the pump-out stations can't handle porta-potti tanks so that means a trip far enough offshore to dump it, rinse it out and recharge it. Not a pleasant task.
Converting to cruising means adding some equipment. We added mosquito netting (essential any time of year in Florida) which we made using no-see-um proof netting and the hook half of some 3/4 inch wide Velcro. Velcro is very handy around an F-Boat because the entire inside is covered in that monkey fur stuff which means that the Velcro hooks right to it. The netting we made was a strip about 2 ft wide and long enough to surround the pop-top on three sides and attach by Velcro to the pop-top (fully raised) on one side and underneath the cabin roof (inside) on the other. The fourth side was a 60 by 36-inch panel with more Velcro to form the companionway entrance.
We also used Velcro on the bottom of the battery operated Coframco fans. This allows infinite mounting positions for the fans above the bunks. By the way, the Velcro strip on your sailing gloves can also be used to hang up your gloves for drying. Velcro is very handy stuff on an F-Boat.
The conversion to cruising also included adding a plywood bunk board and cushion that converts the main cabin space into a wide queen sized berth. The bunk board can also be turned cross-wise to the cabin to serve as a table for eating inside or playing board games. Speaking of which don't forget to bring playing cards, Scrabble or checkers. We played dominoes and checkers.
In addition to installing Tricycle's bimini top, we made a large boom tent out of one of those cheap silver tarps and some PVC pipe. The PVC pipe goes across the boom and a line fed through the tubing serves as tie downs. We sewed a sleeve into the hem of the tarp to accept the PVC pipe. Our first attempt made a tent that was just too big to handle easily. It was 12 by 16 ft. We ended up cutting it in half to 12 by 8 ft with the 8 ft crosswise to the boom. This made it much easier to handle and stow. For creature comfort at anchor, we modified the topping lift to raise the boom up well above horizontal to give us standing headroom under the boom tent.
Using the bunk board for sleeping meant that we could use the vee-berth for storage; mostly clothes and food items. We stowed beer and drinking water under the vee-berth next to the water tank. We packed clothes in clear plastic tubs like you use for closet storage. This made finding what you wanted easier. We moved long items like the boat hook, hiking stick, and boom tent poles to the space under the cockpit to get them out of the way. We also reserved the shelf storage next to the sink for food and related stuff like paper products. The shelf on the starboard side was reserved for sailing gear like harnesses, charts, binoculars, tools and all the other little peripherals that you need for sailing.
We stowed the grill and boarding ladder with the dock lines in one of the amas. Extension cord, fenders, and other miscellaneous stuff in the other ama. Then, we removed from the boat everything we didn't need. The list of stuff we left home included the working jib and spinnaker, jib and spinnaker sheets, extra blocks, extra lifejackets, extra foul weather gear, etc.
Ok you ask, why did we leave the spinnaker and jib home? Well, I decided that we weren't going to be able to manage the spinnaker with just two of us on board (we normally race with four) and besides the screacher would give us sufficient downwind speed (hey it's a cruise!). As for the working jib; we decided that we weren't going to do any serious windward work in any kind of wind. We would either not go or motor sail if we had faced upwind conditions for any distance. Plus there is no convenient way to stow the thing. It's a full batten sail so it has to either be rolled up on the boom or left laying on the deck somewhere. If you leave it hanked on the forestay and just tied down on the foredeck then it interferes with the anchor well. You could roll it up and tie it down to a tramp but that seemed like a hassle for the limited use it would get. Besides the screacher is on a roller furling system so it is much easier to deploy and put away. We could sail downwind with just the screacher and sail deep if we wanted to, or go to weather in light air on the main and screacher. We could also just use the main. With the rotating mast, the main alone provides excellent pointing ability and in heavy air, speed. We also tried wing-and-wing but it's too hard to keep the screacher full in any kind of waves. It's best to sail hot angles and jibe downwind.
So, considering all that, we just decided to leave the jib and spinnaker home.
For food storage we had the big cooler that fits under the cockpit and a smaller cooler that we used for drinks. We packed the big cooler with two frozen 2-1/2 gallon water jugs and the all the food stuff that had to be kept cool. Having the small cooler for drinks meant that we could keep the big cooler closed; opening the small one whenever we wanted a drink. After 5 days we still had ice in the big cooler. We re-iced the small cooler only once in five days.
So how did the trip go? Fantastic! We left Clearwater, Florida on Monday about 1pm sailing south in a 15-20knot northwesterly breeze with about 3-5ft seas running in from the west. We jibed our way south using screacher and main doing mostly 10-12 knots. Three or four long jibes put us off Fort DeSoto across from Egmont Key by about 3:30pm. We continued down the Tampa Bay side of Egmont planning to head out SW Channel. When we rounded Egmont the breeze had come up considerably. We hardened up to head west only to find we were really overpowered. But having the screacher on a roller furler meant just bearing off for a bit while I rolled it up.
We then sailed back into Tampa Bay on main alone making 7+ knots and headed for the Bulkhead planning to go down the ICW to Moore's Stone Crab Restaurant on Longboat Key for the night. A slight navigation error put us on the Manatee River instead but we jibed back, still sailing on the main alone, to reach over to the ICW. We sailed all the way down the ICW to Moore's before we fired up the Honda. We spent a nice evening tied up at Moore's dock even though we had to wait until after 9pm for a table. Sailing on the main alone really meant a nice relaxing sail at 7 knots as opposed to the excitement of reaching along at 15 knots.
The next morning we were up early and made coffee and oatmeal on the Origo alcohol stove (which works very well I might add). It's very simple and safe. It boils a teapot full of water in about 10 minutes, which is not that much slower than propane.
We cleared the Longboat Pass drawbridge a little after 7am with the fishing boats. The breeze was down to about 10 knots and out of the east so we hugged the beach bound for Boca Grande about 50 miles away. As we beam reached south, the breeze picked up and our speed along with it. We may not have been racing but blasting along in almost flat water, right on the rhumb line, steering by autopilot and passing everything in sight is very satisfying. Boats on the horizon were soon in our wake. We hit 16.4 knots in one puff and saw several 13+ speeds on the GPS. While the autopilot steered, I played the traveler and mainsheet with an occasional tweak on the screacher sheet to keep us moving fast. We also discovered that when the F28R gets going that fast, a small wave will sometimes smack the rear leeward cross beam dousing everyone in the cockpit. Frankly we didn't mind. Even though it was a cool morning (in the upper 60s) going that fast was even cooler especially when we blew by 40-ft monohulls going our way.
By noon we were in Boca Grande Pass at the entrance to Charlotte Harbor with an incoming tide. We thought the pass would be very rough with the tide and wind opposed but while it was choppy, I've seen it much worse in there.
By about 1pm or so we were dropping hook next our friends who had their Morgan 38 Spirit anchored off the eastern shore of Useppa Island just south of Charlotte Harbor off the ICW. Our friend's first comment to us after hellos, etc. was "I guess you guys sailed all night to get here this early?" Wrongo, … "left Moore's this morning". F boat speeds are just not familiar to most cruisers.
We spent the next few days hanging out with them. (They had a dinghy, we didn't) We cooked meals together and went over to Cabbage Key etc. Then on Wednesday, with the weather not looking too good, we headed back north to find a more protected anchorage.
We tried a small lagoon in Cape Haze but couldn't get Tricycle's #16 Fortress to set in the soft ooze there so we went on to Englewood Beach (where we found firm holding) and again we had dinner with our friends. We spent the Thursday playing games inside while it rained outside. The boom tent worked fine at keeping out the rain even with the pop-top fully raised. While the bottom was good here, the current and wind conspired to play magic boat with us so I rigged a bridle for the anchor line off the starboard ama (a spare line with a simple rolling hitch). With the bridle, I was able to pull the anchor line off center and keep it from chaffing on the sprit's bobstay. The bridle also helped slow down the magic boat act (the boat's tendency to sail around on its anchor line).
Then on Friday it was back to Moore's dock sailing north on a ten-knot southeasterly that as usual turned into a 10 knot westerly shortly after noon. We tied up to the dock again since the bottom in front of Moore's is pretty poor holding not to mention the swift current.
Finally on Saturday, we motor-sailed our way back to Clearwater when the wind just about died completely. Motor sailing with the main and Honda on the glassy water gives about 7-8 knots depending on the breeze. We had burned a total of 4 gallons of gas for the trip and most of that on the last day and were back in Clearwater by early afternoon. What a great trip! Then on Sunday a cold front hit central Florida with cold 30 knot winds out of the northwest. It pays to listen to NOAA weather broadcasts.
While the F28R definitely leaves something to be desired in the creature comfort arena, it sure is great to actually sail most of a trip. In our Edel cat for example, we put about 600 hours on the motor in 3 years. Of course, the F boat speed is absolutely thrilling. The following weekend, Tricycle's owner (with friend) cruised over to the Vinoy basin (downtown St Petersburg) to catch a Friday night Blues festival and then on Saturday to FOMA's infamous Bahia Beach Rendezvous on the eastern shore of Tampa Bay. The only change we made for his trip was to borrow a Claw anchor because the holding in the Vinoy basin is that soft oozy (and stinky) mud. Once again proving that cruising boats need at least two different anchor types. We had a great 5 days on a fast boat and I would do it again. While the F28R isn't my cup of tea for a cruise much longer than a week, it works great for two people taking a short trip down the coast or a long weekend. As the Wizard says "Fast is Fun".