Recent content by aquaman

Howdy! I would not recommend trying to do this yourself, there's a real good chance you will end up ruining your main. A sail loft will guarantee results and also do a bunch of additional work that is well worth the $$. Check out my posts and you'll see the history of what I did with mine. Now...

If you get slugs installed on your main it's super easy to hoist/lower by putting another stopper bolt above the slot. Feeding the main into the mast slot with the stock bolt rope is a huge PITA! And get a knurled knob rather than the phillips head to hold the stopper. For the one shown in your...

Mine's a lot simpler and a lot smaller. I could see the need for your design if you had a 25' boat on a large lake, tied up to the dock. Large cleats would also be a nuisance on this small, lightweight boat. And I'm not putting much load on these so no need for large heavy duty ones. The...

I used some stainless tapping screws with bevelled heads that fit nicely into the cleat holes. Then predrilled to a size that allowed for a tight fit without overstressing and cracking the fiberglass. Rubbed a little beeswax on the threads and gently cranked them in. In the near future I can...

Anchoring to hoist/lower complicates things a lot. Now that you have a motor get a tiller lock. You're then able to motor on a slightly off wind heading and let the sails luff while you're underway, then you can play with the sails. Furthermore, getting your sail arrangements set up to make this...

Longer tongue easier to back up but impossible to swing into my driveway and tougher to manuever in congested areas. My current trailer doesn't need a longer tongue (since the boat floats off quicker) and still backs up nicely. Super easy launch and retreive. Agreed about the heavier boat but...

Absolutely! Like I said, look for a Capri in the $1500 range and then you're starting with something you can build upon and may require minimum investment to get her in decent shape!

Check out my posts and you'll see how I operate. I like to have my sails all rigged and ready when leaving the dock. With my trolling motor and the other improvements installed (too many to talk about here), a ton of versatility is gained! And things could get dicey for you if the wind picks up...

Wow! Now one thing to be wary of is structural weakness. As beat up as that boat is you could possibly have a mast failure if one of the 3 points of anchorment let loose. I have a 1978 Mod 1 and had the transverse mast support crack while sailing aggressively. Culprit was rotten wood. Luckily...

Yep and the one thing I forgot to mention about the con's of my swing keel Capri is that there is a possibility of a knockdown if you're not on your game when sailing in sporty conditions. When "social sailing"(non-sailor passengers aboard) I'll under canvas, don't need to focus intently on the...

I've had my Capri for 6 seasons and it's been great! Now we just had a newbie come in to our marina and he's got the boat that I've always been quite fond of. A Compaq 16. Now I was seriously thinking about trading up for a larger boat, so I did a checklist of the pro's and cons......... Pros...

Golleee I think it was about 5 years ago when I got my bracket from you! I still recall how your address made me think of Tom Brady, the best of the best! Now I give a hearty two thumbs up for this, it made my life so much easier. No way would I want the Bob permanently attached to the mast...

Looks like keel has a couple small owies I would think that as long as they're sealed there should be no issues. Regarding the mast step support I suggest you look at my earlier posts about what happened when my 1986 Mod 1 snapped. The method used to repair it was quite costly, but well...

The elephant in the room comes out if you turtle in water shallow enough to snag the mast. Then it gets ugly! Hard bottoms can do damage, and soft gooey soils would get it stuck, another bad option. In 6 years I've never capsized, but it's still nice to know that if she was ever laying on her...

There's a post from way back when that showed how Capri looks when she's laying on her side with a Baby Bob float on top of the mast. The boat sits high enough on the down rail that no water enters the cockpit. Of course this applies to calm water conditions, if there's heavy wave action that's...