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I completed a shakedown cruise earlier this week. I discovered my Ariel doesn't perform well with 1,000 pounds of cargo, most of which is required by the Race Rules. Details of the cruise are here: http://sfbaysss.org/forum/showthread...4646#post14646. The course sailed is here: http://aprs.fi/#!mt=hybrid&z=11&ts=1...all=a%2FN8QH-9
Your extra weight showing up as a plowing problem - and sluggishness - is very frightening to me ! ! !
Where is your 'normal' waterline?
I had trouble translating the designed waterline (from the Manual drawings that are signed by Alberg) onto littlegull when I tried to establish it when painting the boottop. Never really found it to my satisfaction. Discovered the designed line was far below what my boat had been sailing with. Do we know where the actual waterline is on current active sailing Ariels? Is there a consensus? How can we measure and share that info? (I took my measure from the sheer of copyshop 'to scale' rendition of the Alberg
original. And converted it to the boat.)
Sluggish handling is not a usual description of Ariel attributes. 1000lbs cargo seems entirely reasonable!
50 years ago Ariel was described as a MORC racer/CRUISER.
When hauling for bottom work, the weight of the boat should be indicated by the crane or travel-life. Does the 5180lb stated Ariel weight include all the stuff of a fully found vessel? Understand a racing version would not carry heavyweight
anchors and chain, or a liferaft, or extra fuel.
I measured the waterline relative to what it was before loading, so the exact draft is unknown. I measured the freeboard at the aft lower shroud chainplate, from the top of the toe rail to the water. Before: 2 feet 2 inches. After: 1 foot, 11 inches. That's the average of both port and starboard measurements, since there was an inch or so variance depending on port/starboard balance.
On board for the shakedown cruise was:
- Batteries: 300 pounds (358 A/H)
- Gasoline generator: 40 pounds
- Full sail inventory: 60 pounds
- Life raft: 65 pounds
- Unconsumed food, water, (simulated by 200 lbs of lead shot) and spares including 2 anchors with a total of 400 feet of rode and 35 feet of chain (the race rules require an anchor and I'd have to anchor after arriving): 300 pounds
- Fuel for generator (6 gallons): 36 pounds
- Myself: 200 pounds
- Total: 1,001 pounds
Add to that cargo another 65 pounds for the outboard.
The boat was a slug with all that weight and pitched down 3 to 5 degrees underway (I installed a pitch inclinometer). It was in a pitch-level attitude at the slip. In 11 knots average wind, 60 degrees off the bow (my best point of sail), there was no pitch oscillation ("hobby horsing"), but the bow buried and plowed through swells and I averaged 3.9 knots over 130 miles (both tacks). That translates to 24.6 days to Hawaii - the race cutoff is 21 days. Even factoring for 0.5 knots of assistive current and following seas, it's doubtful I'd make it within 21 days. The ride in moderate swells was "normal" (that is to say - mostly terrible), if not a little subdued. I had to run a jackline along the overhead to stand up. I resorted to that after I fell and broke the starboard side seat back. Sleeping on the port side berth was OK, in fact quite comfortable, except for a few moments of near weightlessness in swells. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone susceptible to seasickness (which I'm not).
You can see my comments here that I posted along the track: https://share.delorme.com/AdAstra. You have to zoom into the track for all of the comments to appear. I used the Delorme satellite tracker texting capability as my log.
At no time was the boat unstable. It seldom heeled past 15 degrees (with all that weight below).
After considering all the factors, including the possibility of water in the keel, I withdrew.
At least now I have a fully upgraded boat ready for serious coastal cruising: with a life raft, properly installed manual bilge pump (Whale Titan), new standing rigging, backup AIS display and chartplotter, an extra downwind sail for flying twin jibs, and the knowledge that adding 1,000 pounds to an Ariel is a bit too much...
When my boat as "SunQuest" left the water years ago, I did not measure where the
waterline was. Boat has not seen water since.
.
I've spent an inordinate amount of time, measuring and remeasuring the boat using
the autographed Alberg lines drawing in the Manual, pg144.
This drawing shows an Ariel with a curved sheer of about 3" at its center -- at the aft
chainplate. This is not the only
DESIGN ANOMALY
MY PEARSON ARIEL HAS A DEAD STRAIGHT SHEER FROM STEM TO STERN.
Nevertheless, I've used the Alberg drawing as my bible.
The waterline on the drawing measures 30" below the top of the toerail.
At the aft chainplate.
It's impossible to understand how Pearson managed to straighten Alberg's sheer!*
Yesterday, I took a yardstick to see what I had painted on the littlegull. The 30"
measure is to the bottom of the bootstripe. Obviously, I think the drawing doesn't lie.
BUT, therefore, my waterline is 3" higher that what the drawing witnesses, since my
toerail is 3" higher than the toerail in the drawing. That's what I laid out on the boat.
WE DON'T KNOW WHERE THE FACTORY PUT THE ORIGINAL WATERLINE, do we?
I'll be witness at splash time, won't I? (Actually, ebhb. you've made so many changes
and additions, littlegull's waterline is your waterline wherever.)
There is also no way of knowing exactly what total displacement the Ariel has. There
are different displacements in the literature. I don't know if there ever was an actual
total weight of an Ariel, and what it included. Assume it's something over 5,000lbs.
Either we take what the drawing seems to show, OR there is another, a Pearson, norm.
My Ariel has languished out of the water long enough to have no water left in the
laminate, or in the balsa core of the deck composite, or in the encapsulated keel.
So that's them apples!!!
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*Alberg's drawing does have a straight line just above the curvy toerail, which
shows the crown of the deck at the centerline. Maybe Pearson got confused and used
the wrong line.:rolleyes:
I seem to recall my dad telling me that Ariels sailed this race in the "early" days. True? If so I guess the race rules require significant weight additions. Would be informative for a comparison of then vs now in terms of weight. Any race historians? I'm not sure what defines the early days, but I presume it's the sixties!
Ebb, the waterline on Charisma is between indentation lines in the glass, subtle but there nonetheless. Factory? Not my dad for sure! Bow sits an inch or so above the waterline, and stern sits on it. Depends on how full my original Monel water tank is. Charisma is outboard model. I'll measure at some point, but maybe Bill will not like us talking about water lines here!
Kent, assume you agree with pbryant's 26" of freeboard?
Can't argue with those cast-in-gelcoat waterlines, can we?
Assume the boat was delivered with topsides down to here and bottom paint up to here!
If the waterline fluctuated, is there an average location on the 440 Ariel's produced?
If your yardsticks are like my yardstick,
Then Pearson also may have changed the waterline (from the Alberg original).
Assume that the resin and glass schedule was kept the same throughout the model run.
Altho there are posts here of earlier Ariels with much thicker layups below the turn of
the bilge. Assume those boats floated deeper, or did the waterline fluctuate?
Assume a newly purchased 1965 Areil would always float exactly on her "lines".
Maybe an inch of bottom showing.
It takes a lot of expert fiddling to tape for an altered waterline under the counter.
Pearson could have at any time moved the embedded "glass" waterline, as well.
Looks like my bootstripe is going to be under water (and I naturally have used the
wrong paint down there for that. DANG!)
Remember I ran into those same indented lines you'all have, when stripping the
bottom paint, but lost them in all the excitement!
Still, I'm really unhappy with the reported sluggish sailing on what really seems to be a
mildly overloaded boat...
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There are a few more important anomalies on the underwater aspect of the Ariel, which
are not appropriate for discussion here. I've talked about them elsewhere. Hope
--on littlegull -- some of the sluggishness of an overloaded cruising Ariel is diminished.
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AHOY ACTIVE ARIELS ! ! !
CAN ANYONE ELSE CONFIRM THE 26" TOERAIL TO WATERLINE FREEBOARD?
(measured at the aft chainplate.)