Claus,

Why are you standing up by the mast? 

Simon...

Happens all the time.:
To tie or untie the parrells in the luff of the mainsail around the main mast.
Then, when wrapping the spare halyard around the harbour furled mainsail to better secure it against being blown open. The higher you stand doing that the better it holds the sail.
And then, generally to work on the foredeck, to set the Gennaker, for anchoring or taking the mooring rope.

On Llafurio I have put adhesive non-slip strips onto the foredeck, which is a huge help, but I think this is a general problem which should be solved generally for all boats. You disagree?

This armchair-messing-about-with-boats is great fun!Here´s an idea,for the downsizing baby-boomer market:Take a CBL or Storm 19 hull,possibly stretched by the odd foot,half-decked,properly ballasted,with a self-draining cockpit;add a hinged,lifting cabin-top,Broads style.Please see attached my favourite inspirational picture,from \\\"The voyage alone in the yawl Rob Roy\\\"

Claus et al,

\\\"On Llafurio I have put adhesive non-slip strips onto the foredeck, which is a huge help, but I think this is a general problem which should be solved generally for all boats. You disagree?\\\"

No not at all; having just sold a Drascombe Coaster which made several attempts to pitch me into the wet stuff while I was standing on the roof I was planning to keep my feet firmly on the floor of my BR.  I will probably add non slip to the foredeck once I have fallen off once or twice and/or dropped the anchor on to it and spoiled its gloss finish!

best wishes

Simon

Yours is a wood-epoxy boat. Doesn\\\'t work for the plastic BayRaiders.
Any slippery foredeck is an accident waiting to happen, sooner or later, gaff or Bermudian alike.

Here is another issue, the self-bailing of the waterballast tank.
I found it works 100% on the SeaRaider, but not so well on the BayRaider. What are your own experiences? Have you modified your selfbailers yet?

Hi Jeff,
we have come to similar conclusions. But there is one relevant difference: I remember from Morbihan you have a big engine. That affects the trim of the boat and the achievable speed through the water. We have the small 2.5 HP Suzuki. So our boat has more forward trim and cannot reach full sucking speed under engine alone.

Yes, the forward bailers, I never bother with them as well. Worse even, on BR Llafurio one of them started leaking badly, so rather than putting in a new rubber seal, I finally sealed them off completely.
On my newer BR Tipsy I had asked Matt not to put in forward selfbailers at all.
I too have two bailers in the sump - Andersen MINI- and underneath the main hatch one Andersen NEW LARGE. I found the MINIs suck a little keener than the bigger one. But this is difficult to judge, I suspect not only the speed through the water matters but also the positioning. The two bailers in the sump work best.

All my bailers are the ones for outside mounting. The GRP is too thick to use the ones for inside mounting.
Some Andersen bailers have this plastic grill insert. That gets clogged easily by leaves and stuff so I cut that out.

In addition to what you have, I have inserted a big one inch diameter drain bung between tank and sump, as low down as it would go. That is working extremely well. About 60% of the tank content gravity drains into the sump and the two MINIs take care of that. If I motor, the tank drains about 95% through that bung and through the sump bailers. I am planning to fit two smaller drain bungs further off to the sides, but that is tricky to retrofit due to the limited space.

Further, I have two bailing pumps on either side of the engine, which are connected cross-wise i.e. the windward pump sucks from the lee corner.

I can connect a longer pipehose length to them pumps to suck dry the tank when the boat doesn\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t move. That length of pipe is stored inside the tank when not in use.

Very happy with that arrangement, but it has taken some time and trial and error to figure it all out.

See you in Morbihan 2011?

P.S.
I forgot a most important detail: I fitted a permanent airvent to the tank. All is nothing without venting the ballast tank during filling and emptying.

Will do Simon but not for a little while as \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'Spark\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\' is 60 miles away in her summer quarters at Ashlett Creek.