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Seawave rudder Mk 3

It’s Midsummer’s Day up here in the MidSummer Islands, but it’s barely over ten degrees and blowing from the northwest. Now my Seawave PRV saga has been resolved, there’s enough (but not too much) wind to sail the four miles over to Achininver for a visit. It’s the last day of paddleable weather before we pack up and head back south with the geese.

It’s also my first chance to try out my trolley with wrapped-round inner tube tyres. It’s less than a mile down to the beach and the racket of solid plastic wheels is gone. This trolley really is one of my better ideas for the Seawave. It ditches the need for a car for short hops, and elsewhere means you can paddle somewhere and wheel back if there’s a road or decent track.

As it’s chilly and will get splashy on the paddle back, I slip into my Anfibio dry suit. If the sailing goes awry and I fall in, I have an impression of being protected, even if its true insulation effects will be marginal. Best of all, I can dip myself into the brackish loch behind Badentarbet beach for a salt rinse and be dry by the time I wheel home.

My WindPaddle is the 1.2m Adventure II model, big enough to haul the 4.5-m Seawave with me in it. I flip it out and off we go, trying to steer SW for Rubha Dunan point. Only it’s not really working so well. Apart from the usual sail swaying left-right on bigger gusts and flopping back on lulls, whitecaps are rolling in from the right, pushing me onto the Achlochan peninsula. Later I realise this drift is probably because the Seawave’s skeg (no bigger than my hand) is too small to stop the light Seawave drifting across the wind which across the bay may be turning WNW. This is why sail boats need keels and dagger boards. If I had a third hand or a passenger, the paddle could’ve been used as a rudder, but as it was my hands were full managing the sail and trying to take the odd photo. You don’t want to risk losing the paddle. Since then, I’ve made a rudder for the Seawave.

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I’m pushed into the rocky shore where the refracted waves and added fetch make things a bit lively, but the ever-stable Seawave is reassuring. So with a quick cross-fold, the sail is stashed between my knees and I paddle on to Rubha Dunan. Once round the corner the sea is smoother but the wind remains so I cruise past the sandstone cliffs towards Badenscallie Beach, an alighting point for Horse Island. Once back out of the lee the waves build up and with the odd gust, the Seawave races on. When you’re not trying to control the sail, it is a marvel to sit back and look round as the water tinkles past the bow.
One thing I did learn a few weeks later while sailing the packraft in similar conditions with a similar sail, was that the side-to-side swaying was largely eliminated because the sail was fixed closely to the bow with no play. On the Seawave, I just hook the sail to the grab line (below left) in the hope of gaining a bit more height for more drive. Next time I’ll pin it closer to the bow and see what happens. I’d expect better control.

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It took me an hour-fifteen to cover the four miles to Achininver Beach, at times lazily sailing slower than I could paddle. Interestingly, it took only an extra 15 minutes to hack back non-stop into the wind at 2.4mph, but by the time I got in I was just about pooped. It was a fun excursion, but to make it worthwhile you need more wind than you’d want to paddle back against. A better use of the sail would be going somewhere and not having to crawl back.

Time to head back up the hill, dry out the boat and roll it up for this season in the Summers.