Hogfish Maximus sailing videos on You Tube

Tim Evans, our friend off of the sailboat Wild Bird, has posted for us lots of videos he and Gayle Evans have taken of the HFM while we sail in company throughout the Caribbean.

You will hear their Patterdale terriers yapping away not at us but at the waves as they pass us.

Yes their Trintellla 44 ketch is very fast so we up anchor before them and they always pass us at the midway Mark or earlier. Of course they are 6 longer and have twice the sail area as us and I could go on with my list of excuses but on this Van De Stat design and with their very competitive and competent sailing we are always last. 

But we do pass other boats so are not always last.

Just go to You Tube and look up ; Chris Morejohn sailing Hogfish Maximus

                                                       jim679able

Wild Bird passing us on our way to Nevis. 

You can just see Wild Bird catching up to us by my elbow. Sheesh they give us no slack.

Ah! Here we are passing an Amel 47 Ocean Hobo ketch on the east side of Martinique. Hogfish is not always last.

Another victim of HFM, the 47 cutter Carpe Diem sailing in company with us and the others. Wild Bird of course trounced all of us.

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Designs 363 366 Air Rescue Boats

Design 363

Last week I posted an article about design #370, a World War II Air Rescue or Crash Boat, used to rescue downed pilots during the war. Here are a couple of more designs of the same type, designs #363 and #366, both designed in 1940.

Design 366

#363 was designed for Oxford Shipyard of Oxford, Maryland and #366 for the Seabrook Yacht Corporation of Seabrook, Texas. Multiple copies of each were built.

Principal Dimensions #363
LOA 29-4"
LWL 26-3"
Beam 8-7"
Draft 2-6"

Principal Dimensions #366
LOA 36-4"
LWL 34-3"
Beam 10-5"
Draft 3-6"

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Hogfish Maximus sailing photos

Being a photo boat taking pictures of a  Roades 41. Same speed both boats.

Off the Canary Islands doing 7 knots 

Finishing the Carriacou single handed regatta. Mid fleet.

Leaving Barbados for Bequia trying to keep up with Grace May a Prout Catamaran. The boat behind was a Tyanna cutter being single handed around the world. Last leg.

Glen Maxwell with the Matt Layden Paradox design that he built called Zoey. Our dinghy on deck is bigger. Glen and I left a few weeks later sailing the Hogfish to the Azores .

Sailing down wind the other day to the Exumas single handed with Bequia the sea dog.

Exumas

Sailing with Lillian at the helm.

Off Royal island on the way home

Rachel posing next to the ultimate shoal draft sailboat in Denmark . All you do its tilt the 12 keel to the side ,drop the rudders and this sled draws less than Hogfish!

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An Arctic Tern in Florida

Doesnt seem very likely, does it?

Of course we are talking, once again, about the pretty little double-ender from the pen of Iain Oughtred.

Tim Haney, from St Augustine, Florida, who describes himself variously as a professional boat carpenter and a dyed-in-the-wool boat nut, sent me some photos of a beautiful Tern he built last winter.

"Hi Doryman,
Here are some pictures of my Arctic Tern sailing on Salt Run in St.Augustine a couple of weeks ago. I can’t say enough good things about it. The plans are excellent and if followed closely you can’t go wrong . A long boat is no more difficult than a short one to build and the difference in cost is minimal, however, the rewards are huge."

"I finished the Arctic Tern last February, so have had plenty of time to learn the boat. Its pretty much a solo
rig which is fine because thats how it seems I do most of my sailing. The sail is also made in my shop. Im proud of my first effort."

"The cloth came from Duckworks and I consulted The Sailmakers Apprentice."

Tim is interested in networking with local sailors and we wish him luck with that.

He has one last word of advice for those who have dreamed of building their own boat...

"If any of you are sitting on the fence, all I can say is get going and make some sawdust."


"See you on the water!"
 Tim Haney


Could happen... its cold, wet and drear here in the Pacific Northwest right now and all that warm sun looks really good!
Maybe Tim would let me sail his new boat..........

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Long Distance in a Bigger Boat

My last post was about people going long distance in small boats and most of my readers know that I am soon to go long distance in a slightly bigger boat. This will be on the Didi 38 "Black Cat".

She is well on the way to being ready, with smaller items like installation of new electronics going on and the major still outstanding items being to tune the rig and test the new sails (which have still to be delivered). She is looking awesome, after a full repaint and new graphics. This 18-year old lady is looking young again.

"Black Cat" with her new paint & graphics.

Preparation of "Black Cat" for her next adventure has been a lengthy process but a worthwhile one. It was unfortunately extended by 2 weeks due to damage sustained at Royal Cape Yacht Club during a gale just after she was relaunched when the repaint had been completed. Cape Town is well known for furious winds and this one apparently gusted to 75 knots in the yacht basin. Some mooring chains holding the marinas broke and "Black Cat" was in the unfortunate position of serving as the meat in a steel sandwich, not good for a plywood boat.

My navigator for this race is Dave Immelman, nicknamed Wavy. Dave has been in charge of the preparations and has done a great job of it. That includes getting the extra work done that resulted from poor "Black Cat" getting squeezed tighter than any lady in a corset. She has been freed, repaired, repainted (again), given the OK by the doctor (scrutineer) and is raring to go.

New Cat logo on port side. Starboard has the butt end.

 This is a boys adventure on which we are embarking. As in 1996 and 2000, "Black Cat" will be the only lady enjoying it with us. That said, we would not be doing it without the support of the other ladies in the lives of all of the crew, namely wives, mothers, daughters and others. They tolerate our passion for boats, adventures and ocean crossings. Maybe some of them look forward to our departure to get us out of their hair, I dont know. I do know that they will be happy to see us again when we return and we will be equally happy to be greeted by them when our adventure is over. We will return home with another big drawer full of images in our memory banks, memories that cannot be equalled by any travel documentary or computer game, no-matter how good the filming or graphics may be.

For those who have never experienced this, it is a big one to add to your bucket list. Having done it 3 times before, I can say that it will take a big bucket if it is to hold other items that are bigger than this one. But you have to have a strong sense of adventure and not be easily scared. If you dont have those qualities you will be petrified at times, incapacitated by sheer terror while your shipmates are enjoying a great roller coaster ride that goes on for 2-4 weeks (depending on the speed of your chosen boat), with no chance of getting off the ride.

We have sailed this boat very hard in the past and the new go-fast goodies on her will help us to do so again. We sail her safely but we do so sometimes at very high speed, with lots of spray flying by and mixed in with flying fish, squid, albatross  and even the occasional sword fish. "The Cat" enjoys it and allows us to enjoy it with her.

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Design 2207 Swan 50 Motorsailer

This motorsailer design was a departure from Nautors ocean racing bloodlines. Rod Stephens must have had a major hand in the development of this model as he favored the type for cruising. 9 boats were produced during a production run that started in 1976 and ended in 1978.


Heres a design review from Yachting magazine. Please double click for zoom.


Here are the plans.


The molds were later sold to Siltala Yachts of Finland, the plans were modified and the boat was marketed as the Nauticat 52. More about that model in a future posting.

Principal Dimensions
LOA 48-10"
LWL 37-6"
Beam 15-1"
Draft 5-6"
Displacement 51,000 lbs
Ballast 14,500 lbs
Sail Area 1,113 sq ft

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My love affair with Hogfishes

 People always ask what is a Hogfish and why would you name your boat after one.

When I first sailed to the Bahamas in 1977 spearing a Hogfish was the most sought after goal of all boaters as they are the best tasting fish around. They can be speared relatively easily if they have never been approached before. If they have been shot at and you missed then they can be a challenge to get near for a kill shot. You have to have a kill shot if using a Hawaiian sling or you will loose your spear. 

Spearing them with a pole spear you can just hang on to the rubber and get towed about if your shot is in a solid spot. This has been lots of fun over the years for me.

When I first designed and built the original Hogfish sailing Sharpie yawl I knew it was going to be a different looking sailboat than the norm. I wanted a boat that just fit me with my type of sailing, cruising and lifestyle. With this in mind I needed a good name to go with this new boat. The Hogfish is a goofy looking fish when swimming about the bottom. I has a fearsome looking mouth but these fish are really just big Wrasses that eat crabs, sea biscuits and what ever comes their way. They can change their

body colors in an instant to camouflage themshelfs. When they die they can be very beautiful, like a sunset. 

Following are some pictures of my carved Hogfish and others that have crossed my path.

Carved for Kim Sands in Abaco out of cedar

Carved from a mahogany tree that washed ashore on Powell Cay in Abaco for an American client.

Carved for Dale and Mandy Roberts in Abaco 22 years ago

A female. All Hogfishes are transsexual where as the dominate female will turn into a male and grow the long snout and take over the female harem. I wonder how all the Christian male homophobic spear-fisherman deal with this fact. Can the fish just decide not to change at any time?

About as big as they get.

A stylized one for Bill Hutcherson

Our house with a neighbor. I love the colors here in this shot.

Mahogany with copper "Spriggs" as they call the three dorsale fins here in Spanish Wells. I have seen up to four at times.

Rachel on our front porch awhile back. The trees and bushes are now 10 higher. Our neighbors that have just built a house next door are always asking us to cut them down saying they are blocking their view. Some people want to sit in the front row and still be able to look at everything on both sides. We just smile at them knowing that all our grey water from our house is watering these native plants that give us shade, privacy, protection from storms and give a place for all the creatures that inhabit them to live. Our neighbours have cut 80% of their trees and bushes down replacing it with grass.

Kalessin with a Hogfish I speared in Exuma 23 years ago free diving in 45 of water. I have used a tracing of this fish for all the carvings you see here.

Back in my ole spear fishing for a living days.

Made of crab wood I found in Bequia a while back. Now in the home of Theo and Kims in Spanish Wells.

When I designed and built the original Hogfish sailing Yawl I wrote a note to myself naming my design company " Hogfish Designs". This was 26 years ago. I knew back then that the hogfish was going to some day be the "it" fish. I mailed this to myself and keep this  unopened letter as a sort of copyright time frame of when I thought it was cool for me to sail about the Carribean sea in a boat with a huge pink stripe down the side calling itself the "Hogfish".

I like to think I made it easier for men to now wear bright colors .

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