Compact Sailboat

If you’ve ever been a poor college student that dreams of owning a sailboat and you are anything like Mike, you might of thought it would be nice to have a sailboat that can fit the trunk of your trusty little Honda Civic. He had gotten involved in the BYU Yacht Club (which sounds a lot more hoity-toity than it was) and like to hit up Utah Lake on borrowed sailboats with other poor college students. I’m a stick-in-the-mud tightwad and wasn’t terribly supportive of buying a sailboat so his work around was yet another project. We already had a $30 raft from a local sporting goods store and he decided to convert it into a sailboat.

This project had multiple stages over time. Changes to the sails mostly. The thing that stayed the same was that it could come apart into small enough pieces that it easily fit into our sedan trunk then could be assembled and enjoyed at whatever body of water you happen to be visiting. The first stage looked a little something like this:

Yes. I was at least supportive enough to buy him that pirate flag. I was quite pleased with my contribution to this project. Unfortunately it was lost during a particularly windy voyage.

So quick story break. He took his 60 something year old mother who COULD NOT SWIM (she was at least wearing a life jacket) out on a ride at a local reservoir called Deercreek. It is very large and very deep and it happen to be a very windy day. I stood out on a pier very worried for a very long time wondering where they’d gone because they were out for much longer than planned. They never capsized but ultimately they had to be saved by some people on jet skis on the opposite side of the reservoir.

Back to the project. He found he was having a few problems. He knew that the raft would create more drag and it wouldn’t be as agile as a typical sailboat. But he was having problems with the sails doing more than blowing him in one direction (see aforementioned story). So he added a jib sail. And another wood piece in front. I don’t remember what it called though so you are welcome to comment and impress me with you sailboat vocabulary prowess.

Next was a major sail upgrade. Change of fabric, shape, and adding some boning to the new sails. Some wood components were switched out for plastic. Not only did it look nice but performance was improved. Pretty good for an amateur sailboat. And Bear Lake was a fantastic place to try it out.

Now would this sailboat ever function as well as a real sailboat? Of course not. At the end of the day it’s still a glorified raft with some pretty sweet upgrades. Let’s keep our expectations in check. But was it still fun to take out on the water? Yep. Did it fit the bill for a poor sailing hobby-ist with a slightly financially unsupportive wife? Yep. Is sailing better than rowing? Always.