I am going to apologize in advance for the tone of this message - I am
feeling very cranky and have been snapping at perfectly nice people all day.
The two concrete blocks that I _removed_ from the bilges of my P-15 are
available to anyone who wants to come by and pick them up - I'll even throw
in some free beer and conversation for your trouble.
I think that trying to turn a dinghy like the P-15 into a dwarf keelboat is
something of a fruitless exercise. Generally speaking, lightness in boats
means good performance. On a P-15, tell yourself you have "smart" ballast -
YOU - you move your weight to where it best balances the boat. With fixed
ballast arranged symetrically around the center line, half of it is always on
the "wrong" side (this isn't quite true, since the center of buoyancy doesn't
stay in the center, but bear with me on this). High zoot ocean racers spend
big bucks on high tech water ballast systems that pump the water from one
side to the other depending which tack they're on. They feed and indulge huge
crews of "rail meat" to move back and forth so they can ballast their
offshore boat just like your P-15 came from the factory.
Love the boat the way it is - don't try and turn it into poor imitation of a
Flicka. All this talk about adding bags of this and that make me nervous -
Try and picture what all that loose, heavy stuff is going to do to your boat
if you get knocked down or turtled, not to mention what happens every time
the trailer goes over a nasty bump.
I will admit that I have a 2.5 gallon Igloo thing that I fill with water and
secure to the forepeak sometimes if I am going out with 2 or more people
(myself included) in the cockpit. The extra 20 lbs or so in the bow helps a
little to balance the weight of all the folks in the cockpit. I tell myself
that water, at least, will have neutral buoyancy if we get swamped. It's also
nice to have some fresh water aboard for coffee, soup, etc. 50 lbs of kitty
litter, or chain, or lead, or sand will not have neutral buoyancy and some
flotation should be added (and secured, since it won't do much good if it
floats out of the boat) to ensure that the boat remains "unsinkable"
Folks have fretted over how the Potters can fill with water and become
immobile (but not sink) after an accident such as capsize. This month's
Latitude 38 has an interesting story on the alternative - what it takes to
get a boat off the bottom should it sink. It sounds like a great deal more
trouble and expense! Even a boat that is only down for a day or two will
begin to fill with mud. I'm still trying to scheme up a sure-fire way to pump
out one's own boat should it swamp so as to not be dependant on the kindness
of others (who may not be around) in the event of a capsize.
My experience is that the P-15 sails best when least lightly loaded - it
always seems to perform better when I sail it alone. I like having crew, but
it does seen to slow the boat down a little and with three people aboard she
is slower still. Adding weight low and in the center will make for a more
stable "platform" , less affected by those aboard, but it will be tough to
convince me that additional weight will make the boat sail better.
Now stepping off the soapbox......
Dave Kautz
P-15 #1632 Tilly Lucy
Palo Alto, CA