Where the Mountains Meet the Sky – Jackson Lake 2009

Thanks to Michael Jackson for XCR sailing photos

Setting sail

Jackson Lake is large; about 18 miles end-to-end, and it is amazingly clean and untouched by the world, especially considering that half the world has rolled right past it on their way to Yellowstone National Park. It sits at the base of the spectacular Teton mountain range about midway between Jackson Hole Wyoming and Yellowstone. Apart from the three developed campgrounds on the eastern shore, camping is restricted to a handful of primitive permit-only campsites. It’s the ultimate leave-no-trace environment. You’re even required to pack out human waste. Our goal was to cover as much of the lake as possible in three days, so we had planned a big loop that would start and end at the Colter Bay marina, tour some of the islands, plunge deep into the farthest reaches of Moran Bay, and explore the entire remote western shore. Friend and colleague Michael Jackson and I had been planning this trip even before he was a boat owner. Lily decided to join us since the boys were out of the picture for three days of pulling handcarts along the pioneer trail.

Dwarfed by majestic Moran

Michael under pedal power

We had phoned for camping permits months in advance of our three day August sojourn, only to discover that all of the primitive camping permits for the year had been snatched up before the end of February. Undaunted, Michael decided to head out a day early to be on hand when the permit office opened Monday morning, in hopes of jumping a claim. It turned out that he was able to poach reservations for the two campsites that we were most hoping to visit: Elk Island, roughly in the middle of the lake, and Warm Springs in the far north.

Lily and I began the five-hour drive at 5:00am Monday morning, to ensure a full day on the lake. Michael had spent the night in the Colter Bay campground and had already snagged our permits by the time we arrived. We hit the water with ideal weather, which is always a relief, since the season is so short at this altitude. It starts in June and ends in August, with a merciless mosquito feeding frenzy right in the middle. We knew all too well how quickly the weather could turn on us. The forecast showed a chance of overnight snow. Lily and I loaded all of our gear and a few of Michael’s things into the XCR. I’m always amazed that a few days of camping requires as much stuff as a few weeks. Michael’s boat is a bright red Hobie Adventure Island. It’s a terrific little boat but a bit short on stowage space, so he makes good use homemade trampolines loaded with drybags.

Motoring away from Elk Island

En route to Moran Bay

With Lily on Moran Bay

The five-mile sail to Elk Island was delightful. We arrived to find a powerboat in our spot, with a half dozen twenty-somethings hoola-hooping (that's right, hoola-hooping) on the beach. Michael said, “You wouldn't happen to know if you have a permit for this campsite, because I’m pretty sure I do.” They graciously surrendered the campsite and eventually moved on. We set up camp and stowed our food in the bear boxes that are provided at all of the primitive campsites. We had decided to spend at least one night on an island so we could be certain of a night’s sleep without being gnawed on by bears. Of course it turned out that Elk Island was where we had our only bear sighting. Lily and I missed it but Michael came back from a hike just in time to catch a black bear rummaging around camp. It sauntered off, leaving no trace except for Michael’s mysteriously vanished bag of snacks.

Dawn brought bright blue skies and a glass-smooth lake. We broke camp and cast off for Moran Bay under motor and pedal. Once we had rounded the island and gained open water the wind picked up and we cruised leisurely into Moran Bay, gliding silently past Little Grassy Island. Looking up at Mount Moran from this vantage point was an almost overwhelming task. The sheer grandeur of it evoked an emotion that I have no name for. Not just awe, or insignificance, although there were large helpings of those, but something akin to terror. A sort of wonderful terror.

We explored the mouth of the river at the deepest point of the bay and then set sail again on the first leg of the long sail north to Warm Springs. After an hour or so of beating out of the bay we pulled up onto a rocky spit and stopped for lunch. Lily sliced tomatoes for sandwiches and Michael heated water for a backpack meal while a couple of deer nudged close, unalarmed and curious. We saw deer everywhere we stopped and they were always more curious than afraid. Each campsite seemed to have a friendly deer assigned to it by the Parks Service. As we ate we surveyed the wilderness shorelines and thanked whoever had been wise enough to make this place a national park, imagining what it might have looked like crowded with condos and casinos.

A change in the weather

Under reefed canvas

The wild West Shore

As we packed up lunch the wind shifted and strengthened. I walked the boat around the spit to take advantage of the new wind direction. Whitecaps were forming, so we set out under reefed sails and hugged the shore for a while. Reefed against gusts, with the waves starting to build around us, we were dry and comfortable. Lily, who is usually not very comfortable on the water and is especially uneasy aboard a heeled monohull, sat in the forward seat of the cockpit, dry and comfortable, reading a book. The wind shifted, gusted, settled and then gusted some more. Clouds came and went. We stayed about a half mile offshore averaging five to eight miles per hour. Michael, our wingman, pulled alongside close enough for conversation. “Does it get any better than this?” he asked. Here we were skimming across the crystal water in the most beautiful place on earth with everything we needed for the good life stowed on our little ships. The XCR was finally doing what it had been designed for. Hugh Horton once compared canoe sailing to a magic carpet ride and that was exactly what we were experiencing.

Here's a couple of minutes of video that Michael shot along the way:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKuN50V5iRg

As we glided along the western shore, with the incomprehensibly gargantuan peaks towering over us, it was almost impossible to stay in the real world. I found myself keeping a subconscious eye out for Bolrogs and Nasgul. Later, as we huddled around the campfire at Warm Springs, the smoldering glow of the long-gone sun added a volcanic menace to the silhouetted mountains. Michael commented about feeling uncomfortable so close to Mordor.

A home at Warm Springs

Warm Springs beach

Packing up for the final leg


A cozy beach

Lily and Michael - and food

The Warm Springs campsite was in a grassy meadow atop a bluff, with a steep hike up from the rocky beach. We arrived under clear skies and calm air, but an abrupt weather change loomed just behind the hills. We never actually found the springs that gave the place it its name so Lily and I found a secluded spot for a shivering bath in the icy water. As the sun set we huddled around the fire, watching lighting flash in the south. It crawled slowly closer until a sudden blast of cold air and rain brought a quick end to dinner and sent us scattering for our tents.

The next morning we bundled up for the long beat back toward Colter Bay. The rain was gone but it was cloudy and cool. The wind was coming from the wrong direction, but it was steady and we had a glorious sail across open water under threatening skies. We made several long tacks across the lake, coming within a stone’s throw of the eastern shore and then falling back into open water. We finally ducked behind a small island for lunch on an idyllic gravel beach. The wind died as we polished off the last of the lunch meat. The last few miles were made under motor and pedal with some ghosting on occasional zephyrs.

It was all smiles as pulled up to the Colter Bay ramp. I said to Michael, “you know what George W. would be saying right now don’t you?”

He nodded, “Mission accomplished!”

Making for home under threatening skies (can you spot the boat? Click to enlarge)

Small Trimarans Website

Joe Farinaccio, authour of Small Trimarans, An Introduction operates a very nice website full of great information about small three-hullers:

http://smalltrimarans.com/blog/

Joe devoted an entire chapter to Chris Ostlind and his designs. He recently interviewed me about my Mill Creek trimaran project and then followed up with the following brief interview about the XCR:

The XCR Trimaran – by Kellan Hatch

What are the standout features/benefits of our new Ostlind XCR tri? For me, the greatest feature of the XCR is its versatility. At its core it’s an expedition canoe.

Remove the outriggers and sail rigs and you have a very solid, high capacity cruising canoe that is light enough to car top. Leave the outriggers in their trailer configuration (7 ½ feet wide) and step one sail rig in the central mast step and you have a quick-to-launch daysailer, or leave the sail off entirely and you have a handy little motor boat that is easily driven with a 2ph motor.

The addition of aka extension tubes and the second sail rig give you the whole XCR package. I just finished adding snap buttons to the aka extensions and Virus-style ama attachment hardware, which makes it very quick and simple to change the aka configuration. Another excellent feature of the XCR is that it is very light and strong, especially if built the way Chris built mine, with strategic use of carbon fiber cloth and tubing.

Two men can pick up and carry the fully rigged boat. It moves well under paddle or motor and the kick-up rudder and leeboard allow you to sail it right up onto the beach.

How does this small tri perform? I’m still tweaking and tuning, but so far I’m very pleased. I sail pretty conservatively and I haven’t really pushed it for speed yet. I’m more concerned about stability and I tend to reef early.

This is my first experience with the cat ketch sail plan and I’m still getting a feel for it, but so far I’m delighted with the performance. And it’s a very comfortable ride. On a recent camp-cruise with my wife, Lily I was skimming along about 7-8 mph under reefed sails and she was dry and comfortable, reading a book, in the forward seat.

I’m at a place in my life where I really can’t get away for long periods of cruising, so my near-term plans are pretty conservative. I consider myself lucky to escape for three or four days at a time … a couple of times a year. Fortunately, even though I live in Utah – far from the nearest ocean – I’m not far from some very interesting cruising destinations.

I have visited some of the islands on the Great Salt Lake in the XCR and plan to a lot more there. I just did a 3-day camping cruise on Jackson Lake in Wyoming, which I consider one of the most beautiful places on earth. In a couple of weeks I’ll be spending a few days on Lake Powell in Southern Utah, which is another spectacular destination.

The other places that I have in mind for XCR cruising, assuming some more leisure time, are the San Juan Islands, the Sea of Cortez and the Kokopelli Cruise on Lake Powell. Other some-day plans include the Texas 200 (I did it last year in an inflatable trimaran and would love to repeat it with the XCR) and possibly the WaterTribe Everglades Challenge. I also fantasize about circumnavigating the Manicougan Crater in Quebec, which is a gigantic ring of water about 160 miles around.

Leeboard

All along I have been using a canoe leeboard that I borrowed from Chris. I finally got around to carving a larger board, more suited to the sail area of the XCR. I also needed to beef up the bracket where the leeboard mounts to the leeboard thwart. The wooden portion of the bracket shattered while I was sailing in heavy wind on Lake Powell. For quite a while I held it all together with a big C-Clamp, but I finally got around to having a stronger bracket fabricated from 1/4-inch aluminum plate.

The leeboard is carved to a NACA 009 symmetrical airfoil shape using a belt sander and cardboard template.

Cockpit Cover

By the summer of 2009 I was finished with trying to keep the cockpit covered with polytarps. Lily and I designed a cockpit cover. I laminated curved battens, so water would slough off and Lily sewed the cover from Sunbrella, with nylon webbing and snap hardware to cinch it up around the cockpit rim.

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Trailering

Next to the ama and aka setup, the other major time waster at the ramp was the elaborate system of trailer tiedowns. The cure was to add a bow eye to the boat and three rollers to the trailer. This arrangement keeps the XCR secure and stable enough that only two cam straps are required, one on each aft aka.

Motor Mount

My auxiliary power for the XCR comes in the form of a Honda 2HP 4-stroke motor. I designed a motor mount that I plan, at some point, to have fabricated from aluminum. In the meantime I have built one from heavy oak. My first instillation proved to be too far forward on the hull. It was very efficient at scooping waves right into my lap. I moved it aft about 16 inches, which proved to be ideal.

Here you see my father, Gwendon (how's that for a Viking name) ready for quick motoring trip on Willard Bay. The XCR works just fine as a light motor skiff, right off the trailer.

Akas & Amas

The original aka and ama hardware worked fine but took a LOT of time to set up and break down. The ama attachments required getting hands and tools inside amas through inspecition ports. The aka tubes and expensions were assembled in a similar way.

Chris had intended snap buttons for the aka tubes. These are similar to the type used in tent poles, but much larger. I wasn't able to find stainless buttons large enough for the aka tubes, but I did manage to find some that weren't stainless. I installed them and color coded the tubes to help with quick installation.

The bigger problem was the aka/ama attachments. I needed a quick way to loosen them, preferably without tools or the need to reach inside the amas through the examination ports. I decided that something like the hardware used on Virus boats would be a good solution. I was able to locate the US Virus dealer, Urs Wunderli, who was very helpful in helping me get four sets to the hardware that Virus uses for their Kataram rowing catamaran. I was able to modify the amas to accomodate the new hardware and have been very pleased with the result.

Magical Mystery Tour

There are few places I know that are as lonely and surrealistic as the Great Salt Lake. My good friend Zan Larsen and I have had a strange relationship with this lake since childhood. When we were teenagers we took a wonderful and mysterious canoe voyage to the dreamland shores of Freemont Island. We celebrated the weird month of October 2007 with a recreation of the trip, this time on the XCR - but without the overnight stay. Among other wonders, we found a cross that had been carved on Castle Rock by Kit Carson.

Lake Powell 2007

I suppose the 2007 Lake Powell Messabout was the real debut of the XCR. This was three days of camping and beach sailing with a day trip deep into Moki Canyon, with the whole family and the usual messabout gang, plus my good friend Michael Jackson (not that one). You can see the bow of Michael's self-built folding kayak in the last picture below, as I as towing him with a line off my starboard aka.

Family Afloat

Sometime in the Summer of '07 the XCR was painted and functionally capable. Here are some photos of our first family sail, starting at the ghost town marina on Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake. The wind came only in occasional zephyrs but it was a brilliant, beautiful day for an outing on the water. Thanks to Chris for the photography.

First Wind

About the time the sails arrived from Stuart Hopkins, the XCR -still unpainted- was more or less ready for her maiden voyage. Here are a couple of photos from the first sail test at East Canyon Reservoir, about an hour's drive east of Salt Lake City. This time besides Chris and Lorrie, my two sons, Evan and Elliot came along.

Genesis

Expedition Trimaran
(originally posed on www.DuckworksMagazine.com)

Part 1: Genesis

The XCR, designed by Chris Ostlind

I showed up at Chris’ shop hefting a pair of huge Granato’s mozzarella and tomato sandwiches, the staple for our boat-centric lunch meetings, but I couldn’t let myself sit and eat. I was too excited to get another look at the hull of what I had just learned would be my next boat. To my relief, it was just as I remembered it; surprisingly huge compared to my Mill Creek.

When my boys were small I could actually fit my entire family of four into the 8-foot cockpit of my 16 ½ foot Mill Creek kayak-cum-trimaran with reasonable comfort. But those days are long gone and The Guys are now 12 and 14 years old. The XCR, even though it’s only two feet longer than the Mill Creek, is built around a high-capacity expedition canoe hull that will be spacious by comparison, especially when anchoring out and sleeping, either by myself or with one of my boys along stretched end-to-end. On family outings the kids can lounge out on the trampolines. Boy, did they perk up when I mentioned trampolines. They had visions of themselves bouncing along and performing all kinds of aerial acrobatics as we sailed off to the horizon.

I’ve been thinking more about trailering since my spine started trying to tell me that it’s time to lower my expectations for cartopping. I swear the boat hanging from my garage ceiling gains 20 pounds every year. If I’m going to use a trailer anyway, I might as well go for a bigger boat. Not BIG, mind you, just bigger. Now that I’ve built half a dozen or so small boats I’ve learned a lot about what I like and don’t like, so the time seemed ripe to start thinking about a new boat with a lot of the things from the “I like” list. For starters, I’m an unabashed trimaran geek, so there was no question about how many hulls it would have.

Because of storage concerns, my next boat and its trailer would have to fit through a 55-inch wide gate and store in a 20-footish long space. Even though it will live on a trailer, I still wanted it to be light, so I can move it around my yard and launch it either with a vehicle or by hand. I wanted it to be bullet-proof-sturdy, I wanted it to be fast, and I wanted it to be a Chris Ostlind trimaran.



About Chris
I always have at least one of Chris Ostlind’s designs taped up on the wall in my shop. I really want to build one myself, but I just don’t have the time to dive into a big project right now. I told Chris what I was looking for and asked him if there might be a chance I could get him to build me a boat, or at least some of the major components, and before you know it I’m handing over the down payment for the XCR that’s already gestating in his shop.

Chris lays up the cockpit coaming on a form that he carved from rigid foam

Chris, besides being a good friend, is an all-around impressive guy and a modern renaissance man of sorts. He’s also one of the most prolific, versatile and observant boat designers around. What a treat to have the designer actually build this boat for me, especially when he’s a craftsman of Chris’ caliber. A nod of gratitude to whatever weird chain of events brought Chris to the high deserts of Utah, an unlikely home for a gifted boat designer, indeed.



The XCR

The XCR is an ideal expedition boat. With a main hull inspired by Verlen Kruger’s Cruiser canoe, it’s a sturdy craft that’s designed to stand up to journeys of thousands of miles. It has a deep, voluminous cockpit with a high carbon composite coaming and tubular thwarts, also of carbon fiber, that double as sleeves for the outrigger beams (akas, for those who prefer the Polynesian names for things). And nothing gives me more peace-of-mind in cold water than a pair of large, buoyant outrigger hulls (amas).

The construction is sturdy and lightweight. Impressively so. The main hull, which only weights sixty-something pounds, is made of 4mm Okoume marine ply, layered with 6 oz. fiberglass cloth set in epoxy inside and out. The joints are filleted and reinforced with additional 2” strips of bias-cut fiberglass. The side decks are reinforced with rows of heavy-duty hanging knees, which are set closer together at the thwarts to better distribute the loads from the outriggers. Sturdy fore and aft decks are reinforced with carbon fiber. It’s a marvel of strength and weight economy. Here’s what Chris has to say about it:

“The use of carbon fiber in this boat is because of a personal decision to build a light, but very strong craft for Kellan.. The carbon is used in localized application zones where loadings are potentially high and a high strength to weight ratio specific to the material is beneficial. You see it on this boat in the aka beams, thwart tubes and coaming which are all subject to potential high loadings from the sailing application of this design.

“Let's face it, carbon also has a very high coolness factor. All three of these load path areas on the boat could just as easily be addressed with a glass, or wood and glass coaming, along with aluminum akas and aluminum or glass thwart tubes. The under deck areas around the thwart tubes are re-enforced with an extra layer of 6 oz. glass and additional red cedar knees to spread the loads of the aka mounting points.”

To tell you the truth, I feel kind of lazy, being the client and not doing any of the work myself, but on the other hand it’s really a great ride, kicking back and watching Chris work his magic at things that would leave me scratching my head.

The oak bow handle is a nice design flair

This will be a fun boat for day sailing to be sure, but it will also be a sturdy vehicle for serious minimalist adventuring on the Great Salt Lake and some of my other favorite haunts, like cruising the shores of Jackson Lake in the shadows of the Tetons and gliding though the majestic canyons of Lake Powell. But for this boat I’m also thinking of adventures farther from home. For starters, I have my eyes set on the San Juan Islands and The Sea of Cortez.

The XCR main hull nears completion. Chris built these handy cradles to support the boat and move it easily around on castors

Why a Tri?
Every now and then a monohull vs. multihull thread pops up on one of the Yahoo groups and often builds to a near-religious fervor. You get the impression that any day these folks, monomen and multigeeks alike, are likely to haul their tiny plywood boats down the seashore and head off for the Roaring Forties, and that their survival depends entirely on how many hulls they have in the water. Anyone in the opposing camp is surely headed for certain disaster.

For me it mostly down to this:

First, if the water is 40 degrees, especially if my kids are aboard, a ten-foot beam brings me a lot of peace of mind about the possibility of anyone ending up in the drink. Remember what I said about learning what I like and don’t like about boats? Well, I like small, lightweight boats but I DON’T like capsizing. Yes, you can capsize a trimaran –you see it in those dramatic racing videos - but a cruising tri sailed conservatively on protected waters is very hard to get upside down. And a trimaran, since it still has a real boat hull in the middle, gives you a place to hunker down out of the weather.

Second, a multihull can be built tough yet remain extremely lightweight. No ballast needed. The XCR is just the right size that it can be launched anywhere you can get to water. I’ll use a ramp when I can, but if there’s no proper ramp I’ll wheel the trailer to the water by hand. And when even that isn’t an option, I can carry the hulls and rigs down to the shore and assemble them on the beach.

Third, and I consider this a bonus, if it will do 12 to 15 knots I have a better chance of getting to safety ahead of the storm.

The XCR also has some interesting hull configuration options. The akas are built in sections that snap together easily with the same kind of spring buttons that are used for adjustable tent poles. For storage and transportation you take the center section out of each aka and reattach the amas close to the main hull. Clean and simple.

The XCR in trailering/Storage configuration

Alternate Propulsion
On it’s own, the XCR’s main hull is a superb expedition canoe, so it glides along very well with a couple of single blade canoe paddles. When I want to use the XCR as a motorboat, I’ll simply leave it in the narrower trailering configuration and clamp on the outboard for a very light but stable craft that will skim along quite impressively on only 2 horses.

The XCR gets its first paddling test in the icy water of the Great Salt Lake marina

Decisions
We had to decide on the sail plan pretty early in the build because the mast locations would dictate where Chris would place the thwarts/aka tubes, since they would also double as mast partners. Chris was very patient as I waffled, hemmed and hawed, and considered just about everything from high-tech roller-reefers to classic gunters rigs. In the end we settled on a cat ketch plan with a pair of identical, fully-battened high-aspect sails slotted into unstayed aluminum masts. These can be used in tandem as a cat ketch rig, or one sail can be stowed and the other moved to a central mast step. In addition, both sails will have two sets of reef points. This combination of sail configurations will give me all kinds of options for dealing with any kind of weather.

One rig stowed as a simple way of reducing canvas

You can also transfer one of these same rigs to several some of Chris’ smaller designs, so when I get around to building an ultralight solo boat one of these days (I’m thinking of Chris’ Solo14), I can use one of my XCR rigs for that as well.

Once the sail plan was locked down I ordered the sails from Stuart Hopkins of Dabbler Sails. Chris placed an order for the mast components and moved onto his next task, which was to epoxy the thwart tubes in place and reinforce them.

The thwarts tubes are installed. These double as mounting sleeves for the outriggers

Once that was done we had a finished canoe on our hands and Chris thought it would be a shame to not take her out for a paddle, despite the fact that it was the middle of January in the Rocky Mountains. So, one cryogenic Saturday afternoon we headed out to the Great Salt Lake marina - where the water was still liquid - and plopped her into the lake without much ceremony. Chris’ wife Lorrie was kind enough come along and snap pictures. She did jumping jacks to keep warm while we launched and climbed aboard. The air temperature was 25 degrees F and the water was a balmy 26. That’s colder than the water at the poles, mind you, due to the high salt content. It was a strange, hazy day and the water and sky blended into a uniform horizonless void that gave us the sensation of paddling off into some kind of ethereal Twilight Zone. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing.

It was a short trip; we hugged the shore for a while and then headed out into the lake and took a turn around the nearest buoy before turning back for the marina. Chris gave me the willies for a moment when he half-stood to switch from a kneeling to as sitting position, but the XCR proved plenty stable. There’s a lot of comfort in knowing that the quarter-inch shell between you and a 26 degree plunge is solid and reliable. I’m looking forward to a long and intimate friendship with this boat.

Paddling the XCR into the void

In the next article we’ll see the XCR blossom into a trimaran and get her wings.