Tuesday, January 01, 2008

WINGS

WINGS, Serendipity 43, Custom IOR Race boat, our home since June 1986. A great boat to sail, cruise on, and live aboard.

Click any image to enlarge


wingssail image-fredrick roswold


wingssail image-pierre yves hadamar
In Sumatra, 2010

wingssail image-fredrick roswold
In Thailand, 2008

wingssail image-fredrick roswold
In Papua New Guinea, 2003

wingssail image-fredrick roswold
In Mexico, 1997

Click here for some interior shots.

Click here for many more photos of WINGS

image from King's Cup committee
Kings Cup Regatta, Thailand, 2007


Some times we take off the cruising equipment and bend on the racing sails and go racing. In the shot above we are sailing in the King's Cup in Phuket Thailand in December 2007. We won our class with four straight first place finishes, sailing in IRC.

Wings is a boat originally built for racing, but we have found it to be an excellent cruising boat; it is easy to handle for two people, sails well with small sails, and has good motion in the seas. For living aboard it also suits us well: we have plenty of storage and lots of room. For example, on passages we can keep our dingy and motor below, stowed, all of our sails (14 in all), also stowed, the airconditioner, 140 gals of water, 60 gals of fuel, all of our liveaboard stuff (basically everything we own) and provisions for a 30 day passage, all stowed below, and nothing is on the sole or in the way. The deck is kept absolutely clear, nothing is on deck when we go in the ocean except the dingy fuel (gasoline).

We have a great shower, computer system, galley, and comfortable bunks for sea and in port. We have often been working ashore in office jobs while living aboard and we have plenty of hanging locker space for suits, dresses, etc. So, we think this boat is the perfect boat for us.

Sailing it is also just right for us.

Even though we don't have roller furling sails (we have a double grooved racing headfoil) we usually only use a small 85% dacron jib while cruising and this is so easy to put up or down that we don't miss the furling capability. If the wind gets too strong we reef the main, down to the third reef, and then we just drop the jib. Wings sails well with only a scrap of a main, in any direction. It also heaves-to rather well, with a reefed main and the jib, or with just the main; we've done it several times.

wingssail-Fredrick Roswold
Flying

Our average day's passage in good winds is 175nm. We have exceeded 200nm twice, it wasn't fun, (this is an IOR boat, remember, high speeds are not it's forte).
In this shot we are sailing in the SE Trades from Bora Bora to Samoa, on the windvane, with a full main and a poled out #4 jib, roaring along. There was 23 knots of wind and we were hitting the low 9's on every wave.

The boat has a tiller for steering and we have an Autohelm tiller pilot (ST4000GP) but at sea we use the monitor windvane 99% of the time.

We usually sail double handed without additional crew.

If we have any complaints about the boat it is that we don't have a great cockpit for entertaining; it is a racing cockpit, and rather small at that, but in heavy weather we are sometimes happy for having a small cockpit.

Once I was talking to Doug Peterson about the boat and I told him I thought it made a great cruising boat and was surprised by this. He said, "Really".

Well Doug, it does!


Fred & Judy, SV Wings, Phuket Thailand

FACTS:
Model: Serendipity 43
Type: Masthead sloop
Builder: New Orleans Marine
Year built: 1979
Designer: Doug Peterson
Length 42.7 ft
Beam 12.7 ft
Draft 8ft
LWL: 36.4
Weight (empty) 16,000 ibs
Weight (in cruising mode) 20,000 lbs
Construction GRP (Cflex hull, balsa cored deck)
Mast: aluminum, three spreader
Standing rigging: rod, continous rigging (new 2000)
Engine: Yanmar 3JH 34hp(new 1993, 5600 hrs)
Keel: external lead fin
Rudder: spade

Equipment (rating):
Engine: Yanmar 3JH (1993,excellent, 5600 hrs)
Charging: Balmar 130 amp dual output alt, engine driven, with smart regulation (excellent)

Monitor Windvane (excellent, total rebuild 2009)
PUR 35 Watermaker (excellent but small capacity)
Solar: 2 x 135 watt panels on side railings (excellent)
AC charger/inverter: Magnum Energy MMS (excellent)
Batteries: 4 x 210 LTH 6v, 1 X 105 12v (excellent)
Propellor: Martec folding plus spare (very good,)
Tankage: Water, 4 tanks, Stainless steel, 140 gal total-Fuel, 2 tanks, 60 gal total-Holding 22 gal
Anchor windlass: Lewmar Concept 1 (excellent)
Anchors: Bruce 44lb, Bruce 66lb,(we rarely use the 66lb, the 44lb is the std anchor, and it is excellent),Fortress FX23, Fortress FX17 stern anchor
Chain: 300ft 5/15 high tensile (Good, 12 years old, regalvanized last in 2013)
Rode: 300ft nylon triple strand (rarely used)
Sailing Electronics: B&G Hercules 390 (excellent functionality, the best, old but works perfectly, many spares)
Navigation electronics: Lowrance GPS Plotter, OpenCPN & worldwide charts on PC (Very Good)
Autopilot, Raymarine X5 with GP drive unit (new) the old ST400GP was great, we'll see.
AIS System, West Marine, Excellent 2010
Computers: Dell notebooks (3),Wi-fi, GSM & CDMA EVDO Modems, Cannon ip100 printer(all excellent, Dell worldwide on-site service cannot be beat)
Communications: ICOM M700 with SCS PTCIIe Pactor and Sailmail(excellent)
Near shore communications: 3G-4G HPDA/WCDMA/HSUPA GSM cellular broadband(very good)or CDMA EVDO cellular broadband
WiFi system: Bear Extender uni-directional Outdoor WiFi booster antenna (Excellent product).
Heat: Highseas Diesel heater (fair)
Air-con: basic window unit sitting on deck in port, stowed underway (excellent)
Stove: Force 10 three burner (very good, rebuilt 2010)
Refrigeration: 12v ice box conversion, generic unit using Danfoss 35 compressor (excellent)
Hot water: Propane instant califont (excellent)
Dingy: Zodiac FR360 Active-V with inflatable floor (OK condition)
Outboard: Mercury 15 2-cycle (Good)

Sails (18)

Cruising Sails:
Cruising Main-Dacron (2014 FarEast Sails, Hong Kong)
Cruising Genoa-#J2d 120%-Dacron (2009 Local Sails, Phuket, good condition)
Jib-#J4 (see below under racing sails, this is used as a working jib while cruising)
Storm Jib (never used)


Racing sails:
Main-Carbon MXL China Sail Factory String Sail-maximum size, (2017-New)
Main-Aramid MXL China Sail Factory String Sail-Standard size, (2016-Excellent)
Genoa- #J1 Carbon MXL China Sail Factory String Sail, (2017-New)
Genoa-#J2-Kevlar/Mylar North, (Usable)
Jib-#J3d-Dacron large roach #3, New (2018)
Jib #J4 Jib-Dacron (2013 North Sails Antigua, excellent)

Kites:
1S 1/2 oz-symmetrical(1990 Lidgard fair),
2S .7 oz-symmetrical(2008, SeAir excellent)
3S 1.5 oz North Tri-radial Runner (as New)
2A .7 oz-assymetrical AP (2008 SeAir Good),
3A 1.5 oz-assymetrical Reaching spinnaker (2018, New)
plus 3/4 oz all-purpose cruising kite.


Other sails (2, Genoa and Jib) serviceable retired sails


More photos of sailing on Wings:

Click here for some interior shots.

Click here for many more photos of WINGS

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3 Comments:

Blogger rob said...

Hi Fred regrettably the page can`t be found anymore
kind regards
Rob

3:25 PM GMT+8  
Blogger wingssail said...

I'm fixing the link at least to get to some photos.

2:44 PM GMT+8  
Blogger Unknown said...

I like the look of Wings Fred, that would be my sort of boat for getting about - an ex-racing boat cruising boat :-)

2:16 AM GMT+8  

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