Ktaba updates

A few days back I met Craig at TYC. I was planning to go tune my Fizz, but Craig was quite excited about his latest work on the Ktaba20. We talked boats for a while, but those updates really sounded interesting. I simply had so see them, so I hopped on board the beautiful Ktaba20. I can always do some more fizzin...

Boat talk 

Some of the new things had to do with the sails. That's why I sat on the front deck; To see those sail details. I like being up there. It's one of my favourites in RL, because you are even more immersed in the sailing whilst sitting up there - in the middle of everything. Perhaps my attitude up there is not very speedy, but it sure is a great place to sit while cruising. You could have an autopilot handling the steering for total relaxation, but that's more of an RL-thing. The waters in SL rarely offers hours of sailing in a straight line.

Take off

Besides, it's always nice to have someone like Craig at the helm. Then you know it's a smooth ride. No running aground and stuff. Lotsa nice boat talk too. We sailed north to have a peek at new Seychelles up there. As usual, the Ktaba20 sails like a charm. The sailing engine is Craigs own. It's very stable, and it comes with full WWC support. Make no mistake. We may look very relaxed, but the Ktaba20 is not meant for cruising only. Inside the Ktaba20 there's a racing heart.

Peeking

It turns out there's not much space in between those Seychelles, - more on that in a future post. We choose another route with more open sea to better test the new features. And they work great those telltails, - for that's what it was: Telltails enabling the cruiser to sail by visual - and the racer to find optimum speed without using huds and pocket calculater-like displays.

Open sea

We talked a bit about telltails. How to use them, where they go and why they work. Lots can be said about that, but in reality it's dead simple. The jib has a couple of telltails not far from the headstay. They indicate the flow coming on to the sails, and they are the ones by which you steer on an upwind and trim in any other case. The main has leech tails and they are the ones by which you trim the main. I better prepare a post on that subject.

It's very nice to see more telltails in virtual sailing. The Ktaba20 is now part of an exclusive club with only a few members still: The Flying Fizz, the Laser, the Cotton Blossom II, the Bolero and the virtual optimist aka the Shelly Fizz. Did I forget anyone? Ahh, yes... Manul made a tri-thingy with a fizzkit engine. I think it has telltails too.

PS: Why are there no closeups of those telltails? Good question. They need just a little bit of tweaking before they are perfect, and when they are, I'll post them.