The #53 Story

Windrush 600 #53 "Retail Therapy"

After a lifetime of ‘mucking about in boats’, John Boetje moved to Brisbane and looked about for a vessel. A multihull convert, he was excited by finding a derelict TrailerTri 18, Ian farrier’s first published design. This was an interesting project, but after a couple of seasons with the sander and the epoxy, the water was calling louder.

John found a Trading Post ad. for a Windrush 600 in Elliot Heads near Bundaberg. A quick phone call, nobody had bothered calling so far north, and a trip to pick up the vessel from a vendor who was selling it to finance … wait for it … a TrailerTri. The boat was absolutely standard, no spinnaker, no trapeze, but was sporting a brand new trampoline.

“I had seen an early review of these boats, and they appeared very attractive. I believe Richard MacFarlane produced them as an ‘upgrade path’ for those who had spent teenage years with surfcats, had grown up and married with a family, and wanted a bigger boat with a similar ‘feel’. That theory was certainly proved true, although changes in style have taken boats of this type off the market”

#53 was named ‘Therapy’. Being unlucky to completely change the name of a boat, but taking into account the rationale behind its purchase, we renamed it ‘Retail Therapy’

The first modification was to the mast raising system. Originally the mast was carried in a notch in the top of the outboard bracket, and the original owner would lift the mast manually with his wife pulling on the forestay. John wanted a safer system that would allow the mast to be raised singlehanded, so he developed concepts similar to those on the TrailerTris, stabilizing the mast laterally with the trapeze wires and winching it up. This is illustrated in the ‘Mast Raising’ hardware page

The ‘trailable’ version is only 2.5 metres overall beam. This makes it easy to transport and launch but …

“On the trailer it looks far too narrow, but we found that the handling characteristics are excellent. The boat has plenty of buoyancy forward, so it doesn’t tend to nose-dive, and just like a surfcat you can fly a hull in a stable manner, controlling it easily with the mainsheet. When we got the boat I was pleased to see it had reef points in the main, but I have never seen the necessity to use them. Like all boats of this length it is uncomfortable in a chop, but always gives the feeling of safety and stability”

After becoming familiar with the boat, John decided to fulfil a lifetime ambition and compete in the ‘Bay to Bay’, eastern Australia’s classic passage race for trailables.

“The first time ever in a race, we had no idea about apparent wind sailing, and no real understanding of boat and sail trim. On the first day we hung back at the start and watched everybody else just sail away. On the second day we tried for a good start and followed the other multihulls on their first apparent wind leg, but even then the penny didn’t drop and we ended up trundling down the lay-line and missing the cut-off time”

Soon thereafter John became involved with the boat club scene, came in contact with other competitive sailors, learnt the way modern multihull concepts worked, and decided to develop #53 into the most inexpensive ‘racer’ in the business. The W600 is a heavy boat with only a moderate sail plan, so the challenge was to get some more power. First off was to optimize the existing sails.

Then we managed to pick up an almost new screacher which we mounted on a short prodder stayed to the stem heads. From this we learned the need for extreme (but variable) halyard tension, and the way to optimize performance on and off the wind. Following this came the addition of asymmetrical spinnakers ex 16ft skiffs (those guys replace them every season) which required a longer and lower prodder. All these details you can see on the hardware page.

“With a low rig, the Windrush is definitely a strong-wind boat. Every time the wind drops, the other boats overtake us … when the wind pipes up, we overtake them. Strong wind and flat water is the best combination, chop slows us down a lot”

Of course all the go-faster gear can be left behind to go cruising, and if you are OK with the ‘less is more’ concept the W600 is fine for a couple. We did try sleeping in the hulls, but it involved moving all the gear every night, and we soon discovered that small ‘two-man’ tents could be set up on the trampoline, with a thin foam mattress giving a very comfortable sleep. You could even set up another on the forward trampoline for the kids.

Recently we have been experimenting with ‘boom tents’ (a bit hard on a boomless boat, but we have a length of alloy) This gives a bit of extra shelter, but still very minimalist accommodation … OK for an overnight or two.

The W600 is a good ‘weight-carrier’, we have had seven adults on board without losing too much speed.

One of the big advantages of the design is that the W600 has both boards and rudders that swing up. This makes running aground much less of a drama, just pull the boards up and sail back into deeper water! It also means you can calculate your tides, we often let the boat go aground overnight as long as it will float off by the time you want to leave next morning.

Retail Therapy has really demonstrated what a versatile vessel it can be … inexpensive to buy and maintain, competitive for club racing, great for daysailing, and bottom-line adequate for short-term cruising.