Core Sound Cruising

Hmmm. I’m in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with a nifty camp-cruiser sailboat on a trailer. I have a daughter on a sailing lake in Michigan, and another daughter on Long Island Sound in Connecticut.

- Paul Bargren

Road trip!

In August 2019, I hooked up the Core Sound 17 to the trusty four-cylinder 2004 Camry, and off I went.

It wasn’t quite that easy, of course.

There was equipment to buy, plans and repairs to make, food to figure out, charts to download. The CS17 is an open boat, so I needed to contrive shelter. Even though I’d be tripping solo, I relied heavily on my wife’s help and advice.

And then there was the nagging issue of the previous year’s capsize and turtle. Thanks largely to my daughter’s skill, we had recovered, but barely. Was there any chance I could recover from a solo capsize? I’d never been a nervous sailor, but ever since that unplanned half-hour swim, even looking at a video of someone else’s small boat cruise had me yelling, “Don’t heel; don’t go over.” I’d made a number of rigging and safety improvements to the Core Sound over the winter. But could I get my nerve back?

Well, let’s find out.

The first order of business was a test cruise. After some weeks of planning, organizing and dawdling (retirees can do that), I launched on a Sunday evening in August into the north end of Milwaukee’s harbor, which is formed mainly by breakwaters.

The Core Sound 17 is a plywood and epoxy stitch-and-glue cat ketch designed by Graham Byrnes of B&B Yachts in North Carolina. He actually drew it up to perform well in the Everglades Challenge 300-miler in Florida, and it and its progeny have done just that. It is a sweet boat. It sails fast, points pretty well and will plane in a breeze.