Finally Kokachin was launched. She sails well, easily driven and fast. Sailing to windward she tacks through 90 degrees in flat waters and goes about easily, especially when centreboard is down, even in big seas she tacks very well. It is often difficult to assess sailing performance, especially to windward, as there is not another boat to compare against, Recently we sailed in company with friends on a Nicholson 32. They sailed the boat well and had a nice suit of sails. The course was dead to windward for 11 miles, wind 20 to 25 knots and a very rough sea. We were pointing equally well, tacking through about 100 degrees, and making 10 degrees of leeway. The Nicholson was a bit faster, but not by much. We were impressed and so were they. Kokachin is very stiff and even driving to windward she heels no more than 15 degrees. She is spectacularly dry in the cockpit, while we only had a couple of small splashes on the above sail, our friends were drenched. Sailing downwind she doesn't roll until the wind and seas build up, but by then the foresail will have been reefed and sheeted flat, which dampens the rolling to a certain extent. Because of our vulnerable self steering gybing requires sheeting the main in and then out on the other side and in strong wind this may include dropping a few reefs first.   

On the downside we found that the tiller steered rudder was very heavy work especially as the wind got up. As Kevin Cardiff said: “Not a problem, but a design characteristic”. So far we have tried to tame the heavy steering with a three part handy billy, using the trim-tab to dial out any weather helm and finally steering with the trim-tab. We now cut a chunk at the lower part of the rudder. We need to wait for sea trials to see how effective that is going to be to reduce a  heavy helm. These are only partial solutions and we may well have to resort to wheel steering, which would be a disappointment. But at times, in rough seas the tiller becomes almost uncontrollable. 

Self steering is a very important consideration on long passages.  From the outset the self steering was going to be a challenge! Self steering is with Bill Belcher OTG II wind-vane driving a 20% trim tab on the trailing edge of the rudder. We also found that in lighter winds the wind-vane (3' x 1' / 90cm x 30cm)  was not powerful enough to turn a trim-tab. This was a major setback. Kokachin's rig extends the whole length of the hull and the main sail is sheeted to the aft end of the davits. The wind-vane is placed on the stern rail, inside the main sheet. There was no room to make the windvane bigger so the only solution seemed to be to make the trim-tab balanced.  This necessitated a quick haul out and moving the trim-tab somewhere behind the rudder with 20% balance. This solved the self-steering problem and it now works very well. However the wind-vane is very vulnerable to being swept away by the main sheet (which has happened on our Channel and Atlantic crossing, resulting in a broken wind-vane). We now have installed a strong hoop over the stern rail to give it more protection. We need to see how this will work.