San Juan 21 Class Association

We're beginning our fourth season sailing Diarmuid (pronounced DER-mitt), a bright yellow 1973 Mk1 with a mysterious HIN & no stamp on the hatch latch. So we have no idea of the hull number. We are based in Laramie, Wyoming, one of the windiest places in the inland US. At 7500' above sea level, the air is thin but flukey, so we get lots of practice reefing. The boat came with the original Clark mainsail, a CDI furler, and only a 150% genoa for a headsail. We designed and built our own working jib and mainsail, both optimized for higher winds than the stock sails; and we bought a ratty old Dragon spinnaker from Minney's to practice on. I grew up in the Finger Lakes of upstate NY and started sailing at nine, but no one there used spinnakers -- just one of many holes in my education. We also built a 1oz nylon masthead drifter/Code Zero which we fly on its own luff. It's great for getting the boat moving in the softest of breezes.

My partner Leila is new to sailing but a waterbaby thru and thru, which is useful as I sink like a brick. We've taken Diarmuid all over the West and to Catalina Island, where we plan to return this July. We were hit by 25 kts and rocking swell on the way to Catalina, but the boat handled it perfectly, even loaded down as it was. It was funny to hear sailers who motored most of the way in 45' Hunters complaining about how rough the crossing was, and kinda sad to see expensive sailboats motoring up and down the island in perfect sailing conditions. Old and outmoded they may be, but our SJ21s are still a joyful boat to sail. You wonder if that joy gets lost on bigger, newer boats with all the creature comforts.

Anyhow. We've done a little upgrading each year, peaking this season with a deck recore, replacement of most deck hardware, refresh of the non-skid, and addition of an autopilot. We have begun in earnest the hunt for a 30+ footer, but for now we are happy with our odd little sailboat & looking forward to another (short and windy) sailing season in Wyoming.

Here's Diarmuid broad reaching toward an overnight anchorage last summer on Lake Hattie, making good time in the falling breeze:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Grainnia1#p ... TYFTcajRy8

Cheers,
Leila & Bob
SJ21 Diarmuid
Bucc18 Grainnia

As I understand it, the hull number should be the first numbers in the HIN. If yours is a Mk I then it will be a 3 digit number. In my case, I was fortunate to bet a boat with all original factory racing sails with my Number on it, 889.

What did you go for a Jib? Mine came with a Main and the big 150 Mylar Genoa.

Our HIN is CLK007191073. Does that make it hull #7, or 719? They were still kinda rationalizing HINs in '73. I laid out our jib using the SailCut CAD program & sewed it up on an old Italian machine. Pretty happy with the result, and more so with the mainsail we made the same way. Both are made from heavy dacron (5.6oz for the jib, 6.5 for the main) with the draft shallower and a bit farther forward than standard.



That hurts our light air performance, but light air is not our problem around here. 'Forty knot blasts from random directions' is our problem around here. The Genoa was therefore an awkward sail for us -- ordered by the PO with heavy cloth, it is too weighty to fill in light breeze & too big to control in our fickle winds. We added a 150% nylon Code Zero/drifter sail last season for getting the boat going in light air. It's good from 60 to maybe 120 degrees TWA, less than 10 kts. It has the advantage that you hoist it flying, you don't have to strip the working jib off the furler, and it has a shackle on the tack we can blow from the cockpit when the boat becomes overpowered.



It packs into a small duffel & weighs about 2 lbs.

You have one of the fixed keel models, eh? How many of those did Clark make? How does it sail, relative to the swing keelers?