Evelyn 25.5

[buzz lightyear]

I own an Evelyn 25.5. It's pictured on your forum. I had no idea it was there. I see there are questions regarding rudders & keels. I have no problem with my keel...but I do have issues with my rudder. It's not balanced and really waterlogged.I have had some friends thrown to the bottom of the cockpit floor while sailing in big waves. The rudder grabs and all hell breaks loose. The boat has been described as sailing a beach ball in big waves. I contacted a rudder builder and he seems to think a new balanced rudder would help greatly. He would move the mounts aft about 10% and still keep the same rudder shape and hopefully make the boat easier to sail in waves. Any thoughts?
The next question I have is how many Evelyn 25.5 were made?

[Pterobyte]

Have you check with http://www.philsfoils.com/. He really seams to know his stuff.

[buzz lightyear]

I made contact with Dave at Phil's Foils. I'll be getting one his rudders this winter. Looking at cedar & foam core wrapped in carbon & E- glass.
Again,is there are any Evelyn 25.5s out there. I found one on the web in Florida. I think I own hull # 1. The boats old name was Hog Heaven. It's been here in Milwaukee, Wi. since new.
Regards

[musicman]

I made contact with Dave at Phil's Foils. I'll be getting one his rudders this winter. Looking at cedar & foam core wrapped in carbon & E- glass.
Again,is there are any Evelyn 25.5s out there. I found one on the web in Florida. I think I own hull # 1. The boats old name was Hog Heaven. It's been here in Milwaukee, Wi. since new.
Regards

Prophet is very close to me but has not sailed in a number of years. It has been modified a fair amount from it's original winning MORC trim. The deck has been replaced & the IB moved back out of the fore peak (it was actually in the V berth area with a 3 piece prop shaft running through a hole in the mast & out the back edge of the keel!!)
Is your boat an IB or OB?

[buzz lightyear]

Buzz Lightyear, A.K.A Hog Heaven was built on 3 July, 1981 in Groton Ct. by non other than Mr. E.R Evelyn. The Hull number is FMU2550181.The boat was built for Dr. Sleight in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Thats a picture of my boat at the top of the page.
The boat has an outboard and always did. I knew this boat when it first built for I worked at North Sails Midwest at the time and had a hand in making the sails for this boat. I never dreamed so many years later I would be the owner of this boat and racing it with my kids. My youngest son says the boat has mystical powers...read fast.
The work done on the boat over the last few years was not much more than repair where necessary, optimized the deck layout, new halyards, sails, etc. The rudder will be replace with one from Phil's Foils. Dave at Phil's Foils feel they can get some balance into the rudder and lighten it up significantly. Hope to get some photos up on the web soon.

[buzz lightyear]

Just found a picture of my 25.5 out for a day sail.

[musicman]

Great picture! Thanks for posting it. Let's see more if you've got them.
What does your 25.5 rate? (phrf)

[buzz lightyear]

Buzz rates 168 under PHRF. The boat races very evenly with with Catalina 30 tall rigs, S2 7.9s, Ranger 26 and a few other boats I can't remember right now. I'm using all North Sails on the boat, head sails include ever thing from new 3Dls to old paneled sails. The main is a paneled dacron sail. On down wind legs I still go to the blooper in heavy wind in order to keep the boat rolling from rail to rail and keep the boat going where it's aimed. Some of my sailmaker friends just shake there heads and can't believe we still put the blooper up. When I took it off the boat, they just bitched because on the rolling the boat did without the blooper.

[musicman]

I have the original pencil hand drawn version of that sailplan in my office.
Another great sailing picture, thanks!
Talking to Bob about Prophet they used bloopers very often & had a dual hatch system to launch the spinnaker & blooper.
I have original photos of Prophet on the trailer but non of the dual hatch set-up.

I'm assuming the 168 number is with 155% headsails. Correct?

[buzz lightyear]

The PHRF rating of 168 is with the 155% genoa, With the Lake Michigan PHRF, there is no rating advantage to going smaller than 155% with the genoa.I thing this is a very fair rating because when we did race against boat of similar ratings, the races were very close, almost like one design. It's nice to hear that Bob was a fan of the blooper too. I always felt if the blooper didn't us extra speed, at lease we could sail the boat without worrying too much about roll the dam thing over.The blooper just steadied the boat enough to keep it somewhat under control. I did talk with the technical guys at PHRF about cutting away some of the deck at the back of the boat in order to make more cockpit area and make it easier to get the outboard on and off the transom. Also this would eliminate the port back hatch at the back of the boat that I found to leak a significant amount of rain water. The PHRF guys did not think it would affect my rating because I was just changing the deck layout some. I'm working with Dave from Phil's Foils on improving the rudder mounting system. Any thoughts?
Paul

[buzz lightyear]

It's been quite sometime since I've been on the site. This past winter, my son & his friend took the old sawsall to the back of the boat and opened the cockpit area. We also experimented with the rudder by moving the leading edge forward 1.5 inches per suggestion of Phil's Foils to help with some rudder balance. The rudder balance is better but still far from great. We thought we would experiment with our old rudder before pulling the trigger on a new rudder from Phil & Dave. You can't screw up, screwed up. The cockpit modifications worked out really well. Much easier to sail the boat, cockpit drains better and is stiffer. I'll get some pics up in the near future.

[musicman]

Cool little boat, let's see some more pics!!

[egon]

So the new owners of Buzz Lightyear have been hard at work the past few weeks and hope to splash this Friday. Can't wait to race against them this weekend.

--Matt