Category: I.O.A. Cruising.

This is a copy I made from the old I.O.A. website cruising blog and reproduced here for interest. Enjoy.

Apologies for the decades it took bring this info to your attention.  But here goes.  Myself and partner Rich Hedlund owned hull #26 from the spring of 1977 to the fall of 1980. We sailed for four seasons on Lake Michigan after purchasing the boat from Pitt W. Arnold ( no, not Arnold Pitt as the owners list currently shows ). Arnold had recently had the boat trucked from Chesapeake Bay where he had sailed for years, to northern Illinois where he had recently moved. We sailed the boat out of a marina on the Illinois Wisconsin border for a demo and bought it on the spot.  We made a few upgrades over the years; new non skid deck surface, new teak cockpit steps hand made by my cabinet maker father in law,  new instruments, an auto pilot for the tiller and who knows what else.

The first afternoon on our own, the lower unit of the outboard froze up just as we were ready to drop the sails and enter the channel. After some reconnoitering, we sailed up the channel ( about 50 yards ) hooked a hard 90 to starboard, and parked at the pier like we had been doing this all of our lives. We considered ourselves to be actual sailors after that. Turned out the lower unit was full of water. We had great times sailing the Vol Au Vent. We hope the subsequent owners had as much fun.

Sold the boat to William Dovey who intended to use it as a party boat on Lake Peoria. To make the deal we drove the boat down the Illinois Waterway for a day and a half to deliver it.

That’s enough for now, I hope this was a worthwhile addition to your site.

Nick Nelson,  Waynesville NC

Here is a Post from Per in Denmark…

Dear IOA,

I have not been in contact with you for some years. I have had an Iroquois Sosua number 152 from 1994 to 2006. I bought her in Stockholm Sweden, and sold her back to a Swede Lars in 2006. That year I fell in love with Kachina a Comanche 32, she was lying in Toulouse where we bought her and sailed her home to Denmark during 2 Summer vacations in 2007 and 2008. I have written the story of our wonderfull trip through Canal de Midi, Rhone, the Rhone Rhin Canal and up The Rhin to Denmark in the American Multihull Magazine.

In the Med’

I am happy to see that the IOA organisation is still living. It was a little quiet for some years, am I right. I am writing to you so you can get the boat list updated.

In 1994 my wife Pia and I bought Sosua in Stockholm Sweden. She would be a successor to our beloved Hirondelle 23 Catamaran which we had had since 1984. The owner of Sosua had bought her in 1972 and sailed her from The SailCraft warf in South Uk. She had been sailed a lot, but now the owner and his wife were very old so we bought her.

Kachina

Cockpit

I started to put some of the ideas I had got from sailing race with a friend for many years in Sosua. First I removed a very well functioning Buhk 20hp diesel which worked via a hydralic pump in a liftable leg. I could not bear to have some 200kgs placed right in my cockpit. In stead I bought a Honda 15 hp. which was absolutely super. I got a main sail that was 3 square meters bigger than the original. To get the space for that I got an arm in the top of the mast, streching some 40 centimeters backwards to have the bigger roach and full battened sail. I also lowered the boom some centimeters. Next I cut 5 centimeters of the spreaders and angeled them a little backwards, I mowed the the fixing points for the wires from the outside position to the inside position on the metal supports which comes through the cabin top.

This was done to get the angel of the forsail nearer to the middel of the boat to point higher. I put 3 tracks to the headsail. on the cabin top as you can see on the picture. I put all hailyards inside the mast and led them to the cockpit so I could do all from there. The arm in the top of the mast combined with a hailyard in my twin backstay

A race off Praestoe, near Copenhagen

meant that iI could flatten the main by pulling the hailyard,. On my baby stay  I put a hook so I could remove the stay in light wind. Finally I had cut the extra 70 centimeters that are meant to have a floater in the top of the mast.

Here I am in Praestoe, which is a beautifull

place 100 km South of Copenhagen where we live. In the picture I am leading the race and and we won the race. 12 Monohulls some of them racers, some of them did even dare to use spinnaker, we did not, but even so we won the 25Nms long race.

In 2006 we sold Sosua to Lars Johansen from Sweden.

In the Autumn 2006 I went sailing with my brother in law and it was a super day. For fun we started talking about buying a catamaran together. I said that it would have to be the bigger sister to the Iroquois the Comanche Catamaran for my brother in law is tall, so I suggested a lilltle extra space inside. I also said that it did not matter for he would not find any in Denmark. But I was mistaken…

Kachina in the Med, with the former owners Barbara and Peter

Next morning my sister in law said that they had been looking in the internet, and they had actually found one in Denmark. I had totally forgotten that I some years previously had recommended such a boat to a guy who had asked for help to find a boat. He had bought El Bogue which had been used for sailing school by Tony Le Bogue in England. Now it was for sale, but far to expensive. We found 2 other boats Nokoni and Kachina. We decided to have a look at Kachina. We saw her in Toulouse in December 2006 and bought her.

She was in the Canal de Midi and we could

Inside Kachina

have sailed up North and have come to the English Canal and we would be home in 10 days, but we decided to sail South the Canal de Midi, sail up the River Rhone and then the Rhone Rhine Canal, up the Rhine and then we would be home. We did so used 2 times a month in 2007 and 2008. On our way up the Rhine we got a pregnant mouse on board, she had build a nest in the mast foot. When we came to Denmark and I hoisted the Main first time I discovered a lot of holes in the sail. I caught som 10-12 mice in October 2008. The main was spoiled and old.

I ordered a new from Lee Sails (see photo).

Kachina – new sail.

I ordered a main with a bigger roach, loose foot, full battened and 3  square meter bigger than the original. I have put an arm in the top of the mast, you can not see it on the picture, I did this in 2010. I also lowered the boom some 10-15 centimeters.

Sosua and Kachina compared…

I am very satisfied wth the performance of Kachina. I had expected to loose a little in performance because of extra weight. In very strong wind I think Kachina is faster than Sosua, in light wind Sosua is the fastest, The most important and surprising difference is though, that Kachina points higher and has less drift. She really performs well and is easy to handle. Now we are enjoying the boat so much and we love the extra comfort!
Kind Regards
Per

Kachina in Somail in Canal de Midi