Planning and pondering

Have done a lot of sailing with the wooden Sprite this Summer.
The reason for stopping the building wasn’t because of a lack of time – by now it could have been finished – but I wanted to explore the boat on the water first before I continued building.
And good so because I experienced some (personal?) inconveniences and benefits.
…

• The toe straps as they are on the boat are no good for me because they are to far from the center line.I am 1,74m tall (or short) and the toe straps are not in reach.

• Managing the +10 meter of main-sheet on a flush decked boat is a constant concern. Or I find it lost in the wake behind me, or I get tangled limbs in rope or sit on top of it after a maneuver, or it ends up in a knot somewhere. The main has no “natural place” to fall in to and stay there.

• Quickly changing position during gibing or tacking by swiveling on the behind is something I got familiar with rather soon, only finding the two small knobs to brace my feet against quick enough at the end of a maneuver at the moment the boat starts heeling over again is a bit of a gamble.

• Will I need a sliding seat? Would I consider wings?
  I’d like to equip the boat with the necessary reinforcement and hardware to be able to mount either of these because without them I found out you just cannot get the best out of flush decked Mini.
  To know how to prepare the hull for that I needed to get hold of a Minisail sliding seat (Got one!) and secondly study some wing rigged boats (did that!).
  …Talking about wings and sliding seats, have a look at the Minisails at Datchet Reservoir 1987 photoghaph in the Minisail.org.uk website, the post about Stephen Booy’s archive. And now you are reading check out Tom Moore his recollection about the Datchet Nationals in general, sliding seats and wings on Minisails in detail. Google Minisail group.

• Would I install a traditional rudder or would I opt for something more contemporary like a Dotan rudder stock, or a solid SeaSure?
  I’ll have the Dotan please, but then again wouldn’t it be more rewarding if I made a marvelous wooden rudder stock with my own hands instead of just buying a fancy piece of hardware?

Finding and buying the old Sprite was a good thing. I made me possible to copy the hull accurately and sail her a lot experiencing what it’s like.
The counterpart is that it has taken the pressure off of me to quickly built another one, as said before it wouldn’t take a lot of time to finish her as a replica at the stage I am now.

But the pondering has taken over thinking I am going to end up with a new custom Minisail tailored to my needs.
It will become a semi-flush deck with custom reinforcements and hardware to allow for a sliding seat and wings, the mastfoot will be able to have a Laser mast, hence it will become an experimental toy.

Greetings,
Ronny