I know very little about boat design, so I'm just thinking out loud here... anybody who has built a Pocketship please chime in.
I'm worried about properly trimming Pocketship. Specifically, whether I have put too much lead in the aft keel compartment.
I've noticed in pictures online that almost every boat ends up "heavy" in the stern. Here is Pocketship #1 with one passenger and no motor (so, the "ideal" condition). It is almost perfectly trimmed, and the transom is not dragging in the water. Even here, though, you can see the waterline is slightly higher out of the water at the bow than at the stern.
https://www.facebook.com/chesapeakeligh ... =3&theater
But then we add a motor, and more people, and gear, and it seems like all of that added weight concentrates in the stern and the stern falls faster than the bow. Here are just two examples I could find quickly (apologies here, but they were side-on shots and every boat seems to display this tendency).
http://www.clcboats.com/images/photos/b ... LowRes.jpg
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mtsailor9 ... 470828808/
I will flip my boat soon to fiberglass the bottom, and it wouldn't be challenging to cut open the aft lead compartment and remove some, and later add more removable ballast towards the bow. I'd rather make that change before finishing the boat than afterwards. Should I? Or am I making a mountain out of a molehill?