Launch Tanya, her father Bob, and I rig and raise the mast at the ramp, since it's not crowded. I don't think I had the mast raising stays tight enough because it went up crooked and caused some tense moments before I got it straigtened out. The nuts I put into the screacher halyard slot didn't pull the messenger line down, so I had to yank it out, which caused all the nuts to drop down the mast, as expected. What wasn't expected is that I think one lodged in the daggerboard trunk so the d/b wouldn't go down. The other unexpected difficulty was that the beam bolt holes didn't line up with the pads, at all. Today I will try shifting the beams around with the diagonal braces but I expect to have to fill and redrill the holes. Fortunately John Whargo managed to get me a space at the sailboat marina for the weekend so I can run some extension cords and get power to the boat to work. Lots of pictures here. (A lot more than anybody other than me wants to slog through.) Obviously, several things aren't complete yet. No nets, because I haven't quite figured out the net supports. No compression pads or beam bolts, since I couldn't unfold the boat in the backyard. I decided to strap the beams down and go sailing anyway since the wind was only 5 knots. The boat sailed beautifully. We hit over 5 knots upwind in what couldn't have been more than 5 knots of breeze, and once in a while I would look around, thinking the breeze had died completely, but I would always see a wake behind the rudder. Even though the Sears eggbeater ran well, we all had to sit on the transom to get the prop even partially in the water. Of course as we were launching the guys from Bexley Marine called to say the Honda was fixed. The sink through-hull leaks, much to my surprise. I'm hoping it's just the cheap hose and not the fitting itself, but I won't know until I replace the hose. Fortunately it's above the waterline. The boat floats extremely high. I'm going to lower the topsides paint by at least 2". Launch, Day 2: I spent most of this day filling in the beam bolt pad holes and redrilling. It's far easier to do this at the dock. I really should have bolted the beams down before installing the floats. It would have taken a lot more time then but I would only have done it once! Still trying to figure out what to do about the misalignment of the starboard beams. I suspect they got shifted when we were manhandling the floats into place. Now that I think about it, the straps were holding the beams down on the pads but weren't giving much lateral support. However, I manage to get 3 of 4 beam bolts redrilled and in place, which is a great relief and makes the boat feel much stiffer. I feel a lot of stress about running 200 feet of extension cord across the lawn at the boat club and drilling holes, since obviously you're not supposed to be working on boats there and I'm getting a lot of dust in the water. The fact that one of their members is suing them because he was mistakenly arrested for plugging his RV into their power doesn't help either. Still can't get the daggerboard down. We go sailing late in the afternoon and just as we get the mainsail up a squall hits so I have the guys take it down. On board are Ron and Rob, Ron's wife Mary, their 2 kids, Dick, and Whargo. Too many people to leave the sails up and see show she does in a storm. The rain is a real downpour and completely soaks everyone who's not in the cabin. It also tends to roll directly off the cabin hatch and into the cabin. I'll have to think about that one. A proper hose completely fixes the leaking through-hull, so it's a relief to know it wasn't the fitting itself. Launch, Day 3: Today I worked on a few more things and then took Tanya, Mat, and Mary out sailing. The breeze was moderate (10-15) but I still didn't feel completely comfortable. We had a really sloppy reef in the main and still no daggerboard. At one point we took the sails down and all crew dove into the lake for a swim to escape the humidity. The boat dragged them along on a line on windage alone. When we return Dick helps me to get the sail rolled around the boom. The system of having a strap with both the topping lift and the mainsheet attached is working fairly well although I'm not sure if it will be good enough for actual reefing. I think I will install a couple of reefing lines and see how slab reefing works. Some pictures from the docks at Alum Creek.
Launch, Day 4: First day to really sail the boat hard. Wind variable from 10 kts to upper teens. Sailed with Dick and Jerry. Single (roller) reef in main and full jib. It took about 2 hours of sailing with Dick at the helm before I felt comfortable that nothing was going to snap and the rig wasn't suddenly going to come down. I trust Erik Precourt's work but the synthetic rigging certainly doesn't look very strong, and it's fairly slack on the leeward side. Having been dismasted once in a monohull (with 2-week old rigging), I will probably permanently suspect standing rigging. Except for the daggerboard problem, I'm pleased with how things have turned out. I'm still concerned that the cap shrouds seem to sag too much on the leeward side but I will wait until I have the beam bolt issues resolved to figure that out. Before we left the dock I made up compression pads from pieces of oak with lots of putty on the front, placed in a ziplock bag and taped to the pad before I put the beams down, so they fit like a glove. I also strapped the starboard beams together and they repositioned nicely. Getting the boat back on the trailer was a real interesting challenge. Jerry managed to shove the daggerboard down about a foot but no more. Of course then we couldn't get it back up. We decided to bump it up with the trailer. We tried to roll the boat onto the trailer but couldn't get it on all the way. I didn't want to back the truck in anymore because the ramp was slippery and the truck is 2WD. So I pulled out and backed in again. After the second time the board still hadn't gone up and the boat was heeled over 30 degrees on the trailer, still with the mast up. I'm sure glad that the cap shrouds are tight when it's folded. After the third dunking and shifting the boat around on the trailer, the board popped up. It looks like the board got wedged into the forward edge of the trunk because there's a bite out of the leading edge a couple of inches up from the bottom. I have no idea how this happened. but there's a lot of crap resting in the trunk where the pull down line block goes in, so I suspect that's what wedged the board in the first place. List of things to do:
2006-08-26: daggerboard down! I made the fairing slot at the bottom of the trunk too small, both fore and aft and at the trailing edge. Once I widened it to 1/2" at the aft end, and carved a bit out of the leading edge, the board dropped down with no problems. I did find a 7/16" socket in there which probably wasn't helping much. Now the only problem is that my board, which must weigh at least 80 pounds, is still a lot lighter than water and it's a real bear to haul on the down-line. Still, I'd much rather have that problem than a board that gets stuck. Today Tanya and I rigged the boat ourselves with no outside assistance, raised the mast without a hitch, and launched at Alum Creek. I still need to drop the motor bracket several inches; with the boat folded the extra bouyancy of the floats means you have to have 2 people on the transom to get the prop in the water, and even then it's dicey in chop. However, after its second tuneup the motor works fine and really pushes the boat along (compare 10 horsepower on my sub-4000 lb. F-boat with 11 HP on my 8000 lb. Ericson). The boat is exceptionally stable folded and powered at 7 knots unfolded at 3/4 throttle. I made a bigger slot in the mast so it wasn't as difficult to get the slugs in, but I'm still pondering the roller furling system. I think I will have to cut the back off of my aft boom fitting and make a roller/tang fitting, because the current system doesn't work particularly well. Today we hit a top speed of 9 knots in fairly light 5-10 knot breeze. The boat goes to weather like a bat outta hell with the board down, and the extreme weather helm of the last sail has been reduced to the "2-fingers on the tiller" that Farrier owners talk about. Because of the balance and the lack of heel, you can do things that would be inconceivable on any of my other boats, like place a bottle of water on a cockpit seat during a tack. Also, with the board down the boat tacks so quickly that you don't need a winch handle for the leeward sheet. I will probably fit some bungees between the mast base and the mast to keep the jib sheets from snagging there, though. There's still a bit of slop in the rudder, which I will take care of with a few more bushings. Each time I sail I'm more pleased with how the boat performs. |
