I have the boat towed back from
Miami by a professional driver, and work on
repairs,
refitting, and
improvements
in May, and by June have brought the boat to its summertime mooring in
Sandusky, Ohio.
Top priority:
- measure beam-to-beam distance 153.5", or 154" to top of
flange
- measure mast foot to bow
- tie lazy cradle lines together and mark for cutting
- test old mainsheet to see if it can do 2:1 for jib halyard
- try leaving screacher furler attached to pole and move snap
shackle to sail tack (how to keep it from unwinding?)
By the 16th of June, all of the
"must do" items are complete, and I have only the "nice to haves" left
on the list. After spending Saturday helping Mat and Mary with
their deck, Tanya and I drive the boat up to the lake on Sunday.
We decide to take 71 to Cleveland and 80 to Sandusky instead of going
the more direct route up 71, although on the ride home on 250 I realize
that it's probably the best route, especially since the truck doesn't
like to maintain 65 MPH with the boat load.
We have some good and some bad days sailing on Lake Erie. Our
first trip is to
Put-In-Bay
for Tanya's birthday. We have an
uneventful sail there in light winds and steep chop. There are
plenty of moorings available and a launch ferries you to sure for the
price of a mooring. We stay in a B&B outside of town and rent
bikes to explore the island. It's a tourist trap, but an
enjoyable one.
The next trip is to
Middle
Bass Island, where we stay on the boat at
the state park. We rent bikes again. Middle Bass is much
less developed than South Bass. On the return trip, we sail north
to Pelee Island (Canada) and the wind dies as soon as we turn
south. I experiment with the screacher but we're stuck doing 2-3
knots and literally thousands of flies descend on the boat. It's
a nightmare, but at least I wasn't
losing
a
playoff game.
Mat, Mary, and I go sailing on a very windy day and hit close to
18
knots in gusts. Mat managed to snap a picture over 16 knots
but we were all thinking too much about death at 18 knots to bother
with the cameras. It's amazing how the boat just takes off in a
gust instead of heeling. However, we lose one of the float
hatches so we have to tack and limp home, and have a nasty encounter
with some idiot fishermen on the way.
Bob and Andrea visit and we attempt to meet them at the campground on
Kelleys Island. I install the new lazy cradle so of course we're
in a rush to get there. There's a strong north wind which makes
it choppy and we have to tack through the channel. Tanya is
uncomfortable, so when the mainsail's clew reefing line pops out of its
cam cleat, I decide it's time to turn back. We take the ferry to
Kelleys island, which is just as well since the breeze continues to
build and blows directly onshore at the campground, and since B&A's
van battery is dead.
I spend a couple of days just working on the boat at the mooring.
I finally glass in place the bow pulpit and backrests for the
cockpit. The fiberglass tubes flex slightly but they're supposed
to have a breaking strain of 7000 psi so I think they'll be strong
enough. They will also make the cockpit much more
comfortable. I singlehand on Sunday with a reef in the main and
hit 10-12 knots a few times. I stay inside Sandusky Bay where
it's consistently between 6 and 8 feet deep. The daggerboard gets
jammed halfway down--maybe it was damaged when we ran over the
fisherman's cable. I have to gently run aground to pop it back up.
Mat, Mary, Tanya and I sail to
Pelee Island on
the 11th of
August. The new bimini from Overton's is the best thing I've done
for the boat, after the lazy cradle. Combined with the new
railings, it makes the cockpit a really comfortable and secure
place. The wind dies after we get out of Sandusky Bay and we
motor for a while, but eventually we make it to Dick's Marina.
The weekend of September 8th, after we get back from Canada, I spend
another couple of days puttering on the boat, and sail solo, inside the
bay, on Sunday. I feel a lot of trepidation about thunderstorms,
since a squall went through the night before and the wind hit well over
30 knots, but the sail is uneventful and the breeze is moderate.
I start with a reef but shake it out after a half hour of easy sailing.
Dad visits in the middle of September and we take him up for a daysail,
but the breeze is light and fluky all day so we spend most of the time
under power.
Tanya and I go up for the day on the 22nd of September. There is
much dithering about whether to go up at all since the drive is so
long. But we do. We take the route due north through Dublin
which is a mistake, since it takes 2.5 hours to get there. On the
way home we take the route between due south and the old 250 route, and
stop for Mexican food on the way. Winds are from the north so we
tack twice to get to the high side of the channel and except for some
6-foot water near the channel entrance we make it out OK. We pass
several other boats, sailing and under power, because we're trucking
down the channel at 8 knots. Once in the lake our speed goes up
and we hit 10 knots a few times but it's very choppy and I'm worried
about the slop in the rudder, so we heave to, reef, and slow
down. We head straight out NE into the lake for a couple of
hours, getting almost past Pelee Island, turn around, and head
back. On the way back the breeze, which has been around 12 knots
all day, moderates a bit so we shake out the reef. Inside the bay
we turn west and sail in the bay for a bit, then head up, tack, drop
the main, and head back to the harbor under jib. It's interesting
that we're still sailing faster than a Bennie 36 under full main and
135 with just our jib. We get back to the mooring without
incident but somebody has run over the dinghy's painter and chopped it
off, and tied it to the mooring lines. The guy comes down the
dock later to apologize. At least he tied the dinghy back on.
Early in October, we have some unseasonably warm weather, in the 90s,
for
Bob
and Sue's visit. We head to the lake early Saturday
morning because the breeze is forecast to go light during the
day. One thing I always find remarkable about the East in general
and Ohio specifically is that the weather beats even modern forecasting
methods in unpredictability. Early in the week the forecast in
Sandusky was for sun, then it became rain, then as the weekend
approached the forecast was for sun again. More interesting is
the unpredictability of the wind, even by advanced prediction sites
like windfinder. The NOAA forecast is always simple and for
Saturday it was SSW at 9 mph. The windfinder forecast was for SSW
in the morning, dying through the day, and building from the W in the
evening. We got to the boat around 10:30 and quickly got out of
the bay without too much powerboat wake slamming because of the south
wind. Once outside, though, the wind gradually died until it was
down to 3 knots or so off Marblehead. When the boat speed drops
below 1 knot, it's time to start motoring (although in retrospect I
should have jumped overboard and sponged the scum off the hull
first). Tanya didn't want to motor to Put In Bay so we turned
around and headed back towards Sandusky. As we approached the
outside of the channel, the wind started to fill again, but this time
from the southeast. It built to 8 knots or so once we were in the
bay, so we put Bob in the dinghy and had him snap some pictures as we
sailed by. So we had a good day overall but the wind was as
predicted for a total of about 10 minutes.
October 21st,
Alex and I drive the trailer (with fresh center board and
carpet) to Sandusky. The intention was to sail Sunday, camp out
on the boat at Put-In Bay, sail back Monday and bring the boat home,
but the weather was foul on Sunday so we sailed with jib only for about
a half hour and then hauled the boat. There was a 25-knot wind
from the southwest which churned the shallow waters of Sandusky Bay
into a murky, muddy brown slop. You felt like taking a shower
after the first splash. Haulout was uneventful and we got the
boat home that evening.
10 trips total, meaning 40 hours of driving for probably less total
time sailing, and about $100 a trip for the mooring.
Before haulout:
- bow mast roller
- X bungees
- X pvc wings for mast pole
- X extension or jack for aft mast support
- remove new beam pads and reattach
- mark best place for diamond for bow pole whisker stays and
bow nets
- X bring trailer lights and mast parts
- X big mirrors
The completed list:
- teflon tape for hatch
- switches for external speakers
- measure for bow nets
- measure boom end at max outhaul
- tie lazy cradle lines together
- discs for reefing line sheaves (try washers first)
- bimini for cockpit overton's
works much better than the mantis although I still think the Mantis is
clever
- Unbolt beams, lift and prop up with 2x4, drill small
holes
in compression pads and mount pads in ziplocks with glue. Then
remove pads, drill pilot holes where glue has pushed through, and screw
pads on.
- tighten headstay
- install float vent tubes
- jib snap shackle
- anchor
- mooring chain
- sail cover
- reefing lines
- lazy jacks and sail cover
- bow pulpit with bungee for jib
- check outboard wiring - still bad
- new reefing lines
- cockpit seat rails
- drill holes in forward edge of forward beam flanges for
tramps, mount padeyes
- tighten rudder bolt
- pvc tubes 1/2" x 10" for sail cradle
- heat shrink tube
- switch for autopilot
- external speakers
- fixed-mount VHF
- cam cleats to park jib sheets when using spin/screacher
(or
clutches)
- grates for float compartments (measure) to keep sails out
of bilge
- use the old Amsteel beam wires to hoist a block to the
spreaders for the lazy jacks
- plastic for GPS hole
- Garmin GPS76, mounting bracket, and data cable
