2010 Sailing Journal

In March 2010, I talked with Ray Steely, the previous owner and he said he kept a log of every trip he made. I think I'll do that too, but keep it here on the Net.

May 4, 2010 - In the water at last!

My son Alex was home today and helped me get the boat in the water. The hardest part was stepping the mast, but I had Alex do all the heavy lifting (he's not big but he's as strong as an ox).

Most everything went smoothly. The only glitch was pulling the boat out of the garage. I didn't wait for Alex to come out and serve as a lookout and when the boat was just out of the garage, I noticed it was getting harder to pull. The driveway is down hill there so it should have been getting easier to pull, so it was noticeable. So I stopped and got out of the truck to check it out and discovered the the masthead had caught on the garage door edge and pulled the lower panel of the garage door clear out of the garage. It warped the lower panel of the garage door pretty good but did not damage to the boat or mast. Well, maybe it bent the back rail down just slightly, but it may well have been that way already, I really don't know for certain. You can see the door in the photo at right is pretty warped. If you look closely you can see that the garage door track is well behind the leading edge of the door. That's how far I pulled the door out of place. Amazing that I didn't damage anymore than I did.

Once that was done and cleared up (work is progressing on the door repair), we were off to the lake and got the boat into the water with no trouble.

I had a little trouble starting the engine, but when I finally opened the throttle, it started right up. Amazing that it wouldn't fire at all with the throttle closed and yet at idle, its really not running all that slowly.

The next problem I noticed is that the water pump is pumping only a small stream. I'll have to get that fixed right away. It's not going to be easy to get the engine off the boat now that its in the water.. I guess I'll wait till Alex is back home from college this weekend.


At the marina, ready to set up.

Mast is up		And in the drink.

May 8 - got the garage door fixed.

Alex came home from college today and he had ordered a copy of the painting "Christ As My Pilot" that I had mentioned on my Boating home page. He got it as a boat warming gift he said. Very thoughtful. He didn't know it but I wanted to get a copy to hang in my boat. He got it for me. I can't wait to hang it.

May 15, 2010

I got the motor back on the boat this morning and moved the front stay to the center mounting hole in the chain plate. I also adjusted the shrouds and in doing so, noticed that the ends of some of the adjusters where turned almost out of the ends. Oh man, if one of those babies had popped while under load, I might have lost the whole rig. I also straightened out the split stay tensioner. It was snuggled up.

So, I think I have things in pretty good shape. I had thoughts of hoisting a sale by myself today, but there were about 30 fishing boats out on the lake and I decided that "caution is the better part of valor" as Gary Golicic used to say, and stayed home after lunch and worked on Alex's Jeep instead.

Alex said he'd go with me if I have someone go who knows what they're doing. I put in a call to Roger Clay to arrange a sailing lesson.

May 16, 2010

My dear brother in Christ, Roger Clay

Whoopee! We had the maiden voyage today. Well, my maiden voyage. "Fear Naut" has made many voyages in the past. She knew what she was doing, I just had to figure out what I was doing. My dear brother Roger Clay went with me. I appreciate him taking the time to do that so much.

We motored for 15 minutes or so bucking a head wind to get out well into the lake. Then we put up the main only and sailed around with just the main. I used the old original S2 Exciter sail. I figured if we should happen to wreck it, I'd wreck the old sail. And, I knew Connie was taking pictures and figured the "Exciter" colors would make a better pic.

After getting some confidence with that, and maybe out of boredom as much as anything, we (Roger) decided to put up the jib. So I found the old Exciter jib (it was easy to spot in the bags) and we hoisted that. That gave us more speed for sure.

We sailed around for an hour or so and swapped stories and eventually headed in.

We sailed right up to the dock and I guess Roger was feeling pretty confident and decided to sail into the slip. Everything was fine except that we were a little too far South and leeward (down wind) of the slip. We had a crisis on our hands. We started the motor and fought and kept from hitting the dock and a nearby boat. Roger managed to get the sails doused enough that the motor could have some effect and we finally motored into the slip.

I thank God for the beautiful weather, the prosperity he has given me so that I can own a sailboat, and the wonderful friendship of Roger Clay who gave me the help to get this done.

We never put the center board down. The boat has an 1100 pound shoal keel and Ed told me that the center board was hardly needed. Certainly in the light air we had in it wasn't needed. And, we didn't have to worry about the shallow water that way or the condition of the cable (I haven't checked it). We pretty much sailed wherever we wanted without worrying about the depth, including going on the wrong side of the "danger" bouys.

Motoring out
	Sailing with the main only
Putting up the jib. The crew fumbled around a good bit on this.	The jib almost up. The photographer (my wife Connie) thought this was as far as it went and this was the last pic she took.
The motor worked fine with one exception. As we motored out onto the lake, it quit. I was able to get it started back up and I increased richened the mixture and it ran fine ever after both going out and coming back. It started up really easily and the water indicator had a nice stream all the time. Now that I've sailed, I have some things I have to do (not necessarily in order of importance): Check to see if the radio works in the boat (the AM/FM radio I mean - you hardly need ship to shore on Clearfork Resevoir). Get a thunder-jug as Roger calls it. Get the porta-potti fixed. Check the tension on the shrouds and stays (yet again). Hang the picture in the cabin. Get a lesson on how to fold sails. Get some tie down rings installed on the dock (not supposed to have cleats on the top of the dock). Get Ed Ramsey to come and show me how to set this thing up. I can't wait to get good enough to take Matthew (my grandson) out.

My brother in Christ and crewman, Ron Kidwell

May 24, 2010

A beautiful day and Ron Kidwell agreed to go out with me on just my second time out He's a brave man. Well, there's a fine line between bravery and insanity. Thanks Ron for going along!

We sailed for a couple of hours. I didn't get up the nerve to put up the jib. I just thought it was more than I wanted to tackle today. We did fine with just the main. I had a bit of a challenge getting into the dock, but we made it without any damage. Constantly learning things.

Out in the middle of the lake, there was this area that had a different look on the surface. I sailed through it and found it was a very shallow area that was thick with weed. Lucky I didn't have the dagger board down. Later when I reached over the stern to drop the engine back into the water, I noticed there was a huge clump of weed around the rudder. I guess I know now to steer clear of that funny looking area! Learning.

I noticed when we were catching a good wind on close reach, the inside shroud on the leeward side was hanging there limp. Maybe I need to tighten the shrouds.

Before we went sailing, I took two conference calls from the cabin (one of my objectives is to work all day form the boat). The cell strength was pretty weak, but it worked OK. I'll have to try it from somewhere out on the lake next. I also checked and the radio works great on FM stations. Nothing on AM.. I suppose because there's no antenna. I can live with FM! -- I think I left the power switch on now that I think about it. Guess I need to get over there tomorrow and check that. Maybe an excuse to sail.

The companion way cover won't slide all the way open today. I suppose because it was much warmer than its been. I couldn't determine where exactly it was binding. So there's some work to do on that.

May 31, 2010

The forecast for today was thunderstorms so I didn't look for someone to go sailing with me. We didn't have any storm until this evening. I could have easily gone sailing if I had someone lined up. So I've decided I MUST learn to sail this boat single-handed. It eliminates one of the major hindrances from being able to go sailing.

Its now the end of May, and I've been sailing twice. That is pretty disappointing. We have thunderstorms forecast for most everyday this week, so its not likely I'll make it out this week. Plus I have two trees to get cut up this week (the neighbors had a huge tree come down across their driveway and Alex wants me to help him cut down a friend's tree, which I'm happy to do - always happy to work with my boys!).

I did go over to the boat today to figure out how to rig a tiller tender so that I can single hand, and to get dimensions for a cabin hatch prop (there's nothing to hold the cabin hatch open which seems odd to me). I'll try to get the cabin hatch prop made up tonight. I'm thinking of working from the boat tomorrow, just for kicks. I need power for my PC though if I'm going to work all day. I need to either get a small generator, or power inverter. I think the generator would be a better long term solution.

June 1, 2010

I made a hatch cover prop device last night. Took it over to the boat to see how it works. I have a modification I need to make. I took two conference calls while I was on the boat and had hoped to sail from noon until 3:30 when I had another call scheduled. Then I had two more calls add to that, so I came home. I was really looking forward to try single handing it.
I quickly checked out a way of making a tiller tender, just using a piece of rope and it looked like it would work out OK.

June 4, 2010

Jerry Rentfrow went sailing with me yesterday. We sailed almost the full length of the lake - a little over 2 miles in length. We had a great time. There were a few times when we we're catching the wind better than I have before. The boat was healing over nicely - I didn't think to look at the inclination meter, and I also didn't think to take pictures. Dang on both accounts.

When we were at the far end of the lake, there was a thunderstorm on the West end of the lake. I was getting fairly concerned that we might get caught in the storm, but it blew by South of the lake. We did feel a few raindrops but just a few. The thunderstorm probably just gave us a little better wind, although at no time did we have any great amount of wind.

At one point, Jerry asked me if I was nervous and I had to admit that I was. I do get nervous when I go out. Will the engine fail? Will we get knocked down? Will something break? Will we get caught in a thunderstorm. Lots of things to worry about, but I'll learn not to worry eventually. Its kind of ironic I guess that I worry since I want to name the boat "Fear Naut."

Today the weather was stormy. I wondered if the downpour we got would over run the scuppers, fill the cockpit and sink the boat. Again, worry for nothing.

June 13, 2010

I haven't been back to the boat since the 4th. I was traveling all of last week for work, and since I've been home its been raining every day. Yes, you can sail in the rain, but the problem is that the sails get wet and then you have to get them dried out somehow. You can't leave them on the boat folded up because they'll get moldy. I could bring them home to dry, but I don't really have a good place here to dry them out. So, sailing has been a bust for the past week.

June 19, 2010

Alex & I went sailing this afternoon for about two hours. We got snagged in the weeds twice. The first time sailing. The wind was very low and it barely got us out of the weeks. Then later while we were motoring toward the dock, we got into another patch. The weeds got around the prop and I had to shut the engine down. I tried to raise the sail but we weren't headed into the wind. Eventually the wind blew us out of the weeds and Alex was able to clear the prop from weeds and we motored on back to the dock. Now I know abou this new weed patch. I'm sure I've sailed throught that area before.