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Sailing and Repairing


Dave R1

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Tim's always looking for sailing reports so this one is for him. We just got back from a trip to the in-laws' cabin on Long Lake near Park Rapids, MN. For the first time we took Julie K with us and after a couple of days waiting out the rain we were finally able to put the boat in the water.

Long Lake is so called because it is something like nine miles long. The only decent public boat landing is at the south end so that's where we put in. The cabin is about 4 miles up the lake from the boat landing.

When we put in there was a nice wind but by the time we motored out of the little bay where the ramp is, the breeze was rapidly slacking. I sailed with my bride's aunt who is used to sailing on Chesapeake Bay. After playing with the little breeze we had we gave up and motored up to the cabin.

I did a little solo sailing in the almost non existant breeze. It was nice and relaxing. We were expecting nice weather and more wind the next day so the boat stayed at the dock overnight and we didn't go back out at all.

The next morning dawned stormy with damaging winds and hail forecast for later in the morning. I decided to high tail it for the ramp and get the boat under cover. It took an hour to make the trip into a headwind back to the ramp where I happily met my bride who drove down with the trailer. That was the end of the sailing on the Weekender.

We did get the two sunfishes out and sailed them a couple of times. They're a lot of fun but the older one has the confounding proclivity of sailing backwards. It's kind of an odd thing to tack and find the boat's wake is in front of it. Once it gets going, it's kind of hard to get it going forward again.

Here's a picture of the Weekender in almost no wind.

jksolo3.jpg

Repairing:

This morning while cleaning up the boat after the weekend, I discovered that my stem is delaminating. After removing the winch post from the trailer and the bow eye from the boat, I used my little laminate trim router with a 1/4" straight bit to route out a groove along the delamination. I cleaned out the space and stuffed it with epoxy. I hope it holds.

Before

delam1.jpg

After

delam2.jpg

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I hope that epoxy job will take care of it.

Barry, I had to put bent wires on the lee side of the sails to get them to belly out like that. :D Actually, that was about as windy as it got that afternoon. Good for my first time out solo.

Never had the opportunity to solo the Weekender before.

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Well, now you know, it doesn't take much to get a Weekender sailing. Othes may have to set and wait, but we can still make headway, unless of course we are fighting against a current or tidal flow. :roll:

I plan on a sailing solo a lot of the time. Used to do it a lot, never had much of a challenge with it once I got used to the idea. Shouldn't be much different now and maybe more enjoyable since I've mellowed some. :wink:

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Dave,

Next time in light winds, forget the wires and sit on the lee side of the boat. This counter heels the boat and lets gravity give the sails some shape. Most times this will get the boat moving even when there seems to be no wind. I do this a lot in the light summer winds.

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Sorry to see the stem delam, but it looks like you've got a good fix in place.

My only question was how you got the bow eye out. My assumption is that it's held in place by nuts screwed in place inside the forepeak...which seems like they would be really hard to reach. Unless, of course, you dropped Ian and a wrench into the forepeak.

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Bill, I wish Ian was coordinated enough to do that for me. It's tighter than ever in there due to the battery box now.

Still, I was able to get a wrench on the nut inside and loosen it. The bow eye 'bolt' is a piece of threaded rod that has a nut and washer on the inside of the stem. The rod is considerably longer than needed but in this case it turned out to be a good thing. I backed the nut up the rod about an inch, whacked the end of the rod with a hammer to unseat the bow eye. From there I could unscrew the bow eye and push the rod up into the hole enough so I wouldn't have any chance of hitting it with the router bit.

While I have the winch post moved out of the way I'm going to see if I can come up with a different roller for it. The OEM roller has a V-groove that doesn't fit the shape of the stem. The roller is hard enough that it has compressed the wood a bit where it hits the stem.

I'd like to find a flat roller but then I wonder if I need to do something to provide a bit of lateral holding ability.

Bill, what sort of roller do you have on your winch post?

Dave

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