Florin {VACATIONER}

As you guys have seen in my posted pics a few days ago, the sand here has very large grains :-) We got a few serious nicks in the keel due to the "beaching" we've done. Also because we beached on a lee shore (we've had no choice) the waves kept pushing the boat back and forth in the rocks which isn't that great a thing. I used to freak out at the beginning about any nicks we may get in the boat. Now I know its inevitable and quit worying about it so much, its almost a fact of life. We'll just have to fix the bruises in the off season. Craig, the plexiglass idea is great. I know I have some plexi and lexan hanging about in my garage. Is the 4200 transparent when it cures? If not I would like to find something that cures clear so that is not visible. We'll definitely have to get some more touch-up paint (good thing we've kept the recipe so that we get the same shade) to fix up the damages. We bought some fenders but haven't used them yet. That was stupid. Good thing they have plastic docks here... there's no damage to the hullsides yet. Just a bunch of white lines which are easy to rub off. Cheers

Really good info here guys, thanks a lot. I will have to go out there and practice some more I guess. It really seemed to me like the jib is a bit too small in comparison to other boats we've seen on the water. BTW, last Thursday after we launched I thought the wind had picked up a bit too much for my comfort and I decided to try sailing on the jib only... Maybe I've done something wrong, but it didn't seem to pull the boat at all off the docks... on the other hand it turned us downwind and pushed us across to the other docks... didn't seem that we had any rudder control...kinda scary with other expensive plastic boats around and a bowsprit out of control. We managed to miss the boats and entertain the crowds on the shore and docks... We also made the stinkpotters and PWC-ers aware of what a bowsprit and a big chain can do for damage hehehe. Yes, we're learning a lot nowadays. Up until Saturday we were convinced we weren't going to get a motor.... well, that changed. We may not get one this season, but next season we'll have one for sure. Sure makes departing and arriving at a busy dock a lot safer, or at least it gives one more confidence. I think I'll be making a bigger jib for next year and a furler. I hate complicating things and adding more hardware and lines to what we already have, but I think this would be a good thing. Does anyone have drawings and dimmensions for a larger jib? How about the reef points? How many, and what distance from the boom? Thanks

Dave, I wonder if one could find some self adhesive material which would be thin enough to not ruin the hydro-dynamics of the rudder, but strong enough to withstand the bumps and abrasions from the lake bottom. Even if one would have to replace it seasonally. We've hurt out rudder in a different more unconventional fashion. Like Mike said, we have a piece of shock cord keeping our rudder down, so that when it hits any underwater obstruction it moves up to clear... and then once is clear it gets pulled down under the shock cord tension. We were putting out on Saturday, and Barb forgot about the rudder being down... We (I) drove out of the water on the ramp with the rudder dragging on the gravel for about 50' before people realized and flagged me down. Not much damage, just chewed through the paint and fiberglass, but didn't chew the wood much at all... We also have a hole drilled through the rudder and rudder box so that the rudder can be locked in the up position with a bolt when launching or putting out. This is a great idea, except its a bugger to get down to the rudder to get the pin out to release the rudder in its down position once launched unless you either lean over the taffrail really low which sometimes feels like you'll fall overboard, or swim around the boat to get to it. Another problem we have with the rudder is that there is too much clearance between it and the rudder box. The shock cord will most times slip between the rudder and box and jam the rudder. Then, your only option is to take an oar and try to push the rudder down which is not an easy task. Solution to this problem is to make some filler washers on either side of the rudder to eliminate the gap. The rudder and box were made according to plans... if we knew it we would have built either the rudder thicker, or the box opening smaller. I believe Craig had the same problem and his rudder was vibrating. Ours didn't vibrate yet...but now we have this problem. I think Craig made some rings out of nylon to fill the gaps and I believe that took care of his problem. Lots of things to work on still, and lots of things to learn. Cheers

This is a good topic since we were experiencing similar simptoms. Having in mind we've only been sailing for a week now we really couldn't diagnosticalize the problems and this topic really helped. Running down-wind we've actually experienced an accidental jibe on Saturday. I know running wing-on-wing is really dangerous because you have to pretty much be dead down wind for the jib to get filled properly, but it's so much fun... So we were running like such until either the wind shifted(which happens on this lake quite often), or I wasn't paying attention and keeping direction. I could see this happen but I didn't have a chance to haul in the main-sheet in time>>>in other words the boom just came across and just about hit the other side's shrouds. At the same time the boat started to turn very fast in the oposite direction. Sounds like a broach, but didn't turn anymore than about 90deg for I was quicker to react with the wheel. That kind of scared us a bit and for the rest of the day we made sure we never went dead down wind again, we tried to always favor one side depending on what our course would be. This hapened to us a couple of years ago when we were renting CJs and Mistrals at the local yachting club. At the time we did broach 180deg and our older girl literally flew off the foredeck into the drink. Now I hate having to go down wind and I try my darndest to do whatever possible not to have to do this (except when in light aires). Now on the tacking problem. We are still experiencing problems with stalling during a tack (about at least 25% of the times) more so during light aires. Yesterday we were sailing on our local lake and the winds were about 10kt when we launched, but within about 1/2hr they picked up to about 15kt and some whitecaps were starting to form. We got her rails wet every now and then which was a lot of fun. But when we wanted to tack, we've noticed that we would mostly stall in the irons... and most times the boat would have enough inertia to slowly fall off on the other side, but on the odd occasion it would fall back off on the initial tack. Now we haven't any ballast forward yet, and we're mostly all of us in the cockpit, so all the weight would be aft. Sometimes the girls would be on the foredeck (they weigh about 120lb together) and this didn't really seem to help much. I saw some plastic boats that could tack so nicely just going around the corner almost maintaining thir speed around the entire turn which really pi$$ed me off :-). We have a jib clubfoot ans so we cannot backwind the jib. We also noticed the weather helm when sailing on a broad reach mainly... every time we would get a gust of wind the boat would try to round up into the wind and it took quite a bit more pressure on the rudder to correct the course, but I thought this was normal. We didn't get any rudder blisters and didn't get a work-out out of it but there was a definite difference in pressure applied to the rudder. From what I told you so far can you tell me what we can do to speed up these tacks? Other than that we are having too much fun and even if we can't solve some of these minor problems we'll still enjoy sailing in out boat. Thanks

Looks really good Mike! Did you get to fly it yet? Post some pics with it flying. Barb made us a pirate burgee last Friday for the pirate party. It really looked cool up there. Cheers

Excellent! Glad to hear you guys are having fun sailing on a regular basis. Good thing we don't have a keel with these shallow lakes... Both lakes we've sailed so far have shalow parts and sand/gravel bars which wreck many a boat's keels, rudders and propellers. Just talked to a fellow two days ago on the lake and he said he broke two blades out of three on his prop... on the gravel bar. We'll probably have to re-paint our rudder as well since we've dragged it on gravel a bit. Oh well, if you don't have any rashes on her she don't look like she's beying used at all. Have fun

Thanks FIntan. Yep, I'll second that... Cheers

Fintan, sounds like you've had quite a bit of fun. Sometimes that's all you need. And an hour is better than none at all. Must be nice to live so close to the water. The closest we have is about 15 min, but it's a smaller lake. THe nice part about it is that they don't allow motors on it so we don't have to put up with the huge wake and pwc annoyance. The lake we went to yesterday has pretty much everything on it so there are some big waves created by them....especially when you're beached. So far we found we didn't need a motor either. I'm not sure but as of right now I don't think we'll be putting one on anytime soon. Have fun on your vacation. Cheers

That sounds more like it... Thanks a lot. Off to the boat store we go. Thanks

Backwinding the jib wouldn't work for us right now since we have a clubfoot. We were thinking of changing to 2 jib sheets but we were talked out of it and we're willing to give this another try. About the only thing we can do now is just ballast the front a bit and put up with it. Thanks

We are planning on putting a couple of good sized batteries in the forepeak. I'm guessing they weigh about 50# each. Then the anchor with the chain and rode that should add another maybe 25#. We're thinking of keeping our fresh water supply there too. Looks like we'll get to 200# in there anyway. THe electrical system won't get done 'til next season thou' We did try tacking today the way you guys explained and it does work better. Thanks

I guess I'll have to try with the one line setup and we'll see what happens. I hope it works. Will have to do this probably next week now since we're so busy this weekend Thanks

Thanks a lot for your help. 150' sounds doable. I was worried I had to stowe 3-400' in the forepeak... Imagine what would happen when that becomes entangled... and it will...trust me, it will!!! I get help from the crew. Thanks

That's really nice Tim. I wish I were there. Maybe next year

Thanks guys for your help! Barb is making a burgee about 4-5' long and it will be the split tail kind. I guess the proper way to fly this is at the head of the mast then. Thanks

THis is where we spent some time playing around and had a picnic. We decided to head back to the docks and load up for it wa starting to get late. Saturday we're going to the Pirate Party! We're really excited about it. We'll take a bunch more pics and post them here. Too bad you guys couldn't join.. it would be a blast. Now we have to dig out some pirate garb... Cheers to y'all. Florin [attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

We found this small cove with a beautiful sandy beach. You have to realize that in Canada the sand grains are very very large. We managed to get some paint scraped off the keel today on that sand.. I don't think we're worried about the finish anymore now and we can go on with our sailing. Bunch of sailboats slowed down as they were passing while towing their tender... Probably jealous 'cause they just couldn't beach the boat like we did. [attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

THe girls had a good time running around the boat and doing their balancing acts. No one fell overboard yet....yet. [attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

I was a bit disapointed because there were no fish, well... not too many. The water is very deep, the deepest spot we found was around 96' on the sonar. I'm sure there are some lunkers in there but they didn't want to be found. [attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

Relaxed and happy we made the decision to go to a different lake today. The water was beautiful, the wind was just right and everybody was happy [attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

OK, so now that you got the skinny from Barb, here's some pics we took: We just got a hitch installed on Barb's truck, and today I just had to wire a plug for the lights. [attachment over 4 years old deleted by admin]

We had a change of pace today and decided that we needed to go to a larger lake where there might be some real wind to fill our sails and take us places (without the paddles). We went over to Ghost lake which is about 30 mins from our house. It was hot today and rigging the boat made us want to get on the water. This was a windy day and we almost chickened out as we were not sure if we were ready for such strong winds. As is turned out the wind was stronger up on the bluff that we were looking over the lake at than it was right on the water. It was actually just about perfect. We made our way down the lake at a great pace (using our fish finder we found out that the day was not suited for fish) and enjoyed the scenery and other boats about us. After making our way to the other end we turned about and headed back to a nice area where we could beach the boat and have some supper on the shore (Greek salad and hot dogs) The girls looked for treasure (fossils in the rocks) and the Captain and I made our dinner. We took a dip in the water. A bit brisk at first but very nice once you get in with the heat. The Captain was not up for the challenge of a swim but the dog braved a couple of turns in the water. After a nice dinner we headed back to the docks and as usual turned many heads as there is no other boat like ours on the water. Most people want to know what 'kind' of boat it is and many ask how long it took to restore. The owner of the marina at Ghost Lake came by and was interested in the boat. He invited us to the Pirate Party on Saturday and of course pirate wannabees like ourselves are gungho for such an adventure. The day will be filled with treasure hunts, games, food, music, dancing, and Captain Morgan of course! I have to get me speed up and get ye old burgee done for the event! I am sure that the Captain (Florin) will send you more pics of the event and the great time that I am sure will be had by all as it is a family event that is put on every year there. Hope you enjoy our latest batch of pics and we will keep you all posted on our adventures to come! Barb

Thanks guys for the kind words. Greg I feel awed at the fact that you liked my pic that much and made it your desktop wallpaper. The one you got is very low rez... if you want the high rez one I could e-mail it to you. I guess now we have to post more pics. We actually did make a point to take lots of pics while we camp/sail. We took a few today, check out my post. Thanks

Yep Mike that's what we've ended up doing... we now keep the 7' oars on deck handy for action. We've had to do that the other day a couple of times.... errrrr.... we've had to paddle to the docks twice.... must have been about 1/4 mile distance each time. Late at night must have been about 10pm the wind died down to nothing....and we wanted to get out... so we started paddling>>>the GPS said we were doing a whole 2mph...just when we got to the docks the wind picked up again...darn!!! Cheers Mike

I wonder if one line only (on one side of the sail only) would be sufficient leverage... did you try with one and then find out it was too heavy Dave, or did you go with two to start with? I have a solid fir boom, so it's as heavy as it could get. Thanks