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I didn’t think we were going to get to race. The wind was blowing dead on our stern as we sat in our slip at a steady 25 kts with gusts into the low 30s. We had a pole dead behind us that we needed to slide sideways around (about 9 feet to starboard to clear it before we could then back out into the channel).
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With only a 4 hp outboard I wasn’t sure it was up to controlling us in a sideways slide and then backing against the wind and fetch that was coming at our stern. With all of us on the boat (Jay and Miriam and Me) we did a couple of test runs while still tied to the dock. Each time I was able to take the slack out of the docklines from where we were being pushed into the slip by the wind and waves. So with just a few minutes before our start in the race I made the decision to give it a try. We used a line from the port stern cleat to the piling behind us on starboard for some extra security, just in case we had a problem. However it all went very smooth.. With the poor engine going full out we slowly moved sideways around the pole behind us and then out into the channel. 🙂 I almost didn’t give it enough room before going into forward. With the wind pushing us back at the docks I thought for a moment that it was going to push us into them before I got turned away. The nice thing about my outboard is that I can turn it as well as the tiller and it gives me an increadably tight turning radius. I used it 🙂
It continually amazes me how maneuverable Sea Puppy is and how little power she needs to move. She realistically weighs in with us on board with fuel, water, batteries, engine etc.. at about 4000lbs. Her dry weight just the boat with no stores, fuel etc.. on her is around 3300 lbs. a whopping 900 more than the factory specks show. Every 235 owner I have heard of that has weighed their boat has reported similar weights. I would like to move up to a 6hp engine though just to have a little more margin in power.
You have to wonder about people that sail sometimes. I mean the forcast was for rain and 20 knots all day friday. Thirty to fifty knots gale force winds that night. Mid twenty knots saturday and twenties on Sunday.
So what do I and 5 other boats do Friday? head up the waterway from Little River Inlet to Cape Fear River via the Intracoastal Waterway friday morning. 3 of the boats had dogers and or bimini’s but a couple of us didn’t have anything but foul weather gear. The forcast was right.. It rained, it poured, it blew, and we motored on and on through it.
Went sailing on sea puppy with Cary Huhr and his girlfriend Michelle. Tested new single line reefing and it seems to work well.
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Well we got the engine working. Miriam helped me drag the engine out at pattys while I was dog sitting and we rebuilt the fuel pump and cleaned out the carberator. We also pulled the lower unit off and replaced the impeller. All in all it wasn’t a terible job. We had to do the impeller twice though as the water pickup didn’t slot in correctly the first time and when I tested it the engine was not spitting water while running.
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My engine is still not working so I went sailing with Patty on Pirate Girl. Winds were blowing 15 to 20 knots and seas were 3 feet or so… maybe 5 feet in the jetties as we went out.
We only put the main and jib out about half way and still were averaging 5.5 to 7 knots depending on the point of sail.
Pirate Girl is kinda like sailing a bigger version of Sea Puppy… Pirate Girl is a Beneteau 323 and Sea Puppy is a Beneteau First 235.
We didn’t stay out long only sailed for a couple hours. The tide was dropping and even with a 4 ft 9 inch draft pirate girl is having problems getting in and out of Mariners point and her slip there. We barely scraped in an hour an a half before low tide and had to pull the boat into the slip from the dock the last 15 feet or so, as she was dragging in the mud.
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Went sailing with Judy. Very nice day on the water.. Wind was about 15 knots from the N/NE coming off the coastline. It layed the waves down so that the water was flat near shore. Really nice sailing. Breck in Runnaway just scooted by us.. even though he is much heavier the longer waterline paid off today.
Made the mistake of not re-leasing the boom vang after practicing putting a reef in. I shook out the reef and then tightened up on the main halyard to put the sail all the way back up. It got stiff and I heard a spang!!! sound.. lol don’t ask me to tell you what spang!! sounds like :). Long story short It bent the stainless fitting on the mast base that it attaches to and turned loose. I fixed it the next morning.
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I took Mirriam, Emily and William out on Sea Puppy today. It was an interesting day in more ways than one. We made a convert to sailing and I learned some lessons I should have already known.
William had a very bad first experience with sailing (very bad case of moition sickness) and has been very forcefull in his resistance to going out sailing since.
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Talk about your epic tantrums. Anyway Mirriam is working hard to help him overcome this fear before it becomes a long term problem. I knew he was going to be a handfull when I agreed to let him go sailing with us. There isn’t much on earth as loud as a young child who is scared of something and doesn’t want to go. To be honest for a little bit I started to want to just crawl inside myself and turn the noise off 🙂 He has a pair of lungs and an impressive streak of stubborn in using them.
Went with Judy to the sherman and back… about 7 hours altogether… actually we went down the coast for a while before working our way out to the sherman and then back..
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short and sweet for now.. 🙂 3rd place in first race.. 1st place in second race.. it was close in the first race and we were way ahead on second race.. 🙂 everyone did a stellar job of it.
We bent the spinnaker pole around the babystay. I forgot that the babystay was on and the foredeck guy 🙂 didn’t notice either so when we put it on the first time it was on the wrong side.. when we pulled in on the guy to pull the pole back it bent around the baby stay… 🙁 now I need a new section of tubing to put the fittings back on.
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Ok I got the second battery and installed it.. I had to create the jumper cable from one negative post to the other battery’s negative post and then connected it all up. So now I have two 92 ah AGM batterys wired to a OFF/1/2/Both switch.. it works well.
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Well I actaully got around to replacing the head.. It was very easy.. took about 10 or 15 minutes to take the old one out and about that to put the new one in… much easier than rebuilding it. and only abuot 30 dollars more expensive.. 🙂 good deal to me 🙂
picture of new head
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I had to use the old right angle fitting from old head to get the hose to the holding tank to go on it. The fitting on the new head was only a 45 degree angle and wouldn’t let the existing hose reach correctly.
Well I took my battery back in monday to west marine and they put a tester on it and then exchanged it out for another battery. They didn’t have any group 27 gells in stock so gave me a group 27 AGM battery. I got 13 dollars in change back as the AGM batterys are cheaper than the Gel batterys now. The GEL was 87 amp hours while the AGM is 92 amp hours.. So I got about a 5 amp hour upgrade. The downside is that AGMS do not last as long as GEL batterys. I will be buying another Group 27 AGM to make a two battery bank on Sea Puppy. This will give me a much larger capacity and also some redundancy.. As I have already installed the cabling and connectors prior when I was rewiring the batterys to be on port instead of starboard it will just be a matter of hooking up the second battery.
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