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Sunday morning I halfway had decided to head in but got a call from Patty and Jeff and ended up following them out. I was still weighing anchor when they got out on the ocean but after a long light wind chase caught up to them a few miles out. 🙂 its really cool when I can catch a Beneteau 323 🙂 Before leaving I took a few pictures of My Annie while some pelicans flew by
Saturday morning was beautiful also.. With the sun rising over Bird Island. By 9am I was out on the ocean sailing.. I went out a couple miles and then back to make the 11 am start for the race. In racing class were Tenor the new beneteau 10R and TeeSzu. In Cruising class were Runnaway, Sea Puppy and Achilles Heel. I had a really good day racing. I hit the start just right and sailed well against Runnaway and Achilles Heel. Unfortunately Runaway had to DNF and go back in before they finished the race. I think I would have beat them but at the point they turned around at they were only about a minute behind me. Unusually, I ran away from Achilles Heel on the upwind leg of the race, as normal I rapidly opened up the distance even more on the downwind leg. On a 4 mile course I owe them 4 minutes but since I came in about 9 minutes ahead of them I think I won that one 🙂 Normally once the handicap is taken into account Achilles Heel has historically run really close to me with us passing each other in the standings on a regular basis. I took sea puppy out Friday after getting the new 6 hp engine back on her. It still lacks power compared to the old 4hp 2stroke. It was nice a calm on the water friday afternoon and evening. There were only 5 or 6 boats anchored out behind Bird Island for the evening. The sunset was spectacular. 🙂 I have gotten my engine back from the service center on Friday and used it this weekend. I am starting to be rather disappointed in this engine. ( the Tohatsu MFS6BUL 4 STROKE 1 CYLINDER ) The service center told me that it is fine. That they couldn’t find anything wrong with it but they also said they didn’t even put it on a tachometer to check what kind of rpm’s it was turning in the tank. They also told me that as a one cylinder engine that it will vibrate. On the other hand they also told me the other day that they had never seen much less worked on one of these smaller engines. I honestly don’t have any idea at this point whether this engine is running the way it should be. (Note: the seller http://www.outboardsales.com never did call me back or follow up in any way to my phone call and subsequent email to them..) I took Sea Puppy out by myself today. It is the first time I have used the new engine to run to the inlet and back.. I will put up a updated review of it in a day or so so check back. Winds were running about 10 knots I think. I sailed beside Pirate Girl Patty’s Beneteau 323 most of the day and hung with them speed wise. I averaged 5.5 t 6 knots on the knotmeter. I think the fully battened mainsail is helping a lot. With the foot pocket eased she generates a fair amount of power in this wind range. I wired up the solar panel and alternator on Sea Puppy today. The solar panel is wired into the batteries before the 1/2/all/off switch so that it will still trickle charge the batteries even if the the power is shut off on the boat. The alternator I wired in on the other side of the switch so that it will run the system even if the switch is off.. ( I need to read up on this to make shure this is the correct way to do it. Not sure if the battery has a stabilizing affect on it vs running stuff from it without the battery in the link.) The rectifier on my engine was wired backwards from the factory and was putting out excessively high voltage. It took putting a volt meter on it and playing with it to get it right when I wired it all up. luckily my gps unit actually started warning me about an over voltage condition and I was able to shut everything off quickly and start troubleshooting it, also my next door neighbor at the dock took an interest as this was going on and helped troubleshoot it. Took about 5 minutes to figure out and fix with his help. It’s both like and at the same time the antithesis to those shows where you have the scene with the alcoholic standing up in front of a group of people and saying “hi my name is George and I’m a recovering alcoholic” “Hi my name is Scott and I want to go cruising.” It really doesn’t sound like much.. there isn’t much overt drama to it. Most people when you tell them you want to get a boat and move onto it to live a nomadic lifestyle give you that look that says. “where did this guy come from? loon in the house!” You get questions from them .. “What about your Job? Your house? Your life.” Though to be honest I also get from some of them “that is so cool” and “I’d love to do that”. I went out with Patty and Jeff today on Pirate Girl (beneteau 323). I really like how she handles.. you can set the sails and she will steer herself forever in flat seas. So far every Beneteau I have been on sails well. I’m sure there are some that are not a good as others and I will readily admit to only having sailed on 5 or so, but all those have been a pleasure to sail. She also has a nice size cocpit and if you sitting leaning back against the cabin sides facing aft the angle on the cabinsides makes for a very comfortable rest. I like the cabin also just for the headroom.. most of it is 6ft.. I don’t have to do the duck thing in the main cabin. Well I guess its official.. my new outboard is not running right. I showed my video (Tohatsu outboard video) to Tohatsu USA and Vic who I spoke with told me to take it to a service center.. he thinks its in the ignition.. I will say this… Tohatsu USA has been really responsive to my calls and questions. Its not fixed yet but to date I’m really happy with their customer support. They pick the phone up and talk to you right away and Vic who I have been dealing with has been really helpful. I have finished the break in period… I took the boat out again with Patty and Jeff after running it for a while at the dock to finish up the break in period. I don’t know if something is wrong with the engine or what but it doesnt perform as strongly as my old 4hp 2 stroke. It also has a lot of vibration. I have talked with tohatsu and am going to take it into the local service center and let them take a look at it. The guy at tohatsu said if it isn’t getting up to the top end rpms it is supposed to be then it could be the timing advance having problems in the electronic ignition. They have seen this before. Or that I possibly need to get a lower pitched prop. The one on there is a 7.7 inch 8 pitch prop. I can go down all the way to a 7.9 inch prop with a 6 pitch. I ran the engine for several hours on saturday when me and Miriam put it on the boat. Today I ran it for a few more hours and even took the boat out and ran it up and down the water way for a bit. I have been carefull to follow the breakin scheadule and rpm constraints. other related posts http://www.scottcarle.com/wordpress/?p=277 In the fall of 2003 I painted my Shock Santana 21 topsides with Glidden porch and deck paint from Lowes or Home Depot.. I forget which. I used a fine roller and for the non skid areas added the non-skid powder they sold there for a couple bucks a pack. I mixed it into the paint before rolling it on. This seemed to work well and the finish was sand paper non skidish 🙂 Here is the link to the original post when I painted her. I recently got a comment from a new Shock Santana 21 owner and in a followup email he asked me how the paint had stood up. |
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