The Voyage Of The Falcon

Or, The Trip When Not Much Went Right

We wanted to take a shakedown sail back in June but, ironically after 3 years of such bad drouth that the area launch ramps were all closed because the lakes didn't reach the ramps, the area launch ramps were all closed because they were under water.  So I took the sailboat to Galveston this week as much intending to work on it as to sail, and that's about what happened.  Some of you are interested in the work I did, so here's a little list.

Scotty, we NEED more power!

Motor
After our trip to Port Aransas where the 4 hp Suzuki outboard proved extremely unreliable, I had it overhauled and tuned up and then put it in the garage for 2 years while I had consecutive shoulder surgeries.  I know this is the kiss of death for a motor, so imagine my surprise when it started easily and ran for 10 minutes in my makeshift motor stand.  Then I shut it off, and it never started again.  I wore blisters on 4 fingers, and never so much as a pop.  So I took it along, hoping to get it into a motor shop, but planning to spend some money on an electric which I've wanted to try for years.  Paul Wilke uses a 80-pound thrust Minn Kota on my old Siren and says he'd get bigger if he ever sailed anywhere else than Winfield Lake, but it uses a 24-volt battery system.  Minn Kota and West Marine were having a pretty big sale on 55-pound thrust salt water models, the largest that uses 12 volts.  Half expecting it to be too small, I bought it and a marine battery on price rather than on performance and it met expectations--it will get me in and out of the slip at Galveston Yacht Basin, but isn't sufficient to rely on for backup power or motoring around looking for dolphins.  But at least I had a motor.  The Suzuki shop never quite got around to looking at mine so I'll have to find a shop around here.

Sail Modifications
Ultimately I want to make the boat easier to sail single-handed.  After dropping off the motor, I went to a nearby sail loft and had the main converted from a bolt rope to slugs, and had them add some telltales.  I'm happy with this change.  It worked great.  I might send it back to put a reef point in someday.  I had them  add telltales to the small jib and left the big jib to be converted to roller furling.  West Marine doesn't stock the roller furling hardware and there are some dimensional issues to be resolved, but I'll order it and have it shipped to the sail loft and we'll be in business.  I jury rigged a downhaul on the small jib to make it easier to get down, and this worked fine.  I had the rigging shop at West Marine replace the funky mainsheet hardware on the boom with a stainless bail, and put an eye bolt at the end of the boom in the hole where the old hardware was.  The bail works great, and the eye can be used to snap to the topping lift.  I took the old spotlight off the cabin roof, which leaves some screw holes to mount a little cleat.  I'll use the cleat for the furling line or the jib downhaul, depending on which I'm using.  Long term, I hope to put some deck-mounted blocks up forward to route the downhaul/furling line.

The Voyage

Apres Sail

With all this new stuff and lots of help from Amy, I got the boat put together and launched Tuesday evening.  I noticed that the tabernacle, which I thought was wrong-sized and allows the mast to contact the cabin roof, chewing up the fiberglas, is simply installed backward.  I'll reverse that sometime soon but I still need to do some fiberglas work on the cabin roof. We motored (silently) to our slip, rigged dock lines, bumpers and battery charger, and went to eat dinner.  Wednesday morning Kathy, Amy and I reported for an early sail.  Motored out, main up, jib up...and couldn't lower the centerboard.  The latch that releases the winch ratchet is entirely missing.  Now we're motoring around with sails up, dodging and being dodged by traffic in the Galveston Ship Channel, Amy steering while I lie in the bilge with a flashlight in my mouth looking at the winch.  So I exercised the jib downhaul (single handed) and mainsail slugs (need some Teflon spray), stowed the sails and motored back to the slip.  Kathy wanted to motor back out to look for dolphins but, now with a crisp breeze, I realized we were underpowered and turned back.  So we sat on the dock looking at mullet and talking over what had worked and what hadn't.

Conclusion
I stopped to pick up the motor on the way out of town.  It was near West Marine so I stopped, and found winches for 30% off.  I also got a new stern light, to replace the aged non-functioning one I have now.  This will give me a full set of nav lights, though no masthead light.  I'd been soliciting suggestions for a name for the boat and, along with several rude ones, Amy thought of Falcon which I like.  I'll see if I can find a cool USAFA logo and get a graphic made of it.  If I can replace the winch and stern light and do a little tweaking on the sails, we can be ready to sail in a lake on Amy's birthday.  Maybe even have the roller-furled genoa by then.

Life is good.  Come on down and go sailing.  If you dare.