ready to race ???

Over the past month or so we have been working on  the boat with 50 plus hours working on the bottom paint and some other smaller repairs. We got the boat in the water on the 17 of April and was the first boat on the mooring ball. Some boats were in their slips before that. With some help from others, we had our first sail on the 18th. Since then I have been doing both classroom and on-the-water training, with a couple more to go. Sunday will be my first race as skipper. It is just a tune up race, and Lori and Jane might join me.  Starting on Thursday I will crew again on the same boat that I raced on last year.

We are ordering shirts for us and some of our friends who plan on being our racing crew. We should have them by the first real race on May 17. The meet up group is working well so far. If we know you and are a friend of ours, and you would like to sail with us, please join, here is the link MN-Sailing-with-Friends . We are looking forward to the new sailing season.

One of the things I have finally got fixed was the syncing issue with the instruments. I was able to get the instruments to talk together and display the same information.  I have been working with Garmin all last year.  One of the solar panels quit last June. I found out that was still under warranty, and will have replacement next week. I worked on the outboard motor, and when I changed the water pump, discovered that 3 of the 6 blades had broken off. So after replacing the part, the engine works much better now. I forgot to fog the motor at the end of the season last year, so it was running a bit rough. I added new gas with seafoam, than ran it some, then let it sit for a hour, and that fixed the problem.

spring work begins

Safety first! Sanding is a very boring and hard job. That's the worst combination. Donavan did most of it.

Over the past few weeks and the next few weeks we will be getting the boat ready to go in the water. We hope to be in around the 18th of this month. The biggest project is stripping off all of the old bottom paint and changing to a different paint, which will be better for the boat since it will be sitting in the water all Summer. The new paint will also be smoother, making for faster racing. When done, there will be from 8 to 11 coats of  Primer, epoxy barrier coat and Vc17 bottom paint. This week is  going to be cold and wet but hope to have the bottom mostly done by the end of the week.  We used our MeetUp group to get help to take down the mast a week or so ago.

first day of sanding

the boat flying

the keel sanded to bare metal

new triducer port for temp speed and depth

primer going on the keel 

Tight squeeze to get those bolts out.

Guess who got to do the squeezing.

Since I was inside the belly of the boat, took some shots of the battery charger (right) and charge controller for the solar panels (left).

Taping...sanding...taping...sanding...

fixing chips

Who knew??!! A caulk that holds your life together! A small tube only costs $16.95, what a bargain.

Racing Sails and Autopilot

I have been racing for the past few weeks at the Wayzata Yacht Club on a few different boats. It's exhilarating to be in the middle of the lake with 100+ boats all going in different directions at each other. My plan is to race there every Thursday night through the Summer. This past Thursday I crewed on a boat that came in first in our fleet. The boat owners invited me back next week. One of the technical skills I have been working on is sail trim, and taking what I learned from racing, and using it on our boat.

Me trimming the main on Blue J  photo by Mark Puariea Photography

Last Sunday Heidi and Troy went sailing with me on the St. Croix. We sailed most of the way to Stillwater before turning back into the wind, about the same time the wind picked up to 14-16 kts with gusts to 20 kts  and we beat our way back home. One of the things I noticed is my main sail is old and stretched out and needs to be retired. I have been looking around to see what is out there. If I order a new sail I am looking at the end of July before I would get it. So I checked with a friend who has same boat as ours, and although she did not have a extra sail, she gave me the name of someone who has a 2 year old sail that has not been used, at a fair price I am going to try and contact them this weekend.

I added the new autopilot, an Autohelm Series ST1000 Plus last week, but it may need to be remounted to get it working better. It does not turn on one side as much as the other. One of the Winter projects I did was to mount the solar panel in a permanent location, but now it is not charging right.  Not sure if it is the panel or the controller. I hope to get the bugs worked out before we head down river to Pepin in two weeks. I'm frustrated with this stuff, but I'm sure I'll get it figured out.

Ready to sail tomorrow

I finish up tonight and the boat is ready to sail  going out in the morning. I do have a few odds and end to finish but nothing that that would stop us from sailing.

Almost time to Sail

New Garmin 541

I have been working off and on the boat past month when I could find time and it is almost ready for the water. I finished a few up grades this year. I installed a larger chart plotter a 541 Garmin so I can read it better at the tiller. I also added a Nexus Nx Wind Pack 1 with wireless Wind Instrument. I added a 2nd smaller battery for a backup and finally mounted the solar panel in its permanent location. I have refinished all of the exterior wood work. I had some of the standing rigging replaced along with the life lines.  

New Nexus  NX wind

Today  Lori  did some touch up on the bottom paint and helped me clean and sort a bunch of stuff on the boat. We also worked on the lift supports for the main hatch, only need to add a couple of bolts and that will be done. I still need to do some repair on the rudder and add a few more coats of finish to the wood work, and bolt it on. I plan to do a good cleaning to the exterior and buff out the gel coat before we hit the water.

working on lift supports for main hatch

If all goes well we should be able to sail next Sunday. I was at the marina this week and the ice is gone.

working inside in a heated shop is great

Where the Hell is Spring!!??

On a good year, there was a chance we could be in the water by now. But at the rate Winter is holding on this year, it looks like at least a couple of more weeks before the ice is off the water, which makes for a couple of crabby sailors. There's lots of things to update about since our last post. First off, I squeaked by passing the ASA 105 Coastal Navigation class. I still need to work on a few things, like set drift and a running fix. Some of that I will do in the coming months, or at least before I take the ASA 106 Advanced Coastal Cruising class, a three + day class on Lake Superior.

We've finalized on a location for the boat. In the St. Croix Valley, in Afton, Minnesota, we secured a park and launch space at the Windmill Marina. This will be a little bit further than some parts of Minnetonka for us, but I can leave the boat on the trailer, mast up, and ready to sail. We can be sailing quicker at this location, despite the longer mileage, since we won't have to spend time rigging the mast and sails. We can store the boat there during the Winter, as well. A park and launch space is considerably less cost than a slip directly in the water. And it's a nice location with lots of places to sail up and down the river, near Lake Pepin.

We are planning a number of sailing trips this Summer. The first one will be the second weekend in June on Lake Pepin, with the Northern Lights Sailing Club. I plan to take the Friday off of that week, and sail the boat from Afton to Lake City, about 43 miles, and one lock. I'm hoping to make the trip down the river in about 10 hours. Being that I'll have more than 10 hours of daylight, unlike the trip from Pepin to Mobile, as well as warmer temperatures, it should be easier. Then we plan to sail Saturday and Sunday that weekend on Lake Pepin, then load the boat on the trailer, and bring it back to Afton.

We got a dinghy from West Marine when they had a close out sale at their Bloomington location. It can roll up and be stored on board, or towed behind the boat, and even put a small motor on it if we wanted. Jane has declared it her boat, and is working on names for it. It should be useful for getting to shore when we anchor out, or can even take it to some of the local lakes here in town, and do some fishing.

Jane looks right at home in her dinghy, in the living room.

I've been working on A couple of things on the boat. I came across an inexpensive roller furling that was still new in the box, and found a place that would modify my existing sail very inexpensively. If I had to go out and purchase everything, it would have been thousands of dollars, instead of hundreds. The roller furling will make sailing a lot easier for everyone, and one of the last things I wanted to do, so I am able to single-handedly sail the boat. Before we decided on putting the boat at the Windmill Marina, I had built a trailer extension for easier launching of the boat. It allowed for 7 more feet. My guess is we won't need that because of the ramp available at the marina, but it may be useful at other locations. I've started my final punch list. Even though there's nearly 30 items on the list, most of them are small, and will take very little time to complete. I just need a couple of days above 32 degrees to wrap everything up, not the predicted snow and cold that will hit in the next couple of days.

One of the other things I was able to complete was replacing the decals and striping on the deck. It really cleans up the boat, in its look and feel.

Old Decals

New Deacals

New striping

Progress, Progress, Progress

I made a bunch of progress over this weekend. The bottom paint went on sale, reduced all the way down to 123$ a gallon. Luckily I only needed one gallon. So I was able to sand, and clean, and put two coats of bottom paint on the boat, so that part of the boat is ready for the water. Earlier this week I was able to find a company that will remanufacture the Hunter decals that originally came with the boat. I ordered new decals and striping. Some of the striping I had to take off when I did some of the gelcoat repair, so I'll be able to replace all of it with new. I was also able to make room and get the motor up on a stand to test it out. I cleaned the plugs, and on the third pull, it fired right up. There's a lot of smoke yet, but it seems to run well. Maybe later next week I can put it outside and let it run, and see if the smoke will stop.

I put an order in to West Marine this week for some of the final parts for mounting the grill, relocating the halyards to the cockpit, and some other parts. One of the things I finally did was to finalize the location of the grill, and the mounting system I'm going to be using. The mounts will be multipurpose. This week, I also picked up a GoPro camera, which is a very small waterproof camera that will make it easy to record the sailing that we do, and can be mounted on the same hardware as the grill. This particular camera can be used for things like skydiving, bungee jumping, surfing, and other high-action recordings (none of which, we'll be doing). I did record myself painting the second coat of the bottom paint. I am going to edit it, and may post it, in fast forward, so everyone can watch paint dry.

Fun with gelcoat

I am making progress on the gelcoat repairs. I have most of them done now. I need to touch up a couple of small spots. I've never worked with gelcoat before, and it's taken a little bit of learning to figure it out, but I think I've gotten it. I finished up the refinishing of the wood work for this year and there are a couple of spots I might strip down next winter. The only stuff left that I can finish before the boat goes back on the trailer is bottom paint and some of the lettering and decals. One of the things that is an open question is the motor. I don't have enough room in the garage right now to see if it runs or see if it needs work. Hopefully that will be soon.

When the boat is back outside and on the trailer I will have a about a day of work to be ready for the sailing season, or I hope that it will be ready anyway.  I have classes most Tuesdays and many Saturdays over the next couple of months. I am looking to do some racing this year also. 

Before and after sanding but no finish yet



old depth gauge

new Garmin 431s

repaired gelcoat splits

 more repairs