|
A bit of work and an excursion
The last major thing needed done on the Goose was putting on the skegs, two 1x2s running the length of the outside, bottom of the hull. Skegs serve a few purposes -they protect the bottom when the boat is on land and they help stiffen things up. The trick is to get them straight, and for that, I snapped a chalk line. (holes in the bottom of my boat!)
More holes! Pilot holes from the outside so I can countersink them from the inside.
Skegs are a 2 person job (at least) Rick happened to be walking by, so he got pressed into service. We are using PL S10 Concrete and Masonry Sealer as the bedding. That stuff dries stiff as a car tire, but still flexes, which is important.
Rick was a great help. It turned out the lines I had snapped were not perfectly straight so he made a gage out of a piece of scrap. Starting in the middle, he held the gage against the side of the skeg while I drove the screw up from the inside. Perfect. Nothing to do now but wait for the bedding to cure. I wanted to take the Goose to Fern Ridge tomorrow, so with Geoff's help, we moved her up to the parking lot and loaded her on the trailer.
There she is, ready for travel. I have not weighed the boat yet, but I truly doubt it weighs more than 150lbs, fully rigged for sail.
Fern Ridge has a couple marinas and picnic areas. They used to have a kid in a booth who would take the day use fees, not they have this Iron Attendant. $4 for all day, including launch and a nice parking area. The location is infested with hippies and other unsavory types who have non-standard views of ownership, so locking your vehicle is recommended.
Launch. It went pretty flawlessly.
Cast off into no wind. Seriously - I could barely feel any breeze at all in my beard and the hairs growing from my ears. Yet I moved. That sail from Really Simple Sails is fantastic.
It took me 20 minutes to reach the No Wake buoy. I got a phone call from John K, asking where I was and if I was making headway. I told him I was, indeed, making headway, just slowly.
There were some puffs and gusts, and I sailed out further from the lee shore, but progress was slow. Some time later I heard the drone of a 4-stroke and looked up to see Jim C's Modoc motoring towards me. The Modoc is Jim's new shanty boat - and it is nice.
John Kohnen had his camera and got this shot of me as they approached.
Blurry picture of the Coots on the Modoc: Jim C (captain) Denis B, and John K.
John taking a picture of me taking a picture of him. Look how the boat sits. The sail is just a tad too low to duck under while sitting on the side.
John provided me with a GPS so I could do some testing with actual numbers. It took a bit of trial and error, but I figured out how to reset it. The numbers here are not correct.
John got this shot of me diddling with the GPS as they motored off. I think I am going to move the halyard block aft a wee bit and try to angle to boom up a tad. If it helps, I'll move the boom downhaul back a wee bit and try to get more tension on it.
There was weather to windward, but it wasn't coming my way and the wind just wasn't playing.
That's what .6mph looks like.
Out of boredom, I started sculling. I found with the rudder fully down, it was easy to push and pull the tiller, and I got .3 to .4mph out of the effort. I let the board come up and tried sculling. It was a lot more effort, but I could add nearly a mile per hour to my speed.
Sculling is hard. Sitting is easy.
Slowest buoy slap on record.
A gust! A wee bit of a blow! Maybe things were looking my way - maybe I should keep going. Hey, wait a minute, the children of Aeolus have tricked me before. Rather than sailing out further into the lake, becoming becalmed again, and be forced to eat my own feet to stave off starvation.
On my way back to Point Orchard, the Maryann passed me by. They were hoping for a good day of sailing - I wished them well.
Final numbers: 1.2mph moving average, 3.2 max speed (that were glorious, that were) and 48 seconds where we were absolutely motionless (that were not glorious.)
Over at Shore Lane Park (an Army Corps of Engineer's park, so no fees, but no launch, either) the messabout was in full swing. There was a very nice SF Pelican in attendance.
It was a pretty nice turn out - quite a number of Coots and new Coots.
That blue boat is an O'Day and the owner showed me all the wonderful features of it. That is an impressive adventuring boat.
|
