First thing. My roller furler had been kinked because we had been storing it snaked from one side of the boat to the other. I did this because the dealer siad that that was how most of his cusotmer did it, and while it would be slightly kinked it would still work fine. Since the boat had to go to the shop anyway I thought I'd try the put your furler in pvc pipe to straighten it out trick mentioned in the manual. BIG mistake.
So I used 2"ID black PVC pipe purchased in 8' sections joined with couplers. Well the pipe melted to first conform to the furler, then they both decided to conform to the slight variations in my lawn. So now my furler is worse off then when it started. It would probably have worked better had I gone with 4" pipe, since that has thicker walls. The furler now is bungied to the mast and the end is supported by a 1"x4".
So, we spent the rest of Friday afternoon doing all the little things making sure that the boat was really ready to go for the season, and had it all packed up by about 9PM. One thing I had wanted to do was tighten the shrouds up because last year being the first one out they seemed to have stretched some. But when I put the uppers just one hole tighter the main had a bend in it in that was bad enough that the mast wouldn't rotate properly, instead it would pop from one side to the other as the bend cleared. So I took it out.
I checked the weather forecast...forecast for the lake I wanted to try out is 10-20mph and gusty. Hmm my own advice I gave the other day was with a toddler don't go out in higher wind conditions, but we couldn't find a babysitter, and I really wanted to take the boat out, so forget my advice- I'd just hope it would stick around the 10 MPH mark and see how it goes.
Wake up Saturday morning 5:30AM to finish up the last bit on the boat. Hook it up to the new Tundra. It's the first time pulling the boat to anywhere but the dealer and we're heading over one of the steepest passes in Utah.
It's got to do better than my Montero Sport, which could only go about 35 MPH up a similar hill. Get to the pass and the truck will do whatever speed I want to up the hill, I pass a Jeep Liberty that is towning nothing but only going 60 in a 65....feels good to finally have a vehicle designed to pull something. I'm averaging about 11MPG which is about what the Montero Sport got when towing as well...very happy with that purchase decision....but that's another story.
Get to Jordanelle State Park. My son Devin is asleep, something I am very gratefull for, I've been on this lake with a Hobie 16 long before but haven't been there in about 9 years. When I first came it hadn't finished filling yet so it's a completely different reservoir. The boat gets setup pretty easily, and we head to the ramp, it is moderately busy and what I think is a park ranger decides to "help" me line the boat up, he keeps giving bad directions and it's driving me nuts, finally I ignore him and easily get it into position.
I find out from my wife later that it was just a guy in a Boy Scout uniform (no offense to Boy Scouts, I was one at one point.)
So now completely I'm frustrated and launch the boat and head for the curtesy docks. Theres a cross wind and all the docks are full except the inside most one. I decide that I'll try backing it in, which I've never done before, but everyone here makes it sound so easy.
I actually back it in perfectly the first time....that is until halfway in my rudders hit the bottom...now I know why that dock was empty. It never even occured to me that they would place docks somewhere that would be so shallow. Especially when they were reporting that the lake level was "normal." Then, of course, the wind picks up and starts blowing the bow around. Now I'm heading into the boat in the slip next to the one I'm trying to dock in. I give it a little gas, break free and a young lady in the boat I'm about to hit pushes me off to keep me from hitting her boat...how embarassing.
While all this has occurred one of the other docks frees up so I go bow first into that. My wife shows up and we load up my son. Then I remember that I forgot to put gas in the tank. So now I've got to walk all the way back to the truck to get the 14 gallon gas tank and roll it out to the boat.
Finally filled up and off we go. Winds are about 8-10, son is below deck watching a DVD, it's a beautiful day, and the frustration of launching is behind me, It's time to sail!
Now we don't have sail slugs. My background is in hobie cats and it didn't have one, and real men don't need them, blah blah blah...but hoisting the sail was such a pain last year that we did buy a prefeeder over the winter. This thing is great. My wife heads forward and hoists the main like it's nothing.
My son comes up on deck and while he's a bit figety we're are out having a wonderful time sailing as a family. It's the reason I bought the boat, I'm thinking money well spent and am glad I did it while he was young.
Of course 10 minutes later he's bored and is trying to climb overboard saying "I get in water." How do you teach a 2 year old that 60 degree water is not the best thing for him to go jumping in? Finally we put him back below deck and he goes back to watching the movie.
So now we're cruising along I'm sitting on the starboard side, which is windward, holding the mainsheet. Letting my mind wander when all the sudden we're heeling about 35-45 degrees. Panic sets in as instead of rounding up the boat is heading further downwind and gaining more of a heel.
I'm pulling on the mainsheet to release it and nothing is happening..Now I'm almost standing on the port side seats, I've got the helm hard to starboard trying to come up into the wind and trying to figure out why there is so much extra line in the main sheet. Meanwhile my wife is trying to release the Genoa. Finally I look down and it dawns on me....I'm holding the starboard side genoa sheet....I quickly grab the mainsheet, uncleat it and the incident is over.
From below deck we hear from my son "Wheeeeeee, Yay! Yay!"
At least someone enjoyed it.
I don't really know how I ended up with the wrong line in my hand...I think I must have grabbed it after we put Devin below deck. I've got the stock lines on my boat so they are all the same color, and we weren't doing a very good job of line management, even though last year we worked on that. I think I may need to invest on new lines of different colors sooner than I had planned.
I also need to figure out why my boat doesn't have the weather helm that it is supposed to have, and doesn't round up, I would have much preferred that. I first noticed the problem last year, which is why I was trying to put more tension on the shrouds to induce a little more rake into the mast. I think I'll try more tension on the shrounds but will loosen the forestay.
So the reason for the big heal is that the wind decided that it would rather be 15-20 with gusts. The waves were whitecaping, so my wife and I finally got a chance to reef the main under actual conditions where it was necessary. The good thing is we had practiced this last year and it went completely smoothy. When then spent about an hour sailing under reefed main and maybe 1/3-1/4 genny. We actualy had a lot of fun.
Then we wanted to find a place to achor and have lunch. We dropped the sails and motored around looking for a spot. Apparently this reservoir was a dammed up mountain region or something (duh, this is Utah, what else would it be).
The depth would be 150' and then at 30'-50' from shore it would was around 75' and then 10' from shore it would be 10'-20' So having never anchored a boat before, I had no idea what to do.
I found one area that had maybe a 40 foot regon of 10'-25" depths before it dropped off, but the problem was the wind was blowing on shore there. So I tried to set an ancor, but I just couldn't get out enough line before I'd hit the beach to set it and when I tried to set it from a cross wind angle the boat would just start blosing into the beach or would just get blown around until the bow was facing down wind. So the question is what do you do in that situation? I have a danforth and a 10 pound mushroom that I would have used if there was no winds since I had just planned to stop for a quick bite to eat. I was worried though that with the winds it wouldn't hold.
Anyway it was now about 2:30 so lunch was long over do and my son was now yelling "off boat, off boat" so it was time to be done. As we heading in everyone else must have thought the same thing.
There was a huge line just to get an available spot at the curtesy docks. Finally my turn came up. Normally as we pull in my wife will jump off the bow and tie us up. I just assumed she'd do the same this time and so without communicating like I should have, I pulled the boat in.
I watched stupidly saying nothing until it was too late as she just sat there looking down. The bow of the boat went crunch right into the docks.
She had motioned to me earlier that she was ready to head in, but didn't realize I had come in so fast trying to make it before someone stole the spot. She was up there trying to get the dock line ready and never even knew I was there.
There's one thing I'm finding a boat will do for a marriage, that is teach you to communicate...that or teach you to sleep on the couch for blaming you wife for the new chip in the gel goat
(OK so I was smart enough not to do that...)Of course getting the boat onto the trailer is always fun.. I have yet to find somewhere that have docks are close enough that I could use lines to pull my boat onto the trailer. so I always have to drive it on, and it always has been in a cross wind...
So two attemps later and getting my wife soaked to mid thigh when she had to wade out to grab the nose from where it missed the front of the trailer because a gust came up after crossing the goal posts we finally were able to get it back on the trailer and into the lot to take it all down.
What a day.
So the lessons learned are.
1. We can get the sails reefed in weather and sail with them reefed....this is a great comfort to someone who has never done it.
2. I should question why no one is docking a a certian spot before attempting to dock there. And should check out the docks before off loading my boat whenever at a new place.
3. Don't pull into a dock unless your mate has communicated that they are ready to do so.
4. Follow my own advice. I really should have stayed home or tried harder to get babysitter. With the gusty conditions I probalby would have been paying more attention and wouldn't have had the wrong line, and even if I did I would have felt better if my son wasn't on board. Even though he did think it was fun.
5. I need to find somewhere that has decent conditions for anchoring and practice doing so.
Cost of these lessons...one chipped rudder from backing into a rock and a chip in the gelcoat on bow of the boat.
Anyway, that's my story, Hope I haven't bored you to death.
the boat nose because you missed the trailer...Id say that you have "bragging" rights concerning an awesome Admiral. She deserves a dinner outing, a shopping spree, a day off, and some kind words.
