First REAL Sail - Yesterday

So I had to actually take a day off of work to get out and have my first real sail.  The only way that it would have been better is if Brooke could have come, but she was feeling under the weather. 

Anyway... what a beautiful day to go out.  The winds were between 5 and 10 knts. The water was just enough to make a lapping sound as I glided through the water.  The largest waves I encountered were when leaving the marina, and had a stink pot coming in down the channel. 

I sailed closed hauled up to Anclote Island.

Then wing on wing, almost all the way back.  I am getting better at docking all by myself, which is good.  The deck organizer sheeves need to be replaced, they get jammed when haulling up the main halyards.  And the mainsail will need to be replaced at sometime.  The leech on it is pretty frayed.  But I will just use it till it rips.

All in all a good way to spend the day.

Cabin Floor Boards

I pulled the two wood panels out of the cabin floor this week, and started working on them. As you can see from the pic they were in pretty sorry shape. I just started by sanding with 80 grit paper. The little finish that was left on them came right up, and the (for lack of a better term) oxidized wood sanded right away, leaving a nice rich teak and holly color. See pic of before and after sanding. After sanding I rinsed off with water, which approximated the color and look after finished. I ended up using some chemical stripper for getting off the rest of the previous finish, then another light with sanding 220 grit paper. Then three coats of spray Minwax varnish.

A lot has happened.

Lets see... what has happened since my last posting...  My keel from Foss Foam came in. It looks great.  Al was really easy to work with.  Foss even installed the bronze bushing for me. We still continue to have a slow leak, which turned into a big leak.  We went to Ga at the end of Sept for Six Gap.  We were on the boat Thursday, and back to look at it on Tuesday. There was at least four inches of water in the cabin. 

I hand pumped all of it out.  That night I went to West Marine and got a small bilge pump to automatically pump.  Since I dont have a thru hull for it, I pumped into a 5 gal bucket.  Which over flowed during the night.  I pumped out another 5 gal.  Thursday and Friday, I would check it on my way to work, on my way home from work, and go over just before bed.  I would say it was leaking at a pretty consistant 5 to 7 gal/day.  So I figured that she had to be hauled out this weekend. I couldnt wait any longer.

So on Saturday... early I motored up to Tarpon Springs to a DYI yard.

Had the girl haulled out of the water, and started the process of fixing her up.

So now we know why she has been leaking.  There are two brackets that hold the keel on, with two bolts each.  The bolts go through the hull.  Well one bracket was missing completely, and the other bracket was hanging on by only one bolt.  With nothing but the bolt plugging up the four 1/4" holes, its pretty obvious this is where the water was coming from.

I scrubbed, sanded, ground, patched, repaired, replaced, cursed, polished, and waxed.

The hull really came back to a nice shine after polishing and waxing. This is the only pic showing the oxidation vs. polishing.  The sun was set already, but you get the idea.

I also replaced the thru-hull.

Then primed,

painted,

put the keel back on,

finished waxing, then put her back in the water.

All this work was just getting the wet areas good to go.  I motored and sailed (jib only) her home from TS.

Now she is back home.

There is still a lot of work to be done. Hatches need to be sealed or replaced, the deck needs to be polished and waxed, the cabin needs to be cleaned. Blah, blah, blah...  Its never ending.

But at least we can SAIL now!