Todd: I enjoyed your account of Your sail (sorry to hear of the ahh... unfortunate modifications to your mast) could you give the details of your self steering system. Sounds intresting Wayne M17 #204 "Intrepid" ----- Original Message ----- From: <htmills@bright.net> To: ">Mboats<" <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Sunday, June 16, 2002 11:36 PM Subject: M_Boats: CBR 2002, reader's digest condensed version I'll drop off my film tomorrow and should get them back by the end of the week or so, including the trailer modifications. (the keel guides worked fine) I'll let John Edwards tell the tale in detail and just relate my own part... What a fine rendezvous! As usual, I was running way late. The paint was still drying on the trailer when we (Busca and I) rolled out at midnight Saturday night/Sunday morning for the drive from Ohio to Maryland. I should have been there seven hours ago already. Twenty-five miles into the trip the port trailer fender developed a serious list to starboard. "Whoa!" I thought, and steered for the berm. But not before there was a loud "WHAM!!" and the fender disappeared from view altogether. I cautiously put the truck in neutral and ventured forth into the inky black night. Sure enough, the fender was really missing. I was afraid it might be laying in the highway waiting for some poor sleepy motorist, so I stumbled back to look for it. Not on the berm or in the road. That left the median, which contained nearly waist-high grass. It makes sense that a fender separated from a trailer at the instant the brakes are applied would wind up being relatively near the trailer, and sure enough, in the tall grass of the median nearly abeam of the parked trailer was my now-dented fender. I enlisted the aid of a flashlight to inspect the now naked tire. It didn't appear to have suffered any obvious damage so I resumed my course to the next exit for a more complete check up. Aside from a missing fender, all appeared to be in order. The tire did indeed look good and my recently replaced trailer tongue was still intact. I took a deep breath and climbed back into the truck to resume the journey. At mile two hundred eighty five I observed that the port trailer light and the license plate had assumed a new position....that of swaying to and fro an inch or so above the pavement. Once again we pulled to the side of the road. I had made a lightbar rather hastily from a piece of 2" schedule 40 PVC pipe and in my haste I had built into it several stress concentration areas; places with sharp notches. Over the course of time, with the wind buffeting the end of the notched pipe with the license plate, it cracked at one of the saw-cut notches. A little bit of line and the light and plate were jury-rigged in place and away we rolled. Again. The balance of the trip was without incident and at about 9 am I was on Solomon's Island at a pay phone calling John Edwards, whom I was planning on meeting for a week's cruise before the official start of the CBR. Fortunately, John is an easy-going guy. Some time later, BuscaBrisas was in her element and the water-borne part of the adventure was begun and which I'll leave for John to relate. Suffice it for now to say that some mighty fine sailing was had. I did not get my windvane self-steering finished before the trip, but I did get to try out Jay Fitzgerald's suggestion for a sheet-to-tiller arrangement. The first attempt was on a 12 nm *broad reach* up the Bay flying the 155% genoa with the full main. It worked wonderfully! I tried sitting on the foredeck. I tried sitting on the cabintop. In the cabin. I even took a shower in the cockpit while the boat steered herself along as pretty as you please. It was really impressive how she stayed the course! A couple of days later we had another broad reach. This time she self steered while I rigged up my Thistle spinnaker. Once I hoisted the spinnaker she quit the self-steering, but until it was ready to go she did great. Several days later we had a nice long broad reach and the wind was about as much as I'd want to fly the 155% in; Busca would've been well overcanvassed for a beat. Again she self-steered, but this time she tended to wander around a fair amount. She never went so far off course as to gybe, but the wandering was more than I wanted. The boatspeed was also off the mark quite a bit and everyone slowly creeped ahead too, except for Al Williams, whose "Horizon" held true to her name and left poor Busca behind....on the horizon. All the same, Busca sailed merrily along as I scrubbed the deck, put a bunch of wooden bungs in the handrail bolt holes (I had removed the handrails some time back and hadn't gotten around to replacing the bungs), and then spent some time in a new-found comfortable place to sit: on the foredeck with the radio tied to the mast, legs leaning against the bow pulpit (another reason to keep it) and head leaning back against the opened hatch cover. A fellow could doze off laying up there if it weren't for his duty to keep a sharp lookout! On the last of the longer trips, flying the 109% on a beat and the wind was light. I just couldn't get any combination, either the new or old arrangements, to work well at all. I'm not sure what the problem was, if it was shifty winds or what, but ended up hand-steering for most of the way. One year I think it was Doug Kelch who awarded various titles. Well, this year I lay claim to a new prize that I know I full well deserve. I took the expression "drop the mast" in earnest. It was one of those simple little moments when you're kind of tired and the mind is just NOT doing it's job. For some unknown reason, I pulled the bolt at the foot of the mast BEFORE lowering the mast instead of AFTERWARDS. Clearly, the mind was not engaged. Well, you can just guess what happened when I started leaning the mast back a bit to lower it. Yup, the end that was down came up and the end that was up came down. I am just SO LUCKY that I had repositioned the boat/trailer/truck further away from that nice blue S10 that had parked awfully close to me before beginning my otherwise mindless, boneheaded, award-winning job of mast lowering. And so, without further adieu, let me present myself with the "Boneheaded Move of the Cruise" award. The resulting damage: one mast relieved of a masthead light (the lens was cracked too), one slightly dented mast (I think I can pound it out), and a few minor gelcoat dings. Bill, if you can recall, correct me if I'm wrong: as it seems to me, I kept ahold of the mast for a while as it was falling but after the upper part struck the transom chock (putting the dent in the mast) it bounced mostly clear of my hands and rolled off the transom to the pavement. I think the foot stayed on the boat. It all happened very quickly and no amount of other mast raising gear would've safeguarded against such a disaster. Kind of like the lady that burned herself with McDonald's coffee....."Duh, whadda ya expect??" Ah, well. Anyway, we had pretty fine sailing weather with just a couple of lame days. In fact, on the Friday before the official start, Busca made a run with an average gps speed of 6.1 kts for over two hours. Now I know that this next figure isn't reliable, but I saw the current speed hit 11.0 kts for a moment while surfing down a wave! I switched the display to show the maximum speed but it was set on something from my truck so I cleared it out and not long after that it read 10.3 kts. Speeds of over 8 kts showed up very frequently with big drop-offs after losing the wave. I took some photos of that day; hope they turn out. I don't know what the current might have been. Steve E. sailed across the bay that same day. When he gets back maybe he'll tell us his adventures too! I had the pleasure of meeting some new (to me) faces, John Edwards, Stan & Carol, and Steve E. and some familiar ones from earlier rendezvous. (rendezvouses? rendyvoozes?) Your Faithful Correspondant, Tod Mills M17 #408 "BuscaBrisas" P.S. I did NOT get the gps to read that high by tossing it into the v-berth, honest! _______________________________________________ http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/montgomery_boats