Big Sail Today

I really pushed myself today, and had what I would consider a big sail day.  I was out for about six hours in 15 knot winds and pretty rough seas.  Ravat took a bit of a beating bashing through the waves, but of course performed flawlessly.

I really got to spend some time learning sail trim on different angles to the wind because I went in a bunch of different directions rather than my usual out and back.  

By the end of the trip the winds were building and gusting hard enough to heel me past 30 degrees.  I'm not really rigged for reefing the main, so I under-trimmed it to spill some extra air and spent most of the time close-hauled and a bit too far into the wind, again to minimize its effects on me.

Some lessons I learned today:

• First time trying out a tether on my life jacket.  I really need to work on where to attach it for various activities.
• I had a lot of trouble tacking the boat through the high winds and waves.  She always stalled out just shy of the half way point because the wind would blow the bow back.  At one point I gave up on tacking and jibed instead - that seemed to work better.
• I had trouble tacking back to port.  It seemed that no matted how far past the pier I went on one tack, the return tack wold blow me just as far backwards as I came back in.  As the time was growing short, I finally gave in and motored back in.  I was pretty tired, and the winds were still building which was starting to make me uncomfortable.
• I'm still in need of optimizing my take down of the main.  I still need to crawl up to the mast to do that as the slugs won't come down the track completely on their own.

While some of that may not sound great, it was really sailing right at the edge of my abilities and gave me a lot to think about.  There were a few times I was uncomfortable with a situation, but I never panicked, and I don't believe the boat was ever in danger.  I'm starting to get some confidence in bigger wind / waves but I have to say I prefer smaller waves.  The last two times out, if I stopped paying attention for a second I stood a good chance of being launched across the cockpit - that takes some getting used to.

The other thing that takes some getting used to is how the world keeps moving under my feet 4 hours after I docked the boat!  What's up with that?  (No, I have NOT been drinking wine this evening!).

Don't Let This Happen To You

If you have a boat, and it has a leak... FIX IT!  It's hard to describe how damaging a small leak can be over time to the interior of a boat.  It's pretty easy to describe how painful the repairs can be though.  They are time consuming, and expensive.  In this case, I am slowly reassembling Ravat's interior and replacing damaged panels as I go.  I am just about ready to re-install the cabin panels which butt up against the windows.  The port side has some minor water signs (streaks in the wood) but it's mostly solid.  The starboard side is a whole different story.

The picture above shows a very large section of the panel which completely delaminated and disintegrated.  As much as I wanted to bypass this kind of thing, there wasn't enough structure left to re-hang this panel.  Not even soaking in a few layers of Epoxy could save this one.  My first task was to slowly and carefully separate the headliner material from the old panel.  For the most part it came off without problems.  The delaminated area is going to be a headache for me though as the wood chunks don't want to let go.

I happened to have a nice sheet of 1/4" birch plywood in my shop which I cut to match this damaged piece.  I couldn't get it quite right on the first try because the template panel we so damaged it didn't hold its form well.  After a few test fits I came away with new marks to cut from.  I'm concerned that I may have wasted that sheet of plywood though.  This stuff is very high quality, and fairly stiff.  That makes it very difficult to conform to the contours of the cabin top.  I'm thinking that I should have picked up a sheet of cheap luan instead.  It's a bit more thin (which helps where the panel tucks in) and a lot more flexible.  At this point I think I'm going to finish getting the plywood template to fit, and then replace it with luan.

If all goes well, I'll get the Luan test fit, and then reapply the headliner material with 3M adhesive.  All this will go smoothly and I'll relax with a glass of wine having finished the project two hours ahead of schedule.  Riiiight.

The moral of the story is, fix those leaks immediately.  Your boat can hide a lot of damage before it becomes obvious.