Waking up Saturday morning, I had grand visions in my head of the yard whisking me into place and hoisting the mast at Bright And Early O'clock. It actually happened about 1. Turned out they had actually wanted to try it Friday, but were unable to get the outboard started after a couple dozen yanks on the starter cord. So much for that theory on the on/off switch. The switch is still broken, don't get me wrong. But it wasn't the only thing I guess. Carb rebuild to come. But I did get it running in relatively short time, probably a dozen pulls or so, it finally sputtered to life. Smoked a little, but that settled down after it warmed up. And after motoring into place, we had the mast up quickly. Motored back to the dock, gave everything an initial tension and debated on the next move.
One of the things that the boat has, is a Spinnaker in a chute stuffed into the corner. I had never flown it, but since I had added a spinnaker halyard, I wanted to try. As it turns out, I could've saved the halyard space, but I guess it never hurts to have an extra? The sail itself is relatively small, and with the chute, you lose another foot, foot and a half at the top. It's nothing fancy, more of a light wind genoa really, so I'll likely discard of the chute, and just hoist it like normal if I want to use it for light wind, downwind days.
You'll notice my custom framing in the picture by cleverly using my hand as a shield. I also want to draw attention to a section of that picture, so I zoomed in:
It's been evident in other photos too, but this section of the bow pulpit has been broken since I purchased the boat. This has been annoying, and it leaves it rather flimsy up there. So keep that in mind, we're going to come back to that. First, let's get out on the water. Engine fired right up, and I motored right out. Very light wind (ideal for a Spinnaker... no, I didn't use it), and I was planning on just motoring east a little and anchoring for the night, as the Ontario 300 had kicked off that morning. Their path brings them down around near Oswego so I had planned on getting up on Sunday morning, sailing or motoring out to watch the parade of entrants pass by. I assumed motoring, since the forecast was basically the same as it had been for Saturday - light winds, good sun, that was the plan. This is also Lake Ontario. Let's remember that part too.
I anchored out, and set it with a good old reverse burst, and watched as, yet again, the waves and wind don't match. Just off-kilter enough that there's more side-to-side rolling, than there is wave-on-bow action. It's annoying, and even though it wasn't violent rolling, it was just bugging me. I inflated my raft, and rowed to shore by the dunes, and dunked myself in for a cool bath. The dunes are really neat to see.
Once back aboard, I decided that it was time to figure this wave/wind issue out. I've read about using a stern spring line to your anchor rode before, which in theory helps to turn your boat where you want it to be. So in my case, the wind was coming from the North, the waves from the West. I used my anchor spring back to a cleat on the starboard of the cockpit, the idea being it would then allow me to pull the stern more with the anchor to help face the waves. We're just going to say that this does seem practical on paper, when the wind shifted slightly, I was useless again. I finally gave up trying, and dug out the little secondary anchor that I had, rowed it out and dropped it. It wasn't the greatest set since I was basically setting it by hand from the boat afterwards, but it was more for my own amusement than anything. Worst case, it breaks free and... does nothing? But it did do better to point me into the waves. I then decided to enjoy the view one last time before going to sleep.
12:30 AM. I'm still not sound asleep, and I can tell the rocking has gotten a little more intense. I'm annoyed, but I assume the waves have shifted a little, and that with my stern anchor, now I'm not facing into them as much. It's still mostly bow-on though so I kept trying to sleep.
6:30 AM. I give up on staying asleep, though I had only dozed on and off. I think there was a 2-3 hour stretch I did manage to stay under, but it didn't feel like it. What it DID feel like, was a washing machine agitating me back and forth. I look out the starboard portholes and I see water. Sky. Water. Sky. Ugh, I get up and open the companionway hatch. Hey, this isn't five knots and two foot swells. This is more like fifteen, and five. Fortunately, the waves were in mostly the same direction and the stern anchor wasn't killing anything. But now the tricky part. I have to retrieve a stern anchor, in these rocking conditions, while managing the boat... solo. Plan B was to crawl to the bow, release more rode to allow the boat to back down to over the stern anchor, and heave it. I tried Plan A first - Brute force. It's a very small anchor, I wouldn't even use it for a lunch hook on a calm day personally. So I heaved, and somehow with the wave action and my grip, it did pop free and took almost no time to reel in. I deflated my raft and shoved it down into the cabin to finish airing out. The motor only took a few pulls, thank goodness, but already I knew it was going to be interesting to get out of there. Every third wave, I can hear the motor lifting from the water. Definitely the weather for an inboard.
I had about 8, or 9:1 scope out. My anchor rode is 200' of 1/2" Three strand Nylon, and 30' of 1/4" chain, shackled to a Danforth 13s fluke anchor. And it was SET. Here's the problem.... I'm solo, and I have no windlass. I have eight thousand pounds of boat beneath my feet, and I have fifteen knots of wind and a four to five foot sea state to overcome. Now before you think I'm illogical, My first plan was in fact to motor up as I pulled in the rode. I fully intended to. I just need to make sure I don't motor OVER the rode and wrap the motor. So I thought ok, I'll just pay out some and walk it back to the stern. As soon as I did, the boat started to swing beam-on to the waves, since now the anchor was to the side. Abandoned that plan. Plan B again. I braced my feet against the bow cleats, sitting on the deck, and started pulling, trying to time my pulls with the waves. It took a while, but I finally see chain. And that's where the problem hit me. It was REALLY set, and I have nothing I can tie a chain onto or secure it to. And it's a lot harder to hold a chain in your hands than a line. It took a few minutes of swearing and trying, but finally, FINALLY I feel a release, just barely, and I can see the bow start to swing a little. I raced my hands along the chain and pulled the anchor up, tossing it down the hatch to get it off the deck and out of harm's way, to be dealt with later. My anchor locker only holds the rode, I don't have a bracket for the anchor itself yet.
I run back to the cockpit and put the motor in gear and painstakingly slowly, we finally start to turn up into the waves again. And slowly, because every couple seconds, the stern lifts, the motor loses grip on the water, we stall progress. Normally I would've just lowered the bracket another notch, but we were already burying the shaft to just below the cowl as it was, so any farther would've risked flooding out. So instead, we soldiered on. Small grips at a time, every now and then turning a little down the waves to keep up some speed, then back up. I easily figured out why I didn't see any other boats around, and I also abandoned my plan to go see the Ontario 300 parade. No way was I motoring the wrong direction in this stuff. I know the weather would eventually die out, but that could be in hours, and I didn't want to sit there being tossed about for that long. All in all, it took almost two hours into that weather, to go the mile and three quarters back to the marina. Once in the bay, the sheltered waters were calmer and I docked without incident. I took a few minutes to rest, still trying to stretch my fingers from being sore from that anchor haul. Speaking of that anchor...
I think now is a good time to replace it with a new Fortress FX-16, don't you?
The last thing I did for the day, was to revisit that bow pulpit. Especially after yanking that anchor aboard without a solid handhold, and I actually had all the tools on hand. I did have to cut open a couple inches of the fiberglass liner inside to reach the back of the bolts, but I was able to use a sawzall to cut the old tubing, and use a new same-diameter (slightly thicker wall though) piece with a sleeved piece of smaller tubing to join them. Hard to see the joint, but it definitely works better. Sealed everything with 4200 to keep leaks out, and also around the sleeve inside the old tubing to hold it in place a little. I normally would've used 5200 there, but I a) don't have any and b), it's such a tight fit, it's not going anywhere anyway. Can barely see the seam, so I guess that's a good thing.
After that, a shower, and I called it a weekend. Maybe this next weekend, I can even get company!
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