Newbie blues

[Photo Chief]

On Friday I planned to play hooky from work to go sailing in my new boat. After checking the weather forecast on Thursday (Sunny with 9 mph) I went to bed with so much confidence.

Friday arrived and I and my daughter drove to the boat to prepare for underway even though I had noticed the wind was more than forecast. Preparations took awhile as I was explaining to daughter as I went. She knows less about sailing than I (shutter). As I walked to the pierside facilities prior to shoving off the wind seem to have increased even a little higher than earlier. I was beginning to have second thoughts.

When I returned to the boat my experienced slip neighbor was standing there and I asked him to join us. So we were soon off. However.... Phil did do a quick check of the equipment (he knows of my experience level apparently) and he says I am missing part of the roller furling jib. Seems the PO did not tell me about this and I did not know it was missing.. I don't know the name of the part but phil tells me the sail shape will be terrible but we will probably be all right and worse case is we cannot use the jib.

As we exit the harbor I raise the mainsail then try to raise the jib. The jib begins flogging around terribly and I cannot get it up. It gets jammed in the shrouds in my haste to raise it. It takes me 10 minutes to get it unjammed and back on deck. I injured my hand slightly but did get a good arobic workout as the deck was about 30 degrees to starboard during this. My daughter was left in the cockpit during this evolution and was scared. She told me on drive home she thought the boat was going over. I reminded her that she wanted some excitement in her life.

After a two hour sail with only the mainsail we decide to return to port. Upon entering the harbor and checking in with the security boat my motor began surging and died. I changed the fuel filter but would only run briefly before dying. I had to tack back and forth across the harbor with the security boat breathing down my back. It seems they don't like you using sails in the harbor so you do not have any reason to approach the Navy ships.

After 30 minutes of tacking I finally arrived within 20 feet of my slip and stalled. A powerboater pulled me the last 20 feet. It was now just after dark.

Since this was the second time I had been stranded by water in the internal fuel tanks I was not amused. On Sunday I purchased a 3 gallon fuel tank, fuel hose with squeese bulb and three gallons of diesel. After an hour of trying to get the fuel to flow I gave up and went home to regroup. I squeezed that bulb until my arm felt like Popeye the Sailorman's.

Next Saturday I will join the battle again and get that engine running on clean fuel and then at my leisure clean out the internal tanks.

If I did not like working on mechanical things however, I might be frustrated.

[winthrop fisher]

hey,
we all go thru that from to time to time and keep your chin up...
with out seeing it , your roller furling...

there is not that much to your roller furling...

you have a drum on the bottom which has a one line (folded in half so that there is two ends) coming out of it,

one side pulls in it and the other pulls it out.

the line runs down thru a fair lead on the deck next at a 90 degree angle then it will run thru a fairlead on the cockpit...

if you don't have the fairleads in the right place that will happen,
but it does not come with the roller furling at all...

it sounds like you don't have them at all and thats why it happen,
ask phil if that is what is missing ??


as far as your out board, i had the same problem years ago....

i think if you give it a tune up and take all the fuel lines off and clean the inside out and put them back on and replace the filter as well...

you will find it will start and run like new again, you can do all the work your self, it should not take you and hour or so to do that....

i hope this helps...
winthrop

On Friday I planned to play hooky from work to go sailing in my new boat. After checking the weather forecast on Thursday (Sunny with 9 mph) I went to bed with so much confidence.

Friday arrived and I and my daughter drove to the boat to prepare for underway even though I had noticed the wind was more than forecast. Preparations took awhile as I was explaining to daughter as I went. She knows less about sailing than I (shutter). As I walked to the pierside facilities prior to shoving off the wind seem to have increased even a little higher than earlier. I was beginning to have second thoughts.

When I returned to the boat my experienced slip neighbor was standing there and I asked him to join us. So we were soon off. However.... Phil did do a quick check of the equipment (he knows of my experience level apparently) and he says I am missing part of the roller furling jib. Seems the PO did not tell me about this and I did not know it was missing.. I don't know the name of the part but phil tells me the sail shape will be terrible but we will probably be all right and worse case is we cannot use the jib.

As we exit the harbor I raise the mainsail then try to raise the jib. The jib begins flogging around terribly and I cannot get it up. It gets jammed in the shrouds in my haste to raise it. It takes me 10 minutes to get it unjammed and back on deck. I injured my hand slightly but did get a good arobic workout as the deck was about 30 degrees to starboard during this. My daughter was left in the cockpit during this evolution and was scared. She told me on drive home she thought the boat was going over. I reminded her that she wanted some excitement in her life.

After a two hour sail with only the mainsail we decide to return to port. Upon entering the harbor and checking in with the security boat my motor began surging and died. I changed the fuel filter but would only run briefly before dying. I had to tack back and forth across the harbor with the security boat breathing down my back. It seems they don't like you using sails in the harbor so you do not have any reason to approach the Navy ships.

After 30 minutes of tacking I finally arrived within 20 feet of my slip and stalled. A powerboater pulled me the last 20 feet. It was now just after dark.

Since this was the second time I had been stranded by water in the internal fuel tanks I was not amused. On Sunday I purchased a 3 gallon fuel tank, fuel hose with squeese bulb and three gallons of diesel. After an hour of trying to get the fuel to flow I gave up and went home to regroup. I squeezed that bulb until my arm felt like Popeye the Sailorman's.

Next Saturday I will join the battle again and get that engine running on clean fuel and then at my leisure clean out the internal tanks.

If I did not like working on mechanical things however, I might be frustrated.

[Jeff Sturm]

How do you like the marina at Little Crk? I'm hoping to get my Ty in there once I get her cleaned/fixed up a little (she didn't weather my deployment as well as I would have liked).

In the mean time, if you ever need any help or a sailing buddy let me know...

Take care,
Jeff

[rtbates]

Stick in there. It'll get better, much better as time goes by and you get experience. And by all means assure your daughter that you can place the mast parallel to the water and she still won't roll over. Roaring 40's and 50's not included. Almost every new person to sailboats thinks the same thing on initially experiencing big heeling, especially those that have been in power boats.

As for RAISING the jib. Why are you raising a furling jib away from the dock? A furler should be raised and rolled up before leaving the dock. Then all you do is simply roll it out and roll it in. Does the jib have a small bolt rope that slides in a groove on the headstay fitting? If so use MACLUBE's dry lube on the slot and bolt rope to reduce friction.

Definitely get to the bottom of your engine dying problem. If you suspect dirty fuel you can use a simple pump and filter system to pump it out of the tank through the filter into 5 gal cans. I made my first one using a drill pump and an automotive in-line fuel filter. Buy several filters as they can clog quickly if your fuel is really fouled. Water in the fuel is also a big problem. When putting fresh fuel back into your cleaned tanks add a diesel fuel additive that contains biocides and cetane booster. West MArine sells a good one. One quart will treat 250 gallons. By the way did you know that diesel starts going south after only 30 days? I didn't.

Best wishes and keep on plugging.

[Photo Chief]

Thank you all for you support. In the old days the old salts sent the new guys off to retrieve a "tailhook stretcher" as a joke. I never did like doing that to newbies, now I feel a little like that new guy.

Randy and Winthrop,
apparently the part I am missing is the "groove that the bolt rope slides in". The headstay has nothing attached to it. The best description is like raising a jib without any hanks attached. Can this part be purchased from a sailloft? The sail does have the drum at the bottom with the furling line. Also, the jib has no u/v light protection that I can see. I have noticed that when the jib is furled on most boats it is wrapped with a portion of blue material, mine does not have this. It is all white.

Jeff,

Once I get the fuel situation fixed with the small portable tank and the Jib sorted out I'll get in touch. I can often go sailing during the week when most people are at work. Also, since I am a school teacher I am looking forward to summer vacation for 7 days a week on the water. Lt. Creek Marina seems well run and convenient. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge is just out the harbor entrance with blue water just beyond. The store is 20% or more under West Marine prices. I changed the engine zincs two weeks ago; $15 at West Marine vs $5 at Lt. Creek. Obviously the security is very good, I'm protected by machine guns. You probably do not need to lock up the boat. There are no repair facilities however. You need to motor over to Cobbs or Cutty Sark marinas.

I have been going down to my boat almost every weekend to work yet I have yet to lay eyes on the owner of the CD27 named Sea-renity. Maybe he/she is on deployment. I always check it for security while there, it's the least I can do for the helpful and friendly Cape Dorians.

[Gary M]

Photo Chief, you remind me of many days that I look back on with a grin, but I wasn't grinning at the time. It won't be long and everything will work like you really know what your doing. When that day comes your ready for a spinnaker.

[John D.]

The UV fabric on my roller-furler is white, but it is an obvious, thicker layer of fabric.

In the hank-on versus roller-furler department, it sounds like you have the worst of both worlds: your roller furler does not work because you're missing the luff-foil, and you can't hoist your jib the old-fashioned way because you have no hanks.

Take a close-up picture of the drum, and a rigger/loft should be able to retrofit a luff foil.

I think that set-up would challenge anyone, newbie or not.

[Jim Davis]

A thought. How old is your roller furling. You don't see the real old ones very often any more, but you may have one of them. They are "freestanding" and set behind the forestay. On these all you have is luff tension. If this is the case, I would follow the previous advice and take a photo to a sailmaker and get advice. If it is the old style I would recommend buying one of the more modern ones. I personally like ProFurl, but there other good ones out there.

[Al Levesque]

It does look like you have a freestanding furler. It does not use the headstay except possibly as a guide for the head of the sail. The advantage to the freestanding furler is that you can drop it and remove it entirely in bad weather without having to unfurl it. This also means that you don't need the extra weight of the UV fabric. The disadvantage is that you need to emphasize the tightness of the halyard. It usually helps to have a wire halyard to maintain tightness.

I recommend that you try it a while before changing. It is the only type of roller furling I would consider.

[marka]

Clearly, we all know how you feel and you should take everyone's advice that things will get better. Being relatively new to sailing myself (4 yrs) I suggest that for you own piece of mind you adopt the "anything that can go wrong will go wrong" mindset. This will force you to think through the reliability of your equipment.

Once you do, you'll start to take a critical look at the material condition of your ship and correct the problems. It makes sailing much more fun when you're prepared.

[Photo Chief]

I went to the boat on Sunday and found the new fuel hose fitting was the problem with the new portable fuel tank. I was able to fix the fuel flow with another new fitting. I now have gravity fed clean diesel fuel. You want to talk about priming a diesel engine; one squeeze of the priming bulb and fuel was squirting 6 inches out of the loosened fuel injector. The engine started on the first turn and runs great. Now, to find a volunteer to clean the 20 gallon internal diesel tank.

I also pulled the jib out of the cabin to check out Al and Jim's premise that I have a "free standing roller furler". Ah Yupper. Did I mention that the wind was calm. The drum connects to the stem fitting behind the forestay and I raised the wire luft as tight as possible. I rolled the jib up using the drum line until it looked like spaghetti and re-stowed in the V-berth. The mechanism appears to work well at the dock. It sure seems like they are correct. Two questions occur to me however. Will it work properly while sailing and why did the PO stow the jib without first rolling it up. Maybe it was wet.

[Jim Davis]

Rich

Your guess is the same as mine as to it being wet, or another buyer could have opened it to look at it.

Freestanding furlers are about extinct, in my not very humble opinion they are relics or museum pieces. To get one to work you need a lot of luff tension. I mean really stretch it, or you get a lot of sag. Dropping one, as you have learned is also a chinese fire drill if there is any wind and the boat is lively. An addtitional drawback is you can't use only part of it. You have to get rid of it to hank on a smaller jib.

A suggestion, when the kitty will let you, look at one of the extrusion types that slips over the forestay and the sail has a tape that fits the extrusion. You don't need a lot of luff tension, just enough to remove the wrinkles and it will work as a smaller sail. You may be able to have a sailmaker put a luff tape on the present sail.

[marka]

I've been studying the gaff rig lately in hopes of building a gaffer in the not too distant future.

On a gaff rigged cutter, the forestay is connected to the stem head and the staysail hanks on this stay. The jib is set "flying" which means it does not hank on any stay, It has a wire or rope luff which is tensioned with the halyard. The jib tack is connected to the bowsprit. The jib can be set up with furling gear but since there is no stay, the furler must be stored with the sail and it is not designed for roller reefing.

I suspect this is the type of furler you have. As I understand, these can still be purchased.

[rtbates]

Jeff:

The biggest issue with a free standing furler is headstay wrap. What can happen, especially if the wind is from behind, is that as the genoa is furlered the loose sail towards the top tends to wrap around the forestay. This tendance can be reduced if a lead block is placed a foot or so down the mast and the halyard goes up through this block before it gets to the masthead block. The effect is that is holds the top of the furler away from the headstay. When furlering one of these systems always keep an eye on the upper section of the sail. Also only furling when the wind is forward helps.

best wishes