Took the boat out yesterday for about three hours on the lake. Had a great time getting to know the boat. I enjoyed some nice winds in the 9-10 mph range with gusts to 18.
I only had one real issue and that happened when I tightened the boom vang. The topping lift came off. I realized later it wasn’t actually the wire that broke, but the rotted little line that it attached to.
The outboard motor died on the way back into the harbor, but thankfully I still carried enough speed to coast right back into the slip uneventfully. I need to troubleshoot why the engine dies when I reduce throttle to an idle.
Logged 9.21 miles (that’s in statute miles, not nautical) in just under 3 hours of moving time. Maximum speed was 5.8 mph. I think I need to get the bottom cleaned… ๐
Here’s a screenshot of the maiden voyage sailing route.
1) Your carberator may be dirty and/or gummed up and starving your engine.
2) Your fuel might be old, replace it, (easiest to do)
3) Fuel line might be sucking in a bit of air, at higher speed enough fuel would get to your engin to keep it running but as you throttle it back more air than fuel gets drawn in, again, starving the engine. (Assuming it’s an outboard, all the above concerned MY outboard at one time or another).
Great info Allan, thanks. I’ll first replace the fuel. Don’t know how old the fuel is. I’ll check the fuel lines too…maybe cracked/old.
Congratulations! Just catching up on my reading after our recent trip to find you bought a boat. Very cool. Probably a more sane plan than mine to take a bit smaller steps. Certainly can’t beat that price for the experience.
That looks about like our typical lake sail…except your lake I’m pretty sure is bigger. What tracking app were you using? Been meaning to look into those and haven’t had a chance yet.
Good luck, I’m sure you’ll have fun with the boat. Looking forward to reading the stories.
-Mike
http://thisratsailed.blogspot.com
Thanks Mike! It’s been an adventure for sure… Just took it out for a quick two hour sail with the prior owner then jumped in! I’ve actually discovered items inside that have a combined value of more than the purchase cost, so after selling some stuff on Craigslist, I might break even and have bought the boat for just a few dollars. ๐
The lake it’s on is Eagle Mountain Lake in Ft. Worth. It’s something like 8700 acres. Honestly, I don’t know if that’s considered a large lake or not??
The tracking app I’m using is called My Tracks by Google. It’s super easy to use and doesn’t eat up my phone battery. I’ve downloaded the Navionics app and messed with it a little, but still not enough to speak intelligently about it. One thing I like about the Navionics app is that it’s more like a chartplotter in that it shows water depth and contour lines. My Tracks app is more like a running or biking exercise app.
Mike
Yeah…well…I think here in Colorado anything you cannot jump across they will call a lake. ๐ The “lake” we usually sail on is actually a reservoir in the Denver area. Chatfield reservoir is only about 1500 acres…so definitely smaller. Only advantage to sailing in our area is that, with the mountains, the winds are not at all consistent. It can actually be blowing in different directions at opposite ends of that pond. So lots of practice reading the wind and trimming sails in a short period of time. In an arid environment (the Colorado front range is) 8700 acres would be considered large…elsewhere, probably not.
That’s great about the cost of the boat…a guy I met here actually did a similar thing. Stores it on a trailer near the reservoir in a storage location that came with a friends slip…so makes for very low cost sailing for him (and me when I can tag along). Certainly less than the $125/4 hours that I was paying to rent the school boats. Nice to have a boat at your disposal at any time for a sail. That will definitely be good for your skills.
I’ll check out the apps. I tried a free chart plotting app on my tablet about a year ago during our Florida catamaran sailing class, but it was a bit of a pain that you had to import the marine charts and it wouldn’t automatically load adjacent charts when you sailed past one. Would have been handy for the blog to have a nice tracking app at the time just for the maps on the blog. Thanks for the info.
-Mike
http://thisratsailed.blogspot.com
Hi Mike,
I’ve enjoyed the blog. My wife and I are at about the same point in chasing the sailing dream right now. We have a Mac 25 down at Canyon Lake by San Antonio. We just got back from our first bare boat charter where we had a total blast. It sounds like you guys are doing great.
I ran into the same problem you describe with the engine dying at idle. It made for a couple of minor embarrassing epics in the marina. I ended up just replacing the carburetor. It was a little more expensive than a rebuild ($90), but vastly quicker and simpler. To prevent repeats of the problem I’m running the engine out of gas rather than just shutting it down now.
The other thing is to make sure you don’t have E15 fuel. E10 might be ok, but from what I’ve read, E15 is seriously no bueno for outboards. )
Thanks for the info, Stan. That’s some interesting reading on the link you left….some stuff I never knew. I’ll be going back out to the marina this week and switching out to new gas and checking if that helps. I’ll definitely keep the carburetor replace in mind. I found a site that details how to rebuild for that specific engine, but depending on cost, I might do what you did.
Looks like you are having some fun on the new boat.
For the engine, I would definitely go with the list Allan had. I would add that you need to put an ethanol treatment into your gas for the outboard. Check the local hardware store they will have it near the other small engine stuff. The ethanol is murder on the small outboards. I have to clean my carb on the dinghy 2-3 times a year. The other thing is to run it out at full throttle for at least 5-10 minutes every time you go to the boat. Outboards don’t like to be run at low idle, especially 2-strokes.
I have this book ) and it’s a huge help for maintaining and fixing outboards. It also has a great trouble shooting section that I have referred to often. If you are going to cruise, you need to know how to do this stuff on your own. You will always have an outboard, if not two. A lot of cruisers have gone to carrying a large one (10-15 hp) and a small one (2.5 hp with internal tank) for their inflatables.
For chart plotting/navigating, I recommend the Navionics app for your phone. It’s only $9.99 and has the nautical charts for you lake and you can track you sailing on it very easily. You can also plan out trips on the lake when you are away from the boat and start doing some local cruising. I do all my sailing by the Navionics app on my iPhone and iPad. It also syncs so if I make a route on my phone, I have it on my iPad. We have a Raymarine chart plotter but the Navionics app is much better. I have also recently downloaded the iNavix app based on a recommendation from a couple out cruising. For the iPad, both apps are $50 each and for the $100 are worth having. If you buy an iPad for navigation, get the one with the cellular data. You don’t even have to activate the cell data but that unit has a GPS chip built in. I have a post on my blog about using an iPad for navigation that might be useful.
On boat speed, don’t expect this boat to be as fast as the J22 you sailed. The J22s are built for speed for one design racing. Your boat is a pocket cruiser. It won’t be as fast but will be more comfortable. The hull speed (fixed based on your boats size and design) is 6 knots (6.9 mph). Typically you would see that hull speed at 15 knots of wind (17 mph) with the sails trimmed right. To be at 5 knots in 8.5 knots of wind, you are doing pretty good.
Although a clean bottom never hurts anything. I clean mine about once a month during the summer with a medium stiffness brush. Generally you have to repaint the bottom every 2 years but being on a lake might be different.
I also wouldn’t sell anything you find in the boat until you check with some more experienced boaters. Something you don’t think is important now might be something you would want when you go cruising.
Good luck and fair winds,
Jesse
Thanks for the advice and the info, Jesse. That’s good to know about the hull speed…I wasn’t fully sure on what it should be, so I guess even with a horribly dirty bottom, she’s still moving along pretty good. The prior owner said he hadn’t had the bottom cleaned in several years. A fellow H25 owner a few slips down gave me the number of a guy who dons scuba gear and dives in to clean bottoms while in the water. Apparently he’s much cheaper than a haul-out [which I understand is about $15 per foot at my marina]. I don’t know how well it’ll get done or even if it’s worth it. Gotta talk to some more people.
That looks like a great book on outboards. I’m ordering it right now!
Mike
Bottom cleaning by a diver is good in between actual bottom jobs. Up here you have to clean the bottom every 3-6 weeks. This is just loosening up the growth on the bottom paint and taking some of the bottom paint with it. Cruising sailboats typically use ablative paint, rather than hard paint. Ablative paint is designed to slough off with a little agitation. Typically a medium bristle brush. On occasion, if you go too long in between cleanings, you may need to use a 3M blue or white pad (the different colors are different strengths white is the least aggressive and red or gray is the most). But this will take more paint with it. I just do this myself when we are anchored somewhere with warm water.
Every 2-4 years you have to pull the boat and do a full bottom job. If you intend to keep the boat in bristle condition that means removing all of the old paint by either sanding, liquid stripper or media blasting (soda blasting is popular now). You may need to take it all the way down to the fiber glass/gel coat to look for blistering. Then you put on a barrier coat (some will say this is unnecessary but I put a barrier coat on my at the time 11 year old boat when I took it down to gel coat for her first time, it’s a better base for the antifouling paint than the gel coat), usually between 3-9 layers. Then 2-3 layers of antifouling paint. I can’t offer any recommendations for freshwater. As someone who cares what he puts into the environment, I use non-copper paint and really like the Pacifica Plus. This is not a cheap, easy or healthy job to do. Some boat yards won’t even let you do this yourself due to EPA regulations that it be done in a controlled manner.
If you do not plan to keep the boat and top condition and just plan to hang onto it for a few years before moving on to something better than I would still do some of this work. I would haul the boat, have the hard pressure wash it extra good (sometimes you can pay extra for this, I usually just bring the yard guys a couple cases of beer). Then I just go over the boat with a scraper and take off any loose material. When that is done I wipe the whole bottom down with biosolve (an acetone alternative) and paint 2 layers of antifouling paint. This will typically last 2 years using the cheapest West Marine paint.
Hope this was helpful.
Jesse