First outing

6/26/10 -

Well, we hit kind of a snag this Thursday. I had come back from kayaking and there was water flowing down the street (from our house). The wife mentioned some sort of problem.

So what had happened: Two days before I had emptied the inflatable pool after the last round of tests. Cleaning up the green algae from the plastic with a water hose etc. And then I left the hose under pressure. Well, sometime on Thursday, the hose broke and a Geysir of sorts went off in our back yard. It flooded pretty much everything, including the boat! Filled to the rim.

I did not take pictures, it was just too depressing. The hull kept its shape, it's now hydro tested from the inside but obviously the water went into every crack and corner. So the wood started expanding. We drained it as good as we could, then turned it upside down and let it dry for the last two days.

After this excitement, we pushed forward to have a launch nevertheless on this Saturday. I fixed a few small issues like the rudder top hinge - we found a new store with amazing little woodworking things and now I have a steel insert in the aft stem that provides a perfect seat for the rudder bolt. Also a few eye-bolts are now screwed into the fore peak - the ballast weights are secured there so they can't move and create havoc.

The hull rolls out the back alley on the stand and goes on the back of the truck - it is surprisingly easy with the tail gate down. The blue kayak went along, just to be prepared for an emergency recovery.

There is no extra space on the back of truck left - the stand is just wedged in with the hull in a diagonal.

In fact, I had to cut a corner off the stand while on the truck to gain two more necessary inches.

So we went to Lake Murray in La Mesa, maybe a 10 mile ride. The lake is actually part of the Mission Trails park system - a very cozy little place with beautiful fresh water.

After paying $7 for a day permit, here we are at the boat ramp. The casters of the boat stand are just small enough so the stand will not roll down on its own on the corrugated cancrete surface.

The boat comes without ballast off the stand - it rolls to the side immediately. So leaving the boat stand there as a temporary support is a wise thing to do. Then the keel (flat piece of iron) can be attached by standing in the water, angling the hull, loosing the Allen wrench and bolts etc. So here is room for improvement, more to that later.

After the keel is attached, the hull is stable on its own and now the fore peak gets its fill to create a counterweight for the passenger sitting in the aft portion. My colleague Dave here rolled up his pants to get into the zone as well.

And then the great moment came and I stepped in - the trim was a bit bow heavy so we took a few pounds of iron out.

The battery is hooked up to the motor and the dashboard functions as well (kind of amazing, considering the flooding event before). Even the Volt meter is back on after some hair dryer fixup work.

So I took a few turns out into the lake - there was a light breeze which would have been perfect for sailing but that will come as a next step. The kayak stayed on shore as the battery kept up quite well - I guess I was motoring for about 10 minutes, getting a feel of how sharp the boat turns (not so sharp!). And the prop does not really do much when running in reverse! But after I figured out how to get the fast speed going (setting I, not II??) it was actually quite impressive. Not enough for waterskiing.

The we took her out again, just to discover that one of my fancy keel-mounting IKEA nuts got beat up (it's brass and I also had spilled some epoxy in bottom of the Allen socket. Needless to say, I got three out of four screws loose. The last one would not come out. Dave had a little pocket knife that saved the day. And I have a design change in the making - I guess an order at McMaster is forthcoming.

But all in all it went surprisingly well. The hull has quite some stability left, I rolled about a bit so the next phase (rigging) can be entered after the various water damages of the hull are duly repaired. Next weekend is a long one (4th of July) so I won't be bored.

To be continued.