Association Forum - We finally splashed!

Assn Members Area · Join

Home.

Association Forum

Ships Store

Cruising

Racing

Technical Tips

Photo Gallery - New

Boat Search - Updated

Manuals & Brochures

Swap Meet

Links

Officer Flag Line & Staff

Bylaws & Constitution

Members Area

Join the Association

Notice:
The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ.
The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.

Association Forum

Username:	Password:
Save Password
Forgot your Password?

All Forums

Catalina/Capri 25/250 Sailor's Forums

Catalina 250 Specific Forum

We finally splashed!

New Topic

Topic Locked

Printer Friendly

Author

Topic

delliottg
Former Mainsheet C250 Tech Editor

Member Avatar

USA
4479 Posts

Initially Posted - 08/16/2008 : 13:45:31

Well, after months of projects, illness, home renovations, broken bones, we finally got SL into the water yesterday. Things didn't go as well as they might during the launch. We backed down the ramp intending to use the new fifth wheel & trailer jack combo, as well as the long launch rope to keep the truck out of the water. One small problem, the fifth wheel didn't touch the ground when the jack was retracted all the way. Finding this out on the ramp wasn't exactly the best time. My first thought was to simply destroy the jack stand by using it to launch with, but then there was the distinct possibility that I'd never be able to get the trailer hooked up again, not optimal. We decided to hook the boat up again & get it off the ramp to access the problem. I was thinking about running to WM to get a different jack, but then it occurred to me to just flip the tire carrier upside down...um, no, now the tire's too low. Hmmm...ah ha! We'll move the jack to the bow upright which should give us enough room to launch, and so it did. First problem solved:

<center>Look, no wheels in the water!</center>

We got the boat launched, the truck parked & got ready to head out. I asked Rita to start the engine, nothing. Great, we'd just tested it the night before to preclude something like this, what could it be? We had power, but pushing the start button gave us nothing, no clicks, nada. I tried to pull start it, couldn't get it to spin (this should have been my first clue). I thought I was revisiting my hydrostatic lock, so I pulled the plugs to try & clear the cylinders, nothing again. Now what? The shifter indicated neutral on the Power Tiller, so it shouldn't be locked out. As it turned out, it was, neutral is actually down towards "R" a bit. Once I figured this out, I could start the engine at will.

So we set off, but I'd neglected to drop the engine back down after the "fix", so the prop was all but out of the water. Backing down to clear the dock, this was no big deal, but once I put it into forward, I couldn't go any faster than idle or the prop would cavitate horribly. I decided to just idle away from the dock to give myself some sea room to get the engine back down to full extension. Once I had the engine down, the cavitation problem went away completely. I set it to just above idle, around 1400 RPM and we set off. After a while I looked at my depth/speed gauge & was surprised to see that we were doing 4.5 kn or so! I double checked with the GPS & it agreed within a few percent of my analog gauge. I was quite pleased to see this.

We decided just to head for the marina, we'd already had enough excitement for the day. We prepped the boat for docking, including making our version of the Nauti-dock-a-matic (version 1.01) by using some split loom to stiffen the mid-ship's dockline loop:

Rita flaked out the bowline along the starboard lifelines while I readied the stern line. We were idling in a basin just outside of our marina entrance close to some sand barges. Once we were ready, I put the boat in gear and headed towards the marina. All of a sudden the engine stalled, "what the hell"? I figured it just stalled, started it back up, put it in gear & it promptly stalled again. That's when I noticed the bowline in the prop. Perfect. I tried to tilt the engine up and clear it, but the engine wouldn't budge. Wonderful. We're drifting towards the the sand barges, what to do? I glanced at the depth gauge, we were in 45' of water, time to get an anchor into the water before I was banging spreaders against the barge. I dropped my danforth in, it only has 100' of scope, and I wasn't sure it would grab with only a 2:1 scope out. I had Rita set a MOB on the GPS so we could monitor our position. The anchor grabbed about 20 yards from the barge and we started to pendulum, which was a good sign. I knew we'd drag and so I got to work figuring out why the engine wouldn't come up. I went back & tried to raise it, and noticed that the bowline was so tight, that it was holding the engine in the down position. I released the bowline at the bow, and walked it back to the stern, raised the engine with no problems. It took a bit of work to get it off of the prop, but it wasn't fouled too badly. I got the engine back down in the water, and it started right up. Whew!

We headed into the marina, and docked mostly without incident. The dock-a-matic allowed Rita to grab the first cleat with no problems. We'd overestimated the length required for the midship's line, so even though we'd snagged the cleat we still bumped our dock box a bit, but no big deal.

David
C-250 Mainsheet Editor

Sirius Lepak
1997 C-250 WK TR #271 --Seattle area Port Captain --

Edited by - delliottg on 08/17/2008 22:30:53

Nautiduck
Master Marine Consultant

Members Avatar

USA
3704 Posts

Response Posted - 08/16/2008 : 15:17:27

You're in and nobody got hurt! Yahoooooooo!! Next time the launch will be uneventful because you got the jack set up and the dock-a-matic will be at the right length. We kissed the dock the first time this year too since we moved the boat-end of the dock-a-matic.

Go have a nice dinner out and then go sailing. Congratulations.

Are you launching near Salty's on Alki?? My favorite restaurant. Have Sunday brunch there. You earned it!

Edited by - Nautiduck on 08/16/2008 15:18:38

delliottg
Former Mainsheet C250 Tech Editor

Members Avatar

USA
4479 Posts

Response Posted - 08/16/2008 : 15:39:43

You're exactly right, the boat's in the water, and nobody is bleeding, that makes it a good day. We treated ourselves to a nice sushi dinner in town after dropping off the truck & trailer. The only scary part was anchoring in the river, the rest of it was just problem solving. Once I knew the anchor was mostly holding (we dragged about half the distance back towards the barge, upstream I might add, guess wind & tide had more sway than current) fixing the problem probably took less than five minutes total. Rita gets upset when stuff like this happens and swears off sailing forever, I just look at them as adventures with problems to solve and eventual good stories. Later on she recants, and has told me a couple of times since last night how impressed she was when I didn't get wound up or angry when things went wrong, just solve the problem & get on with it. I don't see the point in getting angry, and panic doesn't solve anything. However, I don't know if I'd have been as prepared to solve the problems had I not been reading this forum actively for a couple of years. Had it been two years ago, my anchor locker would have probably been locked, I wouldn't have had the tools necessary to move the jack mount, etc.

Edited by - on

Al
Captain

Members Avatar

USA
269 Posts

Response Posted - 08/16/2008 : 20:09:03

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Rita gets upset when stuff like this happens and swears off sailing forever, I just look at them as adventures with problems to solve and eventual good stories. Later on she recants...<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
Ha! I love that...!

Edited by - on

willy
Captain

Members Avatar

USA
422 Posts

Response Posted - 08/18/2008 : 19:28:48

<font color="purple">"After a while I looked at my depth/speed gauge & was surprised to see that we were doing 4.5 kn or so! I double checked with the GPS & it agreed within a few percent of my analog gauge. I was quite pleased to see this"</font id="purple">.

Well if you are in salt water enjoy it while you can! In the Rehoboth Bay - even bottom painted it takes that little paddlewheel about three days to have enough stuff growing on it to make it useless! Current will really affect its "speed over the planet" accuracy too!
Willy

Edited by - on

delliottg
Former Mainsheet C250 Tech Editor

Members Avatar

USA
4479 Posts

Response Posted - 08/18/2008 : 21:02:38

Well, we're in brackish water, which seems to keep the wheel clean. When we pulled the boat last year we had no growth on it at all. Of course the river we're in is a superfund site, so maybe that helps keep the growth down.

Edited by - on

willy
Captain

Members Avatar

USA
422 Posts

Response Posted - 08/21/2008 : 20:52:21

Wow! A Superfund site? You better hope nothing grows there, it's apt to swim up and bite you!!!

Willy

Edited by - on

Topic

New Topic

Topic Locked

Printer Friendly

Jump To:

Association Forum

Notice: The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ.
The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.