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Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Fixing the boat I have



Monday was a good day for dealing with things on the Internet and on the phone. The day started with snow which accumulated to about an inch before turning to rain. Not a good day for playing outside.

The main sail on my Oday 19 is blown out and ripped. It's like the main motor is not firing on all cylinders. It really needs to be replaced. After a lot of searching around I decided to go with Bacon Sails. They e-mailed a detailed Measurement Form.

Apparently it's not enough to know the model and year of your boat. There's a lot of variance between boats, even those that are the same model. Rather than build a sail that sorta fits, they want to build one that really fits my particular boat. Makes sense, I guess.

I wish it was simple, as now I've got a lot of measuring to do. The boat will have to be unwrapped from its winter cocoon and moved to where I can lift the mast without getting tangled up in power lines. Tuesday is supposed to be another rainy day, but the sun is supposed to come out Wednesday.

I hope to get them moving on the sail fairly soon as it takes about four weeks to build it. They want half the money up front and the other half when the sail is completed. That seems to be a common practice in the industry.

While waiting for the sails to come in I might as well do a few other projects, like a mount for the 100 watt solar panel. A new cabin hatch would be great too. The Oday has a removable cabin hatch instead of a sliding one. It's a miracle that it hasn't fallen off the boat and sank to the bottom of the ocean. It would be kinda cool to build something that gives me a few more inches of headroom too. That would certainly make the boat more comfortable.

Maybe I can get all those projects done before the sail comes in. Right now all the ice isn't even off the lake yet, so giving it another month to warm up isn't a bad thing.

-Sixbears

6 comments:

  1. SB,

    Sometimes we have no options. And that stinks.

    Sometimes we have options, but they don't quite fit. That's unfortunate.

    Sometimes we have options that we don't even know about.

    Whether you know or not, I think this option might be a good fit for that boat considering the light use it might get, your handy nature, and the unbelievable price:

    http://www.polysail.com/

    http://polysail.com/library.htm

    http://www.duckworksmagazine.com/02/articles/polysail/

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuiJLDh7SjU

    I've been considering these myself. More substantial than one would guess. A bit of reading about them can be an eye-opener and a huge money saver.

    Yoda

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    Replies
    1. I'm making a polysail for little Ooze Goose. Since I'm really going to push the Oday, a professional sail is in order.

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    2. I think one of those references I provided mentions those polysails being used hard in sailing races, with good results.

      "In other news" ... have you checked out used sails? I ran across a few places like this recently as well:

      http://www.secondwindsails.com

      http://www.cast-aways.com

      http://www.usedsails.com

      I'd have a hard time believing that custom sails made so exact as to take account of differences within a model would really be necessary. Heading for the America's Cup? ;-)

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    3. I checked out all the used sail folks I could find and didn't find a suitable sail. Oh well.

      Apparently boat builders make a lot of undocumented changes, even within the same model year.

      While not heading for the America's Cup, I will be doing things like crossing Florida Bay and heading to the Dry Tortugas.

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  2. Thats the trouble with the Internet - an hour ago I hadn't even heard of Florida Bay, now I can see spending several weeks there.

    Sad news, have you seen this? http://www.npr.org/2016/02/20/467468370/florida-bay-relapse-threatens-ecosystem

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    Replies
    1. It's a great area. See it while it's still alive. I had some amazing days down there in the Bay.

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