Category Archives: Sailing

Outboard again

Posted on February 10, 2008 | Comments Off on Outboard again

Good sail this afternoon. Partly cloudy, warm, gusty 5-15 mph winds. Just cruising along. It’s a good thing I kept my outboard engine maintenance manual, because I bought a new Mercury 2.5 hp yesterday from regular reader Steve who keeps a Hunter sloop on my dock at Anderson Mill. I gave the trolling motor a try, but it proved to be a bigger headache than an outboard. Maybe. It seems like forever since that fateful day before Thanksgiving that I found that the trolling motor didn’t have enough oomph to stop the sloop going backward and drive it forward, and so the sloop kept going backward and crashed into the dock behind mine close to the shoreline. With all the cold and rain since then, and almost six weeks of cedar pollen in the air keeping me inside, I’ve had time to think it over and decided to go back to an outboard. Even the 2.5 easily made the sloop reverse direction this afternoon, and then gallop out of the marina into a headwind.

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Cedar pollen waning

Posted on January 7, 2008 | Comments Off on Cedar pollen waning

Looks like I can go out to the lake tomorrow and check on the family sloop. KVUE, the only news outfit in town that makes its own allergy readings, found cedar pollen in decline today, rated low. Even without a rain shower to clear the air. My eyes have been itching for a week now, nose stuffed and sneezes coming and going–sure signs of cedar fever. So I was trying to stay home and inside. Be nice to get out.

UPDATE  I didn’t make it because my nose is still running and my eyes still hurt from the pollen in the air. The pollen counters must have missed a few million grains in the annual juniper mating ritual. Patrician Sharp says the malaise is supposed to be over in a week, but, as usual, mine is hanging on. Nature’s hazing ritual for Texans, indeed. 

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Posted in Rancho Roly Poly, Sailing, Weather/Climate

Frigid

Posted on December 17, 2007 | Comments Off on Frigid

Gracious. It’s 10 a.m. and the temperature is only just now rising into the lower forties. Winter has come awfully early. I hope this means January will be warmish. Nothing like a leisurely sail in January’s sun to remind why one lives in Tejas.

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Posted in Sailing, Texana, Weather/Climate

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The quick-connect plug

Posted on November 20, 2007 | Comments Off on The quick-connect plug

The Minn Kota trolling motor worked fine in reverse yesterday getting the family sloop out of the slip at the marina. It also worked in forward, to get out of the marina altogether for an hour of sailing, though it was a bit slow at checking the heavy boat’s reverse motion. Then I smelled something burning. It was the plastic Minn Kota Trolling Motor Plug ("Quick Connect Plug With Snap-Lock Design for 6 to 12 Gauge Wire Sizes") connecting the power leads from the motor to the extension leads from the battery. Fortunately no flames. Just melted the plug ends together, making the ensemble permanent-snap-lock and no-release-at-all. So I’ve ordered a new plug. This time I won’t use a screwdriver to bend the connectors so the plugs will hold together. Maybe taping them together with Velcro will work. Sailing was fine, as always. It’s the "iron sail" that’s the problem, as usual.

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Trolling motor installed

Posted on November 14, 2007 | Comments Off on Trolling motor installed

Got the propane torch working Monday to finish soldering all the electrical connections and so I mounted the Minn Kota 55 on the motor mount on the family sloop this morning–snaking the power wires through the cavernous compartment under the cockpit to the midships battery. Wired and locked the thing to the mount to prevent theft by a casual thief. (A determined one wouldn’t be deterred even by a chain.) In reverse, with the dock lines on, the 55 piles about an inch of water against the stern. So we’re good to go on the first light-air day. The wind was whistling in the rigging this morning, not a day I’d normally go out even with an outboard. Cold front tonight will probably kick up more wind. So maybe Saturday will be the first chance to try it out on a sail.

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Family sloop’s free scrub

Posted on November 5, 2007 | Comments Off on Family sloop’s free scrub

Steve, a rare reader who recently bought a used Hunter 22 sloop at Anderson Mill was using scuba gear to inspect his new craft’s bottom Sunday and afterwards swam down a few slips to check ours. Said scrubbing the algae off revealed clean blue paint from the cleaning job we got done at Commander’s Point in the fall of 2001, and the swing keel and cable looked fine. Appreciate it, Steve. Sorry the motor isn’t behaving. Steve picked up the recalcitrant Suzuki DT4 I left at the dumpster not long ago and paid for some fixup. It ran a while for him, even idled okay, but then it quit and refused to start. Good luck with that. I hope finally to get the new trolling motor working this week.

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Going ashore

Posted on November 1, 2007 | Comments Off on Going ashore

The Seablogger has become the land blogger, selling his cabin cruiser and moving ashore:

"It is a burden shed, but also a grief acquired. I shall not forget this day."

I can’t quite imagine selling the family sloop, a mere pocket cruiser, and I’ve never even lived on it. 

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Posted in Blogosphere, Sailing

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