Finally!
Sadly, we didn't take any pictures, but we finally got the boat out on the water today. Older fellow was right; the Civic was more than able to get the boat from the stall down to the water and back, and it beat the pants off using the cat walker.
The rudders were a source of grief. As I've mentioned before, the Hobie tool no longer seems to fit the replacement cams. I'm going to have to consult various forums and see what the general consensus is. I, personally, can't get the rudders to clip down, and once they did finally clip down (after doing what, I'm not sure) I couldn't get them back up. If I hadn't read so many stories about people having their rudders pop up spontaneously, I'd simply loosen the tension on the brindle screw, but I don't want to trade one problem for another. If I can drill a hole in the cams that makes the Hobie tool work, that will be enough for me. As it is now, I have to manually push the bulb down and then move the cam with my hand. The problem there is that manually pushing the bulb down is not easy. Also, while I understand why they can't be fixed, I'm not going to be running this boat up onto the beach at high speed; there's just nowhere to do that here. So having the cams at all is just freakin' annoying. I'm left sorta wishing for the Sunfish's spring-loaded rudder.
We were out for about and hour and a half today. People weren't kidding when they said that Lake Arthur had shifty winds. We would go from a beam reach to being in irons in a flash and without changing headings. I also want to ask on the forums about the main traveler, and the tiller. I hate to sound whiny, but tacking this boat was a pain in the ass. When I was younger, I always sat crew on Hobies, so I didn't really have a ton of experience in the skipper's seat when I got there today. The main traveler looks like there are places to thread ropes to support "locating" it on the track, but there aren't any ropes there. I'm not sure what is supposed to go on. Also I'm curious about the main fairlead block that's hardwired to the center. Other people on the lake were using it, but I can't imagine using it, mainly because I don't want to not be able to get out of the traveler jam cleat from afar.
Lastly, the jib halyard is annoying as sin. I don't know if what I want is one of the "aussie" jib halyard systems, but whatever we had today was annoying as sin. All questions and tribulations aside, it was great to finally get my boat in the water, get some speed up and hear the rudders singing. It was a good day.
We capped it all off by visiting Quimby and Seabass for their barbecue that I was afraid I was going to miss.
The rudders were a source of grief. As I've mentioned before, the Hobie tool no longer seems to fit the replacement cams. I'm going to have to consult various forums and see what the general consensus is. I, personally, can't get the rudders to clip down, and once they did finally clip down (after doing what, I'm not sure) I couldn't get them back up. If I hadn't read so many stories about people having their rudders pop up spontaneously, I'd simply loosen the tension on the brindle screw, but I don't want to trade one problem for another. If I can drill a hole in the cams that makes the Hobie tool work, that will be enough for me. As it is now, I have to manually push the bulb down and then move the cam with my hand. The problem there is that manually pushing the bulb down is not easy. Also, while I understand why they can't be fixed, I'm not going to be running this boat up onto the beach at high speed; there's just nowhere to do that here. So having the cams at all is just freakin' annoying. I'm left sorta wishing for the Sunfish's spring-loaded rudder.
We were out for about and hour and a half today. People weren't kidding when they said that Lake Arthur had shifty winds. We would go from a beam reach to being in irons in a flash and without changing headings. I also want to ask on the forums about the main traveler, and the tiller. I hate to sound whiny, but tacking this boat was a pain in the ass. When I was younger, I always sat crew on Hobies, so I didn't really have a ton of experience in the skipper's seat when I got there today. The main traveler looks like there are places to thread ropes to support "locating" it on the track, but there aren't any ropes there. I'm not sure what is supposed to go on. Also I'm curious about the main fairlead block that's hardwired to the center. Other people on the lake were using it, but I can't imagine using it, mainly because I don't want to not be able to get out of the traveler jam cleat from afar.
Lastly, the jib halyard is annoying as sin. I don't know if what I want is one of the "aussie" jib halyard systems, but whatever we had today was annoying as sin. All questions and tribulations aside, it was great to finally get my boat in the water, get some speed up and hear the rudders singing. It was a good day.
We capped it all off by visiting Quimby and Seabass for their barbecue that I was afraid I was going to miss.