Demasted!

Well ok, I actually meant to do it.  The end of last season I kept having more and more difficulty with my jib. It became progressively harder to pull up until at last the old (original?) pulley at the masthead grenaded spraying the hull with the fibrous plastic it was made of.

And here's the best part, my facebook post was mocked by Capt'n Fatty! I feel like I've arrived!

Flash forward to a mere 5 months later and I've finally dropped the mast to replace my ratty halyards and add a couple of new pulleys while retaining the original over the mast double pulley system as a spare. (Mainly because I can't figure out how to take it apart and inspect it. Plus it still works fantastic.

Obviously I did a really crappy job controlling the drop of the mast as it twisted going down, cracked one of my teak handholds on my shroud and fell on the club dock.


My avian peanut gallery wasn't impressed.

Monday I'll be back out on the boat (my day off) and I'll replace the halyards and get ready to put the mast back up in it's fully erect position!

New Main Sail up and a lack of time.

                    There are times when I think that having 5 kids, 8 cars, 3 houses and 2 boats may be impacting my ability to succeed in my new career as a professional blogger. When does the first pay check get here anyway?

Late this spring my new main arrived right on time from Martin and Summerset Sails. http://www.somersetsails.com/ My first impressions were that it was a very nice basic sail and a great price. 

Installation went fine and even though they were a little sloppy on cleaning up the loose threads it is such a huge improvement over the old blown out main it's amazing. I haven't even played with the top removeable battan yet. There just hasn't been time. 

Pum really seemed to respond to the extra sail area, I had some room and ordered the sail roughly 10% larger than the original. Probably didn't hurt that it was actually sail shaped now!

We thought we had hit a log and were quite startled but then it kept happening as we were heavily heeled over,  with the new sail power we actually had one of the bilge keels partially out of the water and it was banging into the crests of the waves. I couldn't quite capture it with the phone and it was a miracle that the iphone didn't go kersplunk!

Sam at sail camp.

Sam, Lauren and I had a great overnight but got to take a unplanned hike to fill up a gas tank when we were surprised by the Anchor High marina being closed and no fuel available. 

Next I'm going to finally write a bit about Pum's history as a liveaboard back in the 70's

Ordering a new main sail

I spent a lovely day out on the water measuring once, twice and three times for a new main sail for the Pum.

When we picked her up I had been warned that the main sail were not original to the model of the boat being a mixed and match set from Katrina victims that showed up on Ebay as Pum's sails were destroyed in her years of neglect in Georgia.

Thankfully I had a 100 foot cloth tape so I hoisted it up the halyard and confirmed what I had always suspected. The Pum has a seriously undersized main.

My first clue to this was my noticing that the main sail foot only came within about 18 inches about of the end of the boom. The second clue was that the main stopped about 2 feet from the top with the boom adjusted up the mast as far as she would go.

I know a twin keep boat will never be fast but this misshapen ripped mess of a main sail probably was more of a hindrance than a help on most days,

Martin Somerset of Somersetsails.com spent the better part of two hours working with me as I measured my rig and figued out that I had a rather mismatched set of sails, mast and boom, at least according to the original specs. Apparently only the least likely component was original. The boom, go figure. Here's a sample of his work. Red is amazing but we went with a matching white with green logo to match the pretty ok gennie.

So wish me luck with Martin. I'm hoping he will enjoy his weekend beer he had just purchased as he worked with me after hours to order my first sail while he reminisced about his Tennessee hang gliding days in the 70's on lookout mountain.

Cheers Martin!

I just read a pretty damn ok description of what it is to be a cruiser. Not a frickin Carnival cruise lines buffet eating cruiser but a Cruiser. A person who wanders about the world on his own terms, hopefully on a sailboat.

It's from sailpanache.com

"Cruising is essentially the most inconvenient way to do things. Its slow, things break all the time and nothing is straightforward. Add a language barrier, the assumption that you are a millionaire for owning a boat (ahem, yacht), and things can really be shitty sometimes. I watch a smile creep over their face, and I start to smile too, because I really like the challenge. I like testing myself. And I like the freedom. Nothing satisfying is ever easy. "

Credit where credit is due

One of the things that drew me to the PumRunch was her lovely interior. Simon and Janet had done a lovely job of restoring her interior adding clever bits of executive jet aircraft interiors that were left over from his day job working on jets. However, all they did was restore it. Not modify it. That was by, at the time, a unknown previous owner

The table lays down to make a twin bed

one side of the v-berth is removed where a marine toilet and small shower used to be that Simon had to remove to be allowed to place the boat in a reservoir lake.

lots of lovely mahogany, not original obviously

Built ins and storage everywhere. The bottle of rum was found in the bilge. Forgotten long ago in a smuggling rum during its Caribbean years

The incredibly clever roll out kitchen replaces one of the bunks with pressure water in the sink.

On my trip to survey her and put a deposit down on her I got as they say, "the rest of the story" from Janet about the Pum's interesting history known  so far. She has many, many miles under her keels in the U.S. as a liveaboard from Galveston to Charleston including the keys and all over the Caribbean. Also I've determined that she appears to have been sailed over from the U.K. to the U.S. ending up in poor shape in Texas by her first unknown owners. the girls seen some miles for sure!

6 months later...

I continued to look at the little Westerly and did some research. Well, ok a lot of research.

The original Westerly 22 and 25's go back to the very beginning of fiberglass sailboats. They were built as tough as possible to stand up to North Sea conditions and even came with Lloyd's of London's certification. Which is pretty much unheard of. Basically a blue water boat in a tiny package.

I was so excited about the whole thing that I promptly waited about 6 months before sending my wife to look at the boat which was docked at Lake Lanier just outside of Atlanta GA.

What were we doing in those 6 months? Chasing 5 kids, working two full time jobs, rebuilding various teens autos from unlikely calamities, and trying on rare occasions to get out on the lake on our little bow rider boat.

Slowly Michelle had become excited about the sailing thing, the thought of a boat that uses virtually no gas appealed to her. Thrifty can be sexy! (much later photo)

So Michelle went down to Georgia on one of our many, many travel baseball trips and went to look at the boat between games. The PumRunch, while still lovely, had not weathered as well in the water since her restoration as one would have hoped. 

Her green paint was a single stage and had faded and chaulked badly. The interior was still amazing. The owners Simon and Audrey had done wonders. Simon (a English ex-pat) worked with aircraft interiors and many of his extras had found there way into a delightful, if tiny interior. Another problem, while docked the boat next to her had caught fire and burned to the waterline scorching the Pum a bit and ruining much of her sunbrella covers and her bimini top. 

Michelle returned home with a positive report and few pictures. 

So naturally we waited almost another 6 months before acting.

Craigslist is the devil

I had been cruising craigslist for sailboats, how could it possibly hurt to look? (big mistake, we all know craigslist is the devil) I saw tons of sailboats for sale,  most of them in pretty sorry shape or way expensive. Or both.

Michelle and I even went and looked at one, a 26 foot Chrysler, who knew they made boats? It smelled funny and was decidedly much worse for wear.  I figured it must have been neglected for 20 years or 6 months in sailboat time.  Amazing how fast something on the water goes downhill.

Months later I stumbled across a craigslist search engine that searched all over the country for whatever you wanted. Not good. Like throwing gasoline on a fire. I spent many long winter evenings sipping high gravity beer surfing for whatever popped up with the word "sailboat" in the title. 

One of these cozy nights I stumbled across this ad....  http://www.strictlysailing.com/classifieds/20930a

Ok, so this ad isn't craigslist,  but those things expire.

AD# 20930A	Westerly 25 For Sale! General Boat Specs: Length Overall (LOA): 25' Beam: 7' Draft (Maximum): 30" General Description: Classic sailboat for sale - 25' sloop. Restored 3 years ago Westerly W25 in good condition. Twin cast iron keels, only draws 30", good outboard with retract system. Sails in fair condition. Roller boom furling or slab furling main, large genoa. Lav & galley; sleeps three. Very stable and dry. Pesently docked at Sunrise Cove Marina on Lake Lanier. Slip probably transferrable. We have a 24' trailer to move to your location or we can sell trailer with boat. $3750 for boat or $6200 with trailer. Interior Details: Sleep three. Stowable galley. New unused chemical toilet included. Cozy interior. Deck/Hardware Details: Three winches. Tiller Steering. Sail Inventory: Decent main and genoa included. Engine Details: Good running Evinrude. Location: Lake Lanier, GA Asking $3,750.00/$6,200.00 w/trailer

It caught my eye right away. Here was a boat already lovingly restored, within what I thought was a reasonable range to go get (we'll talk about Mounteagle mountain later) and seemed to fit my shallow water requirements at my dock(also another story).

The price seemed reasonable at 4500 initially so I bookmarked the ad and started doing research on the westerly boats. That's when I really got fascinated...