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... 

So we bought a little sailboat....

It's kind of a old story. One day I woke up and wanted something more. Something different from the rat race that everybody else loves to follow.

I realized a long time ago that I just couldn't care less about celebrity news, what stars were dancing with who, or what was on TV last night. So I made the fatal mistake of reading a sailboat blog. Crap. Why couldn't I have read a exciting blog about stamp collecting?

The appeal was instantaneous. Just pull up your hook right off my little dock and work my way down through the locks at the end of Old Hickory Lake and BAMM! I'm in the frickin' Gulf of Mexico and can go anywhere in the world if I have a little wind and don't mind taking a long slow time getting there. I mean obviously sailing is almost free right?

BZZZZZZZ. Wrong answer. Not even close to free but it can be cheap if you can just let go of some of this consumerism that seems to be the norm in the good old USofA. 

That for me is going to be a big, big adjustment. I mean right now with my lovely big combined family I've got 5 kids, 3 houses (2 rentals), 7 cars, crazy bills, and two full time jobs feeding this monster. How in the f@!k are we going to make this happen with college looming and living the suburban "high life"?

BZZZZZZZ. Wrong answer #2. Did I just read that I have 5 kids? and they are almost college age? Dang. That is a problem. So maybe, just maybe, we better start out slow on our lake. 

BZZZZZZZ! Wrong answer #3.   Did I mention I never sailed in my life? Not even a little bit? Well OK, one time at a boy scout camp there was a ill-fated attempt at a sailing dingy that ended with all hands lost to the depths of the waist deep lake full of ducks and duck poop. Hell what if I'm terminally sea sick?

Did this slow me down? Well, not really.

Undeterred by minor details and against all advice I started shopping for a boat. After 2+ years of craigslist lurking and a few viewings of local boats proved fruitless. My budget was pretty bleak and nothing jumped out at us as we bottom shopped the below 5K price range for a lake sailboat we could learn on while having a place to spend the night on the water.

Then one night I saw the PumRunch