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New Boat 4 Sled

How could delamination be repaired at sea?

I depends on the location of the delam, the severity, and the proximity to assistance. If the bow panels have delamed, and "panting,"cross bracing could be attempted using floorboards/bunktops. Except for the deck, this is the least severe location for delam.

More severe is if the bottom of the boat becomes delamed. In this case, little can be done except head for port and make sure the life raft is handy. In the worst case scenario, this can happen: https://wavetrain.net/2015/12/01/another-major-keel-failure-what-really-happened-to-polina-star-iii/

The rudder can also delaminate. You'll likely not become aware until seeing bits of rudder float up astern. This happened to us on IMP in the 1977 SORC. It took about 5 minutes to lose steering control under spinnaker. Rudder delam used to be relatively common, but less so with modern rudders.

A most unusual delam I saw was on a MacGregor ("K-Mart") 65 . Both sides of the hull, from the bow aft peeled off like an onion leaving exposed core.
 
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I remember reading about that incident when it occurred, but this article and its pictures tell quite the story. Truly horrifying. If the boat had been hauled and the hull surveyed immediately before the final sail, is it possible that the problem could have been spotted?

Hi Lee,

I don't know if that particular delam on the big Oyster could have been spotted beforehand. It certainly did cause a very big and expensive company to close its doors and sold off.

Delams do bring up the very real fact that most of us prefer to not deal with the possibility of unpleasantness in our little ship's systems. "Out of sight" can mean "I'll look at that later when I have more time."

I know I'm as guilty as any.

Particular locations are underwater (sloppy lower rudder bearing, propeller slop, growth on the depth sounder transducer and bottom of the keel, barnacles and growth in the thru-hulls, a broken blade on the plastic knotmeter impeller, etc.

Up the mast can also be out of sight, out of mind. Cracked swadges aloft, grooved and frozen halyard sheaves, misaligned wind instruments, a hidden crack in the gooseneck, loose or frozen spinnaker track screws,
a tri-color light lens that is fogged or bulb burned out. . .

I can always tell a rig that hasn't had attention by a simple glance aloft and seeing growth or mildew, even moss, on the bottom side of the spreaders.

Dark and difficult access places too are suspect. Corroded electric connections in the bilge, crude in the bottom of the fuel tank near the pick up tube, a steel or aluminum mast step that is failing, engine exhaust water that is less than optimum, an engine panel in the cockpit that is not watertight and has corrosion on its backside...

I once went aloft to investigate why a tri-color light was not properly shining aft. "hey, Joe, what's a desiccated rat doing up here?"
 
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A wooden Snowbird was my first boat. It was a 12 foot catboat with a centerboard and cotton sail, used as an Olympic Class in the 1932 Olympics.

snowbird2.jpg

My Snowbird was so slow that the newer fiberglass versions could literally sail circles around me. Being a kid, I thought it was just inexperience. Then one day when launching my Snowbird, the hoist broke. The boatman told our father that my boat was too heavy to ever again use the hoist.

Although I did not realize it at the time, my wooden Snowbird was covered in fiberglass and the whole boat was painted, including speckled Zolatone on the inside.

zolatone.jpg

The boatman estimated my Snowbird was at least 100 pounds heavier than its faster sisters.

The broken crane incident was the last I saw of the Snowbird. A Lehman 10 dinghy appeared in its place. The Lehman was light weight, and could be ramp launched. It had an aluminum rudder and daggerboard that would hum when the wind was up. It could also capsize, and I quickly learned to hand hold the mainsheet.

I think I weighed less than 100 pounds "soaking wet" as they'd say. And with my dog as crew, again I occupied the tail end of the fleet.

Blue Moon'57 001.jpg

I ditched the dog for my best friend who could hike by slipping his toes under the freshly installed hiking straps. I bolted a wooden sail batten to the top of the tiller as an extension. I even installed a bronze bell on the inside of the transom to be Coast Guard compliant.

Again, off we went to the races. Again, we would finish so far behind that we'd almost be late for the start of the following race. Once I almost beat a boat. But was passed just before the finish. It's skipper came over after the race and apologized for beating me.

I didn't find out until yesterday, 62 years later, why my Lehman 10, BLUE MOON, was so slow. My boat was painted, blue on the outside and white on the inside, unlike the rest of the class which had see thru hulls.

Apparently the Cal Tech geniuses knew. But I was in grade school and thought a good looking boat should also be fast. Here is what I found online:

"See-thru Lehman 10s were neither particularly attractive nor particularly fast, but they were easy to transport to college regattas. Making one more attractive also made it slower. Much slower. My brother was the captain of the sailing team at CalTech. They got the idea to put some very pretty white paint on the hull of one of their two Lehman 10s, then spend many hours polishing that paint for speed. What they got was the slowest Lehman 10 in the intercollegiate fleet. Their ugly green see-thru, on the other hand, was the fastest in the fleet. Not that any of it mattered all that much since every team sailed every other team's boat over the course of a meet."

Blue Moon 2.jpg

Who would have thought paint was slow?
 
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That's quite an "adaption" then!

I suffered a similar fate as one of the first juniors in the Island Yacht Club. All the other kids had El Toros. A few were Smith wood boats and there were a couple of new Tito glass ones, which were very fast. I had to race the family's Cape Dory 10. It weighed twice as much as an El Toro but the committee let me participate. I never won - not even close.
 
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Okay. I'm inspired. Here's Pia Mater. This was in 2015 and since then the trailer tires have gone flat and the lemon tree has grown up and above her transom, so I have some work to do, but I'm in.

in the yard 060115.jpg
 
Webb Chiles hopes to leave Panama soon enroute San Diego. At 4 knots average, under sail alone, he hopes to take a month for 2844 straight line miles. That's dreaming, Sir. Headwinds, headcurrents, calms, no engine, Tehuantepeckers.
He's provisioned for 2 months....Optimistic?
 
All this talk of older dinghy's reminds me of my first "restoration project", which involved extricating a Penguin dinghy my Dad had built in my Grandmothers basement some years before I appeared.
He'd never actually sailed it, though he had by this point built 3 OK's that he was actively sailing...
Classic case of "yeah, I think I measured the door before I started". :rolleyes:
Long story short; we did eventually get it out, and I learned how to unhinge and rehang a door in the process!

As I recall, I only actually sailed the Penguin a few times for one summer with a neighborhood friend... my parents OK's were much faster and fun.
But it did serve to get us out on Lake Washington without asking permission or supervision...

The Snowbird sorta reminds me of the Penguin... both are cat boats, with a kickup center board and are about 12' long. No idea how they would compare performance wise.
I've heard there were a lot of Penquin's sailing on the lake in the 60's, but I think the class size pales in comparison to the "flock of Snowbirds" down south...

Penquin 2.jpg
 
This calls for an aspirational pop-up dinghy race, somewhere over here (Potrero Reach) or over there (the Estuary). I don't think I've ever met a serious sailor who didn't have a second/smaller boat somewhere. So, maybe a hand count and then a bit of time to reconnoiter/rehabilitate? Perhaps this thread's namesake will even deign to come up yeah these vast miles of coast to either provide 1/ oversight or 2/ crew (for me, of course). People who don't actually have a baby boat can crew. And what shall we call it?

Bring the Baby Boat Ya Got Race. Somebody must have a clever little photo for the poster?
 
Sleddogs on strike!

Musher Nicolas Petit lost a huge lead in the Iditarod Race on Monday when his dog team refused to keep going after he yelled at one of the animals. A dog named Joey had been fighting with a younger dog on the team during a break on the way to the Bering Sea checkpoint of Koyuk when Petit stepped in.

“Joey was behind him, and he’s been kind of picking on him most of the trip, and he got a hold of him at one point … I yelled at Joey, and everybody heard the yelling, and that doesn’t happen,” Petit told the Iditarod Insider website. “And then they wouldn’t go anymore. Anywhere. So we camped here.”

Good for the dogs. When last heard from, their rebellion continued as team after team passed the one time leader.

Now WTF has been going on at Santa Anita Race Track? 21 horses dying in 2.5 months? Nobody in the know is saying why. "Situational" seems to be the only answer. What does that mean?
 
That Joey. He might get left home next time.

Your thread title made me anxious: “Whaaa? No Sleddog over coffee in the morning?” Then I remembered how you behave on boats. Sleddog is definitely the alpha male on most sailboats. Of course you would identify with Joey.
 
Sad news. Rick Srigley of Pebble Beach went overboard last evening from his Moore-24 MORPHEUS during the Monterey Peninsula Yacht Club Wed. Night Races. Although his crew was able to reach him, they were unable to pull him aboard. He was recovered by the Coast Guard which took him by ambulance to CHOMP hospital where he passed away. No further details. Fair Winds, Rick.

Happier news: Webb Chiles left Panama early this morning on the final leg of his circumnavigation onboard the Moore-24 GANNET. His destination is San Diego. Gannet's tracker pings every 6 hours. https://my.yb.tl/gannet
 
I think we're hijacking Sled's channel, but here's another. The Santa Rosa Sailing Club is planning an Estuary Sail on Saturday, June 15. Put in at the Grand Ave. launch ramp about 9:30, lunch at Jack London Square (free public dock), and haul out later in the afternoon. Any SSS dinghies are welcome to join in. Pat Broderick <broderic-at-sonic-dot-net>
 
Back to the thread. My first boat was a plywood "Melody." A 10-foot version of an El Toro - complete with bench seats! I raced on Santa Rosa lakes with the Santa Rosa Sailing Club - and was consistently last. Most sailors were kids at a 100# or so. Me, 32 years old and 160#. Towed it to the Delta for years and had lots of fun sailing the sloughs. I still have the mast as a flagpole.

MELODY.jpg
 
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