I forgot to mention what I had used as an anchor light. I bought a battery powered light/lantern at Wall Mart for about $2.50 that runs on 4 AA batteries. However I found that the life span of the batteries is only about 4 hours maybe a little less. It is bright and 360 degress though. I did a little research and found that you can buy a LED replacement bulb that replaces the normal bulb and gets much better power consumption according to several websites that sell them. Prices ranged from 12 dollars to about the mid 20’s for them.
So far I have tried a small coleman dual fuel lantern and two different small electric lanterns. None of them have lasted for the night. What I want to do is run some wiring up the rigging and just wire in a LED anchor light at the mast top off the main distribution panel. I should be able to run it for a weeks on the main battery. I would also run a cable for an antenna up there so that I could hook up my portable radio to it and extend its range when I needed to or if I got a radio to install on the boat.
I woke up about 4:45 or 5:00 am to a steady slapping noise of water on the hull. The tide had turned With two anchors out we were now stern to the current on the outgoing tide. For some reason this position is noisey. It only took a couple minutes to let the boat swing around in the current on the bow anchor and to throw the stern anchor back out 🙂
We woke up to the swaying of the boat as traffic on the channel picked up that morning. After a slow morning of hot chocolate and tea and left over chinees food for breakfast we upped anchor and motored out of the inlet.
It was time to try something new. I have always had at least one other person to help me raise and set sail and handle the boat in the past. Patty was with me now but I wanted to see if I could actually raise and set sail by myself. So with Patty having fun watching my frantic antics I set the tiller tamer on the tiller with the boat almost into the wind and then went forward to the mast and raised the main. This part wasn’t that bad. But it still took about twice as long as normal as I had to go back to the tiller twice to get us back into the wind. Seas were about 2 1/2 to 3 ft, so it was a little bumpy but the period was fairly long so I wasn’t bouncing. The one hand for the boat rule was firmly in place though. After the main was up and everything set on it I looked forward at the jib. This wasn’t going to be fun. It wasn’t, even though we were not bouncing bad it was still moving good up at the bow pulpit. I had already hanked on the jib before we upped anchor as well as running the jib lines, so all I had to do was attach the jib halyard and raise it. All I can say is I’m glad that Patty was there in case I got bounced off the boat on the bow. I wouldn’t do this without a safety line if I was alone. Once I got the jib halyard on it raising it wasn’t to bad. I had to go back to the tiller to put us dead into the wind before pulling it the las couple feet up as there was to much force on it for me to pull it tight.
It was a sobering experience. I hear about people who solo on 30 to 40 ft boats. All I have to say is I have lots of respect. I think that it would be easier to do if the boat was set up for it. Having the main halyard and jib halyard running back to the cockpit where I could put them around the winches would help. The traveler needs to be moved back about mid cockpit so that the person at the tiller can reach it easily also. Right now it is attached to the boom about mid way down the boom. I would like to move it to the end of the boom and move the traveler that same distance torward the stern.
its late and I will finish this another day 🙂 gd’night
scott
I pick up the story again 🙂 We haven’t gotten to the fun part yet.
After going out and sailing for a while we came back and anchored under sail in the inlet on the ocean side of the point. We were protected by the rock jettys there but it was still to bouncy for my liking so we did like everyone else was and went back and anchored behind the point on the channel.
After a walk on the beach and then hanging out for a while I decided to take a look at the keel. I wanted to see it in both up and down position and to mark the cable at the winch in the fully up and down positions. I’m still not sure what happened. (i still have to take it apart and to a postmortom) but in raising the keel, the cable snapped in half. Luckly the keel was only about a third or half the way up. It still made a hell of a bang and shook the whole boat. 550 lbs of keel slamming down is an eyeopener and heart accelerator. I popped the inspection port open on the well the keel mechanism is in and the cable had snapped about 6 inchs from where it attaches to the swingkeel . I don’t think that the cable touches / or is supposed to touch anything there. There didn’t seem to be any corrosion either. I don’t know if it was defective cable or if there is something wrong with the winch and pulley system that it runs on.
There was nothing we could do for it there and I didn’t know how I was going to get it back on the trailer. It was looking as if we would have to find a marina to put her in to get fixed. It is was starting to look like an expensive weekend. The tide was still rising so we were able to get back to the public boat landing in murrels inlet without a problem. With the help of another daysailor that was putting his boat in the water we decided to drag the “Comes around, Goes around” up on the trailer. It is a very nice facility and at high tide the keel didnt start to hit the ramp till just a couple feet behind the trailer with it backed as far down as we could get it. After getting her partway onto the trailer 🙂 dragging the keel up and over the rear beam of the trailer (patty at the wheel of the van) we winched her the rest of the way. The keel went right into the keel pocket on the trailer. To be honest it was not any harder than normal to get her on the trailer. Just a lot more un-nerving. I had a scuba-mask on and kept a close eye on the procedings from underwater. Once we got the keel over the end beam of the trailer there was no going back. It would hang on the trailer going backwards. In the end though all went well and we pulled her out.
It was late afternoon by now and between the late night the night before and the stress of dealing with the keel, both me and patty were tired. It took us a lot longer to break down then normal. Almost an Hour… It was dark by the time we got back to my house. Partly this was due to only driving 45… the trailer is acting very badly. I’m not sure what the problem is but it wants to start wagging if you go over 45…. I am going to put new berrings in and mabye get the tires ballanced. Something is causing it problems. I think I will also get new shocks for the rear of the van. If all that doesnt work I am going to look at putting another axel on the trailer.
well thats it.. High adventure in murells inlet 🙂
Till the next time 🙂
Scott
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