Reenie K

The weather was cold and rainy today, so we didn't take the boat out onto the water.
We did test out the trailer and had a few issues - like the lights. I had to re-wire the car side.
It also took a little work to get the boat out of the soft ground, but we managed to do it without a mutiny. NEVER LET A 13 YEAR OLD GUIDE YOU BACK! I didn't know whether to turn left, pull forward or flap my arms and fly away!
It was a pretty white knuckle flight, but we managed to get there and back

It is with great pleasure that I'm writing that the good ship ReenieK was officially christened on this day. Present were her owner and captain and her crew. In keeping with the traditions and superstitions of the sea, the god of the sea and the gods of the four winds were offered libation and invited to grant safe passage to the ReenieK, her crew and her passengers. There will be a celebration later in the year.

This is her maiden voyage under her new name. We launched on Budd Lake on April 3, 2007. The weather was warm and sunny with some high clouds and light breezes. We spent about 3 hours on the water, checking her out. I found a leak where the centerboard pivot bolt goes through the pocket, but fixed it in short order. Other than that, she did not appear to take on water.

There is way too much lee helm (a tendency to turn away from the wind), which I need to resolve. That can be dangerous,as she might turn away from the wind and unexpectedly jibe, causing the boom to change sides with great force. I think I need to adjust the mast and tilt it back more.

Other than that, she sailed well in very light airs. We need to find some more wind next time we go out.

Here is the collection of pictures taken by Captain and Crew:

It got cold again and all the indoor stuff is finished. I have a few small things to work on but they're all outside things.

Damn!

Or at least weather warm enough to work outside!

I'm sitting around here creating jobs. I earlier tried making a rope ladder by looping and tying a 1/2" dock line i had laying about. It looked hideous. Yesterday I finished cutting, routing and sanding 4 wooden steps to make a nicer ladder. Brian commented that the last 2 steps would float and be hard to use. I routed a dovetail slot in the underside and filled the slot with lead.

Next thing I need to so is make a couple of wooden boxes to store the navigational tools and to keep the compass in when it's not mounted.

If the weather would break and the penguins get the hell out of my yard, maybe I could actually do some work on the boat! I have to work standby this Saturday, but three is a possibility that I can take her back out Sunday...

I am trying to balance security and convenience for people who want to comment.

I was using some authorization site that was kind of a pain in the neck - or further south along the spinal cord. I liked the security, but it was awkward to use to say the least.

So here's the new method...

You post a comment and I get an email telling me I need to authorize it. Since I check my email several times a day, I can approve comments fairly rapidly (within 24 hours unless I'm camping on the boat).

I can also disapprove equally as rapidly, so let's keep the comments suitable for all to read (my crew is 13 and will be viewing this blog too) and on topic. I'd love to hear comments from other boaters and sailors.

Thanks...

They got washed away by the rain!

We're gonna have rain until Saturday, when I'm working. Then it will clear for my standby duties.

The Nor'easter hits Saturday night or Sunday morning! No, I am NOT making this up!

I have the mast apart for some repairs, the portholes needing to go in, an adjustment to be made to the kick-up rudder, stays and shrouds to adjust, a boom cradle to install, safety chains on the trailer to replace and it's gonna be another weekend of freaking rain!

One can't help feeling this will not be a year of droughts in New Jersey.

(Oh, yeah. My garden is growing a fine crop of mud too!)

Well, there was some progress forward, or at least sideways. Not too much of it shows though.

We went to Lockwood Boat Works and bought more stuff... and picked up the parts for the boom crutch. They do GREAT work there. I have to finish fit the crutch parts. I manages to get one porthole done today and put new chains on the trailer (not a real sexy repair, huh?)

I have to add a safety chain for the bow too. I noticed the boat slipped backwards during the last tow. Not far, but far enough.

Tomorrow it's supposed to rain - not sure how hard. I'd like to finish the trailer and portholes tomorrow, but i think it's an indoor day. If that's the case, I have a few things I can do in the basement - hand fit a couple of flag staffs, make a couple of boxes to store things, stain and seal the swim ladder.

Oh, yeah - I should clean the house a little I guess. That's no fun though

I know where the next place I can sail is! My basement!
3 sump pumps running and I couldn't keep up with the water.

I managed to duct tape another set of pipes together... and we're gaining slowly. The water is down 1/2" in about 40 minutes... If the rain slacks and the power stays on, I should be OK.

This will delay the work on the Reenie K for a while, I'm afraid.

Here is the venue for the 2007 New Jersey Indoor Regatta:

Stupid ISP!
For some reason, after 3 years with the same IP address, things changed.

This should not have been a big deal, except the links ot all my pictures got farbled up.

I just spent about an hour uploading all the pictures again. Everything should be back working, but if you find a problem looking at pictures, post a comment and I'll fix it again.

The joys of hosting your own website....

The weather report calls for sunny sky and 70's! Two days in a row!

I am gonna fix a few things up to make the Reenie K seaworthy on Saturday, then take her back out for the second set of trials.

I have to reset the mast rake (the angle the mast tilts back) and test it and try a few accessories Ben C gave to me

I managed to get some stuff done Friday night!
I put the mast up again and adjusted the stays and shrouds. We'll see next sail how she handles.
I putzed around with the trailer and put the new safety chains on.
I changed the cleats for the tiller lock so that will work better.
Tomorrow I'll clean her out (where does all the dirt come from?), stow things where I want them, finish the porthole install on the port side and maybe get as far as as finishing the compass mount. I have a few clean up things from the mast repair to take care of, too.
Then Sunday we are on the water again!

A glorious day!!!!!
I got a lot of stuff finished.
The portholes are done.
The mast was re-set, soon to be tested for weather helm
The trailer was completed
The compass light was installed just in case we sail by night

And best of all, the transom was lettered:

This is temporary for the season until I paint her next fall. I don't want to lose any time on the water this season.

Tomorrow we go out again.

I expect to be out for the better part of the day... 11:00 to 16:00!

First, there was no water in the bilges when we came back! My fix from last time worked!
The problem with the helm is fixed. The Reenie K holds her course with a slight tendency to turn into the wind if left alone. That's what I was looking for. I have to make a few minor mods to the standing rigging, but I don't think that will be anything major. I'll talk to my rigging guru at Eggar's sail loft this week sometime.

We managed to put the boat in and take it out without looking like a couple of idiots. I have to look at one of the switches on the trolling motor - it failed intermittently to go into reverse.

We managed to get the Reenie K to heel today, even though the wind was light again. We got about a 5 degree heel! Brian was ready to go in til we hit one nice pocket of wind. Then he wanted to stay out! He did well handling the helm - a little unsure of himself, but that takes practice reading the wind and the boat

We're not ready for the Raritan Bay yet. Too slow on a couple of things and a few rigging fixes to do. But we're getting there!

So here's the stats:
Winds variable to 10 mph, calm seas. We were out from 12:00 to 16:00 today. Wore me out!

I just about finished the boom crutch I wanted to make.. here's the story
The boom is a roller boom, so you can wrap the mainsail around the boom to store it out of the way. The problem is that the end of the boom drops unless you either support it with the mainsail halyard.. the line that raises the sail, or you hold it up with one hand while you try to wrap the sail with the other. It's kind of like trying to stuff a cooked noodle into a wildcat's ear with a hot butter knife!

So I designed and had made a boom crutch.. it's two pieces of stainless steel tubing that are mounted to the transom (the back of the boat). They cross to provide a place for the boom to rest.
It will make a nice support for the boom while we are raising or lowering the sail or when we use the boom as a ridgepole for a cockpit tent.

It's not quite done and it's raining here again, so pictures will have to wait...

I think I need to take a picture or pictures of the boat and point out some of the things I'm talking about. There are a lot of nautical terms being bandied about.

I also made some boxes to store navigational equipment and the compass. Not bad for a first time with intricate woodwork. I'll post pics after I sand and stain them

I started getting ready for taking the boat out and the skies clouded over. It gave me a chance to check out my modifications and upgrades, though.
The first picture is my homemade ladder. I weighted the bottom two steps with melted lead so they sink below the surface. I like the look and I like the fact that it stows very compactly. Space is really limited on the Reenie K. The hardest part was figuring out how to splice the two line ends together.

The next picture is my jib modification. The jib sheets (lines that move the jib from side to side) were getting hung up on the horn and mast hardware. By raising the jib a few inches with a fitting from the old shrouds, I think I solved the problem.

Picture three shows how the sails are rigged on shore before launch. When we get away from the dock, we can simply raise the sails. No more trying to attach sails out on the water, with the sails flapping and the boat bobbing and the crew stepping on lines and the captain cursing!

The last pic is the roller boom with the main sail attached and rolled up. This is how we'll be rigged at anchor, whether we're having lunch, taking a swim break or spending the night someplace. Speaking of swim breaks, I took some advice from the Coast Guard Auxiliary people. I bought 100 feet of floating line to stream when the crew and passengers go swimming. That way if they drift, they can swim to a line if they need to. I also will stream the line when I'm singlehanding the boat and the weather is a little ummm "active."

We took the Reenie K out to Spruce Run again today. It was cloudy and windy, with winds at 6-10 mph. (I think higher).

We grounded against the shore after we launched. The motor isn't strong enough to keep us heading into the wind and we broached to. We were towed off by a friendly fisherman (Thank you whoever you are...)

After that, we had quite the sail.This was Brian's first experience with a boat heeling, and heel she did. She caught the wind and took off! I kept easing the sail to lessen the heel so Brian didn't get too worried.
I am very proud of Brian! We ran into some problems between a lot of weather helm (I'll talk about that later) and a very undersized motor. He let me know he was nervous, and a little scared. He hung in there, followed orders with alacrity befitting a much older crew member, made suggestions about handling the boat, took the helm and steered straight and true (even when we heeled).

Here's the WAY cool part..... The theoretical maximum speed of a sailing ship is 1.34 the square root of the length of the waterline. For the Reenie K, her max should be about 5 1/4 knots. Here is the max we registered today:

We read this as about 6 1/4 knots the knotstick. By all reports, the knotstick is quite an accurate piece of mechanical engineering. We achieved this speed several times on a beam to broad reach, heeled about 10-15 degrees!

What I heard in the beginning has turned out to be true. The Reenie K does indeed sail sweet!

The learning curve is looking more like a technical climb...

I stopped by Egger's Sail Loft today to pick up a new batten. What I found out was that the Reenie K will go faster if she's sailed flat or at a 5 degree heel. A bigger angle of heel looks cool, it's kind of exciting and a little wet, but we should have spilled wind from the sails yesterday to keep her almost level.

I also need a bigger motor - somewhere around 4-6 hp. That's gonna be expensive!

My older son Rob gave me a pretty nice little navigational kit for Christmas. I haven't needed it yet, cause we're still sailing small lakes, but eventually we'll be out on the Raritan Bay, the Barnegat Bay and maybe even the Chincoteague Bay!

I'll need those tools then. I also hate little parts and tools scattered all over the place. So I bought some bigger tools, like a router and router table and got seriously back into woodworking.

Here is the result: