Solo Sail on the Connecticut River

Rigging sail at the boat launch.

Captain's log   July 5, 2012

Location:  Lat. N 43º 12'  Long. W72º 28'
Weather:    Mostly sunny with highs in the 80's.  Wind N at 10mph. No severe weather predicted.
Chart: nonexistent, but have some prior knowledge of area [ie. avoid cattails -- shallow water]
Current: flowing south [down river]

Armed with my new sailing knowledge [I spent last week at Wooden Boat School's seamanship course], I loaded the car for my first solo trip in the "Seaturtle".  After making sure I had the oars and my lifejacket, I packed in the rudder, tiller extension, daggerboard and sails, hitched the trailer, and headed for the Connecticut River.  Fortunately, winds were light and I rigged the boat at the launch ramp while I was still on dry land.  Sadly, I still need my cheat sheet for knots, but finally had everything set up.  After several false starts, I managed to avoid the dock and get the boat into the water.  When will I ever master the art of backing up the trailer?  Probably right after I master making turns without running it over the curb.

Because the boat ramp is in a sheltered spot, I had to row a few feet to get out into the main part of the river.  I managed to do that without running aground on the cattails, and I put down the daggerboard.   The sails filled with wind and I left Vermont for New Hampshire.  Then I was immediately confronted with the problem of how to hold everything and stay on course.  The jib on the dory does not come across by itself; it has two sheets instead of one to pull it across by hand.  And of course I also had the mainsheet.  In the other hand I had the tiller extension.    The dory uses a push-pull system to control the rudder.  The advantage is that I didn't have the move the tiller behind my back; it was always at my right side.  The disadvantage was that it was not immediately apparent whether to push or pull it, and the New Hampshire shore was rapidly approaching.

After a little trial and error, I made ready to come about, pushed the tiller hard over, did a little juggling act with the sheets and was on a successful tack back to Vermont.  I caught a nice puff of wind, the boat heeled up a bit, and in about three minutes, I did the whole procedure again to avoid running aground.  I gradually realized that I didn't need to hold both jib sheets; I only needed the leeward one to control it.   With the current against me and fickle winds, I didn't make much progress. I probably only went a couple hundred yards up the river but I got lot of practice coming about. I even did a a few jibes, but was concerned about dropping too far down river to do them very often.

After a couple hours of tacking (where else could you sail and visit a different state on each tack), I headed back.  I'm pleased to report that I sailed right up to the dock, pulled up the dagger board and tied up the boat completely without incident.  I felt like a pro.

Ready to get underway.

Finally under sail!

Catching a breeze.

Tying Main Sail to Mast and Boom

Plunging into the unknown, I started working on how the sail rig goes together.  It's hard to believe a year has gone by since I bought the rope I would need to sail the dory.  CLC has an excellent manual with many detailed pictures, but I really had now idea how all these parts go together, and what to do with them once I get them together.  Sailing is a foreign language and learning other languages has never been one of my strengths.  Anyway I pressed on and kept the manual close by.

I took the thinnest line they sold me and started tying the main sail to the mast.  It was a struggle to get the 3/16" line through the grommets in the sail twice and then tie a square know with two overhand knots to hold it in place.  After I had done the mast I realized that I didn't have enough rope left to do the boom.  I re-read the manual and discovered that they were calling for 1/8" nylon line.  I went to the hardware store and bought the thinner line and discovered that this was exactly what I needed.  I could double this line easily through the grommets and quickly lashed the bottom of the sail to the boom.

Mounting rudder on dory

When I tried to put the rudder on the dory, I discovered that the gudgeons were not lined up right and the pintles would not go all the way in.  I've known about the problem for awhile but hated the thought of drilling more holes in the dory.  However,  I had no better solution and decided to move the top gudgeon.  I managed to re-use two of the holes and only needed to drill two holes instead of four.  I used silicon caulking to fill the holes.  With one of the old holes I may just put an extra bolt through it just for looks.  The other hole is closer to one of the new holes and is mostly covered by the washer of the bolt.  After all the work I've done, drilling these extra holes is very discouraging.  But it needed to be done if I'm to be able to sail the dory.

The rudder is in working order and attached to the dory.

After making sure I could get the rudder on and off the dory, I added the little metal stop to keep the rudder from floating off the dory when it's in the water.  To get the rudder off, I just need to turn the stop 90 degrees. 

Metal stop keeps rudder from floating off the dory.  The hole on the right is the one that stills needs to be filled.

Sea Turtle Insignia

June 3, 2012 After a long (really long) delay, I'm finally getting motivated to sail the dory.  While construction is mostly complete, assembly is not.  Last night I got the sails out of their bag, and spread them out on the living room floor.  I had always planned to put a sea turtle on the main sail to match the inlay on the stern seat of the dory.  I made a template to mimic the inlay and laid it out on the sail.

Using the template, I started cutting out the shapes from a yard of insignia cloth that I bought months ago online.  After cutting them out I just pealed off the backing, pressed it on the sail and smoothed out any wrinkles.  It seemed work just fine; I hope it holds up under use. 

Finished sea turtle on the main sail.