We got the boat out for our first sail this weekend. We didn’t have much wind so it turned out to be a perfect day for getting the new motor in the water and getting started breaking it in.

The day started off normally. I got the boat ready to go while Dana and the kids did chores around the farm and packed the food and drinks. Joey helped me rig the halyards and the topping lift, he’s getting good at leading the lines through the maze of standing rigging that’s on the deck when the mast is down.

After getting the truck and the boat loaded up we headed down to Everett. As we left Monroe we fell in behind 40-ish foot boat that was being hauled by a semi, complete with a lead car and a follow car. Traffic was backed up considerably behind us, and we laughed about how the people who were passing us were going to be surprised when they found out that the sail boat was not the cause of the backup.

We made it down to the waterfront in good order and stopped at West Marine to pick up a new PFD for Dana. Her old one got damp over the winter and ended up with mildew all over it. She picked up a new pair of sun glasses too.

We headed back to the 12th street launch to rig and launch the boat. The economy is hitting the state’s recreation services pretty hard – with revenue down the state is putting as much money into the parks, so the launch fees were up, and they’ve added a parking fee to the facility as well. Last year it was $5.00 to launch and park, this year it was $11.00 to launch and park on the weekend. It’s only $8.00 on weekdays, but since I’ve only sailed on a weekday once, I’m not sure that’s going to be much benefit to me.

Once we were at the launch ramps we found out that we had hit the ramps at the bottom of a –2.6 tide. The trailer was off the end of the concrete ramp before Odyssey floated free. On the next ramp over a man was launching a 26-foot fishing boat, his truck was off the end of the ramp before the boat floated free – luckily he had 4-wheel drive and could pull himself back up the ramp. Katie helped me bend on the sails and then we headed out into the river, puttering along with the new motor.

We headed out into the river and headed upstream to give the motor some running time. Typically it takes around 15 minutes to get from the boat launch to the mouth of the river, I wanted to have the engine run for 30 minutes or so this first time so I could give it a chance to warm up and start the break-in. As we left the launch I had Joey lower the keel, he had it about 2/3 of the way down when we suddenly stopped – the water level was so low we had less then 5 feet of water under the keel. Joe cranked the keel up and I backed us out ‘til we were free, then I ran straight across the river to the channel before heading upstream again.

We drug the keel across the bottom one other time while we were motoring in the river. I’ve never run aground before, and I managed to do it twice in one day on this trip. Of course, “run aground” is a relative term on Odyssey. We draw 5 1/2 feet with the keel down, but only 18 inches with the keel up. If I hit the bottom we just crank the keel up ‘til we’re free, then head for deeper water.

And usually we don’t worry about running aground at all. Out on Possession Sound there is 75 to 100 fathoms of water under the boat most of the time. It’s only in the river that we need to worry about the depth.

Anyway, the trip out was uneventful. There was so little wind and so little traffic that the mouth of the river, normally a washing machine of chop, was almost flat. We motored out a ways and raised the sails. At first we had enough wind to move the boat along at about 3 knots, but pretty soon it fell to nothing and we were going nowhere at all.

I fired up the motor and we chugged over toward the flats off Jetty Island. Along there we found a bit of breeze and Dana sailed us a couple of miles north along the flat. When we tacked around we ran out of breeze again, so I started the motor one more time and we motored around ‘til it was time to come in.

The weather was fluky all day. There were clouds moving over head but they kept going to the east until they pushed up against the foothills. To the west it was a warm, sunny day – to the east it was dark grey and forbidding.

Around 3:00 the weather took a turn for the worse so I turned us around and started in. By the time we got into the river it was starting to rain, so I struck the sails and the halyards as we cruised up the river – by the time we were at the boat launch we were ready to go on the trailer as soon as the motor ran the fuel out of the carburetor and the rudder was out of the water.

After that we got the boat ready to head home and drove back to Monroe. The closer we got to home the worse the weather became until we ran into Monroe in a thunderstorm.

Not a bad first sail, and I think the first time we’ve been in the water before the end of May. Looking ahead on the calendar there’s not a lot of free weekends, but I’m sure we’ll get at least one more chance to sail before we head over the Lake Chelan.

Somehow I managed to lose the sail track stop for the main mast’s sail track last year. I’m not sure when it happened, but I do know that when Dana and I took the boat out by ourselves last summer the stop was no longer on the boat.

I’m actually surprised that it took so long for the old stop to disappear. It just rides in the sail track all the time, eventually it was going to fall out either when I was towing the boat or when I was putting the mast up and down.

Heck, I might have put it in my pocket when I was unbending the sail after going sailing and forgot where I put it when I was done.

Anyway, I managed to find the stop on the West Marine Web site. The stop is $9.00, and shipping is $9.00. Not so eager to make the purchase, frankly. The West Marine Web site has a neat feature, however, that shows you if your local store has the part in stock. If it doesn’t, you can have the part ordered to the local store for pickup and not have to pay shipping.

Turned out that our local West Marine had the stop in stock, however, so I was able to pick one up after a short drive to Everett. Joey and Duchess rode along – Joe is getting to be kind of fun to have around. He’s almost as big as I am (he’s bigger than Dana) and he has the same sense of humor as the rest of us.

Anyway, the new sail slug is sitting on top of my sailing gloves so hopefully I’ll remember to pick it up the next time I get a chance to head out.

Repowered my sailboat today.

That certainly sounds like a complex undertaking. Most of the time that means lifting a big diesel engine out of the bilges of a sailboat with a crane, and then dropping a new one in with much sweating and swearing.

I went and bought a new outboard and hung it on the transom instead of getting the old one out of the garden shed.

We decided to take advantage of a cash windfall to finally buy our own outboard. I’ve been using my father-in-law’s for years -- I’ve always felt a little guilty about that. Now I can take his back to him (if I was a really good son-in-law I’d give him the new one, but he’s had this motor for years, knows how to work on it, and Dana isn’t sure he’d like to have the new one).

The old motor is an 8HP two-stroke Evinrude. The new one is a 6HP four-stroke Tohatsu. We typically used 3 or 4 gallons of gas a year in the Evinrude, from what I hear we’ll use even less with the Tohatsu. It runs a little rougher (it’s a single cylinder) but it’'ll have move torque and run quieter.

It also come with an alternator. It puts out 6 amps, not much, I’ll admit but enough for running lights and to keep a battery topped up. Maybe now I’ll actually put an electrical system on board. Or at least a battery…

I told Dana that I was looking forward to going out and motor boating. She said “have fun with that.” So yeah, the main reason I have a motor on the boat is to get from the launch to the place where we put up our sails. But there have been times when I just wanted to get out on the water and putter around. This might be my ticket.

Last weekend the family was out of town so I took advantage of the missing family to do some work on Odyssey. I pulled her into the barn and started cleaning out the stuff inside. Some things, like the towels, needed to be taken out and washed. Other things, like the cushions, just needed to be dried off and they were good to go.

I pulled the sails out of the sail bags and hung them up in the garage over night to make sure that they were dry, and I used the shop vac to pull 4 or 5 gallons of water out of the bilges. All in all, however, it was remarkably clean in there.

That weekend I pulled all the miscellaneous lines off the boat. I pulled the boom vang, the main boom downhaul, the main outhaul and the earring off and took them to West Marine to replace the lines.

I’m not sure what it is about the people at West Marine, but there are two kinds of people that work there. Good-natured people who don’t know anything about boats and unpleasant arrogant people who don’t know anything about boats but treat you like the problem is you, not them.

Of course, when I went in on Saturday there was one of each.

At one point I was doing the “I’m smiling because I don’t want to tell you exactly what I think about what you’ve just said to me.” I think they might have got the picture, ‘cause they backed way off.

Anyway, the good-natured guy helped me size and purchase new lines. I picked up a tide table and actually made it out of the store for only $21.

Yes, it was too good to be true.

I stopped on the way home and picked up a spool of waxed whipping twine at the other marine shop on the Everett water front (can’t think of the name. Typical.) because I didn’t want to go back to West Marine and try to explain to them what I wanted. Saturday night while I watched TV I whipped the end of all the lines.

The lines looked good, but when I went out to put them on the boat it turned out they were all a sixteenth too big. So I put Duchess in the car and headed back on Sunday morning.

The same two guys were working. They were standing in the exact same place they had been when I got there on Saturday. Worst nightmare ever. And it cost me another $17.

This time I bought extra line for the boom vang. I wanted to try to splice an eye around the beckett on the vang’s fiddle block. On Wednesday I finally gave it a try. It took me 3 hours and two tries to put in one rather ugly splice, only saved by the long whip I put around the splice. I can have one done for me for $6. Couldn’t make a living doing that…

Anyway, I took the lines out to the boat – put the vang back on the boom and tied the outhaul and downhaul where they belong. Looks rather spiffy with the new lines.

Dana and I took Odyssey out this weekend even though the kids decided that they wanted to stay home and work on their posters and cages for the fair. It felt a little weird to take off to sail with the kids at home, but it turned out to be a nice trip for Dana and I.

Saturday morning was gray, so I wasn’t sure if we were going to have a comfortably warm day for being out on the water. We loaded up the boat with towels to use as blankets, sweatshirts, and wind breakers. Turned out once we were on the water that we didn’t need warm clothes, it was a beautiful sunny day out there.

The wind was blowing just about right – not too much to fly the genoa, but enough to make Odyssey lively. We consistently were hitting speeds of 4.5 to 5 knots over the ground most of the day. Dana and I, mostly Dana, pushed the boat harder than we have in the past. We found that we were pretty comfortable at 10 degrees of heel, and that as we got to 20 degrees things started flying across the cockpit. We mostly tried to stay under 20 degrees of heel.

The coolest part of the trip was seeing a gray whale only one or two hundred yards away. It would come to the surface, blow, then wave one pectoral fin in the air as it slipped back under water. We watched it for about half an hour as we sailed toward Port Susan. At one point we noticed we were on a slightly converging course so we tacked away. The whale looked like it was bigger than Odyssey, we didn’t want to be in its way – and that’s not including the whole marine mammals laws.

The trip from Hat Island back to the river was long and boring. It was downwind, so it was relatively calm even though we still made 3.5 to 4.5 knots over the ground most of the way. Downwind sailing isn’t the most exciting thing, and Dana took advantage of the calm to take a nap. I didn’t even have the VHF to keep me company – most of the charge was gone on the radio so I was saving it for emergencies.

Setting up and tearing down were almost trouble-free. We had a little trouble putting the mast up, one of the stays got stuck under the edge of a portlight and wouldn’t come free. Then once the mast was up it turned out the bolt we normally use to keep the forestay on was missing. We had to set the mast down and dig a replacement out of the cabin.

One the way in we were having trouble getting Odyssey onto the trailer. We needed it to move away from the pier, but every time I kicked the bow out the stern would swing in to the pier, and when Dana kicked the stern out it would pivot the other way. We couldn’t get the boat to move sideways through the water at all – until I realized that I hadn’t retracted the keel into the boat before we tried to put it on the trailer. Once I cranked the keel up we were fine.

The whole day was great, and Dana and I had a good time. I’m looking forward to more “adults only” trips out on the Sound.

We went for the first sail of the year today. The wind was a little strong, but it was a great day on the water.

Katie and Joey helped me set up the boat, Joey is strong enough (and big enough) to help me lift the mast into position. Between the two of them Dana didn’t have to do anything but walk the dog. On this trip we did a lot more to get the boat ready before we put it in the water – bent on the sails, attached lines, etc. Once we were in we didn’t have to spend a lot of time on the dock getting ready

I had a brief scare when I put the boat into the water – I tried to lower the keel but there was a wrap around the outside of the winch drum and the keel wouldn’t go down. I put Odyssey back on the trailer and tried again to remove the wrap, this time it worked. I backed Odyssey back down the ramp and away we went.

The wind was strong enough that I didn’t put the jib up, we just sailed on the mainsail for the whole day. The kids steered us down the river and took the tiller while I put the sails up, but then I got to be the helmsman for most of the day. Dana would normally have done more, but Duchess wasn’t comfortable on the boat and spent the day on Dana’s lap.

On the way back we sailed up the channel, some of the best sailing of the day. We had a little trouble getting the sail down, there isn’t much room to turn into the wind when you’re in the river, but fortunately the keel got stuck in the bottom so we stopped drifting and I was able to get the sail down.

After I had the sail down I cranked the keel up off the bottom and we motored into the dock. We tore down and headed home.

Hauled all the gear out of the barn rafters and loaded it up on Odyssey tonight. Since she's tucked into the barn it went pretty fast, didn't need to walk across the property or anything like that.

Spread the sails out on the front lawn, they're still OK -- not great, the jib is 30 years old after all, but servicable for the coming year. For some reason the outhaul wasn't attached to the main sail, even though there was a loop still tied in it. Strange, that. I tied the old outhaul back on, but I think I'm going to buy a new one for this season. It's only 3 feet or so long, that shouldn't break the piggy bank.

Only a couple, three more things to do: attach the new anchor chain and rode to the new anchor, mix up some fuel for the outboard, and test the outboard to make sure that it works this year. Won't be sailing this weekend (need to go to Eastern Washington for my brother's 40th birthday party) but maybe the weekend after.

Trying to get Odyssey ready to go this weekend so I can go sailing next weekend. Usually I try to get ready on Saturday and sail on Sunday. It's usually too much.

I tried to finish the new hatch, but I can't get my epoxy to go off, and I'm about out of ideas. Instead I just bolted all the clean teak on and slid to original hatch down into the slides.

After everything was bolted back together and the dirt was all swept out, I hauled her over to the other side of the place to spend some quality time with a hose and a scrub brush. Earlier this year I heard about a product called "Purple Power" that's supposed to do a good job of cleaning the fiberglass. It does. It didn't get rid of the water and marks and streaks, but it did get the everything else. Dana says it's the cleanest that she's ever seen Odyssey.

I slid her back into the barn at the end of the day, next I need to load the gear aboard, rig my new anchor chain and rode, and re-rig the mast. It's not much more than half a day's work, so I'm betting I actually get out next weekend, weather permitting.

I started cutting a new back for Odyssey's hatch tonight. The first one was about half an inch too narrow at the top, and since I've only got half an inch or so to work with the darn thing doesn't fit. This time I'm cutting and fitting each piece individually, and it seems to be working out so far.

I cut the two sids, they are just slightly different angles. Not enough to make up all the problem at the top, but enough that I needed to reset the miter gauge on the saw before I cut each end of the bottom piece. I had to go in to make dinner before I cut the top, but I'll do that tonight and see what it looks like after I glue it up.

Sorry, no catchy title. I did try...

I've continued working on the hatch over the last week and a half, I just haven't got around to writing about. It hasn't been too exciting actually. Most of the time I've been waiting for glue to dry.

On the 26th I made it out to the barn to epoxy the inner hatch together. I mixed up a pot of epoxy from the same cans of resin and hardener that I used to repair the transom -- they've been sitting around for a couple, three years but I figured they still be good. Anyway, I spread the glue, stuck in the biscuits, and after a little jiggering, I clamped the whole works together. And started waiting for the epoxy to kick.

Two hours later, still nothing. Great, I thought. Now I have to clean all that mess off and start over. Yuck. I couldn't take it. I walked away.

On the 27th I stopped a Schuck's while I was out running errands and picked up a new syringe of 5-minute epoxy. That way when I got around to cleaning up and starting over I'd have epoxy to play with. While I was putting the epoxy on my workbench I eased the clamps on the hatch -- still gooey. I tightened them back down (hey, it could still kick I thought) and went away.

Until Sunday.

Sunday (the 1st.) Almost a week later. I eased the clamps and the wood didn't split apart. The epoxy had finally gone off and stuck the pieces together. Yay! I got out my belt sander and my palm sander and spent some time sanding off the squeeze-out and generally cleaning and smoothing the frame. It looked great. Life was good.

Until I test fit the frame in the hatch. The *%$)@ thing didn't fit. The bottom was fine, the top was a quarter in on both sides from the frame. Looks like it's really 3 degrees, not 4. I'm not sure if I'm gonna to to the trouble of starting over, but before I do I'm gonna get one of those bevel gauges that other people have so I can take an accurate angle off the hatch. This is good enough for now though.

With one thing (baseball practice) and another (being lazy) I didn't get out to work on the hatch again until last night (the 4th). I used a router and my router table to cut a rabbet for the plexiglass window to fit in. I cut biscuit slots, mixed some epoxy, glued it up and clamped the whole thing together. Now I just have to wait a few days for the epoxy to kick and I'll be ready to cut and fit the window and bolt the whole thing together.

While I was out in the barn I picked up a scrap piece of hemlock and tried out a different way of milling the hatch frame. I cut what is essentially a long tenon on one side and then turned the piece over and cut a slot. Two quick milling operations and I had a piece that would have worked perfectly. Next time I'll know...