Commander 147

[Commander 147]

I like the strong back. I may need to add one to my wish list. I hope the next picture I see of this fine yacht she is under sail.

Phil


You are right the next picture will be of Destiny sailing. But if you are serious about a strong back for Bisquit there is a copy of the design the structural engineer did for me on Destiny's post # 126 here.


http://www.pearsonariel.org/discussi...nder-147/page9

[Bisquit]

Thanks. I will check it out.

[Commander 147]

Friday morning we headed to Lake Harris to launch Destiny. The drive was a long hour getting there but it was none eventful (read that as great).


Stepping the mast and preparing to launch was a long drawn out process that took 2-1/2 to 3 hours to complete. Something tells me I will do this process only when I have to and avoid moving the boat in and out of the water as much as I can. While I was setting her up I had a couple of people drive up to her and tell me how she was a beautiful boat. One was a sailor that had to take pictures to send to his buddy.


After she was ready I backed her up to the ramp to just before the point where the ramp started sloping down significantly. We blocked the tires and removed the coupler from the truck so we could put the tongue extension in place. After that was in place I started backing her down again when I heard STOP! from Tony who was helping me launch her. He said I needed to see what was happening. So I put it in park and climbed out to see the extension had twisted to a 45 degree angle and only one of the tires was on the ground and it was on its side. Seems the torque of pivoting does not do well with the very short axle on the extension. So we once again blocked the tires and jacked up the front of the trailer so we could get the extension sitting on both wheels again. After that we just backed perfectly straight back and all went well.


The entire time we were setting her up to go into the water I was concerned that we might not have enough depth to get her off the trailer. Turns out we did but not by a large margin. It will be real interesting to see how well we are able to float her back onto the trailer.


So we finally floated free and I kicked the electric aux. into reverse and drifted back enough to pull over to a side dock where we could finish rigging before going off sailing. Where we parked her temporarily the wind was blowing her towards the dock. So when it was time to leave we walked her back around the corner of the dock and pointed the bow into the wind. We pushed off from the dock and I put the throttle into forward and nothing happened! So now the wind is blowing us up the ramp and the elec. drive does not want to go forward. I shifted the throttle into reverse and that worked but only put us headed into the ramp even faster. So I switched it back into forward and finally she decided go forward and we were off. I'm not sure what caused the issue but I will be having a talk with the folks at Electric Yacht come tomorrow morning about it.


We headed out of the lagoon that the ramp is located in and hauled up the main and started sailing. Winds were light so my wife took the tiller and I went forward to finish rigging the furler so I could hoist a head sail. got that working and we hosted the jib. That doubled our speed. Picture #1 below is shortly after the jib went up. But the marina we were headed to from the ramp was an 8 mile as the crow flies distance away. And the wind was coming from the direction we needed to go. And after a while of tacking back and forth to head upwind some very dark storm clouds started building on shore. We watched them for a while and then the calm before the storm hit us. The wind died completely and the water was glass smooth. So we dropped sails and started motoring towards the marina. The longer we motored the closer the storms got. So we kicked her into high gear and headed as fast as we could for the marina. The storms kept getting closer and closer and we were watching heavy rain on the water behind us. The wind started gusting well into the 30MPH range and we were being blown bare poles towards the marina as fast as we could motor. We would run up the 3' rolling waves the wind had whipped up and surf down the other side. The second picture below is before we got into the worst of it. We tied up to the dock just as the rain caught up to us. We were literally tying up as it hit us.


Afterwards we had to drive back to the ramp to collet the tow vehicle and the trailer. As we were driving there we saw emergency vehicles all over the place. We saw a roof that had been blown off and a 4' diameter oak tree that had been blown down onto someone's house. When we got back to the ramp we had just left the third picture is what it looked like. We think it is possible a tornado may have come through the area.


So while our launch day was anything but boring at least for us all ended well and we have been back out sailing the last two days. Now I just need a good 20 Knot wind day to put here through her paces.