End of the adventure

Dragonfly has been sold.  My family and I have relocated to a rather land-locked part of the country.  I was fortunate to find a buyer in Rhode Island and hopefully you will still see my old boat sailing on Narragansett Bay.  

Thanks to all the current and former Electra owners who left comments.  I’ll leave this blog up for a while in case the photos will be helpful to anyone.  

-Rick

Sad saga of the outboard motor

I haven’t been treating my outboard well, so it’s no wonder that when I needed it – it wouldn’t start.

For two springs in a row, the motor started in my yard and successfully got me out to the mooring after launch.  But I took advantage of her good nature and didn’t keep her clean, or give her fresh gas to drink.  So when the wind died while I was in the middle of the bay, guess who wouldn’t start for me?  “Serves you right” you say, and you’d be correct.

I’ll be starting fresh with a new Honda outboard – something lighter that I can keep below.  I vow to keep it healthy.  As for the 15hp Johnson, I’ll fix it up and try to sell it to someone who will threat it well.

Allins Cove Sunset

Allins Cove Sunset

Originally uploaded by rick_barr

Took this while walking the dog last night. This is from the foot of Third Street in Barrington. The boat is heading into the Bullock’s Cove channel.

What a gorgeous evening — I love where I live!

Sails

0804071058.jpg

Originally uploaded by rick_barr

Wind: South, 8 knots. Gusts 10 knots.

Another solo sail on a hazy day. Five long tacks across the upper bay to Rocky Point in Warwick. I’m learning to maintain hull speed during tacks by not turning so tightly. An Electra doesn’t spin around like a J/24!

Coming home I tried wing-and-wing, but the wind was light and inconsistent and I kept losing the jib. I made more progress by altering course south of Conimicut Light and made it all the way to the mooring on a single broad reach.

The photo was taking by me while at the tiller. This is another phone to Flickr to WordPress picture. Pretty easy!

New mainsheet system

This is a photo of Carl Alberg and Clint Pearson sailing an Electra, presumably on Narragansett Bay. (I got the picture from Ken Jolly’s excellent Electra website.) Aside from being an interesting documentation of the designer and builder out enjoying one of their sailboats, it also shows an arrangement for the mainsheet system that is very different from the one that came on Dragonfly:

Not only was this a strictly vertical arrangement involving only two blocks, it also lacked any sort of cleat. The previous owner had wrapped the mainsheet around the tiller whenever he had needed two free hands, which is not ideal. It’s also just plain tiring to be pulling on the mainsheet during an entire voyage!

So I wanted to add a cleat and also return to an arrangement that resembled the one in the photo of Carl and Clint. I surfed around and found this drawing:

The nice thing about this design was that I already had everything I needed: pad-eyes at the back of the cockpit and a double block for the end of the boom. All I needed to purchase was a swivel block w/ a cam cleat which I purchased over the winter.

I needed help from a couple of people to really pull this off. First, Brian took some of the teak that he’s using to build the new hatch and made a 3″ x 3″ pad to mount on the coaming. Next, I marked and drilled holes:

The next part would have been tricky because I’m too big to crawl to the back of the cockpit inside the boat. This is why it is good to have children! My son crawled back into the transom with a socket driver. After I gooped up the underside of the teak with polysulfide, I held the bolts steady with a screwdriver while Kellan tightened the nuts and washers from below. The final result is exactly what I was hoping for:

Another project checked off the list!

Boat – check!!

Today was the big day.  Kris and Kellan drove my friend Jason and me down to Wickford to pick up the boat.  (Thanks, guys!)  The exchange of paperwork went very quickly and then it was time to pump up our trusty inflatable and paddle out to the mooring.  The seller donned a mask and fins and kindly took a swim around the hull, scraping off the baby barnacles that had grabbed on during the last several weeks.

I’ll describe our complete voyage later, but it was great.  Once the wind picked up we really moved along.  Sailing time from N. Kingstown to Barrington was about 4 hrs.

Kellan and I are going out to the boat tomorrow to take inventory, measure for some new lines and generally enjoy being on the boat.  We’ll take some pictures, too.

Mooring – check!

There it is: Barrington mooring #235. By Sunday it will have a sailboat attached to it.

Moving forward

Things are starting to happen again. I spoke to the mooring company last night and they are planning to install my mooring today. If the weather is bad, they will do it tomorrow. I don’t know why this has taken so long: its a concrete block with a chain, a buoy and a rope, right?

Better news, it’s time to get the boat!! The seller has agreed to meet on Saturday to exchange the boat and a bill of sale for more $$. He will still owe me a proper title, but I am withholding 25% of the price until he can provide it. The state is making him register the boat in his name before he can transfer the title to me. This involves forms and the mail so I’m guessing it will be a week or two until we get this done. But, at least I can start sailing!

Waiting #2

I mentioned that I am also waiting for a mooring.  I’m actually just waiting for installation of a mooring.  The local harbormaster has approved my application and assigned me a spot off the local beach.  This is not an ideal location, because the area is exposed to the predominant southeasterly breeze.  There is also no dock or ramp, so to get out to your boat you have to launch a dinghy through the waves.

There are better locations in town, but there are waiting lists for them.  So I’ll take my mooring at the beach because it means I’ve got a place to put the boat right away.  Some might call me lucky, because while I was on vacation on Cape Cod a few weeks ago, I read that most towns had waiting lists that were thousands of names long!  People are waiting 12 – 15 years for a spot to place their mooring!!

I have contracted with a mooring service and expect my mooring to go in sometime next week.  We’ll see how this beach mooring works out….

A sneak peak

Here I am during the test sail two weeks ago. See my smile?