No wind yesterday but since we needed to put the boat back on her trailer after my trailer modification spree, we went for a motor, anchor and a few beers at sunset.
New Tohatsu 3.5hp 4 Stroke. Not idling very well unfortunately, probably bad gas. I really need to get on the program with getting the right gas and treating it etc. These 4-strokes are so finicky.
Anyway, get to the anchorage, anchor up in a kind of weedy area. Realize, oh darn, that full tank of gas is almost empty, wow that was not very far on a tank. So now we have to go against 2 kts of current on the way back which ain't going to happen on what we have left.
Luckily some incredibly tiny cats paws start touching down on a few spots on the river so we decide to try to milk it with the sails. We catch a tiny zephr and the boat takes off sideways. Uh oh, weeds. Try to back her down, no difference. I jump over and see that the whole keel is covered in eel grass. Rip it off and voila, we are a sailboat again.
Anyway, we did get back. Reminds me why I like sailing and hate small engines.
Now for the trailer part. Got the boat on the trailer but it's dark. Backing into the spot is pitch black and tricky tight to back up. My buddy calls me on his cell from behind boat, I have hands free in the truck. What a great idea, 2 way communications and she snaps in perfect.
I just wanted to followup on the trailer. I moved the Axel in previous post ahead 14" whole inches. Wow what a difference. I have turning radius that makes sense, the empty tongue weight of the trailer is perfect at like 80 lbs. With the boat on it, it's now still too heavy for me to lift and I can stand on transom without boat tilting back. If there is still this much tongue weight, what was it before?
This is a huge improvement. Only other possibility is that it doesn't like the highway like this but I doubt there will be any issue at all.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment