Hard start to the season

oh man scary story

i've had just the 1 sail on my 5.2 this year and even though it was only light winds i went out without the jib because i hadn't fully rigged the trap wires and i like to ease myself and the boat back into the season slowly

really good idea to get some practise backing the boat out of irons. and best to do those drills in light winds where you have more time to work out what you're doing and the stakes are lower

what works for me is that when i'm in irons i usually end up sitting at the back centre of the tramp thinking "now what"

got it down fine now, i grab the boom and push it AND the tiller in the direction i want the boat go

and i keep pushing the backwinded main to the end of the traveller track as the water gurgles around the transom and the boat backs round to 45degrees off the wind

from there if you pull in the main too quick you'll just weathervane the hulls back into irons so it's

- let go the boom and stop pushing the rudders, then with the main fluttering slowly pull in the sheet until it fills while gently steering off on your new tack

go out with the jib furler or off and give it a go in light winds. leaving the jib and jib blocks off also opens up the tramp so unskilled crew don't get tangled in the jib sheets and caught on the wrong side of the boat

and the other way to avoid going into irons is to blow the traveller sheet as well as the mainsheet when tacking in high winds

hopefully you'll be able to source a new rudder pin locally from standard stainless rod

edited by: erice, May 25, 2010 - 08:23 AM

Thanks for the advice! I will definitely be sailing jibless for a while and working on tacking without the jib, by myself until I get my technique down again. Fortunately I have a pile of spare parts so I had a couple of rudder pins ready. The boat was completely re-rigged within an hour or two of getting back in.

if it were easy, it wouldn't be cool...

Yep, that's true about everything worthwhile.

You can get pretty complacent on a lake that you can touch bottom on most of the time and always see your cabin. Without sails or control you might as well be in the ocean... well not quite, someone will eventually clue in and come help, I hope. If I hadn't of been panicking a bit, and quite so inexperienced I probably could have dealt with everything and sailed back with one rudder. Also a pack with a spare rudder pin would have helped. Lesson learned there.

So the Rick White Sailing videos are coming out this week. I've already ordered an emergency ladder to attach to the rear beam (let you know how that works out) and make it easier for people with limited strength to get on the boat. Then next week I am putting the wife on the cat fully rigged without sails and explaining every line and control to her. Then we are going to play 'tip the cat' so she gets a feel for how the weight shifts on the boat. Same kind of kiddy stuff I did when learning how to canoe and windsurf and should have remembered.

sailing anything is a tricky proposition, shifty winds, strong currents, out of tune helms, squals, grumpy in laws,...you name it...throw in the lack of a motor and increased difficulty of tacking on multihulls and you lose 99% of the population...no point and click on the water!

Yeah and last Sunday the wind was shifting all over the place! Makes me think about switching to a Sunfish... 🙂 Naw!

Me TOO lost a Nacra 5.5 to the coast gaurd tow in see story here http://www.tcdyc.com/?q=node/586

Wow, that is a great story! Makes me feel a little better about my weekend. Sounds like you guys did an admirable job considering!

D.

Don't you remember the Boy Scout's motto 'BE PREPARED'

In Canada it's more like, "Put your head between your legs and kiss your A$$ goodbye". 🙂 Do the boy scouts even exist anymore?

Here's a question. The rudder pin that broke was aluminum type. The replacements available are aluminum or stainless tube. Can I replace them with solid stainless rod? Or are they meant to break before your gudgeons tear out? I can probably source aluminum rod locally but if I can prevent a repeated breakage it would be good.

D.

Damn, interesting story and almost a case of everything going wrong at once!

Thanks, certainly not something i want to repeat (or anyone else to repeat for that matter). In hindsight if I would have been less stressed I probably could have limped it back using one rudder and the jib. Unfortunately, lack of experience and too many things going on at once overwhelmed me.

Makes me really wish I had more experienced people locally to learn skills from. Almost everything I know comes from this forum, books and youtube videos. Makes me pretty knowledgeable with the technical aspects but some practical aspects of boat handling still elude me. I'm pretty sure I make some things way more difficult than they need to be without realizing it.

just figured it out.

edited by: kingwilly, May 26, 2010 - 01:18 PM

alloy tube!

no wonder it broke

mine are solid stainless on the old heavy nacra AND and the ultra modern light weta

solid alloy MIGHT work for a few years

but alloy tube would quickly wear out turning in stainless mounts and then fold at the worst possible time

someone may have fitted them to prevent tearing the transoms if they hit a rock or sandbar at speed but that's what the pivotmatics release is fitted to the nacra rudders for

edited by: erice, May 26, 2010 - 06:30 PM

after getting comfortable backing the boat out of irons another useful technique for racing and man-over-board situations is learning how to park the boat on the water

basically you pull in the jib real tight, release the mainsheet and traveller and then kill off the last of the boats momentum but crash tacking the rudders

the boat should come around to just past head to wind and then you push the tiller AWAY from you as if you are trying to turn into wind

the loose main should be completely stalled and the backwinded jib slowly trying to drive the boat across on to the new tack BUT as the rudders are trying to steer into the wind every time it makes some forward motion it just rounds up again in a mexican stand-off

with a bungee to hold the rudders across, (tho i just put my foot on the tiller) you can let go of everything and use 2 hands to eat lunch or even help pull someone aboard

like any sailing drill on an over-powered practise it in light winds until it becomes 2nd nature and then move on to medium winds

(to unpark it, you just pull the tiller -so the rudders start working with the backwinded jib in stead of against it- wait for the boat to come around to a broadreach position, pull in mainsheet and traveller and then once underway, release the jib and bring it around to the correct side

edited by: erice, May 26, 2010 - 06:47 PM

One thing that I learned and would like to share is:

When you are overboard and trying to re enter but have difficultly. Get the righting line and drop it and tie a foot loop in it to help get back on board. It makes a huge difference to get help from a leg when you are on a slick hull.

The one thing I learned is stay out of the Gulf in North winds if something breaks you can get into trouble fast!

Wolfman wrote: In Canada it's more like, "Put your head between your legs and kiss your A$$ goodbye". 🙂 Do the boy scouts even exist anymore?

I am a still active with a scout group. I get to teach all the young boys how to sail on our little bravo.

Cool, I was just kidding, I know we have troups here (my wife does Brownies, a younger girlscout type organization). Just a subtle reference to the X-box generation and some of the experiences I've had working up north near polar bear country.

Hey I just scored 12 feet of 3/8" 303 Stainless Round bar. Anyone interested in some uber strong rudder pins?

Are the pins that thick Dave? I'll have to measure mine tomorrow. I know they are solid stainless. Murryas sells a few different models of them, the solid SS are by far the most expensive. I had my entire rudder system apart over the winter, just put them all back together with new pivmatic, pull down lines, & bungees. I didn't think the pins were as big as 3/8", make sure they go into the gudgeon. You could always have the ends turned down to fit into the gudgeons. When I first read your story, I thought they would be pretty easy to make. The only wrinkle would be drilling the holes for the ringdings. It is a pretty damn small hole, drilled in a small diameter rod. I don't think you would be successful without a drill press & a good bit. You should be able to find a machine shop that could do it.
I'll measure mine tomorrow, & give you the specs.
It was hot here, but pretty windy, so I just had the little Invitation out for about 3 hours.
Went swimming once,& was trying something new,(trying to right it without getting off the boat). I ended up turtleing the damn thing near shore & stuck the mast in the mud. I was being blown onto a lee shore, so I had to right it & sail away with a big glob of crap stuck to the end of the mast. I sailed til the sail dried, then went in, dropped the sail & had to wash the top 2 feet.

Almost all rudder pins are 3/8" diameter except he H20 (and maybe a couple of the newer boats). I think the Murray's ones are actually hollow.

I have a drill press (and a whole garage of woodworking tools). Shouldn't be a problem drilling the hole, that and the alloy is 303, which is easier to cut and drill than 304.

I had the same problem on my lake with our old hobie 16, the mast is 28 feet long and the lake is only 8-10 feet deep. I haven't have that problem with the N 5.2 simply because the mast volume is large and I sealed the heck out of it.

When I was a kid I remember sticking the hobie mast over 6 feet into the muck. It took hours and hours to unstick, finally a ski boat got us out but we were scared the mast was going to break.

I haven't gotten to a post office yet but I should send your package off on Monday. We've been deluged here with record rain (I have about an inch of water in my basement). If you want a set I can probably cut them and send fire them into the box, not sure if I will have time to drill them.

D.

I stand corrected, it looks like you're in the rudder pin business!
I just went out & pulled one off. They are 3/8" x 10 1/4" long. Hole is drilled 1/8" from each end. They are solid round stock. Shows how reliable memory is at times, I would have bet beer that they were smaller than 3/8".
Sure, I'll take a couple of blanks as spares, never know when I might lose one. If the top ringding comes off, they would be sleeping with the fish pretty quick.
As long as you can get a tiny mark established, so as to start the hole without the bit wandering, you should be OK.
I don't have a decent drill press, but I can get my neighbor to drill them. He owns a tool & die making company, & get just about anything done with metal.
Thanks

Hey thanks to everybody that has been helping this idiot, either directly, or with posted questions that I also needed to know the answers to. It was all worth it!

Now that everything has come up rosy, I'll tell my tale of MY first sail with my new-to-me boat. Oh, and my first attempts. I wanted to do inland, since there was no way for me to tell how long it had been since the thing had seen water...the poor guy I got it from never sailed it. I went over everything very carefully. It took me quite a bit of adjusting and tweaking before I was satisfied it was worth a try.

First was Clear Lake: No swimming for the girls with me that wanted to go swimming, no place for the girls that wanted to skim-board, and no beach to pull the boat up on to pick up and drop off girls. Did I mention it was just me and a bunch of girls? How does anyone sail this place? We hit Galveston and the boat stayed on the trailer.

So, someone mentions Lake Livingston. It looks great, with state parks and I?d heard of grassy shores where swimming is OK. It?s a drive, but here we go. I paid my $9.00 only to discover that there is a concrete wall all the way around the park and the swimming area is a ways from the boat ramp. AARRRRGG. To top it all off, the boat ramp and loading area was concrete too. It took the wife and 2 girls to hold the boat away while I raised the main. I figured I could get the jib up after we found a grassy spot somewhere. Got the main up, the ladies jumped on, and away we sailed. For about 300 yards anyways. About that time I decided to get a good pull on the mainsheet. The forestay turnbuckle (the BOLT, not the cable) parted with a bang, and the mast came down between us all. No one was injured, but all were a little freaked out.

No boats were around to help, so I sort of held the sail up sideways to get us some wind. It worked but the mast had fouled the tiller so we went in a circle, just a little closer to shore. Then the wind shifted and the sail blew on top of me, leaving 3 girls in bikinis perched on the tramp. In no time, we had 2 motor boats eager to help. I picked the one with the oldest Captain, thanked the other, and we were motored to the pier. The shame!

Somewhere on one of the older posts, I read ?buy new shrouds and forestay, just to be safe.? Lesson learned: I ordered one of everything that holds the mast up from The Sailboat Shop in Austin, and headed to Surfside Beach! Things went a whole lot better from then on. I met Collin, a Texas City Dike Yacht Club big-wig, his crew Jonathon, and a great guy named Curt, there with his daughter Karen. I had just guys with me so I didn?t care how bad it went, but nothing bad happened. The boat is different from the NACRA 5.2 and the Hobie 14 I sailed before (duh) so it?s going to be a learning curve, but the best sail of the weekend was the last one; with big Curt on the wire we did a ?Screaming Beam? and flew a hull for at least fifty yards. At no time did the lee bow show any sign of plowing under, unlike the NACRA which threatened me with a pitch-pole any time I started haulin.

Look for me this weekend at Surfside again. I?ll have a bunch of drunk Englishmen with me---the England / USA soccer game is on 9:00 am Saturday.

unlike the NACRA which threatened me with a pitch-pole any time I started haulin.

My 5.2 is extremely sensitive to mast rake in this regard. One notch on the forestay is unsailable. Any power forces a sort of 'powerstall' where the power in the sail just forces the bows down, which stops the boat.
One notch back and the boat will sail fine until it picks up speed, at which point the bows dive, and it pitchpoles.
One more notch back and it sails perfectly.

ummm.... i've never been that close to a pitchpole on my 5.2 and i had the mast almost straight up, but i guess i'm pretty light and on a lake there are few waves to stick the bow in...............have pitchpoled my weta tri though..all the same i raked the mast on my 5.2 as far back as the forestay chainplate allowed...just aft...and nothing like on my friends h16 that is parked next to it on the beach

Hey thanks to everybody that has been helping this idiot,

unless you know him, and this was a joke, it's completely unnecessary, inappropriate and bad form. no wonder your forstay jumped ship!

edited by: andrewscott, Jun 10, 2010 - 11:38 AM

Hey everyone,

Got the old Nacra 5.2 out for the first time this year.

Wow, what a rough start to the year/new boat.

Glad you survived, good lessons to learn / share

a couple points to reinforce:

dry rig your cat in your yard/driveway before you go sailing (for the first time). this will help reduce the chance of missing/wrong gear. This is true for when you purchase a new cat too (so the old owner can show you how to rig/and to make sure all the parts are there and working)

if your pfd isn't secured.. its gonna be a hindrance more than an asset. the first thing i do when i get wet is roll over (on my back) and make sure the pfd is zipped, buckled and cinch down all the straps to reduce its movement.

make sure your crew knows what to do in the event of a man-overboard, capsize, skipper overboard

Keep the faith, you will do fine!

Reading this gave me a deja-vu moment. Here's my story summary:

-way too novice sailor and crew
-new boat
-too much wind (15-20kts)
-fun at first
-gust...fly hull...other hull completly under water
-dump main and sigh of relief
-start home...shift...gust.. dump me in water...hanging on to hull for dear life
-dump main from in water ... get back on boat
-notice deep gash on top of thumb
-drop main...sail to stranger's shore with jib
-knock on door and return 2 days later to retrieve boat
-boat looks like crime scene due to blood everywhere (thinking of new name for boat due to blood stains)
-counting ourselves lucky

Lots of good lessons learned.