Texas City Dike Re-opens after Ike

Culley you definately had plenty of photos to pic from I think everyone took pics of you flying that 6.0! I like the one GW took of you at the helm your were grinning ear to ear man! I Talked to Todd last night about setting up a group sail to some point in the bay and back so we are not just going back in forth along the dike. Im still taking on too much water right now to make a run like that but I its getting better its just hard reach the area in question.

edited by: fa1321, Sep 14, 2010 - 12:18 PM

fa1321 wrote: Im still taking on too much water right now to make a run like that but I its getting better its just hard reach the area in question

turtlecat wrote: I know a few of us on this board were out for the Grand Re-opening of the Dike since Ike took it 2 years ago. I've got a snappy new profile pic thanks to that day!

Glad to hear the TCDYC has their home back!

MN3 wrote: [quote=fa1321]Im still taking on too much water right now to make a run like that but I its getting better its just hard reach the area in question

Not a bad thing to have on a long sail on a leaky boat.

edited by: fa1321, Sep 14, 2010 - 04:32 PM

i carry one but have not ever really needed it 🙂

one time i did puncture my board well and was 1/2 under water.. but was near an island and pulled the boat up. My friend had a bilge pump and i pumped for about 30 minutes.

i also carry pool epoxy (2 parts in a tube you just mosh together) and put a temp repair on my cat, and sailed it the rest of the weekend

edited by: MN3, Sep 14, 2010 - 06:32 PM

I looked up TC Dike on Google Maps, boy you guys have it made, warm weather & water all year, a protected Bay, plus being able to go out in the open chuck, though I bet that passage gets busy with really big boats.
Ha Ha, we used larger versions of those pumps to empty each float compartment when I was a bush pilot in the Arctic decades ago. If I remember correctly the Twin otters had 6 compartments each float, they were bloody big,12,000 lb capacity each & by the end of the summer all the little leaks were starting to add up. Management didn't want to pull the planes with only 3-4 weeks to go as rebuild could be 2-3 weeks. Sometimes 2 or 3 compartments could be 200-300 strokes, every morning. Call me a wuss, but that's when I decided the airlines were the better life! Or you had to have arms like Popeye & order spinach by the case.
Draining my Cat is childs play by comparison, even when I forgot to put the plugs in.

This is one of the actual ships I flew back in the mid '80s Picture taken by the Chief pilots son.
Here is the same bird 6 months later, near the north pole, repainted after a merge of companies. Look at the size of those pressure ridges in the ice.

edited by: Edchris177, Sep 14, 2010 - 07:06 PM

Wow, thats cool. How are the pressure ridges made - and other than a really lumpy landing how does it affect you?

The pressure ridge is behind the plane!! They are caused by different sheets of ice pushing against each other. I am not an expert on this subject and did not stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night so I could be wrong.

Oh WOW! Yeah that makes a little bit of difference...No more Motel 6 for me!

SKARR has it correct, water expands as it freezes, so it pushes up, plus the sea ice moves around quite bit.
It's hard to get firsthand accounts of how they would affect you upon landing. You would be dead, that ridge is over 20' high & the plane useful only for remelting into beer cans.:oops:
That was the big challenge of using icestrips, if you built them they were generally OK. Doing a windshield survey of potential landing site was trickier. If it was overcast you had total whiteout conditions,like being inside a milk bottle & no depth perception. Hitting a ridge only a foot high caused serious damage to the nose gear assembly.

Culley, I looked closer at your profile pics, that is one of the nicest sails I've ever seen on a beachcat. Maybe someday when kids are out of university & I learn how to run these things i can spring for one...

edited by: Edchris177, Sep 15, 2010 - 09:53 AM

Thanks E C! It's needing some work for sure now as it its on the end of it's life cycle...I hate to think of the cost of a new one :(. She is a beautiful boat though...thanks again for the compliment, I am very proud to own her.

Hey Culley,
Your 6.0 has the same sail number as my 5.8. So I have the 230th 5.8 and you have the 230th 6.0.

Steve I've always dug the look of your boat...I msg'd you (I hope) on the spin rig.

About 8 years ago I took one of my friends and his the girl friend now wife for there first ever sail on any kind of boat.
All he knew of sailing was from TV. He thought the boat would be slow and that all sailors were high and mighty YACHT CLUB types. About three weeks after his first sail with me, we were off to Daytona Beach to look at this.

He bought it and learned to sail on it.
He now lives in south Houston and spends all his time mountain biking.
I need you to get him out on the dike to reinvigorate his desire to sail!!!

Here is his photos on The Beachcats

http://www.thebeachcats.com/index.php?module=pictures&g2_itemId=17413