Dodger and more goodies

The guys from Iversons showed up to put the dodger on and went to work immediately. I had no idea how long it would take them, and was surprised how fast they got the main piece in place. It took a few more hours to intall all the fasteners and get it completely installed. Part of why these dodgers are so beautiful is the fact that they stretch the fabric very tightly on the frames and to the deck, which requires a lot of fasteners. The difference in apperarance is remarkable. We are very pleased with the outcome.

 We took it for a test sail immediately upon completion and it makes a tremendous difference in the comfotr level on a cold windy day. We went over to Bainbridge Island to anchor out for the night. As approached the island, we realized that we didn't get the package Joan had had mailed to the marina office. One tack back, stop at the dock and still sailed back to BI with plenty of light left. Fast is wonderful. We see all these monhull boats sailing along at 3-4 knots in 12 knots of breeze and just blow past at 7-8 knots.
Spent a calm night anchored at Eagle Harbor on BI. Got up and made the rounds on shore the next morning looking for a tiny screw driver to connect the electrical leads on the autopilot. None to be had early in the moning without a 2 mile uphill hike to Ace Hardware. Got back to the boat aobut 10 and got ready to take off for Port Townsend. Unusual day in that there was some wind. We left BI with about 10 knots from the south heading north. We broad reached at about 5 knots for an hour or so and the wind started to lighten. I got fired up about trying out the spinaker in light air, but by the time I was set up to  fly it, the wind had nearly died.

This pic is at the dock with a slight wind in the wrong direction. It should give us aobut 80-90% of windspeed down wind up to about 20 knots, but 80-90% of 4 is just not going to help on a long trip. We went with the iron genny again and after a couple of hours the wind started picking up from the north. Never can figure out how the wind blows in opposite directions within 10 miles of the same place. Must be the northwest tropical convergence or some such nonsense. We saw two other trimarans, a Farrier f-39 and a farrier f9ax both headed south, but we got a nice look at them as we passed.

 We set sail in about 12 knots and beat back and forth across the sound a couple of times at 9-10 knots. We realized that the tide was still flooding and we were making very little progress toward Port Townsend, so back to motoring. I loved the dodger even more as I steered past a monhull motoring into the wind, its captain dressed in foul weater gear with a watch cap on and hood and gloves, while I was still in a t-shirt. Sweeeeet.

Anchored at Port Townsend waiting to go into the harbor the next day to pick up the dagger board and get a motor mount made for the outboard on Hot Sauce so we could use it for auxiliarry power should we so desire. Went into the harbor ran around in cirlces doing errands and picked up the board. It is very nice but I will be doing the finishing work onboard over the next coule of days.

Hauled the old board up and laid it on the deck using winches and halyards. I had to use a winch to turn it over, it is so heavy. Used up a pack of saber saw blades cutting it into 3 pieces so that I could haul it up the dock. Water ran out as I cut it and the glass on one side was delaminated from the wood core. It was made of a laminated doug fir core with glass reinforcement down the outside edges for stiffening. The wood shpape was pretty good, but there was no fairing work done to the glass reinforcements and that is why the shape was so bad. The new board weighs 125 lbs., a little heavier thanI had envisioned, but still less than a third of what I estimate the old one to weigh. The new board is massively strong, as the guy who made it never wants to have anything he made break. He used twice as much ultra high density foam as he had spec'd just to be sure it was tough enough. Hense some otf the extra weight, but it should be bullet-proof. I hauled two sections of the old board up to the dumpster, and just got tired of messing with it. Next high tide, the last piece can go up. The tides again run my life as the ramps to shore are quite steep at low tide, and nearly level at high. Picture a 50 ft. ramp with one end dropped down 10 feet and you get the idea.