Chrysler Sailors Forum

Folded 75 degrees, right at the deck. Was a sick, sad feeling and we had to limp back to shore (I had stupidly had the thought: "With two of us in the boat, the paddle will get in the way, besides, there's wind!") by him hilding the sail up and me steering (in reverse) to get to shore.

Yeah, no outing possible here on the 4th, either. Virtually no one uses the lake in Foster City 364 days of the year. On the 4th, they ALL do. Plus kayaks, paddleboards, and whatnot. But the weekend approaches!

One of the discouraging things that the previous owner of my Man O War left me with was a rub rail that was torqued and twisted so badly it would not hold onto the boat any more. A couple of gentle bumps on the dock and it would sproing off at the corners. I tried screws, glues and other remedies, b...

Sounds like a wonderful first outing for that boat. Many happy returns!

http://initonitunderit.blogspot.com/201 ... chive.html

I have been working on various rigs, but nothing looks quite right on the Man-O-War, so I rebuilt the broken mast instead and got it on the water today!

Even reefed down to about 40% of the sail area, that thing can MOVE.

@lecker68: What a fantastic video! Thank you for posting that! I want to buy that gentleman a frothy beverage of his choice for putting together such a clear, helpful, and competent Youtube.

@Bhacurly: That's exactly why I had to rig for Lateen. My first day out on the MOW (with the guy selling it to me) folded it over at the deck. Honestly, this gives enough speed to be fun, yet has the simplicity to be something I can train my 8 and 11 year old kids on.

@Beady, thank you!

Sorry you missed out, but once the C22 is ready, I am sure you'll more than make up for it. Happy belated birthday!

My wife got a couple of small vids of the outing. Me and my daughter on the water.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTAu-AcG ... ture=share

Managed to get out on the water for the first time in a while for my birthday today. Had fairly strong, if irregular breezes and explored more of the lagoon than ever before. Took 3 outings, one with each member of the family (Wife is still reluctant to go alone, more out of a worry of wrecking my t...

Well, it's taken me a few weeks to find the time to get the trailer fixed up and glass the hole in the bottom of my boat, but I did it. As I mentioned before, each of the two times I have gone out with this boat, it turned bad. The first time the mast folded and the second time I found the hole on t...

I got a pair of new trailer wheels, a hitch-jack, and a nice winch! I mean... I will when Santa comes. Yeah. The fact that I installed the jack and wheels already... let's not talk about that.

Outstanding! That makes it very similar to drywall repair (which I *do* understand) so I should be able to actually do this well. I was concerned that I would have to do some arcane rituals involving marine-epoxy-putty and chicken sacrifice (well, not so much sacrificed as grilled on the porch next ...

Indeed! Such a great place to try a new, small boat!

A quick note: this is my prototype only. I have nothing against polytarp sails, but since this works well enough to teach my kids to sail with this rig, I will make real sails and focus more on making the wing shape more accurate. I have some dacron on order, my wife is a keen hand with a sewing mac...

So, since my mast bent, I have been toying with various new rigging ideas and using it as an excuse to experiment. My first ever effort at building my own rig borrowed (stole shamelessly) from my only real background with sailing: sunfish. I chose to build a lateen rig because I understand it well e...

Today my wife amazed me be being 100% supportive as I began re-rigging "Dreams" in various ways. She came out and helped me assess the best plans for salvaging as much of the sail as possible, if we decided to cut it down to match the um... truncated mast. After an hour of looking at the v...

That's very helpful. I had assumed that, because starting from the bottom removed the most square feet of sail, the result would be the most dramatic. I think (once I get the broken part of the mast cut off) I'll see if it's possibly to carefully seam-rip from the bottom up and furl it around the bo...

Excellent advice. Yes, you nailed it, I was riding my bike into work today wondering if the placement of the mast would allow for stays and a jib. I had started to come to the conclusion that it was too far forward, but had not considered submarining or cartwheeling. I was mostly concerned about tea...

I'm actually feeling pretty great, considering. I'm pretty adaptable in my old age, having dealt with enough "Growth Experiences" to keep some perspective. I've been really taken with the notion of building different rigs and now I have a completely plausible reason to fiddle around with i...

So, this is a good news bad news day. I got the Man-O-War out on the water today, me and someone I know who is more familiar with this type of boat than I am. We hauled ass. Gentle breezes, but we were ripping up and down the lagoon. It was lovely. Then the mast folded at the deck. We managed to sai...

This has actually been great, strange as that sounds. I now feel like this is MY boat. I have invested more than a little money into it. I have seen pretty much every angle and crevice of her, have passed through the "is this even worth it" barrier, and even left some skin in the hold... &...

Ditto. Thanks for the reply! I think I will have to ultra-fine-sand the bast opf the mast to smooth it out. It has enough residue of the ages on it that it turns only with difficulty. I think I agree with the guy who sold it to me: If you need to think about reefing with this boat, get off the water.

Well, I lied. I appear unable to find a program on my machine which will crop an image to 250 by 250... so SOON.

We spent all day mounting a new rudder. He bought it as a fixer and when he took it on his first test sail the rudder and a big chunk of transom fell into 40 feet of water. Well, it took the better part of 4 hours to get the rudder mounted, 3 hours and 45 minutes of which was securing a plate of ply...

I was reading the manual and it says to reef the sail by twisting the mast furling it that way. Perhaps it is because my boat is a little older and has had only marginal maintenance up to now, but turning the mast is pretty tough. So a couple questions: A) Do I understand the process correctly? B) I...

A quick note about using pop bottles: make sure you prep them for water the temperature you'll be sailing in. If you seal the bottles at, say 80 degrees and then capsize in water 50 degrees, those bottles will collapse, losing 1/3 or more of their flotation. A 2 liter bottle has about (roughly) 4.4 ...

Sounds like we're about to experience many of the same um... learning opportunities! On my MOW, the bulkhead with the two circular ports was cut entirely away, replaced with a large rectangular (and not amazingly finished) furring-strip rectangle opening. No significant flotation in there, either. I...

Thanks a lot for the welcome! I live in Foster City, CA and we have several calm, wide canals and ponds within 3 minutes drive of my house, so I plan to explore as many as I can. If the family enjoys sailing as much as I do, I will look for something to sail on San Francisco Bay. Is there any chance...

Hello! A couple of weeks ago I put money down on a Man-O-War and today he is bringing it to my door. I look forward to many great outings and to some feedback from this group as I learn more about both my boat and sailing her.