A Visit to Slowdance's Birthplace

It's been a while since the Slowdance sailed. She has not been idle, though! New equipment from International Marine finally arrived just before Thanksgiving weekend. I stopped by their facility to pick up the stuff, chat with the staff and have a look at what they were doing. The new boats were beautiful and workmanship was topnotch. Some of the hardware that they are now using is also better than what was being used on some of the earlier boats. It's a good place to visit and for anyone who may have the slightest doubts about how solidly these boats are constructed, a visit to IM should allay any doubts.

I also got to see what has to be the best equipped 19 footer ever: This boat was being equipped with what seemed to be every possible electronic accessory- radios, radar, GPS navigation, docking lights, and more. She was also being fitted with two banks of two batteries each (mounted in bow under the V-berth) as well as dual chargers and battery switches. The radar antenna was not on yet, but will be mounted on a short mast affixed to the transom. I don't think Slowdance will ever be equipped with radar, but one should never say never.

New Genoa & Hardware

Speaking of Slowdance - when I pried myself away from IM and the lovely new boats I brought home a new Genoa, CDI furler, winches, tracks and blocks. Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend was spent installing the new hardware. The installation was fairly straight forward with few problems.

The CDI was already put together with a new forestay and was pretty much ready to go. There were two minor glitches that had to be fixed: First, the forestay was about an inch too short to fit between the mast fitting and the bow chainplate. I tried backing off on the shroud and backstay turnbuckles as far as was prudent (actually farther on the backstay - it came apart) and still could not get the forestay attached. The original forestay had a "coarse adjustment" on the bottom end with a clevis pin that could be moved up or down in a series of holes to get you in the ballpark. Unfortunately this could not be mounted under the CDI furler. My solution was to use the coarse adjuster, but placed it at the top end of the forestay. This seems to be working well.

The second problem with the CDI had to do with the built-in jib halyard. This consists of a piece of yacht braid that has been de-cored for one half its length and then had a stainless steel ferrule swaged on at about the mid point. The ferrule rides in a slot on the forward side of the plastic luff on the CDI. This had been installed backwards and had to be re-run. Not a big deal, but I didn't figure this out until I had already raised and lowered the mast a few times. At least it was good practice!

Winches and tracks went on without a hitch. I also installed three fairleads. or "bullseyes" along the deck and a small cam cleat for the furling line from the CDI. The line was led as close as I could get to the starboard cabin side and the cam cleat was mounted on the outside of the starboard cabin wall about an inch forward of the rear cabin wall so that the extra line could be placed in the cockpit, more or less out of the way.

Test Sail

Finally, it looked like a fair sailing day for Saturday 12/4/04. The weather forecast called for variable winds to 10 kts in the morning increasing to 10-15 kts in the afternoon with only a 20% chance of showers. There was not a cloud in the sky over the foothills of east Orange County, so I threw some equipment in the truck and headed for the place where Slowdance is kept. After connecting up the trailer and heading for the Queen's Way ramp at Long Beach I saw the clouds rolling in from seaward - well, they didn't look that bad!

There weren't many empty trailers in the parking lot at Queen's Way (a scarcity of fools?) and it was starting to rain. A solitary sailboat headed back into the ramp as I rigged up Slowdance. I walked over and caught the boat at the pier and asked her skipper how it looked out there. "Not good, when it started getting dark on the horizon I decided that was enough." I told him, optimistically, that since the forecast was only for 20% showers it may dry up for a bit. He didn't seem to agree and went off to get his trailer. On the way back, he glances at Slowdance and says, "I figured it would have to be a Potter out here today." Hm - I don't know if that was a compliment or not. I decided it must have been.

Then the rain really started. Slowdance was rigged and ready to go, but I waited in the truck for a bit. Finally, it let up and I launched. Launching was easy at the Queen's Way ramp with the finger piers and I didn't even have to get my feet wet (kind of a joke since the rest of me was getting wet, anyway).

I cranked up the Honda and putted out past the Queen Mary through the drizzle and near calm winds (we must be optimistic at times like this). I couldn't help but wonder what the folks in the QM's restaurants were wondering as they watched me heading out in weather only a duck would love and the British put up with.

Apparently Providence watches over the silly optimist. As I made sail just outside of the QMs berth, the sky began to clear off and a light breeze picked up out of the southeast. At first I was just able to make way, but the breeze freshened to about 10 kts and, with the new genoa, Slowdance was probably making around 4 - 5 kts. This was quite a bit better than she would have done with just the lapper and I was very impressed. The boat still balanced perfectly with no additional tuning and felt quite lively, given the light breeze. The area between the blocks, winches and cleat for the jib sheets is very crowded, but it all worked out and the sail was easy to trim once the jib sheet was correctly run.

We sailed back and forth, not venturing far out, trying different sailing angles and everything seemed to be working okay. Finally the wind died completely and we headed back in under power. It will be interesting to sail in a bit more breeze and with with jib partially furled. I suspect that it will work well and so far I am very happy with it as well as the rest of the hardware.

Slowdance with new CDI furler and furled genoa in travel position.

Fairleads on deck for CDI (forward on is by ventilation funnel) and cam cleat mounted on outside cabin wall between rail and forward end of track.

Top fitting for forestay. Coarse adjuster moved from bottom to top for CDI - adds about 1.5" to length.

New hardware on starboard side. You can see the genoa track and car, Harken winch, and two of the fairleads and cam cleat for the CDI. The jib sheet has to be routed from the clew into the top of the block, around the winch and back to the cam cleat on the cockpit rail. The line from the winch to the cam cleat has to run between the line from the clew and the line from the block to the winch. It's tight, but it works.

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