Today we tested our “ready to power in under an hour” principal and won with 19 minutes to spare. Our clock started when we arrived back from grocery shopping and stopped when I turned the engine on. The boat was indeed ship shape and we didn’t have any unexpected crashes or bangs (the forward head doors still swing open) even though the Bay was unusually rough today.
The wind instrument registered 16 knot gusts and held steady around 12 for most of the afternoon. We managed, once again, to head out in the very worst (best?) part of the day for wind, and beat our way over to the lee of Angel Island in two long tacks. Victoria had the helm for the sail raising, first tack, and some of my troubleshooting on deck. Then I took over and brought us to a calmer locale while she got snacks and drinks ready. Once in the lee of the island we all came on deck, recounted the various leaks we found and discussed the triage (Ruby independently went around with tape and rags and patched things up).
Convivia’s worst tack by far is the port tack. This is where we spent the worst part of the afternoon. On a port tack the spray floods through the main sheet hole in the dodger, cascades off the lip of companionway hatch and, if we forgot to put the hatch boards in, right onto Ruby’s berth. We’ll need to address this issue in a future sail.
We also found that there is a bedding or similar problem in one of the hull/deck joint bolts over her berth. This provided us with a steady drip right over the communications bank. Lucky for us there wasn’t much in the way at the time, but that will be another project for my list.
On the way out we got pooped a number of times and I was pleased to see how quickly Convivia shed the water.
All that said, it was a really great sail. Ruby did wonderfully, staying out from under foot when things were hairy and even taking care of her little brother when we couldn’t. I’ll be looking forward to our next outing.
Here are the data points
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