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The second step in project “Perfection Attained Yachting” a.k.a Project PAY cost me a bit more than phase one as it involved ordering a beautiful set of new Doyle sails from Mark Weinheimer of NC.  Truth be told the $1200+ I spent on new sails from Mark was not far from the $1700 I spent to buy Limpet in the first place.  But pulling the crisp new Dacron out of the box and seeing Limpet’s sail numbers almost made me cry… how far I have come from the days of black duct tape numbers on Clark sails from 1974.  Continue Reading »

Ok… It is time to face facts.  Sailboat racing is not exactly compatible with the insane schedule of a young family and a career in technology.  In a few years I can drag my kids along as crew, but it has become as clear as the reflection in the Americas cup that for the time being I need to seriously pull back on my commitment to racing if I wish to keep my family and sanity intact.  So if I am only going to go to the occasional race/regatta I want to make sure to make the absolute most of every single opportunity.  Thus I have undertaken project “Perfection Attained Yachting” a.k.a Project PAY.  Which will entail making Limpet absolutely perfect for the few short days/hours I can reasonably commit to sailing.  Project PAY won’t be cheap… oh wait I have a San Juan 21… Maybe it will be after all.  Continue Reading »

The Repair season that is.  As usual Limpet has a list of issues longer than January in Juneau.  Owning a classic yacht is a labor of love with joyous returns for every minute invested.  .  .  or at least that’s what I have been told, I really wouldn’t know.  Owning an old SJ21 is an endless forced march to escape the forces time seeking to reduce your boat to a pile of rubble.  Continue Reading »

Those of you who have been reading about Limpet for a while now know that in my first ever attempt to race the boat my keel cable broke.  This resulted in a freewheeling 500LB lead keel almost ripping the bottom of the boat apart.  One of the major reasons that my cable broke is that both of the brass sheaves (aka pulleys) had frozen up, causing the cable to grind the pulley like a drunk sorority chick on frat boy with a trust fund.  This weekend I set about to fix the offending sheave.

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One of my vivid memories from childhood is that of my father endlessly working on the trailer for his Hobbie 18.  It was a rusty orange old trailer which I can remember him rewiring the lights on at least 3 times.  Inevitably he would have a bad ground or get wires crossed so that the right light would blink with the left turn signal.  Well as is inevitably the case I have become my father and it is time for me to work on my own trailer, and the first item of business. . .  is the lights.

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What is wrong with this picture?  After Gene found himself dismasted last week I got to thinking about my standing rigging.  In particular my spreaders have always been extreemly wobbly whenever I lower the mast.  I decided it was time for a closer look. 

 After some quick measurements and mechnaical review, I realized that my spreaders are 4 inches too long, and that there was nothing holding them on but compression force.  Originally SJ21s came with 29 inch spreaders, but latter years the spreaders were cut down to 25 inches (which is the minimum allowed by class rules).  This reduction helps pointing ability if you are sailing with the 135% Genoa.  I don’t sail with a Genoa but some day I may try so I decided if I was going to replace the bolt which was no longer holding the spreaders on I might as well cut them down to the minimum lenght.

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My San Juan 21 “Limpet” came with a full compliment of Sails when I bought her in October 2007.  Unfortunately all the sails appear to be original 1974 equipment.

They all have the tattered remains of the Clark boat company logo sewn into the foot, and they are all dirtier than a Tijuana politician, and more neglected than a televangelist’s conscience.  The San Juan logo and numbers had long ago fallen off, though they did leave a slightly lighter area of dingy grey as a memory of where they had once resided.

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What’s in a name?  When it comes to your first boat there is a lot to the name.  I was actually excited to see that #759 was nameless when I bought it… Though I suspect that a lack of name might also explain the lack of connection & general state of disrepair she was in. 

I have always had very particular ideas about boat names.  In my dreams my boat always has a single noun name like Endeavor, Constitution, Defiance, Enterprise, or Bounty.  Unfortunately, I didn’t think a beat up 1974 San Juan 21 could pull off a name like “Victory,” or “Ideal.”  I needed something a little smaller in scope.

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The worst possible nightmare for a San Juan 21 (other than sinking) is core rot.  These spunky little boats have a deck constructed of two layers of fiberglass with end grained balsa sandwiched between.  When holes are drilled in through the deck to hold on hardware, (rails, hatch covers, etc.) it provides the opportunity for water to get between layers and begin the cancerous process of rotting out the balsa.  Once started, the enivitable end of this process is a mushy deck, unsafe for sailing, likely to cost more in blood and gold to repair than just getting a new boat. 

I decided that my very first project on Limpet would be to permanently seal every single deck fitting hole such that core rot would never claim this little boat.  To do this I became a master at what might essentially be considered Boat Dentistry.

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