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clausont · 28-03-2008, 20:34

We finally splashed out Cal 2-29 today. Amid rain, wind snow and cold fingers

we got her in the water.

We are quite excited and looking forward to spending more time on it.
It was quite the day. The mast has been stepped but I need to finish rigging the boat and move it to the permanent slip.
I was pleasantly pleased with the price of slip rental here:
$863 for a 30' slip - total for the year. That includes power to the non-live aboard boat. (No live aboards allowed for info)
Very nice marina all in all.

http://www.cruisersforum.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=4159&c=2
http://www.cruisersforum.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=4158&c=2

Southern Star · 28-03-2008, 20:44

Congratulation, Clausont! She looks fantastic - you should feel very proud. You are a living embodiment of the true spirit of cruising - and one that seems to be losing popularity in this day and age: Go cheap, go small, but go now! My hat is off to you and yours.

Cheers!

Brad

**Alan Wheeler** · 28-03-2008, 22:46

Congrats from me as well. Good on ya.

clausont · 29-03-2008, 06:25

More to the story: I rebuilt almost everything in the boat except the head and the engine / transmission. After we moved her to the small float ing dock beside the travel lift dock, I started the engine and ran it for a few minutes then put it in gear forward (still firmly tied) to check the transmission. Good in forward. Put it in reverse. Seemed to do ok, but not quite what I expected. Ok, good enough to move her the 100' to the other dock that they wanted me on to reach the mast with the crane.
So I untied the lines and put her in reverse and started moving, but very slowly. I was beginning to be concerned that reverse would not be adequate for this boat. Transmisson slipping? I would have to check this carefully. I finally reversed far enough that I felt comfortable motoring in forward to turn around and get to the other dock. She did just fine in forward until I went to apply reverse again as I was approaching the other dock then - no reverse at all. Ok, we can deal with that in this 20 knot wind.
A little more forward to make a 360 and a different approach to the dock - and no forward. Complete loss of propulsion and too far out to throw a line to anyone.
Gee, what a great start here. Naturally, I am under the watchful eye of the Coast Guard personnel who were also there for maintenance on their 47' which was by now out of the water.
Ok, so now I am aground. At least I did not drift into other boats or pilings, rocks of other such unforgiving items.
I had killed the engine and went below to see what the problem was and found that the flexible shaft coupling had parted. Hmmm, what to do about this....
I found that I could slide the shaft forward about 1/3" to engage the coupling with the allen head bolts. I put the engine in forward (I was aground in such a way that I was pretty sure that I could move off forward), started the engine and was moving forward. This time I nosed gently to the dock where we stepped the mast.
Lesson learned: Don't assume that the shaft coupling is good just because it looks good.
But really - what better place could I have chose to break the shaft coupling if it were going to break?