A few comments about launching:
-from the trailer always takes me about 45 minutes. I am old and slow climbing on the cabintop and getting the mast up. I NEVER unhook the side stays, just the forestay. I
have no backstay. Running the sheets takes time, rigging the rudder and tiller take time, mounting the outboard takes time. Oops, get the anchor out of the PU and mount it.
I tried to speed up and forgot things so I slowed back down. 45 minutes is "Ted's time to rig". Then you have to drop her in the water and park the tow vehicle and there still
always seems to be something else to rig.
[BTW I stow tiller in cockpit, rudder (the folding eyesore) in the cockpit folded and it's always there when I get where I'm going. I guess someone might steal it if I wasn't
around the boat for awhile, but it's so ugly no one but a Potterer would love it anyway. IMHO the folding rudder is the "weak point" of the WWP19. I have had it jump off twice
in windy conditions, once in 25 kts of wind in a tight passage with over 90 feet of water (started the Johnson 6 and avoided the "rocks over THERE" that Helen was pointing
out. Once when I hit an uncharted shoal in about 20 kts of wind. Fun getting it back on since it wants to float, just steer into the wind (w/o a rudder) and the wind and
waves seem to always go in different directions. {Or maybe one time it was "cigarette boat wake"}. I have considered pinning it, but fear that might be "a transom tearing
idea".]
-from the slip. I can be underway singlehanded in 15 minutes. Lower the motor, hook up the fuel hose. Snap the jib, run the sheets, mount the boom, run the mainsheet.
Start the motor. Hangout the Throwbag, get out the lifevests, single up to one aft dockline (I unhook from the Potter and leave the lines at the slip-- I have spares aboard),
get the boathook (just in case the motor quits). Unhook last line and back out slowly. Everything is rigged.
Trailering is great to "go somewhere different", [wish I had been at Cole's Pt on the lower Potomac when the wind blew"]. Slipping out of the slip at your normal sailing point
is much more relaxing. Sometimes I can even get a late afternoon 2 hour sail in from the slip. Tried to yesterday but weather was reported wind 18 gusting to 30 and my
Chrysler was getting blown around and I was chicken to singlehand in that. Couldn't find a crew. Today would have been nice, but had to work. yuk.
I AM ALWAYS INTERESTED IN IDEAS TO MAKE IT QUICKER AND EASIER!
Ted Duke
WWP19 #262
Virginia
gatorjj@etrademail.com wrote:
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> West Wight Potter Website at URL
> http://www.lesbois.com/wwpotter/
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> For this year's winter project, I've taken a little different twist. I want to do anything I can to speed getting my boat from being trailed to being sailed!
>
> I've thought of a few things that might make it quicker--
> - trailer with the motor on the transom
> - trailer with the rudder on the transom (yet still holding the mast up somehow)
> - finding some way to bag the jib still hanked on and sheets still run
> - finding some way to keep the mainsail slugs in the mast/strap the mast to the boom (perhaps the most tricky of my thoughts)
> - running the halyards aft to the cockpit, and leaving them strung when dismasting
>
> I would expect to keep the boat rigged for quickness for quick trips to the lake, and probably yank it all down for the longer drives to overnight spots.
>
> Any thoughts? Please shed some thoughts as to the level of craziness of some of these ideas, or perhaps some of your own crazy ideas which might get me in the water faster.
>
> Thanks,
>
> J.J. Falkanger
> Cary, NC
> P-19 #792 "Fozzguppy"